查拉图斯特拉如是说 英文版 Thus Spake Zarathustra
尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
III. Backworldsmen.
Once on a time, Zarathustra also cast his fancy beyond man, like allbackworldsmen. The work of a suffering and tortured God, did the worldthen seem to me.
The dream--and diction--of a God, did the world then seem to me; colouredvapours before the eyes of a divinely dissatisfied one.
Good and evil, and joy and woe, and I and thou--coloured vapours did theyseem to me before creative eyes. The creator wished to look away fromhimself,--thereupon he created the world.
Intoxicating joy is it for the sufferer to look away from his suffering andforget himself. Intoxicating joy and self-forgetting, did the world onceseem to me.
This world, the eternally imperfect, an eternal contradiction's image andimperfect image--an intoxicating joy to its imperfect creator:--thus didthe world once seem to me.
Thus, once on a time, did I also cast my fancy beyond man, like allbackworldsmen. Beyond man, forsooth?
Ah, ye brethren, that God whom I created was human work and human madness,like all the Gods!
A man was he, and only a poor fragment of a man and ego. Out of mine ownashes and glow it came unto me, that phantom. And verily, it came not untome from the beyond!
What happened, my brethren? I surpassed myself, the suffering one; Icarried mine own ashes to the mountain; a brighter flame I contrived formyself. And lo! Thereupon the phantom WITHDREW from me!
To me the convalescent would it now be suffering and torment to believe insuch phantoms: suffering would it now be to me, and humiliation. Thusspeak I to backworldsmen.
Suffering was it, and impotence--that created all backworlds; and the shortmadness of happiness, which only the greatest sufferer experienceth.
Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap, with adeath-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer:that created all Gods and backworlds.
Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which despaired of the body--itgroped with the fingers of the infatuated spirit at the ultimate walls.
Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which despaired of the earth--itheard the bowels of existence speaking unto it.
And then it sought to get through the ultimate walls with its head--and notwith its head only--into "the other world."
But that "other world" is well concealed from man, that dehumanised,inhuman world, which is a celestial naught; and the bowels of existence donot speak unto man, except as man.
Verily, it is difficult to prove all being, and hard to make it speak.Tell me, ye brethren, is not the strangest of all things best proved?
Yea, this ego, with its contradiction and perplexity, speaketh mostuprightly of its being--this creating, willing, evaluing ego, which is themeasure and value of things.
And this most upright existence, the ego--it speaketh of the body, andstill implieth the body, even when it museth and raveth and fluttereth withbroken wings.
Always more uprightly learneth it to speak, the ego; and the more itlearneth, the more doth it find titles and honours for the body and theearth.
A new pride taught me mine ego, and that teach I unto men: no longer tothrust one's head into the sand of celestial things, but to carry itfreely, a terrestrial head, which giveth meaning to the earth!
A new will teach I unto men: to choose that path which man hath followedblindly, and to approve of it--and no longer to slink aside from it, likethe sick and perishing!
The sick and perishing--it was they who despised the body and the earth,and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming blood-drops; but eventhose sweet and sad poisons they borrowed from the body and the earth!
From their misery they sought escape, and the stars were too remote forthem. Then they sighed: "O that there were heavenly paths by which tosteal into another existence and into happiness!" Then they contrived forthemselves their by-paths and bloody draughts!
Beyond the sphere of their body and this earth they now fancied themselvestransported, these ungrateful ones. But to what did they owe theconvulsion and rapture of their transport? To their body and this earth.
Gentle is Zarathustra to the sickly. Verily, he is not indignant at theirmodes of consolation and ingratitude. May they become convalescents andovercomers, and create higher bodies for themselves!
Neither is Zarathustra indignant at a convalescent who looketh tenderly onhis delusions, and at midnight stealeth round the grave of his God; butsickness and a sick frame remain even in his tears.
Many sickly ones have there always been among those who muse, and languishfor God; violently they hate the discerning ones, and the latest ofvirtues, which is uprightness.
Backward they always gaze toward dark ages: then, indeed, were delusionand faith something different. Raving of the reason was likeness to God,and doubt was sin.
Too well do I know those godlike ones: they insist on being believed in,and that doubt is sin. Too well, also, do I know what they themselves mostbelieve in.
Verily, not in backworlds and redeeming blood-drops: but in the body dothey also believe most; and their own body is for them the thing-in-itself.
But it is a sickly thing to them, and gladly would they get out of theirskin. Therefore hearken they to the preachers of death, and themselvespreach backworlds.
Hearken rather, my brethren, to the voice of the healthy body; it is a moreupright and pure voice.
More uprightly and purely speaketh the healthy body, perfect and square-built; and it speaketh of the meaning of the earth.--
Thus spake Zarathustra.