On the Tree on the Mountainside

Zarathustra’s eye had seen that a youth was avoiding him. And as he was walking alone one evening through the mountains that surround the town called “the Motley Cow”: behold, as he walked he found this youth sitting leaning against a tree and gazing with weary eyes into the valley. Zarathustra took hold of the tree beside which the youth sat, and spoke thus:

If I wanted to shake this tree here with my hands, I would not be able to.

But the wind, which we do not see, torments it and bends it wherever it wants. We are bent and tormented worst by invisible hands.

At this the youth rose in dismay and said: “I hear Zarathustra, and I was just thinking of him.” Zarathustra replied:

“Why are you frightened by that?—But it is with the human being as with the tree.

The more he wants to rise into the height and the light, the more strongly his roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep,—into evil.”

“Yes, into evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that you discovered my soul?”

Zarathustra smiled and said: “Many a soul will never be discovered, unless one first invents it.” “Yes, into evil!” cried the youth once more.

“You spoke the truth, Zarathustra. I no longer trust myself since I have wanted to go up into the height, and no one trusts me anymore,—how does this happen?

I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. I often skip steps when I climb,—no step forgives me that.

When I am up there, I always find myself alone. No one speaks to me; the frost of solitude makes me tremble. What do I want in the height, then?

My contempt and my longing grow together; the higher I climb, the more I despise the one who climbs. What does he want in the height, then?

How ashamed I am of my climbing and stumbling! How I mock my violent panting! How I hate the one who flies! How weary I am in the height!”

Here the youth fell silent. And Zarathustra regarded the tree beside which they stood, and spoke thus:

This tree stands alone here on the mountainside; it has grown high above human and animal.

And if it wanted to speak, it would have no one who understood it: so high has it grown.

Now it waits and waits,—what is it waiting for, then? It dwells too near the seat of the clouds: perhaps it is waiting for the first lightning?

When Zarathustra had said this, the youth cried out with violent gestures: “Yes, Zarathustra, you speak the truth. I longed for my going under when I wanted to go up into the height, and you are the lightning I was waiting for! Look, what am I anymore, since you appeared among us? It is envy of you that has destroyed me!”—So spoke the youth, and wept bitterly. But Zarathustra put his arm around him and led him away with him.

And when they had walked together for a while, Zarathustra began to speak thus:

It tears my heart. Better than your words say it, your eye tells me all your danger.

You are not yet free; you are still seeking freedom. Your seeking has left you bleary with sleeplessness and overalert.

You want to go into the free height; your soul thirsts for stars. But your bad drives too thirst for freedom.

Your wild dogs want freedom; they bark with joy in their cellar when your spirit strives to open all prisons.

To me you are still a prisoner who dreams up freedom for himself: ah, the soul of such prisoners grows clever, but also cunning and bad.

The one who has freed his spirit must still purify himself. Much prison and mold still remains in him: his eye must still become pure.

Yes, I know your danger. But by my love and hope I implore you: do not throw away your love and hope!

You still feel noble, and the others too still feel that you are noble, those who bear you a grudge and send you evil looks. Know that a noble man stands in everyone’s way.

A noble man stands in the way of the good too: and even when they call him a good man, they mean by it to get him out of the way.

The noble man wants to create something new and a new virtue. The good man wants the old, and wants the old to be preserved.

But that is not the danger for the noble man, that he might become a good man, but that he might become an insolent one, a scoffer, a destroyer.

Ah, I have known noble men who lost their highest hope. And then they slandered all high hopes.

Then they lived insolently in brief pleasures, and they scarcely cast any goals beyond the day.

“Spirit too is lust”—so they said. Then the wings of their spirit broke: now it crawls about and soils what it gnaws.

Once they thought to become heroes: libertines they are now. The hero is a grief and a horror to them.

But by my love and hope I implore you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Keep holy your highest hope!—

Thus spoke Zarathustra.