--- title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra" author: "Friedrich Nietzsche" translator: "Thomas Common" languages: [en] shelf: "Philosophy" section: 55 of 95 url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/55/ cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 55. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/55/" --- # Thus Spake Zarathustra *Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common* A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs. ## 55. L. On the Olive-Mount Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/55/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/55/#p-N [¶0] Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly hand-shaking. [¶1] I honour him, that bad guest, but gladly leave him alone. Gladly do I run away from him; and when one runneth WELL, then one escapeth him! [¶2] With warm feet and warm thoughts do I run where the wind is calm—to the sunny corner of mine olive-mount. [¶3] There do I laugh at my stern guest, and am still fond of him; because he cleareth my house of flies, and quieteth many little noises. [¶4] For he suffereth it not if a gnat wanteth to buzz, or even two of them; also the lanes maketh he lonesome, so that the moonlight is afraid there at night. [¶5] A hard guest is he,—but I honour him, and do not worship, like the tenderlings, the pot-bellied fire-idol. [¶6] Better even a little teeth-chattering than idol-adoration!—so willeth my nature. And especially have I a grudge against all ardent, steaming, steamy fire-idols. [¶7] Him whom I love, I love better in winter than in summer; better do I now mock at mine enemies, and more heartily, when winter sitteth in my house. [¶8] Heartily, verily, even when I CREEP into bed—: there, still laugheth and wantoneth my hidden happiness; even my deceptive dream laugheth. [¶9] I, a—creeper? Never in my life did I creep before the powerful; and if ever I lied, then did I lie out of love. Therefore am I glad even in my winter-bed. [¶10] A poor bed warmeth me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my poverty. And in winter she is most faithful unto me. [¶11] 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. [¶12] Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally let the heavens emerge from ashy-grey twilight. [¶13] For especially wicked am I in the morning: at the early hour when the pail rattleth at the well, and horses neigh warmly in grey lanes:— [¶14] Impatiently do I then wait, that the clear sky may finally dawn for me, the snow-bearded winter-sky, the hoary one, the whitehead,— [¶15] —The winter-sky, the silent winter-sky, which often stifleth even its sun! [¶16] Did I perhaps learn from it the long clear silence? Or did it learn it from me? Or hath each of us devised it himself? [¶17] Of all good things the origin is a thousandfold,—all good roguish things spring into existence for joy: how could they always do so—for once only! [¶18] A good roguish thing is also the long silence, and to look, like the winter-sky, out of a clear, round-eyed countenance:— [¶19] —Like it to stifle one’s sun, and one’s inflexible solar will: verily, this art and this winter-roguishness have I learnt WELL! [¶20] My best-loved wickedness and art is it, that my silence hath learned not to betray itself by silence. [¶21] Clattering with diction and dice, I outwit the solemn assistants: all those stern watchers, shall my will and purpose elude. [¶22] That no one might see down into my depth and into mine ultimate will—for that purpose did I devise the long clear silence. [¶23] Many a shrewd one did I find: he veiled his countenance and made his water muddy, that no one might see therethrough and thereunder. [¶24] But precisely unto him came the shrewder distrusters and nut-crackers: precisely from him did they fish his best-concealed fish! [¶25] But the clear, the honest, the transparent—these are for me the wisest silent ones: in them, so PROFOUND is the depth that even the clearest water doth not—betray it.— [¶26] Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness! [¶27] And MUST I not conceal myself like one who hath swallowed gold—lest my soul should be ripped up? [¶28] MUST I not wear stilts, that they may OVERLOOK my long legs—all those enviers and injurers around me? [¶29] Those dingy, fire-warmed, used-up, green-tinted, ill-natured souls—how COULD their envy endure my happiness! [¶30] Thus do I show them only the ice and winter of my peaks—and NOT that my mountain windeth all the solar girdles around it! [¶31] They hear only the whistling of my winter-storms: and know NOT that I also travel over warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot south-winds. [¶32] They commiserate also my accidents and chances:—but MY word saith: “Suffer the chance to come unto me: innocent is it as a little child!” [¶33] How COULD they endure my happiness, if I did not put around it accidents, and winter-privations, and bear-skin caps, and enmantling snowflakes! [¶34] —If I did not myself commiserate their PITY, the pity of those enviers and injurers! [¶35] —If I did not myself sigh before them, and chatter with cold, and patiently LET myself be swathed in their pity! [¶36] This is the wise waggish-will and good-will of my soul, that it CONCEALETH NOT its winters and glacial storms; it concealeth not its chilblains either. [¶37] To one man, lonesomeness is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight FROM the sick ones. [¶38] Let them HEAR me chattering and sighing with winter-cold, all those poor squinting knaves around me! With such sighing and chattering do I flee from their heated rooms. [¶39] Let them sympathise with me and sigh with me on account of my chilblains: “At the ice of knowledge will he yet FREEZE TO DEATH!”—so they mourn. [¶40] Meanwhile do I run with warm feet hither and thither on mine olive-mount: in the sunny corner of mine olive-mount do I sing, and mock at all pity.— [¶41] Thus sang Zarathustra.