tszarath

Thus Spake Zarathustra
seem to me; coloured vapours before the eyes of a di- What happened, my brethren? I surpassed myself, the
vinely dissatisfied one.
suffering one; I carried mine own ashes to the mountain;
Good and evil, and joy and woe, and I and thou— a brighter flame I contrived for myself. And lo! Thereupon
coloured vapours did they seem to me before creative the phantom withdrew from me!
eyes. The creator wished to look away from himself,— To me the convalescent would it now be suffering and
thereupon he created the world.
torment to believe in such phantoms: suffering would it
Intoxicating joy is it for the sufferer to look away from now be to me, and humiliation. Thus speak I to
his suffering and forget himself. Intoxicating joy and self- backworldsmen.
forgetting, did the world once seem to me.
Suffering was it, and impotence—that created all
This world, the eternally imperfect, an eternal backworlds; and the short madness of happiness, which
contradiction’s image and imperfect image—an intoxicat- only the greatest sufferer experienceth.
ing joy to its imperfect creator:—thus did the world once Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with
seem to me.
one leap, with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness,
Thus, once on a time, did I also cast my fancy beyond unwilling even to will any longer: that created all Gods
man, like all backworldsmen. Beyond man, forsooth? and backworlds.
Ah, ye brethren, that God whom I created was human Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which de-
work and human madness, like all the Gods!
spaired of the body—it groped with the fingers of the
A man was he, and only a poor fragment of a man and infatuated spirit at the ultimate walls.
ego. Out of mine own ashes and glow it came unto me, Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which de-
that phantom. And verily, it came not unto me from the spaired of the earth—it heard the bowels of existence
beyond!
speaking unto it.
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