From: starchild-AT-bc.sympatico.ca
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 08:23:49 -0700
Subject: Re: On-line reading


Krueger wrote:
> 
> Sticks and stones yadda yadda,... so does that mean that the reading of
> Zarathustra is on?  Who wants to swap recriminations when we can swap
> ideas? ...or has this novice sociologist come to the wrong place?
> 
> PMK
> 
>         --- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

" Of Scholars

As I lay aleep, a sheep ate at the ivy-wreath upon my head-
ate and said: 'Zarathustra is no longer a scholar.'
It spoke and went away stiffly and proud. A child told me
of it.
I like to lie here where children play, beside the broken wall,
among thistles and red poppies.
To children I am still a scholar, and to thistles and red
poppies, too. They are innocent, even in their wickedness.
But to the sheep I am no longer a scholar: thus my fate will 
have it - blessed be my fate!
For this is the truth: I have left the house of scholars and 
slammed the door behind me.
Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table; I have not
been schooled, as they have, to crack knowledge as one cracks
nuts. 
I love freedom and the air over fresh soil; I would sleep on 
ox-skins rather than on their dignities and respectablilities. 
I am too hot and scorched by my own thought: it is often about
to take my breath away. Then I have to get into the 
open air and away from all dusty rooms. 
But they sit cool in the cool shade: they want to be mere
spectators in everthing and they take care not to sit where the 
sun burns upon the steps.
Like those who stand in the street and stare at the people
passing by, so they too wait and stare at thoughts that others
have thought.
If one takes hold of them, they involuntarily raise a dust
like sacks of flour; but who could guess that their dust
derived from corn and from the golden joy of summer fields?
When they give themselves out as wise, their little sayings
and truths make me shiver: their wisdom often smells as if it
came from the swamp: and indeed, I have heard the frog
croak in it!
They are clever, they have cunning fingers: what is my
simplicity compared with their diversity? Their fingers understand
all threading and knitting and weaving: thus they weave 
the stockings of the spirit!
They are excellent clocks: only be careful to wind them up
properly! Then they tell the hour without error and make a 
modest noise in doing so.
They work like mills and rammers: just throw seed-corn
into them! - they know how to grind corn small and make
white dust of it.
They keep a sharp eye upon one another and do not trust
one another as well as they might. Inventive in small slynesses,
they lie in wait like spiders.
I have seen how carefully they prepare their poisons; they
always put on protective gloves.
They also know how to play with loaded dice; and I found 
them playing so zealously that they were sweating.
We are strangers to one another, and their virtues are even 
more opposed to my taste than are their falsehoods and loaded
dice.
And when I lived among them I lived above them. They 
grew angry with me for that.
They did not want to know that someone was walking over
their heads; and so they put wood and dirt and rubbish between
their heads and me.
Thus they muffled the sound of my steps: and from then on 
the most scholarly heard me the worst.
They put all the faults and weaknesses of mankind between 
themselves and me - they call this a 'false flooring' in their 
houses.
But I walk above their heads with my thoughts in spite of 
that; and even if I should walk upon my own faults, I should still
be above them and their heads. 
For men are not equal: thus speaks justice. And what I 
desire they may not desire!

Thus spoke Zarathustra."


	--- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---