[THIRD PART.]
"Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation, and I look downward because I am exalted
"Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?
"He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities."—ZARATHUSTRA, I., "Reading and Writing."
[The Wanderer.]
Then, when it was about midnight, Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the isle, that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast; because there he meant to embark. For there was a good roadstead there, in which foreign ships also liked to anchor: those ships took many people with them, who wished to cross over from the Happy Isles. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings from youth onwards, and how many mountains and ridges and summits he had already climbed
I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart, I love not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still
And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience—a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself
The time is now past when accidents could befall me; and what COULD now fall to my lot which would not already be mine own!
It returneth only, it cometh home to me at last—mine own Self, and such of it as hath been long abroad, and scattered among things and accidents
And one thing more do I know: I stand now before my last summit, and before that which hath been longest reserved for me. Ah, my hardest path must I ascend! Ah, I have begun my lonesomest wandering!
He, however, who is of my nature doth not avoid such an hour: the hour that saith unto him: Now only dost thou go the way to thy greatness! Summit and abyss—these are now comprised together!
Thou goest the way to thy greatness: now hath it become thy last refuge, what was hitherto thy last danger!
"Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation, and I look downward because I am exalted
"Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?
"He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities."—ZARATHUSTRA, I., "Reading and Writing."
[The Wanderer.]
Then, when it was about midnight, Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the isle, that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast; because there he meant to embark. For there was a good roadstead there, in which foreign ships also liked to anchor: those ships took many people with them, who wished to cross over from the Happy Isles. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings from youth onwards, and how many mountains and ridges and summits he had already climbed
I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart, I love not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still
And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience—a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself
The time is now past when accidents could befall me; and what COULD now fall to my lot which would not already be mine own!
It returneth only, it cometh home to me at last—mine own Self, and such of it as hath been long abroad, and scattered among things and accidents
And one thing more do I know: I stand now before my last summit, and before that which hath been longest reserved for me. Ah, my hardest path must I ascend! Ah, I have begun my lonesomest wandering!
He, however, who is of my nature doth not avoid such an hour: the hour that saith unto him: Now only dost thou go the way to thy greatness! Summit and abyss—these are now comprised together!
Thou goest the way to thy greatness: now hath it become thy last refuge, what was hitherto thy last danger!
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