Zarathustra's shadow

And verily, it were time that I went away; and the wanderer’s shadow and the longest tedium and the stillest hour—have all said unto me: “It is the highest time!” The word blew to me through the keyhole and said “Come!”…

The shadow, the tedium and the stillest hour tell him it is the highest time. He lies enchained by desire for love, stewed in the sun of his own love. He longs for frost, and old pains wake until his thought bites him.

Scarcely however was the voluntary beggar gone in haste, and Zarathustra again alone, when he heard behind him a new voice which called out: “Stay! Zarathustra! Do wait! It is myself, forsooth, O Zarathustra, myself,…

Hearing a voice call him its shadow, Zarathustra runs away in irritation, so that three runners follow one another: the beggar, Zarathustra, the shadow.

“What!” said he, “have not the most ludicrous things always happened to us old anchorites and saints? Verily, my folly hath grown big in the mountains! Now do I hear six old fools’ legs rattling behind one another! But…

Zarathustra laughs at himself, stops and turns, and is startled by how slender, swarthy and worn-out his follower looks.

“Forgive me,” answered the shadow, “that it is I; and if I please thee not—well, O Zarathustra! therein do I admire thee and thy good taste. A wanderer am I, who have walked long at thy heels; always on the way, but…

The shadow says he has wandered after Zarathustra without goal or home, broken every reverence, and found that he too lost his innocence and the truth kicked him in the face.

‘Nothing is true, all is permitted’: so said I to myself.

The shadow quotes the maxim by which he lived.

Too much hath become clear unto me: now it doth not concern me any more. Nothing liveth any longer that I love,—how should I still love myself? ‘To live as I incline, or not to live at all’: so do I wish; so wisheth…

He laments that he has no goal, no fair wind, a weary heart and broken backbone, and that his search for a home has become his homesickness.

O eternal everywhere, O eternal nowhere, O eternal—in-vain!”

The shadow ends his plaint with this cry.

Thus spake the shadow, and Zarathustra’s countenance lengthened at his words. “Thou art my shadow!” said he at last sadly. “Thy danger is not small, thou free spirit and wanderer! Thou hast had a bad day: see that a…

Zarathustra warns the shadow that a narrow faith may seduce him like a prisoner's security, bids him come to the cave, and runs off promising dancing in the evening.

It was late in the afternoon only when Zarathustra, after long useless searching and strolling about, again came home to his cave. When, however, he stood over against it, not more than twenty paces therefrom, the thing…

Returning home, Zarathustra hears the cry of distress again, this time from his own cave. He finds all the men he met that day sitting there, and greets them with courteous curiosity.

“Go not away!” said then the wanderer who called himself Zarathustra’s shadow, “abide with us—otherwise the old gloomy affliction might again fall upon us. Now hath that old magician given us of his worst for our good,…

The shadow asks Zarathustra not to go. He says the magician's song, the pope's tears and the kings' pretended composure show the old melancholy still lurking. He recalls an after-dinner song he once made among Oriental maidens, then takes the magician's harp and begins to sing.

THE DESERTS GROW: WOE HIM WHO DOTH THEM HIDE!

The song's title and refrain, which repeats at the end.

THE DESERTS GROW: WOE HIM WHO DOTH THEM HIDE! —Ha! Solemnly! In effect solemnly! A worthy beginning! Afric manner, solemnly! Of a lion worthy, Or perhaps of a virtuous howl-monkey— —But it’s naught to you, Ye friendly…

The shadow sings a comic, rambling song as a European sitting in a small oasis beside the maidens Dudu and Suleika. He jokes about the whale, the date and the palm-tree that has lost its other leg, then parodies a moral lion's roar. He ends by saying he cannot be other than a European.

All on a sudden however, Zarathustra’s ear was frightened: for the cave which had hitherto been full of noise and laughter, became all at once still as death;—his nose, however, smelt a sweet-scented vapour and…

The cave falls silent and fills with incense. Zarathustra looks in and finds all the higher men kneeling and praying to the ass, and the ugliest man begins a litany.

At this place in the litany, however, Zarathustra could no longer control himself; he himself cried out YE-A, louder even than the ass, and sprang into the midst of his maddened guests. “Whatever are you about, ye…

Zarathustra breaks into the litany with his own YE-A and pulls his guests up from the ground. The old pope and the shadow excuse their idolatry and blame the ugliest man for reawakening God.