Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

SECOND PART. 39. XXXIX. POETS. (continued)

And because we know little, therefore are we pleased from the heart with the poor in spirit, especially when they are young women!

And even of those things are we desirous, which old women tell one another in the evening. This do we call the eternally feminine in us.

And as if there were a special secret access to knowledge, which CHOKETH UP for those who learn anything, so do we believe in the people and in their "wisdom."

This, however, do all poets believe: that whoever pricketh up his ears when lying in the grass or on lonely slopes, learneth something of the things that are betwixt heaven and earth.

And if there come unto them tender emotions, then do the poets always think that nature herself is in love with them:

And that she stealeth to their ear to whisper secrets into it, and amorous flatteries: of this do they plume and pride themselves, before all mortals!

Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and earth of which only the poets have dreamed!

And especially ABOVE the heavens: for all Gods are poet-symbolisations, poet-sophistications!

Verily, ever are we drawn aloft--that is, to the realm of the clouds: on these do we set our gaudy puppets, and then call them Gods and Supermen:--

Are not they light enough for those chairs!--all these Gods and Supermen?--

Ah, how I am weary of all the inadequate that is insisted on as actual! Ah, how I am weary of the poets!

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 of to-day and heretofore, said he thereupon; but something is in me that is of the morrow, and the day following, and the hereafter.