On Poets

“Since I have known the body better—Zarathustra said to one of his disciples—the spirit is to me only spirit, so to speak; and all that is ‘imperishable’—that too is only a parable.”

“I have heard you say so once before,” the disciple answered; “and that time you added: ‘But the poets lie too much.’ Why did you say that the poets lie too much?”

“Why?” said Zarathustra. “You ask why? I do not belong to those who may be asked about their why.

“Is my experience, then, from yesterday? It is long ago that I experienced the reasons for my opinions.

“Would I not have to be a barrel of memory if I wanted to have my reasons with me as well?

“It is too much for me already to keep my opinions themselves; and many a bird flies away.

“And now and then I also find an animal that has flown into my dovecote, one that is strange to me, and that trembles when I lay my hand on it.

“But what did Zarathustra once say to you? That the poets lie too much?—But Zarathustra too is a poet.

“Do you now believe that he spoke the truth here? Why do you believe that?”

The disciple answered: “I believe in Zarathustra.” But Zarathustra shook his head and smiled.

Faith does not bring me bliss, he said, least of all faith in me.

But suppose someone said in all seriousness that the poets lie too much: he is right—we lie too much.

We also know too little and are bad learners: so we simply have to lie.

And who among us poets has not adulterated his wine? Many a poisonous hodgepodge has been brewed in our cellars, many an indescribable thing was done there.

And because we know little, we take heartfelt pleasure in the poor in spirit, especially when they are young little women!

And we are greedy even for the things the little old women tell one another in the evenings. That is what we ourselves call the Eternal-Feminine in us.

And as if there were a special secret access to knowledge that is buried for those who learn something: so we believe in the people and their “wisdom.”

But this all poets believe: that whoever pricks up his ears while lying in the grass or on lonely slopes learns something of the things that are between heaven and earth.

And when tender stirrings come to them, the poets always think that nature herself is in love with them:

And that she creeps to their ear to whisper secret things into it and amorous flatteries: of this they boast and puff themselves up before all mortals!

Ah, there are so many things between heaven and earth that only the poets have dreamed of!

And especially above the heavens: for all gods are poets’ parable, poets’ sleight of hand!

Truly, we are always drawn upward—that is, to the kingdom of the clouds: on these we set our motley bladders and then call them gods and Übermenschen:—

For they are just light enough for these chairs!—all these gods and Übermenschen.

Ah, how weary I am of all the inadequate that is supposed to be an event at all costs! Ah, how weary I am of the poets!

When Zarathustra spoke thus, his disciple was angry with him, but he kept silent. And Zarathustra too kept silent; and his eye had turned inward, as if it were gazing into vast distances. At last he sighed and drew breath.

I am of today and of the past, he said then; but there is something in me that is of tomorrow and the day after and of time to come.

I grew weary of the poets, the old and the new: superficial they all are to me, and shallow seas.

They did not think enough into the depth: that is why their feeling did not sink to the bottom.

Some lust and some boredom: that has been their best reflection so far.

Ghostly breathing and flitting is all their harp-tinkling to me; what have they known so far of the ardor of tones!—

Nor are they clean enough for me: they all muddy their waters to make them seem deep.

And they like to pass themselves off as reconcilers by it: but to me they remain go-betweens and mixers and half-and-halfs and unclean ones!—

Ah, I cast my net into their seas, it is true, and wanted to catch good fish; but always I pulled up the head of some old god.

Thus the sea gave the hungry man a stone. And they themselves may well have come from the sea.

Certainly, one finds pearls in them: all the more do they themselves resemble hard shellfish. And instead of a soul I often found salted slime in them.

They learned from the sea its vanity too: is not the sea the peacock of peacocks?

Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes it spreads out its tail, never does it tire of its lace fan of silver and silk.

Defiantly the buffalo looks on, close to the sand in its soul, closer still to the thicket, but closest of all to the swamp.

What are beauty and sea and peacock finery to it! This parable I tell the poets.

Truly, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks and a sea of vanity!

The poet’s spirit wants spectators: even if they should be buffaloes!—

But I grew weary of this spirit: and I see the time coming when it will grow weary of itself.

Already I have seen the poets transformed, and their gaze turned against themselves.

Penitents of the spirit I saw coming: they grew out of them.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.