Prelude in German Rhymes*
1. Invitation
Dare to taste my fare, dear diner!
Come tomorrow it tastes finer
and day after even good!
If you still want more – I’ll make it,
from past inspiration take it,
turning food for thought to food.
2. My Happiness
Since I grew weary of the search
I taught myself to find instead.
Since cross winds caused my ship to lurch
I sail with all winds straight ahead.
3. Undaunted
Where you stand, there dig deep!
Below you lies the well!
Let obscurantists wail and weep:
‘Below is always – hell!’
4. Dialogue
A. Was I ill? Have I recovered?
Has my doctor been discovered?
How have I forgotten all?
B. Now I know you have recovered:
Healthy is who can’t recall.
5. To the Virtuous
Our virtues too should step lively to and fro:
Like the verses of Homer, they have to come and go!
6. Worldly Wisdom
Stay not where the lowlands are!
Climb not into the sky!
The world looks best by far
when viewed from halfway high.
7. Vademecum – Vadetecum1
My way and language speak to you,
you follow me, pursue me too?
To thine own self and way be true:
Thus follow me, but gently do!
8. On the Third Shedding
Already cracks and breaks my skin,
my appetite unslaking
is fuelled by earth I’ve taken in:
This snake for earth is aching.
Among the stones and grass I wear
a path from fen to firth,
to eat what’s always been my fare
you, my snake food, you my earth.
9. My Roses
Yes! My joy – it wants to gladden –,
every joy wants so to gladden!
Would you pluck my rose and sadden?
You must crouch on narrow ledges,
prop yourself on ropes and wedges,
prick yourself on thorny hedges!
For my joy – it loves to madden!
For my joy – is malice laden!
Would you pluck my rose and sadden?
10. The Scornful One
Much do I let fall and spill,
thus I’m scornful, you malign.
One who drinks from cups too full will
often let much fall and spill –,
yet never think to blame the wine.
11. The Proverb Speaks
Sharp and mild, dull and keen,
well known and strange, dirty and clean,
where both the fool and wise are seen:
All this am I, have ever been, –
in me dove, snake and swine convene!
12. To a Friend of Light
If you want to spare your eyes and your mind,
follow the sun from the shadows behind.
13. For Dancers
Slipp’ry ice
is paradise
as long as dancing will suffice.
14. The Good Man
Better an enmity cut from one block
than friendship held together by glue.
15. Rust
Rust must be added: sharpness goes unsung!
Else they will always say: ‘He is too young!’
16. Upward
‘How do I best get to the top of this hill?’
‘Climb it, don’t think it, and maybe you will.’
17. Motto of A Brute
Never beg! It’s whining I dread!
Take, I beg you, just take instead!
18. Narrow Souls
It’s narrow souls that I despise;
not good, not evil, not my size.
19. The Involuntary Seducer
He shot an empty word into the blue
to pass the time – and downed a woman too.
20. Consider This
A twofold pain is easier to bear
than one pain: care to take a dare?
21. Against Arrogance
Don’t let your ego swell too much,
a bubble bursts with just a touch.
22. Man and Female
‘Rob yourself the female, who to your heart appeals!’ –
So thinks a man; but she won’t rob, a woman only steals.
23. Interpretation
If I read me, then I read into me:
I can’t construe myself objectively.
But he who climbs consuming his own might
bears me with him unto the brighter light.
24. Medication for Pessimists2
You whine that nothing pleases you?
Still pouting, friend, and must you mutter?
I hear you curse, and shout and sputter –
it breaks my heart and patience too!
Come with me, friend! A nice fat toad,
if swallowed voluntarily
with eyes closed and summarily –
might lessen your dyspeptic load.
25. Request
I know another person’s thought
and who I am, I know that not.
My vision is too close to me –
I am not what I saw and see.
I’d use myself more perfectly
if I could move away from me.
Yet not so distant as my foe!
My closest friend’s too far off, no –
give me instead the middle ground!
Do you surmise what I propound?
26. My Hardness
I must leave by a hundred stairs,
I must ascend though I hear your cares:
‘You are hard: Are we made of stone?’
I must leave by a hundred stairs,
And being a stair appeals to none.
27. The Wanderer
‘The path ends! Abyss and deathly silence loom!’
You wanted this! Your will strayed to its doom!
Now wanderer, stand! Be keen and cool as frost!
Believe in danger now and you – are lost.
28. Consolation for Beginners
See the child, with pigs she’s lying,
helpless, face as white as chalk!
Crying only, only crying –
will she ever learn to walk?
Don’t give up! Stop your sighing,
soon she’s dancing ‘round the clock!
Once her own two legs are trying,
she’ll stand on her head and mock.
29. Stellar Egotism
If I, round barrel that I am,
did not roll ‘round me like a cam,
how could I bear, and not catch fire,
to the chase the sun as I desire?
30. The Closest One
The closest one from me I bar:
Away and up with him, and far!
How else could he become my star?
31. The Disguised Saint
Joy too great you are concealing,
you engage in dev’lish dealing,
devil’s wit and devil’s dress.
But no use! Your eye’s revealing
piety and holiness!
32. The Bound Man
A. He stands and hears: what’s wrong, he’s thinking?
What sound provokes his heart to sinking?
What was it hurled him to the ground?
B. Like all who once in chains were bound,
He hears around him – iron clinking.
33. The Solitary One
Despised by me are following and leading.
Commanding? Even worse to me than heeding!
Who does not scare himself can frighten no one:
The one who causes fear can lead another.
But just to lead myself is too much bother!
I love, as do the sea and forest creatures,
to lose myself a while in nature’s features,
to hide away and brood in secret places
until, lured home at last from distant traces,
my self-seduction lets me see – my features.
34. Seneca et hoc genus omne3
They write and write their desiccat-
ing learned la-di-da-di,
as if primum scribere,
deinde philosophari.
35. Ice
Yes! At times I do make ice:
Useful is ice for digesting!
If you had much for digesting,
oh how you would love my ice!
36. Juvenilia4
My old wisdom’s A and O
sounded here: what did I hear?
Now it does not strike me so,
just the tired Ah! and Oh!
that youth inspired fills my ear.
37. Caution
Into that region trav’lers must not go:
And if you’re smart, be cautious even so!
They lure and love you till you’re torn apart:
They’re halfwit zealots – : witless from the heart!
38. The Pious One Speaks
God loves us because he created us!
‘Man created God!’ – respond the jaded.
And yet should not love what he created?
Should even deny it because he made it?
Such cloven logic is limping and baited.
39. In Summer5
Beneath the sweat of our own brow
we have to eat our bread?
If you sweat, eat nothing now,
the wise physician said.
The Dog Star winks: what does it know?
What says its fiery winking?
Beneath the sweat of our own brow
our wine we should be drinking!
40. Without Envy
His gaze is envyless: and him you praise?
No thirst for your esteem perturbs his gaze;
he has the eagle’s vision for the long view,
it’s stars he sees, just stars – he looks beyond you!
41. Heracliteanism
Happiness on earth, friends,
only stems from war!
Powder smoke, in fact, mends
friendship even more!
One in three all friends are:
Brothers in distress,
equals facing rivals,
free men – facing death!
41. Principle of the All-Too-Refined
Rather on your tiptoes stand
than crawling on all fours!
Rather through the keyhole scanned
than gazed through open doors!
43. Admonition
It’s fame on which your mind is set?
Then heed what I say:
Before too long prepare to let
honor slip away.
44. The Well-Grounded One6
A scholar I? I’ve no such skill! –
I’m merely grave – just heavy set!
I fall and fall and fall until
I to the bottom get.
45. Forever
‘Today I come, I choose today’ –
think all who come and mean to stay.
Though all the world may speculate:
‘You come too early! Come too late!’
46. Judgements of the Weary
The sun is cursed by all men jaded;
to them the worth of trees is – shaded!
47. Going Down7
‘He sinks, he falls now’ – thus resumes your mocking;
in truth, look closely: Down to you he’s walking!
His super-joy became too much to bear,
his super-light dispels your gloomy air.
48. Against the Laws
From now on time hangs by a hair
around my neck, suspended there:
from now on stars shine randomly, sun, rooster crow, and shadow flee,
whatever brought time to my mind
that now is mute and deaf and blind: –
All nature’s still in me, it balks
at ticking laws and ticking clocks.
49. The Wise Man Speaks
Unknown to folks, yet useful to the crowd,
I drift along my way, now sun, now cloud
and always I’m above this crowd!
50. Lost His Head
Now she has wit – what led her to this find?
Because of her a man had lost his mind.
His head was rich before this misadventure:
His head went straight to hell – no! no! to her!
51. Pious Wishes8
‘Keys should all just disappear,
lost from stem to stern,
and in keyholes far and near
skeletons should turn!’
Thus thinks when the day is done
each who is – a skeleton.
52. Writing With One’s Foot
I do not write with hand alone:
My foot does writing of its own.
Firm, free, and bold my feet engage
in running over field and page.
53. ‘Human, All Too Human. ‘A Book9
When looking back you’re sad and not robust,
you trust the future when yourself you trust:
Oh bird, do you belong to eagle’s brood?
Are you Minerva’s favourite hoot hoot?
54. To My Reader
Strong teeth and good digestion too –
this I wish thee!
And once my book’s agreed with you,
then surely you’ll agree with me!
55. The Realistic Painter
‘To all of nature true!’ – How does he plan?
Would nature fit an image made by man?
The smallest piece of world is infinite! –
He ends up painting that which he sees fit.
And what does he see fit? Paint what he can!
56. Poet’s Vanity
I’ll find wood, just give me substance
strong enough to bind like glue!
Cramming sense in rhyme is nonsense
worthy of a boast – or two!
57. Choosy Taste
Were it my choice to exercise,
I know that I would opt for
a cosy place in Paradise:
Better still – outside the door!
58. The Crooked Nose10
Your nose projects, so grand and plump,
into the land, its nostrils pump –
thus hornless rhino, lacking grace
you fall, proud mortal, on your face!
And that’s the way it always goes:
Straight pride alongside crooked nose.
59. The Pen Scribbles
My pen, it scribbles: this is hell!
Have I been damned to have to scribble? –
I dip it boldly in the well
and write broad streams of inky drivel.
See how it flows, so full, so pure!
See how each thing I try succeeds!
The text’s not lucid, to be sure –
So what? What I write no one reads.
60. Higher Men
He climbs on high – him we should praise!
But that one comes from high up always!
Immune to praise he lives his days,
he is the sun’s rays!
61. The Sceptic Speaks
Your life is halfway spent,
the clock hand moves, your soul now quakes with fear!
Long roaming forth it went
and searched but nothing found – and wavers here?
Your life is halfway spent:
In pain and error how the hours did crawl!
Why can you not relent? –
Just this I seek – some reason for it all!
62. Ecce Homo
Yes! I know now whence I came!
Unsatiated like a flame
my glowing ember squanders me.
Light to all on which I seize,
ashen everything I leave:
Flame am I most certainly!
63. Stellar Morals
Ordained to move as planets do,
what matters, star, the dark to you?
Roll blithely through our human time!
Beyond its wretched mis’ry climb!
The furthest world deserves your shine:
For you compassion is a crime!
One law applies to you: be thine!
* ‘Scherz, List, und Rache’ is the title of a libretto written by Goethe and set to music by Peter Gast, Nietzsche’s friend and disciple/secretary. The title itself, like the subtitle ‘Prelude in German Rhymes’, foreshadows the musical playfulness to be found both in the poems and in The Gay Science; it also voices the hope that readers will recognize in the German language a medium of grace and style, as seen for example in the writings of Goethe and Nietzsche. Scherz, List und Rache was not set to music in the 1780s, though Goethe had intended it for a composer, and he published it in 1790 with his other works. He had endeavoured in the 1780s, after his Italian journey, to reform the German comic opera in the direction of the Italian opera buffa.
1 Vademecum is Latin for ‘go with me’, and refers to a book one carries all the time. Vadetecum is Nietzsche’s improvement on the idea: ‘go with yourself’.
2 Nietzsche’s inspiration for the toad as medicine derives from a maxim by Chamfort, to the effect that a toad ingested each morning will make the rest of the day taste better.
3 Seneca (Roman philosopher) and his lot. The Latin: ‘First write, then philosophize.’
4 Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, hence proverbially the ‘alpha and omega’ are said to comprise everything.
5 Genesis 3:19: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’
6 Gründlich in German means thorough, based on Grund (ground).
7 Niedergang means decline, but it is ambiguous because it is formed from nieder (down) and the past participle of gehen (to go). Compare Zarathustra’s ‘going under’ in the prologue of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
8 Dietrich in German is a skeleton key, or combination key capable of opening any lock. It is also a common given name for males.
9 Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, the arts and crafts, and medicine, was identified with the Greek goddess Athene, whose attribute was the sacred and wise owl. Uhu is the German word for eagle-owl, as well as the sound (hooting) made by owls.
10 Nashorn means rhinoceros, from Nase (nose) and Horn.