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DIONYSUS-DITHYRAMBS

(1888)

These are the songs of Zarathustra which he sang to himself so as to endure his last solitude.

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[Pg 174]
[Pg 175]

OF THE POVERTY OF THE RICHEST


Ten years passed by—
Not a drop reached me,
No rain-fraught wind, no dew of love
—A rainless land....
Now entreat I my wisdom
Not to become stingy in this drought;
Overflow thyself, trickle thy dew,
Be thyself the rain of the parched wilderness!

I once bade the clouds
Depart from my mountains;
Once I said to them,
"More light, ye dark ones!"
To-day I entice them to come:
Make me dark with your udders:
—I would milk you,
Ye cows of the heights!
Milk-warm wisdom, sweet dew of love
I pour over the land.

Away, away, ye truths
That look so gloomy!
I will not have on my mountains
[Pg 176]Bitter, impatient truths.
May truth approach me to-day
Gilded by smiles,
Sweetened by the sun, browned by love,—
A ripe truth I would fain break off from the tree.

To-day I stretch my hands
Toward the tresses of chance,
Wise enough to lead,
To outwit chance like a child.
To-day I will be hospitable
'Gainst the unwelcome,
'Gainst destiny itself I will not be prickly....
—Zarathustra is no hedgehog.

My soul,
Insatiable with its tongue,
Has already tasted of all things good and evil,
And has dived into all depths.
But ever, like the cork,
It swims to the surface again,
And floats like oil upon brown seas:
Because of this soul men call me fortunate.

Who are my father and mother?
Is not my father Prince Plenty?
And my mother Silent Laughter?
Did not the union of these two
Beget me, the enigmatic beast—
Me, the monster of light—
Me, Zarathustra, the squanderer of all wisdom?

Sick to-day from tenderness,
[Pg 177]A dewy wind,
Zarathustra sits waiting, waiting on his mountains—
Sweet and stewing
In his own juice,
Beneath his own summit,
Beneath his ice,
Weary and happy,
A Creator on his seventh day.

—Silence!
A truth passes over me
Like a cloud,—
With invisible lightnings it strikes me,
On broad, slow stairs,
Its happiness climbs to me:
Come, come, beloved truth!

—Silence!
'Tis my truth!
From timid eyes,
From velvet shudders,
Her glance meets mine,
Sweet and wicked, a maiden's glance.
She has guessed the reason of my happiness,
She has guessed me—ha! what is she thinking?
A purple dragon
Lurks in the abyss of her maiden's glance.

—Silence! My truth is speaking!—

"Woe to thee, Zarathustra!
Thou lookest like one
That hath swallowed gold:
[Pg 178]They will slit up thy belly yet!

Thou art too rich,
Thou corrupter of many!
Thou makest too many jealous,
Too many poor....
Even on me thy light casts a shadow—
I feel chill: go away, thou rich one
Go away, Zarathustra, from the path of thy sun




BETWEEN BIRDS OF PREY


Who would here descend,
How soon
Is he swallowed up by the depths!
But thou, Zarathustra,
Still lovest the abysses,
Lovest them as doth the fir tree!

The fir flings its roots
Where the rock itself gazes
Shuddering at the depths,—
The fir pauses before the abysses
Where all around
Would fain descend:
Amid the impatience
Of wild, rolling, leaping torrents
It waits so patient, stern and silent,
Lonely....

Lonely!
Who would venture
Here to be guest—
[Pg 179]To be thy guest?

A bird of prey, perchance
Joyous at others' misfortune,
Will cling persistent
To the hair of the steadfast watcher,
With frenzied laughter,
A vulture's laughter....

Wherefore so steadfast?
—Mocks he so cruel:
He must have wings, who loves the abyss,
He must not stay on the cliff,
As thou who hangest there!—

O Zarathustra,
Cruellest Nimrod!
Of late still a hunter of God,
A spider's web to capture virtue,
An arrow of evil!
Now
Hunted by thyself,
Thine own prey
Caught in the grip of thine own soul.

Now
Lonely to me and thee,
Twofold in thine own knowledge,
Mid a hundred mirrors
False to thyself,
Mid a hundred memories
Uncertain,
Weary at every wound,
Shivering at every frost,
Throttled in thine own noose,
Self-knower!
[Pg 180]Self-hangman!

Why didst bind thyself
With the noose of thy wisdom?
Why luredst thyself
Into the old serpent's paradise?
Why stolest into
Thyself, thyself?...

A sick man now,
Sick of serpent's poison,
A captive now
Who hast drawn the hardest lot:
In thine own shaft
Bowed as thou workest,
In thine own cavern
Digging at thyself,
Helpless quite,
Stiff,
A cold corse
Overwhelmed with a hundred burdens,
Overburdened by thyself,
A knower!
A self-knower!
The wise Zarathustra!...

Thou soughtest the heaviest burden,
So foundest thou thyself,
And canst not shake thyself off....

Watching,
Chewing,
One that stands upright no more!
Thou wilt grow deformed even in thy grave,
[Pg 181]Deformed spirit!

And of late still so proud
On all the stilts of thy pride!
Of late still the godless hermit,
The hermit with one comrade—the devil,
The scarlet prince of every devilment!...

Now—
Between two nothings
Huddled up,
A question-mark,
A weary riddle,
A riddle for vultures....
They will "solve" thee,
They hunger already for thy "solution,"
They flutter already about their "riddle,"
About thee, the doomed one!
O Zarathustra,
Self-knower!
[Pg 182]Self-hangman!




THE SUN SINKS


I

Not much longer thirstest thou,
O burnt-up heart!
Promise is in the air,
From unknown mouths I feel a breath,
—The great coolness comes....
My sun stood hot above me at noonday:
A greeting to you that are coming,
Ye sudden winds,
Ye cool spirits of afternoon!

The air is strange and pure.
See how the night
Leers at me with eyes askance,
Like a seducer!...
Be strong, my brave heart,
And ask not "Why?"


2

The day of my life!
The sun sinks,
And the calm flood
Already is gilded.
Warm breathes the rock:
Did happiness at noonday
Take its siesta well upon it?
In green light
[Pg 183]Happiness still glimmers up from the brown abyss

Day of my life!
Eventide's nigh,
Thy eye already
Glows half-broken,
Thy dew already
Pours out its tear-drops,
Already over the white seas
Walks the purple of thy love,
Thy last hesitating holiness....


3

Golden gaiety, come!
Thou, the sweetest foretaste—
Foretaste of death!
—Went I my way too swiftly?
Now that the foot grows weary,
Thine eye still catches me,
Thy happiness still catches me.

Around but waves and play.
Whatever was hard
—Sank into blue oblivion.
My boat now stands idle.
Storm and motion—how did it forget them!
Desire and Hope are drowned,
Sea and soul are becalmed.

Seventh Solitude!
Never felt!
Sweet certainty nearer,
Or warmer the sun's ray.
—Glows not the ice of my summit yet?
Silvery, light, a fish
[Pg 184]Now my vessel swims out....




THE LAST DESIRE[1]


So would I die
As then I saw him die,
The friend, who like a god
Into my darkling youth
Threw lightning's light and fire:
Buoyant yet deep was he,
Yea, in the battle's strife
With the gay dancer's heart.

Amid the warriors
His was the lightest heart,
Amid the conquerors
His brow was dark with thought—
He was a fate poised on his destiny:
Unbending, casting thought into the past
And future, such was he.

Fearful beneath the weight of victory,
Yet chanting, as both victory and death
Came hand and hand to him.

Commanding even as he lay in death,
And his command that man annihilate.

So would I die
As then I saw him die,
[Pg 185]Victorious and destroying.




THE BEACON


Here, where the island grew amid the seas,
A sacrificial rock high-towering,
Here under darkling heavens,
Zarathustra lights his mountain-fires,
A beacon for ships that have strayed,
A beacon for them that have an answer!...

These flames with grey-white belly,
In cold distances sparkle their desire,
Stretches its neck towards ever purer heights—
A snake upreared in impatience:
This signal I set up there before me.
This flame is mine own soul,
Insatiable for new distances,
Speeding upward, upward its silent heat.

Why flew Zarathustra from beasts and men?
Why fled he swift from all continents?
Six solitudes he knows already—
But even the sea was not lonely enough for him,
On the island he could climb, on the mount he
became flame,
At the seventh solitude
He casts a fishing-rod far o'er his head.

Storm-tossed seamen! Wreckage of ancient stars
Ye seas of the future! Uncompassed heavens!
At all lonely ones I now throw my fishing-rod.
Give answer to the flame's impatience,
Let me, the fisher on high mountains,
[Pg 186]Catch my seventh, last solitude!——




FAME AND ETERNITY[2]


I

Speak, tell me, how long wilt thou brood
Upon this adverse fate of thine?
Beware, lest from thy doleful mood
A countenance 90 dark is brewed
That men in seeing thee divine
A hate more bitter than the brine.
*    *    *    *
Speak, why does Zarathustra roam
Upon the towering mountain-height?
Distrustful, cankered, dour, his home
Is shut so long from human sight?
*    *    *    *
See, suddenly flames forth a lightning-flash,
The pit profound with thunderous challenge fights
Against the heavens, midst clamorous crack and crash
Of the great mountain! Cradled in the heights,
Born as the fruit of hate and lightning's love,
The wrath of Zarathustra dwells above
And looms with menace of a thundercloud.
*    *    *    *
Ye, who have roofs, go quickly, creep and hide!
To bed, ye tenderlings! For thunders loud
Upon the blasts of storm triumphant ride,
[Pg 187]And bastions and ramparts sway and rock,

The lightning sears the dusky face of night,
And eerie truths like gleams of Hades mock
The sense familiar. So in storm breaks forth
The flaming curse of Zarathustra's wrath.


2

This fame, which all the wide world loves,
I touch with gloves,
And scorning beat
Beneath my feet.
*    *    *    *
Who hanker after the pay of it?
Who cast themselves in the way of it?
These prostitutes to gold,
These merchant folk. They fold
Their unctuous palms over the jingling fame,
Whose ringing chink wins all the world's acclaim.
*    *    *    *
Hast thou the lust to buy? It needs no skill.
They are all venal. Let thy purse be deep,
And let their greedy paws unhindered creep
Into its depths. So let them take their fill,
For if thou dost not offer them enough,
Their "virtue" they'll parade, to hide their huff.
*    *    *    *
They are all virtuous, yea every one.
Virtue and fame are ever in accord
[Pg 188]So long as time doth run,

The tongues that prate of virtue as reward
Earn fame. For virtue is fame's clever bawd.
*    *    *    *
Amongst these virtuous, I prefer to be
One guilty of all vile and horrid sin!
And when I see fame's importunity
So advertise her shameless harlotry,
Ambition turns to gall. Amidst such kin
One place alone, the lowest, would I win.
*    *    *    *
This fame, which all the wide world loves,
I touch with gloves,
And scorning beat
Beneath my feet.


3

Hush! I see vastness!—and of vasty things
Shall man be dumb, unless he can enshrine
Them with his words? Then take the might which brings
The heart upon thy tongue, charmed wisdom mine!
*    *    *    *
I look above, there rolls the star-strown sea.
O night, mute silence, voiceless cry of stars!
And lo! A sign! The heaven its verge unbars—
[Pg 189]A shining constellation falls towards me.


4

O loftiest, star-clustered crown of Being!
O carved tablets of Eternity!
And dost thou truly bend thy way to me?
Thy loveliness, to all—obscurity,
What? Fear'st not to unveil before my seeing?
*    *    *    *
O shield of Destiny!
O carven tablets of Eternity!
Yea, verily, thou knowest—what mankind doth hate,
What I alone do love: thou art inviolate
To strokes of change and time, of fates the fate!
'Tis only thou, O dire Necessity,
Canst kindle everlasting love in me!
*    *    *    *
O loftiest crown of Life! O shield of Fate!
That no desire can reach to invocate,
That ne'er defiled or sullied is by Nay,
Eternal Yea of life, for e'er am I thy Yea:
For I love thee, Eternity!

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