the wanderer

from thus spoke zarathustra by friedrich nietzsche

i am a wanderer and a mountain-climber (he said to his heart), i do not like the plains and it seems i cannot sit still for long.
and whatever may yet come to me as fate and experience - a wandering and a mountain-climbing will be in it: in the final analysis one experiences only oneself.
the time has passed when accidents could befall me; and what could still come to me that was not already my own?
it is returning, at last it is coming home to me - my own Self and those parts of it that have long been abroad and scattered among all things and accidents.
and now i know one thing more: i stand now before my last summit and before the deed that has been deferred the longest.  alas, i have to climb my most difficult path!  alas, i have started upon my loneliest wandering!
but a man of my sort does not avoid such an hour: the hour that says to him: 'only now do you tread your path of greatness!  summit and abyss - they are now united in one!
'you are treading your path of greatness: now what was formerly your ultimate danger has become your ultimate refuge!
'you are treading your path of greatness: now it must call up all your courage that there is no longer a path behind you!
'you are treading your path of greatness: no one shall steal after you here!  your foot itself has extinguished the path behind you, and above that path stands written: Impossibility.
'and when all footholds disappear, you must know how to climb upon your own head: how could you climb upward otherwise?
'upon your own head and beyond your own heart!  now the gentlest part of you must become the hardest.
'he who has always been very indulgent with himself sickens at last through his own indulgence.  all praise to what makes hard!  i do not praise the land where butter and honey - flow!
'in order to see much one must learn to look away from oneself - every mountain-climber needs this hardness.
'but he who, seeking enlightenment, is over-eager with his eyes, how could he see more of a thing than its foreground!
'you, however, o zarathustra, have wanted to behold the ground of things and their background: so you must climb above yourself - up and beyond, until you have even your stars under you!'
yes!  to look down upon myself and even upon my stars: that alone would i call my summit, that has remained for me as my ultimate summit!

thus spoke zarathustra to himself as he climbed, consoling his heart with hard sayings: for his heart was wounded as never before.  and when he arrived at the top of the mountain ridge, behold, there lay the other sea spread out before him: and he stood and was long silent.  but the night at this height was cold and clear and bright with stars.

i know my fate (he said at last with sadness).  well then!  i am ready.  my last solitude has just begun.
ah, this sorrowful, black sea beneath me!  ah, this brooding reluctance!  ah, destiny and sea!  now i have to go down to you!
i stand before my highest mountain and my longest wandering: therefore i must first descend deeper than i have ever descended,
-deeper into pain than i have ever descended, down to its blackest stream!  so my destiny will have it.  well then!  i am ready.
whence arise the highest mountains?  i once asked.  then i learned that they arise from the sea.
this testimony is written into their stones and into the sides of their summits.  the highest must arise to its height from the deepest.
thus spoke zarathustra on the mountain summit, where it was cold; when he drew near to the sea, however, and at length stood alone beneath the cliffs, he had gown weary on the way and more yearning that he was before.
everything is still asleep (he said); even the sea is asleep.  its eye looks at me drowsily and strangely.
but it breathes warmly; i feel it.  and i feel, too, that it is dreaming.  dreaming, it writhes upon a hard pillow.
listen!  listen!  how it groans with wicked memories!  or with wicked expectations?
ah, i am sad with you, dark monster, and angry even with myself for your sake.
alas, that my hand has insufficient strength!  in truth, i should dearly like to release you from your bad dreams!

and as zarathustra spoke, he laughed at himself with melancholy and bitterness.  what, zarathustra!  he said, do you want to sing consolation even to the sea?
ah, you fond fool, zarathustra, too eager to trust!  but that is what you have always been: you have always approached trustfully all that is fearful.
you have always wanted to caress every monster.  a touch of warm breath, a little soft fur on its paw - and at once you have been ready to love and entice it.
love is the danger for the most solitary man, love of any thing if only it is alive!  indeed my foolishness and modesty in love is laughable!

thus spoke zarathustra and laughed again: but then he thought of the friends he had left, and he was angry with himself because of his thoughts, as if he had injured his friends with them.  and forthwith the laughing man wept - for anger and longing did zarathustra weep bitterly.