object:2.11 - THE TOMB SONG
book class:Thus Spoke Zarathustra
author class:Friedrich Nietzsche
subject class:Philosophy
subject class:Poetry
class:chapter
THE TOMB
SONG
"There is the isle of tombs, the silent isle; there too
are the tombs of my youth. There I wish to carry an
evergreen wreath of life." Resolving this in my heart, I
crossed the sea.
0 you visions and apparitions of my youth! 0 all you
glances of love, you divine moments How quickly
you died. Today I recall you like dead friends. From
you, my dearest friends among the dead, a sweet scent
comes to me, loosening heart and tears. Verily, it perturbs and loosens the heart of the lonely seafarer. I am
still the richest and most enviable-I, the loneliest! For
once I possessed you, and you still possess me: say, to
whom fell, as to me, such rose apples from the bough?
I am still the heir of your love and its soil, flowering
in remembrance of you with motley wild virtues, 0
you most loved ones.
Alas, we were fashioned to remain close to each
other, you fair and strange wonders; and you came to
me and my craving, not like shy birds, but like trusting
ones to him who trusts. Indeed, fashioned for loyalty,
like myself, and for tender eternities-I must now call
you after your disloyalty, you divine glances and moments: I have not yet learned any other name. Verily,
you have died too soon for me, you fugitives. Yet you
did not flee from me, nor did I flee from you: we are
equally innocent in our disloyalty.
ill
To kill me, they strangled you, songbirds of my
hopes. Indeed, after you, my dearest friends, malice
has ever shot its arrows-to hit my heart. And it hitl
For you have always been closest to my heart, my possession and what possessed me: that is why you had
to die young and all-too-early. The arrow was shot at
my most vulnerable possession-at you, whose skin is
like down and even more like a smile that dies of a
glance.
But this word I want to speak to my enemies: What
is all murder of human beings compared to that which
you have done to me? What you have done to me is
more evil than any murder of human beings; you have
taken from me the irretrievable: thus I speak to you,
my enemies. For you murdered the visions and dearest
wonders of my youth. My playmates you took from me,
the blessed spirits. In their memory I lay down this
wreath and this curse. This curse against you, my enemiesl For you have cut short my eternal bliss, as a tone
that breaks off in a cold night. Scarcely as the gleam of
divine eyes it came to me-passing swiftly as a glance.
Thus spoke my purity once in a fair hour: "All beings
shall be divine to me." Then you assaulted me with
filthy ghosts; alas, where has this fair hour fled now?
"All days shall be holy to me"-thus said the wisdom
of my youth once; verily, it was the saying of a gay wisdom. But then you, my enemies, stole my nights from
me and sold them into sleepless agony; alas, where has
this gay wisdom fled now?
Once I craved happy omens from the birds; then you
led a monster of an owl across my way, a revolting one.
Alas, where did my tender desire flee then?
All nausea I once vowed to renounce: then you
changed those near and nearest me into putrid boils.
Alas, where did my noblest vow flee then?
I once walked as a blind man along blessed paths;
then you threw filth in the path of the blind man, and
now his old footpath nauseates him.
And when I did what was hardest for me and celebrated the triumph of my overcomings, then you made
those who loved me scream that I was hurting them
most.
Verily, this was always your practice: you galled my
best honey and the industry of my best bees. To my
charity you always dispatched the most impudent beggars; around my pity you always pushed the incurably
shameless. Thus you wounded my virtue in its faith.
And whenever I laid down for a sacrifice even what
was holiest to me, your "piety" immediately placed its
fatter gifts alongside, and in the fumes of your fat what
was holiest to me suffocated.
And once I wanted to dance as I had never danced
before: over all the heavens I wanted to dance. Then
you persuaded my dearest singer. And he struck up a
horrible dismal tune; alas, he tooted in my ears like a
gloomy horn. Murderous singer, tool of malice, most
innocent yourself! I stood ready for the best dance,
when you murdered my ecstasy with your sounds. Only
in the dance do I know how to tell the parable of the
highest things: and now my highest parable remained
unspoken in my limbs. My highest hope remained unspoken and unredeemed. And all the visions and consolations of my youth died How did I endure it? How
did I get over and overcome such wounds? How did
my soul rise again out of such tombs?
Indeed, in me there is something invulnerable and
unburiable, something that explodes rock: that is my
will. Silent and unchanged it strides through the years.
It would walk its way on my feet, my old will, and its
mind is hard of heart and invulnerable.
113
Invulnerable am I only in the heel. You are still alive
and your old self, most patient one. You have still
broken out of every tomb. What in my youth was unredeemed lives on in you; and as life and youth you
sit there, full of hope, on yellow ruins of tombs.
Indeed, for me, you are still the shatterer of all
tombs. Hail to thee, my will And only where there are
tombs are there resurrection.
Thus sang Zarathustra.
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