Thus Spoke Zarathustra

—nd again passed moons and years over Zarathustra’s soul, and he
heeded it not; his hair, however, became white. One day when he sat on
a stone in front of his cave, and gazed calmly into the distance—one
there gazeth out on the sea, and away beyond sinuous abysses,—then went
his animals thoughtfully round about him, and at last set themselves in
front of him.

“O Zarathustra,” said they, “gazest thou out perhaps for thy
happiness?”—“Of what account is my happiness!” answered he, “I have
long ceased to strive any more for happiness, I strive for my work.”—“O
Zarathustra,” said the animals once more, “that sayest thou as one
who hath overmuch of good things. Liest thou not in a sky-blue lake of
happiness?”—“Ye wags,” answered Zarathustra, and smiled, “how well did
ye choose the simile! But ye know also that my happiness is heavy, and
not like a fluid wave of water: it presseth me and will not leave me,
and is like molten pitch.”—

Then went his animals again thoughtfully around him, and placed
themselves once more in front of him. “O Zarathustra,” said they, “it is
consequently FOR THAT REASON that thou thyself always becometh yellower
and darker, although thy hair looketh white and flaxen? Lo, thou sittest
in thy pitch!”—“What do ye say, mine animals?” said Zarathustra,
laughing; “verily I reviled when I spake of pitch. As it happeneth with
me, so is it with all fruits that turn ripe. It is the HONEY in my veins
that maketh my blood thicker, and also my soul stiller.”—“So will it
be, O Zarathustra,” answered his animals, and pressed up to him; “but
wilt thou not to-day ascend a high mountain? The air is pure, and to-day
one seeth more of the world than ever.”—“Yea, mine animals,” answered
he, “ye counsel admirably and according to my heart: I will to-day
ascend a high mountain! But see that honey is there ready to hand,
yellow, white, good, ice-cool, golden-comb-honey. For know that when
aloft I will make the honey sacrifice.”—

When Zarathustra, however, was aloft on the summit, he sent his animals
home that had accompanied him, and found that he was now alone:—then he
laughed from the bottom of his heart, looked around him, and spake thus:

That I spake of sacrifices and honey-sacrifices, it was merely a ruse
in talking and verily, a useful folly! Here aloft can I now speak freer
than in front of mountain-caves and anchorites’ domestic animals.

What to sacrifice! I squander what is given me, a squanderer with a
thousand hands: how could I call that—sacrificing?

And when I desired honey I only desired bait, and sweet mucus and
mucilage, for which even the mouths of growling bears, and strange,
sulky, evil birds, water:

—The best bait, as huntsmen and fishermen require it. For if the world
be as a gloomy forest of animals, and a pleasure-ground for all wild
huntsmen, it seemeth to me rather—and preferably—a fathomless, rich
sea;

—A sea full of many-hued fishes and crabs, for which even the Gods
might long, and might be tempted to become fishers in it, and casters of
nets,—so rich is the world in wonderful things, great and small!

Especially the human world, the human sea:—towards IT do I now throw
out my golden angle-rod and say: Open up, thou human abyss!

Open up, and throw unto me thy fish and shining crabs! With my best bait
shall I allure to myself to-day the strangest human fish!

—My happiness itself do I throw out into all places far and wide ‘twixt
orient, noontide, and occident, to see if many human fish will not learn
to hug and tug at my happiness;—

Until, biting at my sharp hidden hooks, they have to come up unto MY
height, the motleyest abyss-groundlings, to the wickedest of all fishers
of men.

For THIS am I from the heart and from the beginning—drawing,
hither-drawing, upward-drawing, upbringing; a drawer, a trainer, a
training-master, who not in vain counselled himself once on a time:
“Become what thou art!”

Thus may men now come UP to me; for as yet do I await the signs that it
is time for my down-going; as yet do I not myself go down, as I must do,
amongst men.

Therefore do I here wait, crafty and scornful upon high mountains,
no impatient one, no patient one; rather one who hath even unlearnt
patience,—because he no longer “suffereth.”

For my fate giveth me time: it hath forgotten me perhaps? Or doth it sit
behind a big stone and catch flies?

And verily, I am well disposed to mine eternal fate, because it doth not
hound and hurry me, but leaveth me time for merriment and mischief; so
that I have to-day ascended this high mountain to catch fish.

Did ever any one catch fish upon high mountains? And though it be a
folly what I here seek and do, it is better so than that down below I
should become solemn with waiting, and green and yellow—

—A posturing wrath-snorter with waiting, a holy howl-storm from
the mountains, an impatient one that shouteth down into the valleys:
“Hearken, else I will scourge you with the scourge of God!”

Not that I would have a grudge against such wrathful ones on that
account: they are well enough for laughter to me! Impatient must they
now be, those big alarm-drums, which find a voice now or never!

Myself, however, and my fate—we do not talk to the Present, neither
do we talk to the Never: for talking we have patience and time and more
than time. For one day must it yet come, and may not pass by.

What must one day come and may not pass by? Our great Hazar, that is
to say, our great, remote human-kingdom, the Zarathustra-kingdom of a
thousand years—

How remote may such “remoteness” be? What doth it concern me? But on
that account it is none the less sure unto me—, with both feet stand I
secure on this ground;

—On an eternal ground, on hard primary rock, on this highest, hardest,
primary mountain-ridge, unto which all winds come, as unto the
storm-parting, asking Where? and Whence? and Whither?

Here laugh, laugh, my hearty, healthy wickedness! From high mountains
cast down thy glittering scorn-laughter! Allure for me with thy
glittering the finest human fish!

And whatever belongeth unto ME in all seas, my in-and-for-me in all
things—fish THAT out for me, bring THAT up to me: for that do I wait,
the wickedest of all fish-catchers.

Out! out! my fishing-hook! In and down, thou bait of my happiness! Drip
thy sweetest dew, thou honey of my heart! Bite, my fishing-hook, into
the belly of all black affliction!

Look out, look out, mine eye! Oh, how many seas round about me, what
dawning human futures! And above me—what rosy red stillness! What
unclouded silence!