--- title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra" author: "Friedrich Nietzsche" translator: "Thomas Common" languages: [en] shelf: "Philosophy" section: 39 of 95 url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/39/ cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 39. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/39/" --- # Thus Spake Zarathustra *Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common* A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs. ## 39. XXXV. The Sublime Ones Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/39/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/39/#p-N [¶0] Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters! [¶1] Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters. [¶2] A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit: Oh, how my soul laughed at his ugliness! [¶3] With upraised breast, and like those who draw in their breath: thus did he stand, the sublime one, and in silence: [¶4] O’erhung with ugly truths, the spoil of his hunting, and rich in torn raiment; many thorns also hung on him—but I saw no rose. [¶5] Not yet had he learned laughing and beauty. Gloomy did this hunter return from the forest of knowledge. [¶6] From the fight with wild beasts returned he home: but even yet a wild beast gazeth out of his seriousness—an unconquered wild beast! [¶7] As a tiger doth he ever stand, on the point of springing; but I do not like those strained souls; ungracious is my taste towards all those self-engrossed ones. [¶8] And ye tell me, friends, that there is to be no dispute about taste and tasting? But all life is a dispute about taste and tasting! [¶9] Taste: that is weight at the same time, and scales and weigher; and alas for every living thing that would live without dispute about weight and scales and weigher! [¶10] Should he become weary of his sublimeness, this sublime one, then only will his beauty begin—and then only will I taste him and find him savoury. [¶11] And only when he turneth away from himself will he o’erleap his own shadow—and verily! into HIS sun. [¶12] Far too long did he sit in the shade; the cheeks of the penitent of the spirit became pale; he almost starved on his expectations. [¶13] Contempt is still in his eye, and loathing hideth in his mouth. To be sure, he now resteth, but he hath not yet taken rest in the sunshine. [¶14] As the ox ought he to do; and his happiness should smell of the earth, and not of contempt for the earth. [¶15] As a white ox would I like to see him, which, snorting and lowing, walketh before the ploughshare: and his lowing should also laud all that is earthly! [¶16] Dark is still his countenance; the shadow of his hand danceth upon it. O’ershadowed is still the sense of his eye. [¶17] His deed itself is still the shadow upon him: his doing obscureth the doer. Not yet hath he overcome his deed. [¶18] To be sure, I love in him the shoulders of the ox: but now do I want to see also the eye of the angel. [¶19] Also his hero-will hath he still to unlearn: an exalted one shall he be, and not only a sublime one:—the ether itself should raise him, the will-less one! [¶20] He hath subdued monsters, he hath solved enigmas. But he should also redeem his monsters and enigmas; into heavenly children should he transform them. [¶21] As yet hath his knowledge not learned to smile, and to be without jealousy; as yet hath his gushing passion not become calm in beauty. [¶22] Verily, not in satiety shall his longing cease and disappear, but in beauty! Gracefulness belongeth to the munificence of the magnanimous. [¶23] His arm across his head: thus should the hero repose; thus should he also surmount his repose. [¶24] But precisely to the hero is BEAUTY the hardest thing of all. Unattainable is beauty by all ardent wills. [¶25] A little more, a little less: precisely this is much here, it is the most here. [¶26] To stand with relaxed muscles and with unharnessed will: that is the hardest for all of you, ye sublime ones! [¶27] When power becometh gracious and descendeth into the visible—I call such condescension, beauty. [¶28] And from no one do I want beauty so much as from thee, thou powerful one: let thy goodness be thy last self-conquest. [¶29] All evil do I accredit to thee: therefore do I desire of thee the good. [¶30] Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have crippled paws! [¶31] The virtue of the pillar shalt thou strive after: more beautiful doth it ever become, and more graceful—but internally harder and more sustaining—the higher it riseth. [¶32] Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt thou also be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to thine own beauty. [¶33] Then will thy soul thrill with divine desires; and there will be adoration even in thy vanity! [¶34] For this is the secret of the soul: when the hero hath abandoned it, then only approacheth it in dreams—the superhero.— [¶35] Thus spake Zarathustra.