The Gay Science

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Original author: Friedrich Nietzsche

Translator: Paul V. Cohn, Thomas Common, Maude Dominica Petre

Year of original or translation: 1882 AD

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EDITORIAL NOTE PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION JEST, RUSE, AND REVENGE: A PRELUDE IN RHYME BOOK FIRST BOOK SECOND BOOK THIRD BOOK FOURTH: SANCTUS JANUARIUS BOOK FIFTH: WE FEARLESS ONES APPENDIX: SONGS OF PRINCE FREE-AS-A-BIRD

"The Joyful Wisdom," written in 1882, just before "Zarathustra," is rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. Here the essentially grave and masculine face of the poet-philosopher is seen to light up and suddenly break into a delightful smile. The warmth and kindness that beam from his features will astonish those hasty psychologists who have never divined that behind the destroyer is the creator, and behind the blasphemer the lover of life. In the retrospective valuation of his work which appears in "Ecce Homo" the author himself observes with truth that the fourth book, "Sanctus Januarius," deserves especial attention: "The whole book is a gift from the Saint, and the introductory verses express my gratitude for the most wonderful month of January that I have ever spent." Book fifth "We Fearless Ones," the Appendix "Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird," and the Preface, were added to the second edition in 1887.

The translation of Nietzsche's poetry has proved[Pg viii] to be a more embarrassing problem than that of his prose. Not only has there been a difficulty in finding adequate translators—a difficulty overcome, it is hoped, by the choice of Miss Petre and Mr Cohn,—but it cannot be denied that even in the original the poems are of unequal merit. By the side of such masterpieces as "To the Mistral" are several verses of comparatively little value. The Editor, however, did not feel justified in making a selection, as it was intended that the edition should be complete. The heading, "Jest, Ruse and Revenge," of the "Prelude in Rhyme" is borrowed from Goethe.

2.

—But let us leave Herr Nietzsche; what does it matter to people that Herr Nietzsche has got well again?... A psychologist knows few questions so attractive as those concerning the relations of health to philosophy, and in the case when he himself falls sick, he carries with him all his scientific curiosity into his sickness. For, granting that one is a person, one has necessarily also the philosophy of one's personality; there is, however, an important distinction here. With the one it is his defects which philosophise, with the other it is his riches and powers. The former requires his philosophy, whether it be as support, sedative, or medicine, as salvation, elevation, or self-alienation; with the latter it is merely a fine luxury, at best the voluptuousness of a triumphant gratitude, which must inscribe itself ultimately in cosmic capitals on the heaven of ideas. In the other more usual case, however, when states of distress occupy themselves with philosophy (as is the case with all sickly thinkers—and perhaps the sickly thinkers preponderate in the history of philosophy), what will happen to the thought itself which is brought under the pressure of sickness? This is the important question for psychologists: and here experiment is possible. We philosophers do just[Pg 4] like a traveller who resolves to awake at a given hour, and then quietly yields himself to sleep: we surrender ourselves temporarily, body and soul, to the sickness, supposing we become ill—we shut, as it were, our eyes on ourselves. And as the traveller knows that something does not sleep, that something counts the hours and will awake him, we also know that the critical moment will find us awake—that then something will spring forward and surprise the spirit in the very act, I mean in weakness, or reversion, or submission, or obduracy, or obscurity, or whatever the morbid conditions are called, which in times of good health have the pride of the spirit opposed to them (for it is as in the old rhyme: "The spirit proud, peacock and horse are the three proudest things of earthly source"). After such self-questioning and self-testing, one learns to look with a sharper eye at all that has hitherto been philosophised; one divines better than before the arbitrary by-ways, side-streets, resting-places, and sunny places of thought, to which suffering thinkers, precisely as sufferers, are led and misled: one knows now in what direction the sickly body and its requirements unconsciously press, push, and allure the spirit—towards the sun, stillness, gentleness, patience, medicine, refreshment in any sense whatever. Every philosophy which puts peace higher than war, every ethic with a negative grasp of the idea of happiness, every metaphysic and physic that knows a finale, an ultimate condition of any kind whatever, every predominating, æsthetic or religious longing for an aside, a beyond, an outside, an above—all these permit one to ask whether[Pg 5] sickness has not been the motive which inspired the philosopher. The unconscious disguising of physiological requirements under the cloak of the objective, the ideal, the purely spiritual, is carried on to an alarming extent,—and I have often enough asked myself, whether on the whole philosophy hitherto has not generally been merely, an interpretation of the body, and a misunderstanding of the body. Behind the loftiest estimates of value by which the history of thought has hitherto been governed, misunderstandings of the bodily constitution, either of individuals, classes, or entire races are concealed. One may always primarily consider these audacious freaks of metaphysic, and especially its answers to the question of the worth of existence, as symptoms of certain bodily constitutions; and if, on the whole, when scientifically determined, not a particle of significance attaches to such affirmations and denials of the world, they nevertheless furnish the historian and psychologist with hints so much the more valuable (as we have said) as symptoms of the bodily constitution, its good or bad condition, its fullness, powerfulness, and sovereignty in history; or else of its obstructions, exhaustions, and impoverishments, its premonition of the end, its will to the end. I still expect that a philosophical physician, in the exceptional sense of the word—one who applies himself to the problem of the collective health of peoples, periods, races, and mankind generally—will some day have the courage to follow out my suspicion to its ultimate conclusions, and to venture on the judgment that in all philosophising it has not hitherto been a question[Pg 6] of "truth" at all, but of something else,—namely, of health, futurity, growth, power, life....

RUTA, near GENOA

>Autumn, 1886.

[1]This means literally to put the numeral X instead of the numeral V (formerly U); hence it means to double a number unfairly, to exaggerate, humbug, cheat.—TR.

[2]An allusion to Schiller's poem: "The Veiled Image of Sais."—TR.

A PRELUDE IN RHYME. [Pg 12] [Pg 13]

Venture, comrades, I implore you, On the fare I set before you, You will like it more to-morrow, Better still the following day: If yet more you're then requiring, Old success I'll find inspiring, And fresh courage thence will borrow

Novel dainties to display.

Weary of Seeking had I grown, So taught myself the way to Find: Back by the storm I once was blown, But follow now, where drives the wind.

Where you're standing, dig, dig out: Down below's the Well: Let them that walk in darkness shout: [Pg 14]"Down below—there's Hell!"

A. Was I ill? and is it ended?

Pray, by what physician tended?

I recall no pain endured!

B. Now I know your trouble's ended: He that can forget, is cured.

Let our virtues be easy and nimble-footed in motion, Like unto Homer's verse ought they to come and to go.

Stay not on level plain, Climb not the mount too high.

But half-way up remain— The world you'll best descry!

Attracted by my style and talk

You'd follow, in my footsteps walk?

Follow yourself unswervingly, [Pg 15]So—careful!—shall you follow me.

My skin bursts, breaks for fresh rebirth, And new desires come thronging: Much I've devoured, yet for more earth

The serpent in me's longing. 'Twixt stone and grass I crawl once more, Hungry, by crooked ways, To eat the food I ate before, Earth-fare all serpents praise!

My luck's good—I'd make yours fairer, (Good luck ever needs a sharer), Will you stop and pluck my roses?

Oft mid rocks and thorns you'll linger, Hide and stoop, suck bleeding finger— Will you stop and pluck my roses?

For my good luck's a trifle vicious, Fond of teasing, tricks malicious— Will you stop and pluck my roses?

Many drops I waste and spill, So my scornful mood you curse: Who to brim his cup doth fill, Many drops must waste and spill— [Pg 16]Yet he thinks the wine no worse.

Harsh and gentle, fine and mean, Quite rare and common, dirty and clean, The fools' and the sages' go-between: All this I will be, this have been, Dove and serpent and swine, I ween!

That eye and sense be not fordone

E'en in the shade pursue the sun!

Smoothest ice, A paradise

To him who is a dancer nice.

A feud that knows not flaw nor break, Rather then patched-up friendship, take.

Rust's needed: keenness will not satisfy!

"He is too young!" the rabble loves to cry.

"How shall I reach the top?" No time [Pg 17]For thus reflecting! Start to climb!

Ask never! Cease that whining, pray!

Take without asking, take alway!

Narrow souls hate I like the devil, Souls wherein grows nor good nor evil.

He shot an empty word

Into the empty blue; But on the way it met

A woman whom it slew.

A twofold pain is easier far to bear

Than one: so now to suffer wilt thou dare?

Brother, to puff thyself up ne'er be quick: For burst thou shalt be by a tiny prick!

"The woman seize, who to thy heart appeals!" [Pg 18]Man's motto: woman seizes not, but steals.

If I explain my wisdom, surely 'Tis but entangled more securely, I can't expound myself aright: But he that's boldly up and doing, His own unaided course pursuing, Upon my image casts more light!

Those old capricious fancies, friend!

You say your palate naught can please, I hear you bluster, spit and wheeze, My love, my patience soon will end!

Pluck up your courage, follow me— Here's a fat toad! Now then, don't blink, Swallow it whole, nor pause to think!

From your dyspepsia you'll be free!

Many men's minds I know full well, Yet what mine own is, cannot tell.

I cannot see—my eye's too near— And falsely to myself appear. 'Twould be to me a benefit

Far from myself if I could sit, [Pg 19]Less distant than my enemy, And yet my nearest friend's too nigh— 'Twixt him and me, just in the middle!

What do I ask for? Guess my riddle.

I must ascend an hundred stairs, I must ascend: the herd declares

I'm cruel: "Are we made of stone?

I must ascend an hundred stairs: All men the part of stair disown.

"No longer path! Abyss and silence chilling!

Thy fault! To leave the path thou wast too willing!

Now comes the test! Keep cool—eyes bright and clear!

Thou'rt lost for sure, if thou permittest—fear.

See the infant, helpless creeping— Swine around it grunt swine-talk— Weeping always, naught but weeping, Will it ever learn to walk?

Never fear! Just wait, I swear it

Soon to dance will be inclined, And this babe, when two legs bear it, [Pg 20]Standing on its head you'll find.

Did I not turn, a rolling cask, Ever about myself, I ask, How could I without burning run

Close on the track of the hot sun?

Too nigh, my friend my joy doth mar, I'd have him high above and far, Or how can he become my star?

Lest we for thy bliss should slay thee, In devil's wiles thou dost array thee, Devil's wit and devil's dress.

But in vain! Thy looks betray thee

And proclaim thy holiness.

A. He stands and listens: whence his pain?

What smote his ears? Some far refrain?

Why is his heart with anguish torn?

B. Like all that fetters once have worn, [Pg 21]He always hears the clinking—chain!

I hate to follow and I hate to lead.

Obedience? no! and ruling? no, indeed!

Wouldst fearful be in others' sight?

Then e'en thyself thou must affright: The people but the Terror's guidance heed.

I hate to guide myself, I hate the fray.

Like the wild beasts I'll wander far afield.

In Error's pleasing toils I'll roam

Awhile, then lure myself back home, Back home, and—to my self-seduction yield.

They write and write (quite maddening me) Their "sapient" twaddle airy, As if 'twere primum scribere, Deinde philosophari.

Yes! I manufacture ice: Ice may help you to digest: If you had much to digest, How you would enjoy my ice!

My wisdom's A and final O [Pg 22]Was then the sound that smote mine ear.

Yet now it rings no longer so, My youth's eternal Ah! and Oh!

Is now the only sound I hear.[2]

In yonder region travelling, take good care!

An hast thou wit, then be thou doubly ware!

They'll smile and lure thee; then thy limbs they'll tear: Fanatics' country this where wits are rare!

God loves us, for he made us, sent us here!— "Man hath made God!" ye subtle ones reply.

His handiwork he must hold dear, And what he made shall he deny?

There sounds the devil's halting hoof, I fear.

In sweat of face, so runs the screed, We e'er must eat our bread, Yet wise physicians if we heed "Eat naught in sweat," 'tis said.

The dog-star's blinking: what's his need?

What tells his blazing sign?

In sweat of face (so runs his screed) [Pg 23]We're meant to drink our wine!

His look betrays no envy: and ye laud him?

He cares not, asks not if your throng applaud him!

He has the eagle's eye for distance far, He sees you not, he sees but star on star!

Brethren, war's the origin

Of happiness on earth: Powder-smoke and battle-din

Witness friendship's birth!

Friendship means three things, you know,— Kinship in luckless plight, Equality before the foe

Freedom—in death's sight!

"Rather on your toes stand high

Than crawl upon all fours, Rather through the keyhole spy

Than through the open doors!"

Renown you're quite resolved to earn?

My thought about it

Is this: you need not fame, must learn [Pg 24]To do without it!

I an inquirer? No, that's not my calling

Only I weigh a lot—I'm such a lump!— And through the waters I keep falling, falling, Till on the ocean's deepest bed I bump.

"To-day is meet for me, I come to-day," Such is the speech of men foredoomed to stay.

"Thou art too soon," they cry, "thou art too late," What care the Immortals what the rabble say?

The weary shun the glaring sun, afraid, And only care for trees to gain the shade.

"He sinks, he falls," your scornful looks portend: The truth is, to your level he'll descend.

His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness, His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.

Around my neck, on chain of hair, [Pg 25]The timepiece hangs—a sign of care.

For me the starry course is o'er, No sun and shadow as before, No cockcrow summons at the door, For nature tells the time no more!

Too many clocks her voice have drowned, And droning law has dulled her sound.

Strange to the crowd, yet useful to the crowd, I still pursue my path, now sun, now cloud, But always pass above the crowd!

She now has wit—how did it come her way?

A man through her his reason lost, they say.

His head, though wise ere to this pastime lent, Straight to the devil—no, to woman went!

"Oh, might all keys be lost! 'Twere better so

And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go!

Who thus reflects ye may as—picklock know.

I write not with the hand alone, My foot would write, my foot that capers, Firm, free and bold, it's marching on [Pg 26]Now through the fields, now through the papers.

53.

"Human, All-too-Human." ...

Shy, gloomy, when your looks are backward thrust, Trusting the future where yourself you trust, Are you an eagle, mid the nobler fowl, Or are you like Minerva's darling owl?

Good teeth and a digestion good

I wish you—these you need, be sure!

And, certes, if my book you've stood, Me with good humour you'll endure.

"To nature true, complete!" so he begins.

Who complete Nature to his canvas wins?

Her tiniest fragment's endless, no constraint

Can know: he paints just what his fancy pins: What does his fancy pin? What he can paint!

Glue, only glue to me dispense, The wood I'll find myself, don't fear!

To give four senseless verses sense— [Pg 27]That's an achievement I revere!

If to choose my niche precise

Freedom I could win from fate, I'd be in midst of Paradise— Or, sooner still—before the gate!

Wide blow your nostrils, and across

The land your nose holds haughty sway: So you, unhorned rhinoceros, Proud mannikin, fall forward aye!

The one trait with the other goes: A straight pride and a crooked nose.

The pen is scratching: hang the pen!

To scratching I'm condemned to sink!

I grasp the inkstand fiercely then

And write in floods of flowing ink.

How broad, how full the stream's career!

What luck my labours doth requite! 'Tis true, the writing's none too clear— What then? Who reads the stuff I write?

This man's climbing up—let us praise him— But that other we love

From aloft doth eternally move, So above even praise let us raise him, [Pg 28]He comes from above!

Your life is half-way o'er; The clock-hand moves; your soul is thrilled with fear, It roamed to distant shore

And sought and found not, yet you—linger here!

Your life is half-way o'er; That hour by hour was pain and error sheer: Why stay? What seek you more?

"That's what I'm seeking—reasons why I'm here!"

Yes, I know where I'm related, Like the flame, unquenched, unsated, I consume myself and glow: All's turned to light I lay my hand on, All to coal that I abandon, Yes, I am a flame, I know!

Foredoomed to spaces vast and far, What matters darkness to the star?

Roll calmly on, let time go by, Let sorrows pass thee—nations die!

Compassion would but dim the light

That distant worlds will gladly sight.

To thee one law—be pure and bright!

[1]Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.

[2]A and O, suggestive of Ah! and Oh! refer of course to Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.—TR.

[3]Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.

[4]Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.

[Pg 37]

[Pg 42]

[1]Allusions to the song of Clara in Goethe's "Egmont."—TR.

[Pg 54]

[Pg 69]

[Pg 71]

[Pg 72]

[Pg 73]

[Pg 86]

[Pg 88]

[1]Schiller's poem, "The Veiled Image of Sais," is again referred to here.—TR.

6l.

In Honour of Friendship.—That the sentiment of friendship was regarded by antiquity as the highest sentiment, higher even than the most vaunted pride of the self-sufficient and wise, yea, as it were its sole and still holier brotherhood, is very well expressed by the story of the Macedonian king who made the present of a talent to a cynical Athenian philosopher from whom he received it back again. "What?" said the king, "has he then no friend?" He therewith meant to say, "I honour this pride of the wise and independent man, but I should have honoured his humanity still higher, if the friend in him had gained the victory over his pride. The philosopher has lowered himself in my estimation, for he showed that he did not know one of the two highest sentiments—and in fact the higher of them!"

[Pg 104]

[Pg 106]

[Pg 127]

[Pg 128]

[Pg 131]

[Pg 145]

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[Pg 167]

[Pg 173]

[Pg 177]

[1]This means that true love does not look for reciprocity.

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SANCTUS JANUARIUS Thou who with cleaving fiery lances

The stream of my soul from its ice dost free, Till with a rush and a roar it advances

To enter with glorious hoping the sea: Brighter to see and purer ever, Free in the bonds of thy sweet constraint,— So it praises thy wondrous endeavour, January, thou beauteous saint!

Genoa, January 1882.

[Pg 212] [Pg 213]

[Pg 218]

[Pg 222]

[Pg 233]

[1]The distinction between ethos and pathos in Aristotle is, broadly, that between internal character and external circumstance.—P. V. C.

[Pg 248]

[Pg 251]

329.

[Pg 254]

Leisure and Idleness.—There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work—the characteristic vice of the new world—already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange lack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually "afraid of letting opportunities slip." "Better do anything whatever, than nothing"—this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is the clumsy perspicuity which is now everywhere demanded in all positions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows, in intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders and princes,—one has no longer either time or energy for ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any esprit in conversation, or for any otium whatever. For life in the hunt for gain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to exhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling: the real virtue nowadays is to do something in a[Pg 255] shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse permitted: in them, however, people are tired, and would not only like "to let themselves go," but to stretch their legs out wide in awkward style. The way people write their letters nowadays is quite in keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true "sign of the times." If there be still enjoyment in society and in art, it is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh, this moderation in "joy" of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh, this increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment! Work is winning over more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment already calls itself "need of recreation," and even begins to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one's health," people say, when they are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could not yield to the desire for the vita contemplativa (that is to say, excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad conscience.—Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was "action" that suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family concealed his work when need compelled him to labour. The slave laboured under the weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible:—the "doing" itself was something contemptible. "Only in otium and bellum is there nobility and honour:" so rang the voice of ancient prejudice!

[Pg 256]

[Pg 257]

FEARLESS ONES "Carcasse, tu trembles? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, tu savais, où je te mène." Turenne.

[Pg 274] [Pg 275]

[1]In German the expression Kopf zu waschen, besides the literal sense, also means "to give a person a sound drubbing."—TR.

[Pg 302]

[Pg 305]

[2]"Germany, Germany, above all": the first line of the German national song.—TR.

[Pg 315]

[Pg 317]

[3]An allusion to the German Proverb, "Handwerk hat einen goldenen Boden."—TR.

[Pg 328]

373.

"Science" as Prejudice.—It follows from the laws of class distinction that the learned, in so far as they belong to the intellectual middle-class, are debarred from getting even a sight of the really great problems and notes of interrogation. Besides, their courage, and similarly their outlook, does not reach so far,—and above all, their need, which makes them investigators, their innate anticipation and desire that things should be constituted in such and such a way, their fears and hopes are too soon quieted and set at rest. For example, that which makes the pedantic Englishman, Herbert Spencer, so enthusiastic in his way, and impels him to draw a line of hope, a horizon of desirability, the final reconciliation of "egoism and altruism" of which he dreams,—that almost causes nausea to people like us:—a humanity with such Spencerian perspectives as ultimate perspectives would seem to us deserving of contempt, of extermination! But the fact that something has to be taken by him as his highest hope, which is regarded, and may well be regarded, by others merely as a distasteful possibility, is a note of interrogation which Spencer could not have foreseen.... It is just the same with the belief with which at present so many materialistic natural-scientists are content, the belief in a world which is supposed to have its[Pg 339] equivalent and measure in human thinking and human valuations, a "world of truth" at which we might be able ultimately to arrive with the help of our insignificant, four-cornered human reason! What? do we actually wish to have existence debased in that fashion to a ready-reckoner exercise and calculation for stay-at-home mathematicians? We should not, above all, seek to divest existence of its ambiguous character: good taste forbids it, gentlemen, the taste of reverence for everything that goes beyond your horizon! That a world-interpretation is alone right by which you maintain your position, by which investigation and work can go on scientifically in your sense (you really mean mechanically?), an interpretation which acknowledges numbering, calculating, weighing, seeing and handling, and nothing more—such an idea is a piece of grossness and naïvety, provided it is not lunacy and idiocy. Would the reverse not be quite probable, that the most superficial and external characters of existence—its most apparent quality, its outside, its embodiment—should let themselves be apprehended first? perhaps alone allow themselves to be apprehended? A "scientific" interpretation of the world as you understand it might consequently still be one of the stupidest, that is to say, the most destitute of significance, of all possible world-interpretations—I say this in confidence to my friends the Mechanicians, who to-day like to hobnob with philosophers, and absolutely believe that mechanics is the teaching of the first and last laws upon which, as upon a ground-floor, all existence must be[Pg 340] built. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world! Supposing we valued the worth of a music with reference to how much it could be counted, calculated, or formulated —how absurd such a "scientific" estimate of music would be! What would one have apprehended, understood, or discerned in it! Nothing, absolutely nothing of what is really "music" in it!...

378.

"And once more Grow Clear."—We, the generous and rich in spirit, who stand at the sides of the streets like open fountains and would hinder no one from drinking from us: we do not know, alas! how to defend ourselves when we should like to do so; we have no means of preventing ourselves being made turbid and dark,—we have no means of preventing the age in which we live casting its "up-to-date rubbish" into us, or of hindering filthy birds throwing their excrement, the boys their trash, and fatigued resting travellers their misery, great and small, into us. But we do as we have always done: we take whatever is cast into us down into our depths—for we are deep, we do not forget—and once more grow clear...

380.

"The Wanderer" Speaks.—In order for once to get a glimpse of our European morality from a distance, in order to compare it with other earlier or future moralities, one must do as the traveller who wants to know the height of the towers of a city: for that purpose he leaves the city. "Thoughts concerning moral prejudices," if they are not to be prejudices concerning prejudices, presuppose a position outside of morality, some[Pg 348] sort of world beyond good and evil, to which one must ascend, climb, or fly—and in the given case at any rate, a position beyond our good and evil, an emancipation from all "Europe," understood as a sum of inviolable valuations which have become part and parcel of our flesh and blood. That one does want to get outside, or aloft, is perhaps a sort of madness, a peculiar, unreasonable "thou must"—for even we thinkers have our idiosyncrasies of "unfree will"—: the question is whether one can really get there. That may depend on manifold conditions: in the main it is a question of how light or how heavy we are, the problem of our "specific gravity." One must be very light in order to impel one's will to knowledge to such a distance, and as it were beyond one's age, in order to create eyes for oneself for the survey of millenniums, and a pure heaven in these eyes besides! One must have freed oneself from many things by which we Europeans of to-day are oppressed, hindered, held down, and made heavy. The man of such a "Beyond," who wants to get even in sight of the highest standards of worth of his age, must first of all "surmount" this age in himself—it is the test of his power—and consequently not only his age, but also his past aversion and opposition to his age, his suffering caused by his age, his unseasonableness, his Romanticism....

[4]Title of the well-known poem of Uhland.—TR.

SONGS OF PRINCE FREE-AS-A-BIRD [Pg 356] [Pg 357]

TO GOETHE.[1]

"The Undecaying" Is but thy label, God the betraying

Is poets' fable.

Our aims all are thwarted

By the World-wheel's blind roll: "Doom," says the downhearted, "Sport," says the fool.

The World-sport, all-ruling, Mingles false with true: The Eternally Fooling

Makes us play, too! [Pg 358]

THE POET'S CALL.

As 'neath a shady tree I sat

After long toil to take my pleasure, I heard a tapping "pit-a-pat" Beat prettily in rhythmic measure.

Tho' first I scowled, my face set hard, The sound at length my sense entrapping

Forced me to speak like any bard, And keep true time unto the tapping.

As I made verses, never stopping, Each syllable the bird went after, Keeping in time with dainty hopping!

I burst into unmeasured laughter!

What, you a poet? You a poet?

Can your brains truly so addled be?

"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

What doth me to these woods entice?

The chance to give some thief a trouncing?

A saw, an image? Ha, in a trice

My rhyme is on it, swiftly pouncing!

All things that creep or crawl the poet

Weaves in his word-loom cunningly.

"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

Like to an arrow, methinks, a verse is, See how it quivers, pricks and smarts

When shot full straight (no tender mercies!) [Pg 359]Into the reptile's nobler parts!

Wretches, you die at the hand of the poet, Or stagger like men that have drunk too free.

"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

So they go hurrying, stanzas malign, Drunken words—what a clattering, banging!— Till the whole company, line on line, All on the rhythmic chain are hanging.

Has he really a cruel heart, your poet?

Are there fiends who rejoice, the slaughter to see "Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

So you jest at me, bird, with your scornful graces?

So sore indeed is the plight of my head?

And my heart, you say, in yet sorrier case is?

Beware! for my wrath is a thing to dread!

Yet e'en in the hour of his wrath the poet

Rhymes you and sings with the selfsame glee.

"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

IN THE SOUTH.[2]

I swing on a bough, and rest

My tired limbs in a nest, In the rocking home of a bird, Wherein I perch as his guest, [Pg 360]In the South!

I gaze on the ocean asleep, On the purple sail of a boat; On the harbour and tower steep, On the rocks that stand out of the deep, In the South!

For I could no longer stay, To crawl in slow German way; So I called to the birds, bade the wind

Lift me up and bear me away

To the South!

No reasons for me, if you please; Their end is too dull and too plain; But a pair of wings and a breeze, With courage and health and ease, And games that chase disease

From the South!

Wise thoughts can move without sound, But I've songs that I can't sing alone; So birdies, pray gather around, And listen to what I have found

In the South! . . . . . . . . .

"You are merry lovers and false and gay, "In frolics and sport you pass the day; "Whilst in the North, I shudder to say, "I worshipped a woman, hideous and gray, "Her name was Truth, so I heard them say, "But I left her there and I flew away "To the South!" [Pg 361]

BEPPA THE PIOUS.

While beauty in my face is, Be piety my care, For God, you know, loves lasses, And, more than all, the fair.

And if yon hapless monkling

Is fain with me to live, Like many another monkling, God surely will forgive.

No grey old priestly devil, But, young, with cheeks aflame— Who e'en when sick with revel, Can jealous be and blame.

To greybeards I'm a stranger, And he, too, hates the old: Of God, the world-arranger, The wisdom here behold!

The Church has ken of living, And tests by heart and face.

To me she'll be forgiving!

Who will not show me grace?

I lisp with pretty halting, I curtsey, bid "good day," And with the fresh defaulting

I wash the old away!

Praise be this man-God's guerdon, Who loves all maidens fair, And his own heart can pardon [Pg 362]The sin he planted there.

While beauty in my face is, With piety I'll stand, When age has killed my graces, Let Satan claim my hand!

THE BOAT OF MYSTERY.

Yester-eve, when all things slept— Scarce a breeze to stir the lane— I a restless vigil kept, Nor from pillows sleep could gain, Nor from poppies nor—most sure

Of opiates—a conscience pure.

Thoughts of rest I 'gan forswear, Rose and walked along the strand, Found, in warm and moonlit air, Man and boat upon the sand, Drowsy both, and drowsily

Did the boat put out to sea.

Passed an hour or two perchance, Or a year? then thought and sense

Vanished in the engulfing trance

Of a vast Indifference.

Fathomless, abysses dread

Opened—then the vision fled.

Morning came: becalmed, the boat

Rested on the purple flood: "What had happened?" every throat

Shrieked the question: "was there— Blood?

Naught had happened! On the swell [Pg 363]We had slumbered, oh, so well!

AN AVOWAL OF LOVE

(during which, however, the poet fell into a pit).

Oh marvel! there he flies

Cleaving the sky with wings unmoved—what force

Impels him, bids him rise, What curb restrains him? Where's his goal, his course?

Like stars and time eterne

He liveth now in heights that life forswore, Nor envy's self doth spurn: A lofty flight were't, e'en to see him soar!

Oh albatross, great bird, Speeding me upward ever through the blue!

I thought of her, was stirred

To tears unending—yea, I love her true!

SONG OF A THEOCRITEAN GOATHERD.

Here I lie, my bowels sore, Hosts of bugs advancing, Yonder lights and romp and roar!

What's that sound? They're dancing!

At this instant, so she prated, Stealthily she'd meet me: Like a faithful dog I've waited, Not a sign to greet me!

She promised, made the cross-sign, too, Could her vows be hollow?

Or runs she after all that woo, [Pg 364]Like the goats I follow?

Whence your silken gown, my maid?

Ah, you'd fain be haughty, Yet perchance you've proved a jade

With some satyr naughty!

Waiting long, the lovelorn wight

Is filled with rage and poison: Even so on sultry night

Toadstools grow in foison.

Pinching sore, in devil's mood, Love doth plague my crupper: Truly I can eat no food: Farewell, onion-supper!

Seaward sinks the moon away, The stars are wan, and flare not: Dawn approaches, gloomy, grey, Let Death come! I care not!

"SOULS THAT LACK DETERMINATION."

Souls that lack determination

Rouse my wrath to white-hot flame!

All their glory's but vexation, All their praise but self-contempt and shame!

Since I baffle their advances, Will not clutch their leading-string, They would wither me with glances

Bitter-sweet, with hopeless envy sting.

Let them with fell curses shiver, Curl their lip the livelong day!

Seek me as they will, forever [Pg 365]Helplessly their eyes shall go astray!

THE FOOL'S DILEMMA.

Ah, what I wrote on board and wall

With foolish heart, in foolish scrawl, I meant but for their decoration!

Yet say you, "Fools' abomination!

Both board and wall require purgation, And let no trace our eyes appal!"

Well, I will help you, as I can, For sponge and broom are my vocation

As critic and as waterman.

But when the finished work I scan, I'm glad to see each learned owl

With "wisdom" board and wall defoul.

RIMUS REMEDIUM

(or a Consolation to Sick Poets).

From thy moist lips, O Time, thou witch, beslavering me, Hour upon hour too slowly drips

In vain—I cry, in frenzy's fit, "A curse upon that yawning pit, A curse upon Eternity!"

The world's of brass, A fiery bullock, deaf to wail: Pain's dagger pierces my cuirass, Wingéd, and writes upon my bone: "Bowels and heart the world hath none, [Pg 366]Why scourge her sins with anger's flail?"

Pour poppies now, Pour venom, Fever, on my brain!

Too long you test my hand and brow: What ask you? "What—reward is paid?

A malediction on you, jade, And your disdain!

No, I retract, 'Tis cold—I hear the rain importune— Fever, I'll soften, show my tact: Here's gold—a coin—see it gleam!

Shall I with blessings on you beam, Call you "good fortune"?

The door opes wide, And raindrops on my bed are scattered, The light's blown out—woes multiplied!

He that hath not an hundred rhymes, I'll wager, in these dolorous times

We'd see him shattered!

MY BLISS.

Once more, St Mark, thy pigeons meet my gaze, The Square lies still, in slumbering morning mood: In soft, cool air I fashion idle lays, Speeding them skyward like a pigeon's brood: And then recall my minions

To tie fresh rhymes upon their willing pinions.

My bliss! My bliss!

Calm heavenly roof of azure silkiness, Guarding with shimmering haze yon house divine! [Pg 367]Thee, house, I love, fear—envy, I'll confess, And gladly would suck out that soul of thine!

"Should I give back the prize?

Ask not, great pasture-ground for human eyes!

My bliss! My bliss!

Stern belfry, rising as with lion's leap

Sheer from the soil in easy victory, That fill'st the Square with peal resounding, deep

Wert thou in French that Square's "accent aigu"?

Were I for ages set

In earth like thee, I know what silk-meshed net—— My bliss! My bliss!

Hence, music! First let darker shadows come, And grow, and merge into brown, mellow night!

Tis early for your pealing, ere the dome

Sparkle in roseate glory, gold-bedight

While yet 'tis day, there's time

For strolling, lonely muttering, forging rhyme— My bliss! My bliss!

COLUMBUS REDIVIVUS.

Thither I'll travel, that's my notion, I'll trust myself, my grip, Where opens wide and blue the ocean

I'll ply my Genoa ship.

New things on new the world unfolds me, Time, space with noonday die: Alone thy monstrous eye beholds me, [Pg 368]Awful Infinity!

SILS-MARIA.

Here sat I waiting, waiting, but for naught!

Beyond all good and evil—now by light wrought

To joy, now by dark shadows—all was leisure, All lake, all noon, all time sans aim, sans measure.

Then one, dear friend, was swiftly changed to twain, And Zarathustra left my teeming brain....

A DANCING SONG TO THE MISTRAL WIND.[3]

Wildly rushing, clouds outleaping, Care-destroying, Heaven sweeping, Mistral wind, thou art my friend!

Surely 'twas one womb did bear us, Surely 'twas one fate did pair us, Fellows for a common end.

From the crags I gaily greet you, Running fast I come to meet you, Dancing while you pipe and sing.

How you bound across the ocean, Unimpeded, free in motion, [Pg 369]Swifter than with boat or wing!

Through my dreams your whistle sounded, Down the rocky stairs I bounded

To the golden ocean wall; Saw you hasten, swift and glorious, Like a river, strong, victorious, Tumbling in a waterfall.

Saw you rushing over Heaven, With your steeds so wildly driven, Saw the car in which you flew; Saw the lash that wheeled and quivered, While the hand that held it shivered, Urging on the steeds anew.

Saw you from your chariot swinging, So that swifter downward springing

Like an arrow you might go

Straight into the deep abysses, As a sunbeam falls and kisses

Roses in the morning glow.

Dance, oh! dance on all the edges, Wave-crests, cliffs and mountain ledges, Ever finding dances new!

Let our knowledge be our gladness, Let our art be sport and madness, All that's joyful shall be true!

Let us snatch from every bower, As we pass, the fairest flower, With some leaves to make a crown; Then, like minstrels gaily dancing, Saint and witch together prancing, [Pg 370]Let us foot it up and down.

Those who come must move as; quickly

As the wind—we'll have no sickly, Crippled, withered, in our crew.; Off with hypocrites and preachers, Proper folk and prosy teachers, Sweep them from our heaven blue.

Sweep away all sad grimaces, Whirl the dust into the faces

Of the dismal sick and cold!

Hunt them from our breezy places, Not for them the wind that braces, But for men of visage bold.

Off with those who spoil earth's gladness, Blow away all clouds of sadness, Till our heaven clear we see; Let me hold thy hand, best fellow, Till my joy like tempest bellow!

Freest thou of spirits free!

When thou partest, take a token

Of the joy thou hast awoken, Take our wreath and fling it far; Toss it up and catch it never, Whirl it on before thee ever, Till it reach the farthest star.

[1]This poem is a parody of the "Chorus Mysticus" which concludes the second part of Goethe's "Faust." Bayard Taylor's translation of the passage in "Faust" runs as follows:—

"All things transitory

But as symbols are sent, Earth's insufficiency

Here grows to Event: The Indescribable

Here it is done: The Woman-Soul leadeth us

Upward and on!"

[2]Translated by Miss M. D. Petre. Inserted by permission of the editor of the Nation, in which it appeared on April 17, 1909.

[3]Translated by Miss M. D. Petre. Inserted by permission of the editor of the Nation, in which it appeared on May 15, 1909.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL WISDOM ("LA GAYA SCIENZA") *