The Dance Song

One evening Zarathustra was walking through the forest with his disciples; and as he was looking for a well, behold, he came upon a green meadow, quietly surrounded by trees and bushes: on it girls were dancing with one another. As soon as the girls recognized Zarathustra, they stopped dancing; but Zarathustra stepped up to them with a friendly gesture and spoke these words:

“Do not stop dancing, you lovely girls! No spoilsport has come to you with an evil eye, no enemy of girls.

“God’s advocate am I before the devil: but he is the Spirit of Gravity. How should I, you light ones, be an enemy of divine dances? Or of girls’ feet with pretty ankles?

“I am a forest, to be sure, and a night of dark trees: but whoever is not afraid of my darkness will find rose slopes too beneath my cypresses.

“And he will likely find the little god too, the one girls love best: beside the well he lies, quietly, with his eyes closed.

“Truly, in broad daylight he fell asleep, the idler! Did he perhaps chase after butterflies too much?

“Do not be angry with me, you beautiful dancers, if I chastise the little god a little! He will cry out, I expect, and weep—but he is laughable even in his weeping!

“And with tears in his eyes he shall ask you for a dance; and I myself will sing a song for his dance:

“A dance song and mocking song on the Spirit of Gravity, my supremely high, most mighty devil, of whom they say that he is ‘the lord of the world.’”—

And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the girls danced together.

Into your eye I looked lately, O life! And into the unfathomable I seemed to sink.

But you pulled me out with a golden fishing rod; mockingly you laughed when I called you unfathomable.

“Such is the talk of all fish,” you said; “what they cannot fathom is unfathomable.

“But I am merely changeable and wild and in all things a woman, and not a virtuous one:

“Although to you men I am called ‘the deep’ or ‘the faithful,’ ‘the eternal,’ ‘the mysterious.’—

“But you men always present us with your own virtues—ah, you virtuous ones!”

Thus she laughed, the unbelievable one; but I never believe her and her laughter when she speaks ill of herself.

And when I talked with my wild wisdom in private, she said to me angrily: “You will, you desire, you love: that alone is why you praise life!”

I almost answered her wickedly then and told the angry one the truth; and there is no more wicked answer than to “tell the truth” to one’s wisdom.

For this is how things stand among us three. From the ground up I love only life—and, truly, most of all when I hate it!

But that I am fond of wisdom, and often too fond: that is because she reminds me so very much of life!

She has life’s eye, her laughter, and even her little golden fishing rod: how can I help it that the two look so alike?

And when life once asked me: Who is she, then, this wisdom?—I said eagerly: “Ah yes! Wisdom!

“One thirsts for her and is never sated, one looks through veils, one snatches through nets.

“Is she beautiful? What do I know! But even the oldest carp are still baited with her.

“Changeable she is, and defiant; often I have seen her bite her lip and comb against the grain of her hair.

“Perhaps she is wicked and false, and in all things a female; but precisely when she speaks badly of herself does she seduce the most.”

When I said this to life, she laughed maliciously and closed her eyes. “Of whom are you speaking?” she said, “of me, I suppose?

“And if you were right—does one say that to my face like this! But now speak of your wisdom too!”

Ah, and now you opened your eye again, O beloved life! And into the unfathomable I seemed to sink again.—

Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the dance was over and the girls had gone away, he grew sad.

“The sun has long since gone down,” he said at last; “the meadow is damp, a coolness comes from the forests.

“Something unknown is around me and gazes thoughtfully. What! You are still alive, Zarathustra?

“Why? What for? By what? Where to? Where? How? Is it not folly to go on living?—

“Ah, my friends, it is the evening that asks so out of me. Forgive me my sadness!

“Evening has come: forgive me that evening has come!”

Thus spoke Zarathustra.