Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

FOURTH AND LAST PART. 74. LXXIV. THE SONG OF MELANCHOLY. (continued)

I know you, ye higher men, I know him,--I know also this fiend whom I love in spite of me, this Zarathustra: he himself often seemeth to me like the beautiful mask of a saint,

--Like a new strange mummery in which mine evil spirit, the melancholy devil, delighteth:--I love Zarathustra, so doth it often seem to me, for the sake of mine evil spirit.--

But already doth IT attack me and constrain me, this spirit of melancholy, this evening-twilight devil: and verily, ye higher men, it hath a longing--

--Open your eyes!--it hath a longing to come NAKED, whether male or female, I do not yet know: but it cometh, it constraineth me, alas! open your wits!

The day dieth out, unto all things cometh now the evening, also unto the best things; hear now, and see, ye higher men, what devil--man or woman-- this spirit of evening-melancholy is!"

Thus spake the old magician, looked cunningly about him, and then seized his harp.

3.

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, burning heart,
How once thou thirstedest
For heaven's kindly teardrops and dew's down-droppings,
All singed and weary thirstedest,
What time on yellow grass-pathways
Wicked, occidental sunny glances
Through sombre trees about thee sported,
Blindingly sunny glow-glances, gladly-hurting?

"Of TRUTH the wooer? Thou?"--so taunted they-
"Nay! Merely poet!
A brute insidious, plundering, grovelling,
That aye must lie,
That wittingly, wilfully, aye must lie:
For booty lusting,
Motley masked,
Self-hidden, shrouded,
Himself his booty-
HE--of truth the wooer?
Nay! Mere fool! Mere poet!
Just motley speaking,
From mask of fool confusedly shouting,
Circumambling on fabricated word-bridges,
On motley rainbow-arches,
'Twixt the spurious heavenly,
And spurious earthly,
Round us roving, round us soaring,--
MERE FOOL! MERE POET!