125 The Madman
Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted
a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I
seek God!" - As there were many people standing about who did not believe in
God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he
strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is
he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated? - the people
cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst
and transfixed them with his glances. " Where is God gone?" he called out. "I
mean to tell you! We have killed him, - you and I! We are all his murderers!
But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us
the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened
this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away
from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forewards,
in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as
through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it
not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker?
Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise
of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine
putrefaction? - for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we
have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all
murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto
possessed, has bled to death under our knife, - who will wipe the blood from
us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred
games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great
for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of
it? There never was a greater event, - and on account of it, all who are born
after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" - Here the
madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and
looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so
that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then
said, "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its
way, and is travelling, - it has not yet reached men’s ears. Lightning and
thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even
after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from
them than the furthest star, - and yet they have done it!"
341
“The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal
after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you
now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and
innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain
and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or
great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and
sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even
this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside
down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon
who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself
and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal
confirmation and seal?”
--
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