Tag Archives: Nietzsche

The Dancing Song

black-veiledwaterfalls

Into your eyes I looked recently, 0 life !
And into the unfathomable I then seemed to be sinking.
But you pulled me out with a golden fishing rod;
and you laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable.

“Thus runs the speech of all fish,” you said; “what they do not fathom is unfathomable. But I am merely changeable and wild and a woman in every way, and not virtuous – even if you men call me profound, faithful, eternal, and mysterious. But you men always present us with your own virtues, 0 you virtuous men.”

Thus she laughed, the incredible one;
but I never believe her and her laughter when she speaks ill of herself.

And when I talked in confidence with my wild wisdom she said to me in anger, “You will, you want, you love — that is the only reason why you praise life.” Then I almost answered wickedly and told the angry woman the truth;
and there is no more wicked answer than telling one’s wisdom the truth.

For thus matters stand among the three of us: Deeply I love only life – and verily, most of all when I hate life. But that I am well disposed toward wisdom, and often too well, that is because she reminds me so much of life. She has her eyes, her laugh, and even her little golden fishing rod: is it my fault that the two look so similar?

And when life once asked me, ”Who is this wisdom?'” I answered fervently, “Oh yes, wisdom! One thirsts after her and is never satisfied; one looks through veils, one grabs through nets. Is she beautiful? How should I know? But even the oldest carps are baited with her. She is changeable and stubborn; often I have seen her bite her lip and comb her hair against the grain. Perhaps she is evil and false and a female in every way; but just when she speaks ill of herself she is most seductive.”

When I said this to life she laughed sarcastically and closed her eyes.” Of whom are you speaking?” she asked; “no doubt, of me. And even if you are right – should that be said to my face? But now speak of your wisdom too.”

Ah, and then you opened your eyes again, 0 beloved life.
And again I seemed to myself to be sinking into the unfathomable.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Part II
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com

The Magician’s Dancing Souls

Juaneco: Ya se ha muerto mi abuelo

Thus sang the magician; and all who were gathered there went unwittingly as birds into the net of his cunning and melancholy lust. Only the conscientious in spirit was not caught: quickly he took the harp away from the magician and cried: “Air! Let in good air! Let in Zarathustra! You are making this cave sultry and poisonous, you wicked old magician. You are seducing us, you false and subtle one, to unknown desires and wildernesses. And beware when such as you start making speeches and fuss about truth! Woe unto all free spirits who do not watch out against such magicians! Then it is over with their freedom: you teach us and lure us back into prisons. You old melancholy devil: out of your lament a bird call lures us; you are like those whose praise of chastity secretly invites to voluptuous delights.” Thus spoke the conscientious man; but the old magician looked around, enjoyed his triumph, and for its sake swallowed the annoyance caused him by the conscientious man. “Be still!” he said in a modest voice; “good songs want to resound well; after good songs one should long keep still. Thus do all these higher men. But perhaps you have understood very little of my song? In you there is little of a magic spirit.” “You praise me by distinguishing me from yourself,” retorted the conscientious man. “Well then! But you others, what do I see? You are all still sitting there with lusting eyes: you free souls, where is your freedom gone? You are almost like men, it seems to me, who have long watched wicked, dancing, naked girls: your souls are dancing too. In you, you higher men, there must be more of what the magician calls his evil spirit of magic and deception: we must be different.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Part IV
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com

Their Vine is of the Vine of Sodom

Having posted Friedrich Nietzsche’s Song of Melancholy from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I am struck by certain similarities with Moses’ poem from Deuteronomy 32. It is known that Nietzsche’s paternal forebears were Lutheran pastors, and his own father studied theology – so it is likely that he assimilated such biblical lyrics and, perhaps subliminally, imitated them in his writings.

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak;
and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew,
as the small rain upon the tender herb,and as the showers upon the grass:

Because I will publish the name of the Lord:
ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment:
a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children:
they are a perverse and crooked generation.

Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?
is not he thy father that hath bought thee?
hath he not made thee, and established thee?

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:
ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people
according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord‘s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness;
he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young,
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

He made him ride on the high places of the earth,
that he might eat the increase of the fields;
and he made him to suck honey out of the rock,
and oil out of the flinty rock;

Butter of kine, and milk of sheep,
with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan,
and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat;
and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked:
thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness;
then he forsook God which made him,
and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods,
with abominations provoked they him to anger.

They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not,
to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,
and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them,
because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

And he said,
I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be:
for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;
they have provoked me to anger with their vanities:
and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

For a fire is kindled in mine anger,
and shall burn unto the lowest hell,
and shall consume the earth with her increase,
and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat,
and with bitter destruction:
I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them,
with the poison of serpents of the dust.

The sword without, and terror within,
shall destroy both the young man and the virgin,
the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

I said, I would scatter them into corners,
I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy,
lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely,
and lest they should say,
Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this.

For they are a nation void of counsel,
neither is there any understanding in them.

O that they were wise, that they understood this,
that they would consider their latter end!

How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight,
except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?

For their rock is not as our Rock,
even our enemies themselves being judges.

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah:
their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?

To me belongeth vengeance and recompence;
their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand,
and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants,
when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,

Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me:
I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal:
neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.

If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment;
I will render vengeance to mine enemies,
and will reward them that hate me.

I will make mine arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh;
and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives,
from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people:
for he will avenge the blood of his servants,
and will render vengeance to his adversaries,
and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

And Moses came
and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people,
he, and Hoshea the son of Nun.

And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:

And he said unto them,
Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day,
which ye shall command your children to observe to do,
all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 32 [KJV]

Only Fool! Only Poet!

Melancholy Song
The Song of Melancholy

“The day is fading away, evening is now coming to all things, even to the best things:
hear then and see, you higher men, what kind of devil, whether man or woman, this spirit of evening melancholy is!”
Thus spoke the old magician, looked around cunningly, and then reached for his harp.

In dim, de-lighted air
When the dew’s comfort is beginning
To well down to the earth,
Unseen, unheard —

For tender is the footwear of
The comforter dew, as of all that gently comfort —
Do you remember then, remember, hot heart,
How you thirsted once
For heavenly tears and dripping dew,
Thirsting, scorched and weary,
While on yellow paths in the grass
The glances of the evening sun were running
Maliciously around you through black trees —
Blinding, glowing glances of the sun, mocking your pain?

“Suitor of truth?” they mocked me; “you?
No! Only poet!
An animal, cunning, preying, prowling,
That must lie,
That must knowingly, willingly lie:
Lusting for prey,
Colorfully masked,
A mask for itself,
Prey for itself —
This, the suitor of truth?
No! Only fool! Only poet!
Only speaking colorfully,
Only screaming colorfully out of fools’ masks,
Climbing around on mendacious word bridges,
On colorful rainbows,
Between false heavens
And false earths, Roaming, hovering —
Only fool! Only poet!

This—the suitor of truth?
Not still, stiff, smooth, cold,
Become a statue,
A pillar of God,
Not placed before temples,
A god’s gate guard —
No! an enemy of all such truth statues,
More at home in any desert than before temples,
Full of cats’ prankishness,
Leaping through every window —
Swish! into every chance,
Sniffing for every jungle,
Eagerly, longingly sniffing:
That in jungles
Among colorfully speckled beasts of prey
You might roam, sinfully sound and colorful, beautiful
With lusting lips,
Blissfully mocking, blissfully hellish, blissfully bloodthirsty —
Preying, prowling, peering —
Or like the eagle that gazes long,
Long with fixed eyes into abysses,
His own abysses —
Oh, how they wind downward,
Lower and lower
And into ever deeper depths!—­
Then,
Suddenly, straight as sight
In brandished flight,
Pounce on lambs,
Abruptly down, hot-hungry,
Lusting for lambs,
Hating all lamb souls,
Grimly hating whatever looks
Sheepish, lamb-eyed, curly-wooled,
Gray, with lambs’ and sheeps’ goodwill.

Thus
Eagle-like, panther-like,
Are the poet’s longings,
Are your longings under a thousand masks,
You fool! You poet!
You that have seen man
As god and sheep:
Tearing to pieces the god in man
No less than the sheep in man,
And laughing while tearing —

This, this is your bliss!
A panther’s and eagle’s bliss!
A poet’s and fool’s bliss!”

In dim, de-lighted air
When the moon’s sickle is beginning
To creep, green between crimson
Reds, enviously—
Hating the day,
Secretly step for step
Scything at sloping rose meads
Till they sink and, ashen,
Drown in night—

Thus I myself once sank
Out of my truth-madness,
Out of my day-longings,
Weary of day, sick from the light—
Sank downward, evening-ward, shadow-ward,
Burned by one truth,
And thirsty:
Do you remember still, remember, hot heart,
How you thirsted?
That I be banished
From all truth,
Only fool!
Only poet!

DithyrambThus Spoke Zarathustra , Part IV
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com