Scholars, poets and the knowers

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers. He…

The reading idlers and the populace-spirit that comes of universal reading are attacked.

By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth! My brethren in war! I love you from the very heart. I am, and was ever, your…

If they cannot be saints of knowledge, they should at least be its warriors, its forerunners.

God is a conjecture: but who could drink all the bitterness of this conjecture without dying? Shall his faith be taken from the creating one, and from the eagle his flights into eagle-heights? God is a thought—it maketh…

He says the poets lie too much when they speak of the imperishable.

The people have ye served and the people’s superstition—NOT the truth!—all ye famous wise ones! And just on that account did they pay you reverence. And on that account also did they tolerate your unbelief, because it…

The famous wise ones are accused of serving popular superstition rather than truth, and their 'Will to Truth' merely justifies the people's reverence.

Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life: by its own torture doth it increase its own knowledge,—did ye know that before?

A famous definition of spirit as life's self-wounding knowledge, in contrast to the scholars' cold, secondhand learning.

And the spirit’s happiness is this: to be anointed and consecrated with tears as a sacrificial victim,—did ye know that before? And the blindness of the blind one, and his seeking and groping, shall yet testify to the…

Spirit means sacrifice, building mountains, the anvil and the hammer, pride and humility, and icy depth, none of which the lukewarm scholars have experienced.

Respectable do ye there stand, and stiff, and with straight backs, ye famous wise ones!—no strong wind or will impelleth you. Have ye ne’er seen a sail crossing the sea, rounded and inflated, and trembling with the…

The stiff, upright wise men are contrasted with Zarathustra's wisdom, which is driven by the violence of the spirit like a sail.

And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the maidens danced together: Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O Life! And into the unfathomable did I there seem to sink. But thou pulledst me out with a…

Wisdom is portrayed as a changeable, seductive woman who is still sought by the 'oldest carps'.

“Will to Truth” do ye call it, ye wisest ones, that which impelleth you and maketh you ardent? Will for the thinkableness of all being: thus do _I_ call your will! All being would ye MAKE thinkable: for ye doubt with…

The 'wisest ones' are unmasked: their pursuit of truth hides a wish to create a world they can bow before.

Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters! Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters. A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit:…

The sublime one is a hunter of knowledge, laden with ugly truths but without laughter or beauty.

With fifty patches painted on faces and limbs—so sat ye there to mine astonishment, ye present-day men! And with fifty mirrors around you, which flattered your play of colours, and repeated it! Verily, ye could wear no…

Modern men are hidden behind borrowed beliefs and customs, so that no decipherer, not even a tester of reins, can read them.

When yester-eve the moon arose, then did I fancy it about to bear a sun: so broad and teeming did it lie on the horizon. But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and sooner will I believe in the man in the moon than in the…

The moon is the parable for the 'pure discerners', who love the earth but with shame and a bad conscience.

To despise the earthly hath your spirit been persuaded, but not your bowels: these, however, are the strongest in you! And now is your spirit ashamed to be at the service of your bowels, and goeth by-ways and lying ways…

'Immaculate perception' is exposed as a self-seducing wish to gaze at life without desire.

Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye covetous ones! Ye lack innocence in your desire: and now do ye defame desiring on that account! Verily, not as creators, as procreators, or as jubilators do ye love the earth! Where is…

The pure contemplators are cursed never to bring forth, however teeming they look.

Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble words: and we are to believe that your heart overfloweth, ye cozeners? But MY words are poor, contemptible, stammering words: gladly do I pick up what falleth from the table at your…

The 'pure' contemplatives wear a divine mask over lust and lies, and Zarathustra admits he was once fooled.

When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the ivy-wreath on my head,—it ate, and said thereby: “Zarathustra is no longer a scholar.” It said this, and went away clumsily and proudly. A child told it to me. I like to…

Zarathustra is disowned by the scholars, figured as a sheep, and declares he has left their house and slammed the door.

Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table: not like them have I got the knack of investigating, as the knack of nut-cracking. Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil; rather would I sleep on ox-skins than on…

Scholars are mere spectators who gape at thoughts others have thought and crack knowledge like nuts.

When they give themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak in it! Clever…

A run of images shows the scholars as skilful but lifeless, mechanical, petty and mistrustful workers.

And when I lived with them, then did I live above them. Therefore did they take a dislike to me. They want to hear nothing of any one walking above their heads; and so they put wood and earth and rubbish betwixt me and…

The scholars muffle his tread with rubbish, the 'false ceiling', so as not to hear him above them.

But granting that some one did say in all seriousness that the poets lie too much: he was right—WE do lie too much. We also know too little, and are bad learners: so we are obliged to lie. And which of us poets hath not…

Poets are bad learners who cover ignorance with lies, trust the people's 'wisdom' and fancy nature whispers secrets to them.

When Zarathustra so spake, his disciple resented it, but was silent. And Zarathustra also was silent; and his eye directed itself inwardly, as if it gazed into the far distance. At last he sighed and drew breath.— I am…

Poets are shallow in thought and feeling, impure, and muddy their water to seem deep.

Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God. Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from…

The parable shows the poet's spirit as vanity that seeks spectators, even buffaloes.

Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing; they grew out of the poets.

Zarathustra foresees the poet's spirit tiring of itself and turning inward as a penitent.

With a wickedness do I begin every day: I mock at the winter with a cold bath: on that account grumbleth my stern house-mate. Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally let the heavens emerge…

He contrasts the shrewd who muddy their water and are found out with the clear, transparent ones whose depth stays unbetrayed.

O Zarathustra, here is the great city: here hast thou nothing to seek and everything to lose. Why wouldst thou wade through this mire? Have pity upon thy foot! Spit rather on the gate of the city, and—turn back! Here is…

Spirit is said to have become a verbal game and slaughtered fumes, ground out into newspapers.

And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnal birds again fly abroad. The hour hath come for all light-dreading people, the vesper hour and leisure hour, when they do not—“take leisure.” I hear…

The hymn-poet, the spirit-seer and the swamp-fishers satirise poets and would-be profound seekers.

To be true—that CAN few be! And he who can, will not! Least of all, however, can the good be true. Oh, those good ones! GOOD MEN NEVER SPEAK THE TRUTH. For the spirit, thus to be good, is a malady. They yield, those…

All knowledge has hitherto grown beside a bad conscience.

Better know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on one’s own account, than a sage on other people’s approbation!

He sets out a rigorous ideal of knowledge that prefers a handbreadth of firm ground to wide half-knowing.

Because THOU once saidest, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life’;—that led and allured me to thy doctrine.

He confines his knowledge to the leech's brain and accepts black ignorance beside it, out of intellectual honesty.

—Here, however, Zarathustra could no longer restrain himself; he took his staff and struck the wailer with all his might. “Stop this,” cried he to him with wrathful laughter, “stop this, thou stage-player! Thou false…

The magician is the poet-enchanter whose art is a lie, here named the penitent in spirit.

“Thou mayest have deceived subtler ones than I,” said Zarathustra sternly. “I am not on my guard against deceivers; I HAVE TO BE without precaution: so willeth my lot. Thou, however,—MUST deceive: so far do I know thee!…

Zarathustra reads the magician's lies as a sickness, leaving him only disgust as his one truth.

Do not will anything beyond your power: there is a bad falseness in those who will beyond their power. Especially when they will great things! For they awaken distrust in great things, these subtle false-coiners and…

The learned are warned against as unproductive, with cold eyes; inability to lie is not love of truth.

In evening’s limpid air, What time the dew’s soothings Unto the earth downpour, Invisibly and unheard— For tender shoe-gear wear The soothing dews, like all that’s kind-gentle—: Bethinkst thou then, bethinkst thou,…

The song taunts the poet as no wooer of truth but a masked, lying fool, restless at odds with the stiff statues of truthfulness.

In evening’s limpid air, What time the moon’s sickle, Green, ‘twixt the purple-glowings, And jealous, steal’th forth: —Of day the foe, With every step in secret, The rosy garland-hammocks Downsickling, till they’ve…

He confesses that a single truthfulness scorched him, leaving him only a fool and poet.

Thus sang the magician; and all who were present went like birds unawares into the net of his artful and melancholy voluptuousness. Only the spiritually conscientious one had not been caught: he at once snatched the…

The spiritually conscientious man attacks the magician for talking of truth while he seduces, and for undermining free spirits.

“Thou praisest me,” replied the conscientious one, “in that thou separatest me from thyself; very well! But, ye others, what do I see? Ye still sit there, all of you, with lusting eyes—: Ye free spirits, whither hath…

He sets himself apart from the others as a seeker of security in Zarathustra's steadfast tower.

For fear—that is man’s original and fundamental feeling; through fear everything is explained, original sin and original virtue.

He defines science, his own virtue, as ancient fear of the beast made subtle and intellectual.

Courage, however, and adventure, and delight in the uncertain, in the unattempted—COURAGE seemeth to me the entire primitive history of man.

He answers the idea that science grows from fear with his own account of the spirit's origin.

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 song mocks the doubting European and his 'virtuous roaring' and moral honour.

—“And thou,” said Zarathustra, “thou bad old magician, what didst thou do! Who ought to believe any longer in thee in this free age, when THOU believest in such divine donkeyism? It was a stupid thing that thou didst;…

The magician admits his folly, and the man of intellectual conscience finds even stupidity restful to his spirit.