Ecce Homo: Complete Works, Volume Seventeen

Nietzsche · en
The tongues that prate of virtue as reward
    Earn fame. For virtue is fame's clever bawd.
        *     *     *     *
    Amongst these virtuous, I prefer to be
    One guilty of all vile and horrid sin!
    And when I see fame's importunity
    So advertise her shameless harlotry,
    Ambition turns to gall. Amidst such kin
    One place alone, the lowest, would I win.
        *     *     *     *
    This fame, which all the wide world loves,
    I touch with gloves,
    And scorning beat
    Beneath my feet.


    3

    Hush! I see vastness!--and of vasty things
    Shall man be dumb, unless he can enshrine
    Them with his words? Then take the might which brings
    The heart upon thy tongue, charmed wisdom mine!
        *     *     *     *
    I look above, there rolls the star-strown sea.
    O night, mute silence, voiceless cry of stars!
    And lo! A sign! The heaven its verge unbars--
    A shining constellation falls towards me.


    4

    O loftiest, star-clustered crown of Being!
    O carved tablets of Eternity!
    And dost thou truly bend thy way to me?
    Thy loveliness, to all--obscurity,
    What? Fear'st not to unveil before _my_ seeing?
        *     *     *     *
    O shield of Destiny!
    O carven tablets of Eternity!
    Yea, verily, thou knowest--what mankind doth hate,
    What I alone do love: thou art inviolate
    To strokes of change and time, of fates the fate!
    'Tis only thou, O dire Necessity,
    Canst kindle everlasting love in me!
        *     *     *     *
    O loftiest crown of Life! O shield of Fate!
    That no desire can reach to invocate,
    That ne'er defiled or sullied is by Nay,
    Eternal Yea of life, for e'er am I thy Yea:
    For I love thee, Eternity!


[Footnote 1: Translated by Dr. G. T. Wrench.]

[Footnote 2: Translated by Dr. G. T. Wrench.]




FRAGMENTS OF DIONYSUS-DITHYRAMBS

(1882-88)


SPEECHES, PARABLES, AND SIMILES


    3

    My home's in the highlands,
    For the highlands I yearn not,
    I raise not mine eyes aloft:
    I am one that looks downward,
    One that must bless,--All
    blessers look downward.


    11

    Thus I began,
    I unlearned all self-pity!


    13

    Not in shattering idols,
    But in shattering the idol-worshipper in thee,
    Consisted thy valour.


    14

    See, there stand
    Those heavy cats of granite,
    Those old, old Values.
    Woe is me! How overthrow them?
       *   *   *   *
    Scratching cats,
    With paws that are fettered,
    There they sit
    And their glance is poison.


    17

    A lightning-flash became my wisdom:
    With sword of adamant it clove me every
        darkness!


    19

    A thought that still
    Flows hot, like lava:
    But all streams of lava
    Build a fortress around them,
    And every thought finally
    Oppresses itself with laws.


    20