object:3.06 - UPON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
book class:Thus Spoke Zarathustra
author class:Friedrich Nietzsche
subject class:Philosophy
subject class:Poetry
class:chapter
UPON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
Winter, a wicked guest, is sitting at home with me;
my hands are blue from the handshake of his friendship. I honor this wicked guest, but I like to let him sit
alone. I like to run away from him; and if one runs
well, one escapes him. With warm feet and warm
thoughts I run where the wind stands still, to the
sunny nook of my mount of olives. There I laugh at my
severe guest and am still well disposed toward him for
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catching the flies at home and for silencing much small
noise. For he does not suffer it when a mosquito would
sing, or even two; he even makes the lane lonely till the
moonlight in it is afraid at night.
He is a hard guest, but I honor him, and I do not
pray, like the pampered, to the potbellied fire idol. Even
a little chattering of the teeth rather than adoring idols
-thus my nature dictates. And I have a special grudge
against all fire idols that are in heat, steaming and
musty.
Whomever I love, I love better in winter than in
summer; I mock my enemies better and more heartily
since winter dwells in my home. Heartily, in truth, even
when I crawl into bed; even then my hidden happiness
still laughs and is full of pranks; even the dream that
lies to me still laughs. I-a crawler? Never in my life
have I crawled before the mighty; and if ever I lied, I
lied out of love. Therefore I am glad in the wintry bed
too. A simple bed warms me more than a rich one, for
I am jealous of my poverty, and in winter it is most
faithful to me.
I begin every day with a bit of malice: I mock the
winter with a cold bath; that makes my severe house
guest grumble. Besides, I like to tickle him with a little
wax candle to make him let the sky come out of the
ashen gray twilight at last. For I am especially malicious
in the morning, in that early hour when the pail rattles
at the well and the horses whinny warmly through gray
lanes. Then I wait impatiently for the bright sky to rise
before me at last, the snow-bearded winter sky, the old
man with his white hair-the winter sky, so taciturn
that it often tacitly hides even its sun.
Was it from him that I learned the long bright
silence? Or did he learn it from me? Or did each of us
invent it independently? The origin of all good things
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is thousandfold; all good prankish things leap into
existence from sheer joy: how could one expect them to
do that only once? Long silence too is a good prankish
thing-and to look out of a bright round-eyed face,
like the winter sky, and tacitly to hide one's sun and
one's indomitable solar will: verily, this art and this
winter prank I have learned well.
It is my favorite malice and art that my silence has
learned not to betray itself through silence. Rattling
with discourse and dice, I outwit those who wait
solemnly: my will and purpose shall elude all these
severe inspectors. That no one may discern my ground
and ultimate will, for that I have invented my long
bright silence. Many I found who were clever: they
veiled their faces and muddied their waters that nobody
might see through them, deep down. But precisely to
them came the cleverer mistrusters and nutcrackers:
precisely their most hidden fish were fished out. It is the
bright, the bold, the transparent who are cleverest
among those who are silent: their ground is down so
deep that even the brightest water does not betray it.
You snow-bearded silent winter sky, you round-eyed
white-head above mel 0 you heavenly parable of my
soul and its pranks!
And must I not conceal myself like one who has
swallowed gold, lest they slit open my soul? Must I not
walk on stilts that they overlook my long legs-all these
grudge-joys and drudge-boys who surround me? These
smoky, room-temperature, used-up, wilted, fretful souls
-how could their grudge endure my happiness? Hence
I show them only the ice and the winter of my peaksand not that my mountain still winds all the belts of
the sun round itself. They hear only my winter winds
whistling-and not that I also cross warm seas, like
longing, heavy, hot south winds. They still have pity on
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my accidents; but my word says, "Let accidents come
to me, they are innocent as little children.'
How could they endure my happiness if I did not
wrap my happiness in accidents and winter distress and
polar-bear caps and covers of snowy heavens-if I myself did not have mercy on their pity, which is the pity
of grudge-joys and drudge-boys, if I myself did not
sigh before them and chatter with cold and patiently
suffer them to wrap me in their pity. This is the wise
frolicsomeness and friendliness of my soul, that it does
not conceal its winter and its icy winds; nor does it
conceal its chilblains.
Loneliness can be the escape of the sick; loneliness
can also be escape from the sick.
Let them hear me chatter and sigh with the winter
cold, all these poor jealous jokers around me! With such
sighing and chattering I still escape their heated rooms.
Let them suffer and sigh over my chilblains. "The ice
of knowledge will yet freeze him to death!" they moan.
Meanwhile I run crisscross on my mount of olives
with warm feet; in the sunny nook of my mount of
olives I sing and I mock all pity.
Thus sang Zarathustra.
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