The Soothsayer
“– and I saw a great sadness descend over humanity. The best became
weary of their works.
A doctrine circulated, a belief accompanied it: ‘Everything is empty,
everything is the same, everything was!’
And from every hilltop it rang out: ‘Everything is empty, everything is
the same, everything was!’
The Wanderer and His Shadow is the last volume of Human, All Too Human, published by Nietzsche
We harvested well, but why did all our fruits turn foul and brown?
What fell down from the evil moon last night?
All work was for naught, our wine has become poison, the evil eye
seared yellow our fields and hearts.
All of us became dry, and if fire were to touch us, then we would turn
to dust like ashes – yes, fire itself we have made weary.
All our wells dried up, even the sea retreated. All firm ground wants to
crack, but the depths do not want to devour!
‘Oh where is there still a sea in which one could drown?’ – thus rings
our lament – out across the shallow swamps.
Indeed, we have already become too weary to die; now we continue to
wake and we live on – in burial chambers!” –
Thus Zarathustra heard a soothsayer speaking; and his prophecy went
straight to his heart and transformed him. Sadly he went about and weary;
and he became like those of whom the soothsayer had spoken.
“Indeed,” thus he spoke to his disciples, “it lacks but little and this long
twilight will come. Alas, how shall I rescue my light to the other side!
It must not suffocate in this sadness! It shall be light to more distant
worlds and most distant nights!”
Grieving thus in his heart Zarathustra walked about; and for three days
he took no drink and no food, had no rest and lost his speech. At last it
came to pass that he fell into a deep sleep. But his disciplines sat around
him on long night watches and they waited anxiously for him to wake and
speak again, and recover from his melancholy.
This, however, is the speech that Zarathustra spoke when he awoke;
but his voice came to his disciples as if from far away.
“Hear this dream that I dreamed,my friends, and help me to understand
its meaning!
It is still an enigma to me, this dream; its meaning is hidden in it and
locked away and it does not yet fly above it on free wings.
I had renounced all life, thus I dreamed. I had become a night watchman
and guardian of graves, there on the lonely mountain fortress of
death.
Up there I guarded his coffins; the musty vaults stood full of such
symbols of conquest. From glass coffins, conquered life looked out at me.
I breathed the odor of eternities turned to dust; my soul lay clammy
and dusty, and who could have aired his soul in such a place!
The brightness of midnight was about me always, loneliness crouched
beside her, and thirdly, death-rattle silence, the worst of my three lady
friends.
I carried keys, the rustiest of all keys; and with them I knew how to
open the creakiest of all gates.
Like a bitterly evil croaking the sound penetrated through the long
corridors as the gate’s wings swung open; hideously this bird screeched,
defiant in being awakened.
But even more terrible and heart-constricting was the silence that set
in around me when the gate fell quiet, and I sat alone in this treacherous
silence.
Thus the time passed and crept by me, if time existed anymore – what
do I know! But at last something happened that awakened me.
Three times there were blows at the door, like thundering, and the
vaults echoed and howled three times in return; then I went to the gate.
‘Alpa!’ I cried. ‘Who bears his ashes to the mountain? Alpa! Alpa! Who
bears his ashes to the mountain?’
And I pressed the key and lifted on the gate and strained. But it would
not open even the width of a finger:
Then a roaring wind tore its wings apart; whistling, shrilling and whipping
it threw down a black coffin before me:
And amidst the roaring and whistling and shrilling the coffin burst
open and spewed forth thousandfold laughter.
And it laughed and mocked and roared against me from a thousand
grimaces of children, angels, owls, fools and butterflies the size of children.
I was horribly frightened; it threw me to the ground. And I cried out
in terror as I have never cried before.
But my own cries awakened me – and I came to. –”
Thus Zarathustra related his dream and then he was silent, for he did
not yet know the interpretation of his dream. But the disciple whom he
loved most quickly stood up, took hold of Zarathustra’s hand and said:
“Your life itself interprets this dream for us, oh Zarathustra!
Are you yourself not the wind with its shrill whistling, that tears open
the gates of the fortresses of death?
Are you yourself not the coffin full of colorful sarcasms and the angelic
grimaces of life?
Indeed, like thousandfold children’s laughter Zarathustra comes into all
burial chambers, laughing at these night watchmen and grave guardians,
and whoever else rattles about with dingy keys.
You will frighten and lay them low with your laughter; your power over
them will be proven by their swooning and awakening.
And even if the long twilight comes and the weariness unto death, you
will not set in our sky, you advocate of life!
You allowed us to see new stars and new splendors of the night; indeed,
you spanned laughter itself above us like a colorful tent.
Children’s laughter will well up from coffins from now on; a strong
wind will come triumphantly to all weariness unto death from now on: of
this you yourself are our guarantor and soothsayer!
Indeed, you yourself dreamed them, your enemies: that was your hardest
dream!
But as you awakened from them and came to yourself, thus shall they
awaken from themselves – and come to you!” –
Thus spoke the disciple, and all the others now crowded around
Zarathustra and took him by the hands and wanted to persuade him to
abandon his bed and his sadness and to return to them. But Zarathustra
sat upright on his bed and with a strange look. Like someone who returns
home from long sojourns abroad, he gazed at his disciples and examined
their faces; and still he did not recognize them. But as they lifted him and
helped him to his feet, behold, all at once his eyes transformed; he comprehended
all that had happened, stroked his beard and said in a strong voice:
“Well then! This has its time; but for now see to it, my disciples, that
we prepare a good meal, and quickly! Thus I plan to do penance for bad
dreams!
But the soothsayer shall eat and drink beside me; and truly, I will yet
show him a sea in which he can drown!”