4umi Friedrich Nietzsche : Thus Spoke Zarathustra / The Song of Melancholy

74. The Song of Melancholy

1.

When Zarathustra spake these sayings, he stood nigh to the entrance of his cave; with the last words, however, he slipped away from his guests, and fled for a little while into the open air.

"O pure odours around me," cried he, "O blessed stillness around me! But where are mine animals? Hither, hither, mine eagle and my serpent!

Tell me, mine animals: these higher men, all of them—do they perhaps not smell well? O pure odours around me! Now only do I know and feel how I love you, mine animals."

—And Zarathustra said once more: "I love you, mine animals!" The eagle, however, and the serpent pressed close to him when he spake these words, and looked up to him. In this attitude were they all three silent together, and sniffed and sipped the good air with one another. For the air here outside was better than with the higher men.

2.

Hardly, however, had Zarathustra left the cave when the old magician got up, looked cunningly about him, and said: "He is gone!

And already, ye higher men—let me tickle you with this complimentary and flattering name, as he himself doeth—already doth mine evil spirit of deceit and magic attack me, my melancholy devil,

—Which is an adversary to this Zarathustra from the very heart: forgive it for this! Now doth it wish to conjure before you, it hath just its hour; in vain do I struggle with this evil spirit.

Unto all of you, whatever honours ye like to assume in your names, whether ye call yourselves 'the free spirits' or 'the conscientious,' or 'the penitents of the spirit,' or 'the unfettered,' or 'the great longers,'—

—Unto all of you, who like me suffer from the great loathing, to whom the old God hath died, and as yet no new God lieth in cradles and swaddling clothes—unto all of you is mine evil spirit and magic-devil favourable.

I know you, ye higher men, I know him,—I know also this fiend whom I love in spite of me, this Zarathustra: he himself often seemeth to me like the beautiful mask of a saint,

—Like a new strange mummery in which mine evil spirit, the melancholy devil, delighteth:—I love Zarathustra, so doth it often seem to me, for the sake of mine evil spirit.—

But already doth it attack me and constrain me, this spirit of melancholy, this evening-twilight devil: and verily, ye higher men, it hath a longing—

—Open your eyes!—it hath a longing to come naked, whether male or female, I do not yet know: but it cometh, it constraineth me, alas! open your wits!

The day dieth out, unto all things cometh now the evening, also unto the best things; hear now, and see, ye higher men, what devil—man or woman—this spirit of evening-melancholy is!"

Thus spake the old magician, looked cunningly about him, and then seized his harp.

3.

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 Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra Prologue The Three Metamorphoses The Academic Chairs of Virtue Backworldsmen The Despisers of the Body Joys and Passions The Pale Criminal Reading and Writing The Tree on the Hill The Preachers of Death War and Warriors The New Idol The Flies in the Market-Place Chastity The Friend The Thousand and One Goals Neighbour-Love The Way of the Creating One Old and Young Women The Bite of the Adder Child and Marriage Voluntary Death The Bestowing Virtue The Child with the Mirror In the Happy Isles The Pitiful The Priests The Virtuous The Rabble The Tarantulas The Famous Wise Ones The Night-Song The Dance-Song The Grave-Song Self-Surpassing The Sublime Ones The Land of Culture Immaculate Perception Scholars Poets Great Events The Soothsayer Redemption Manly Prudence The Stillest Hour The Wanderer The Vision and the Enigma Involuntary Bliss Before Sunrise The Bedwarfing Virtue On the Olive-Mount On Passing-by The Apostates The Return Home The Three Evil Things The Spirit of Gravity Old and New Tables The Convalescent The Great Longing The Second Dance Song The Seven Seals The Honey Sacrifice The Cry of Distress Talk with the Kings The Leech The Magician Out of Service The Ugliest Man The Voluntary Beggar The Shadow Noontide The Greeting The Supper The Higher Man The Song of Melancholy Science Among Daughters of the Desert The Awakening The Ass-Festival The Drunken Song The Sign The Antichrist