Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil
[This document, which
has been prepared by Ian Johnston
of Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, has certain copyright
restrictions. For information, please consult Copyright.
Editorial comments and translations in square brackets and italics are by Ian
Johnston; comments in normal brackets are from Nietzsche's text. Last
revised in January 2009]
Part Nine
What is Noble?
257
Every
enhancement in the type “man” up to this point has been the work of an
aristocratic society—and that’s how it will always be, over and over again: a
society which believes in a long scale of rank ordering and differences in
worth between man and man and which, in some sense or other, requires slavery.
Without the pathos of distance, the sort which grows out of the deeply
rooted difference between the social classes, out of the constant gazing
outward and downward of the ruling caste on the subjects and work implements,
and out of their equally sustained practice of obedience and command, holding
down and holding at a distance, that other more mysterious pathos would
have no chance of growing at all, that
longing for an ever new widening of distances inside the soul itself, the
development of ever higher, rarer, more distant, more expansive, more
comprehensive states, in short, simply the enhancement in the type “man,” the
constant “self-conquest of man,” to cite a moral formula in a supra-moral
sense. Of course, where the history of the origins of aristocratic society is
concerned (and thus the precondition for that raising of the type “man”—), we
should not surrender to humanitarian illusions: truth is hard. So without
further consideration, let’s admit to ourselves how up to this point every
higher culture on earth has started! People with a still natural nature,
barbarians in every dreadful sense of the word, predatory men still in
possession of an unbroken power of the will and a desire for power, threw
themselves on weaker, more civilized, more peaceful, perhaps trading or
cattle-raising races, or on old, worn cultures, in which at that very moment
the final forces of life were flaring up in a dazzling fireworks display of
spirit and corruption. At the start the noble caste has always been the
barbarian caste: its superiority has lain not primarily in physical might but
in spiritual power—it has been a matter of more complete human beings
(which at every level also means “more complete beasts”).
258
Corruption as
the expression of the fact that within the instincts anarchy is threatening and
that the foundation of the affects, what we call “life,” has been shaken:
according to the living structure in which it appears, corruption is something
fundamentally different. When, for example, an aristocracy, like France’s at
the start of the Revolution, throws away its privileges with a sublime disgust
and sacrifices itself to a dissipation of its moral feelings, this is
corruption:—essentially it was only the final act in that centuries-long
corruption, thanks to which step-by-step it gave up its ruling authority and
reduced itself to a function of the monarchy (finally even to the
monarch’s finery and display pieces). The essential thing in a good and healthy
aristocracy, however, is that it feels itself not as a function (whether
of a monarchy or of a community) but as its significance and highest
justification— that it therefore with good conscience accepts the sacrifice of
an enormous number of people, who for its sake must be oppressed and
reduced to incomplete men, slaves, and instruments of work. Its fundamental
belief must, in fact, be that the society should exist, not for the sake
of the society, but only as a base and framework on which an exceptional kind
of nature can raise itself to its higher function and, in general, to a higher
form of being, comparable to those heliotropic climbing plants on
Java—people call them Sipo Matador—whose branches clutch an oak tree so
much and for so long until finally, high over the tree but supported by it,
they can unfold their crowns in the open light and make a display of their
happiness.—
259
Mutually
refraining from wounding each other, from violence, and from exploitation, and
setting one’s will on the same level as others—these can in a certain crude
sense become good habits among individuals, if conditions exist for that
(namely, a real similarity in the quality of their power and their estimates of
value, as well as their belonging together within a single body). However, as
soon as people wanted to take this principle further and, where possible,
establish it as the basic principle of society, it immediately showed
itself for what it is, as the willed denial of life, as the principle of
disintegration and decay. Here we must think through to the fundamentals and
push away all sentimental weakness: living itself is essentially
appropriation from and wounding and overpowering strangers and weaker men,
oppression, hardness, imposing one’s own forms, annexing, and at the very
least, in its mildest actions, exploitation—but why should we always use these
precise words, which have from ancient times carried the stamp of a slanderous
purpose? Even that body in which, as previously mentioned, the individuals deal
with each other as equals—and that happens in every healthy aristocracy—must
itself, if it is a living body and not dying out, do to other bodies all those
things which the individuals in it refrain from doing to each other: it will
have to be the living will to power, it will grow, grab things around it, pull
to itself, and want to acquire predominance—not because of some morality or
immorality, but because it is alive and because living is simply
the will to power. But in no point is the common consciousness of the European
more reluctant to be instructed than here. Nowadays people everywhere, even
those in scientific disguises, are raving about the coming conditions of
society from which “the exploitative character” is to have disappeared:—to my
ears that sounds as if people had promised to invent a life which abstained from
all organic functions. The “exploitation” is not part of a depraved or
incomplete and primitive society: it belongs in the essential nature of
what is living, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the real
will to power, which is simply the will to live.—Assuming that this is
something new as a theory—it is, nonetheless, in reality the fundamental
fact of all history: we should at least be honest with ourselves to this
extent!
260
As the result
of a stroll though the many more sophisticated and cruder moral systems which
up to this point have ruled or still rule on earth, I found certain
characteristics routinely return with each other, bound up together, until
finally two basic types revealed themselves to me and a fundamental difference
sprang up. There is master morality and slave morality—to this I
immediately add that in all higher and mixed cultures attempts at a mediation
between both moralities make an appearance as well, even more often, a
confusion and mutual misunderstanding between the two, in fact, sometimes their
harsh juxtaposition—even in the same man, within a single soul. Distinctions in
moral value have arisen either among a ruling group, which was happily
conscious of its difference with respect to the ruled—or among the ruled, the
slaves and dependent people of every degree. In the first case, when it’s the
masters who establish the idea of the good, the elevated and proud conditions
of the soul emotionally register as the distinguishing and defining order of
rank. The noble man separates his own nature from that of people in whom the
opposite of such exalted and proud states expresses itself. He despises them.
We should notice at once that in this first kind of morality the opposites
“good” and “bad” mean no more than “noble” and “despicable”—the opposition
between “good” and “evil” has another origin. The despised one is the coward,
the anxious, the small, the man who thinks about narrow utility, also the
suspicious man with his inhibited look, the self-abasing man, the species of
human dogs who allow themselves to be mistreated, the begging flatterer, above
all, the liar:—it is a basic belief of all aristocrats that the common folk are
liars. “We tellers of the truth”—that’s what the nobility called themselves in
ancient Greece. It’s evident that distinctions of moral worth everywhere were
first applied to men and later were established for actions;
hence, it is a serious mistake when historians of morality take as a starting
point questions like “Why was the compassionate action praised?” The noble kind
of man experiences himself as a person who determines value and does not
need to have other people’s approval. He makes the judgment “What is harmful to
me is harmful in itself.” He understands himself as something which in general
first confers honour on things, as someone who creates values. Whatever
he recognizes in himself he honours. Such a morality is self-glorification. In
the foreground stands the feeling of fullness, the power which wants to
overflow, the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of riches which
wants to give and deliver:—the noble man also helps the unfortunate, however
not, or hardly ever, from pity, but more in response to an impulse which the
excess of power produces. The noble man honours the powerful man in himself and
also the man who has power over himself, who understands how to speak and how
to keep silent, who takes delight in dealing with himself severely and toughly
and respects, above all, severity and toughness. “Wotan set a hard heart in my
breast,” it says in an old Scandinavian saga: that’s how poetry emerged, with
justice, from the soul of a proud Viking. A man of this sort is simply proud of
the fact that he has not been made for pity. That’s why the hero of the
saga adds a warning, “In a man whose heart is not hard when he is still young
the heart will never become hard.” Noble and brave men who think this way are
furthest removed from that morality which sees the badge of morality in pity or
actions for others or désintéressement [disinterestedness]. The belief
in oneself, pride in oneself, a fundamental hostility and irony against
“selflessness” belong to noble
morality, just as much as an easy contempt and caution before feelings of pity
and the “warm heart.” Powerful men are the ones who understand how to
honour; that is their art, their realm of invention. The profound reverence for
age and for ancestral tradition—all justice stands on this double reverence—the
belief and the prejudice favouring forefathers and working against newcomers
are typical in the morality of the powerful, and when, by contrast, the men of
“modern ideas” believe almost instinctively in “progress” and the “future” and
increasingly lack any respect for age, then in that attitude the ignoble origin
of these “ideas” already reveals itself well enough. However, a morality of the
rulers is most alien and embarrassing to present taste because of the severity
of its basic principle that man has duties only with respect to those like him,
that man should act towards those beings of lower rank, towards everything
strange, at his own discretion, or “as his heart dictates,” and, in any case,
“beyond good and evil.” Here pity and things like that may belong. The capacity
for and obligation to a long gratitude and to a long revenge—both only within
the circle of one’s peers—the sophistication in paying back again, the refined
idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as, so to speak,
drainage ditches for the feelings of envy, quarrelsomeness, and high
spirits—basically in order to be capable of being a good friend): all
those are typical characteristics of a noble morality, which, as indicated, is
not the morality of “modern ideas” and which is thus nowadays difficult to
sympathize with, as well as difficult to dig up and expose. Things are
different with the second type of moral system, slave morality. Suppose
the oppressed, depressed, suffering, and unfree people, those ignorant of
themselves and tired out, suppose they moralize: what will be the common
feature of their moral estimates of value? Probably a pessimistic suspicion
directed at the entire human situation will express itself, perhaps a
condemnation of man, along with his situation. The gaze of a slave is not well
disposed towards the virtues of the powerful; he possesses scepticism and
mistrust; he has a subtlety of mistrust against everything “good” which
is honoured in it —he would like to persuade himself that even happiness is not
genuine there. By contrast, those characteristics will be pulled forward and
flooded with light which serve to mitigate existence for those who suffer: here
respect is given to pity, to the obliging hand ready to help, to the warm
heart, to patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness—for these are here
the most useful characteristics and almost the only means to endure the
pressure of existence. Slave morality is essentially a morality of utility.
Here is the focus for the origin of that famous opposition of “good” and “evil”:—people
sense power and danger within evil, a certain terror, subtlety, and strength,
which does not permit contempt to spring up. According to slave morality, the
“evil” man thus inspires fear; according to master morality, it is precisely
the “good” man who inspires and desires to inspire fear, while the “bad” man
will be felt as despicable. This opposition reaches its peak when, in
accordance with the consequences of slave morality, finally a trace of
disregard is also attached to the “good” of this morality—it may be light and benevolent—because
within the way of thinking of the slave the good man must definitely be the harmless
man: he is good natured, easy to deceive, perhaps a bit stupid, a bonhomme
[good fellow]. Wherever slave morality gains predominance the language
reveals a tendency to bring the words “good” and “stupid” into closer
proximity. A final basic difference: the longing for freedom, the
instinct for happiness, and the refinements of the feeling for freedom belong
just as necessarily to slave morality and morals as art and enthusiasm in
reverence and in devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic way of
thinking and valuing. From this we can without further ado understand why love
as passion—which is our European specialty— must clearly have a noble
origin: as is well known, its invention belongs to the Provencal knightly
poets, those splendidly inventive men of the “gay saber” [gay
science] to whom Europe owes so much— almost its very self.
261
Vanity is among
the things which are perhaps hardest for a noble man to understand: he will be
tempted even to deny its existence where another kind of man thinks he has
grasped it with both hands. For him the problem is imagining to himself beings
who seek to arouse a good opinion of themselves, an opinion of themselves which
they do not have—and which, as a result, they also have not “earned”—people
who, nonetheless, themselves later believe in this good opinion. Half of
this seems to the noble man so tasteless and disrespectful of oneself and the
other half so unreasonably Baroque, that he would be happy to understand vanity
as an exception and has doubts about it in most cases when people talk of it.
For example, he’ll say: “I can make a mistake about my own value and yet still
demand that my value, precisely as I determine it, is recognized by others—but
that is not vanity (but arrogance or, in the more frequent cases, something
called “humility” and “modesty”). Or again, “For many reasons I can take pleasure
in the good opinion of others, perhaps because I honour and love them and enjoy
all of their pleasures, perhaps also because their good opinion underscores and
strengthens the faith I have in my own good opinion of myself, perhaps because
the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share it, is still
useful to me or promises to be useful— but all that is not vanity.” The noble
man must first compel himself, particularly with the help of history, to see
that since time immemorial, in all the levels of people dependent in some way
or other, the common man was only what people thought of him:—not
being at all accustomed to set values himself, he measured himself by no value
other than by how his masters assessed him (that is the essential right of
masters, to create values). We should understand that, as the consequence
of an immense atavism, the common man even today still always waits
first for an opinion about himself and then instinctively submits himself to
it: however, that is by no means merely a “good” opinion, but also a bad and
unreasonable one (think, for example, of the greatest part of the
self-assessment and self-devaluing which devout women absorb from their father
confessors and the devout Christian in general absorbs from his church). Now,
in accordance with the slow arrival of the democratic order of things (and its
cause, the blood mixing between masters and slaves), the originally noble and
rare impulse to ascribe to oneself a value on one’s own and “to think well” of
oneself will really become more and more encouraged and widespread. But in
every moment it has working against it an older, more extensive, and more
deeply incorporated tendency—and where the phenomenon of “vanity” is concerned,
this older tendency will become master over the more recent one. The vain man
takes pleasure in every good opinion which he hears about himself (quite
apart from all considerations of its utility and equally apart from its truth
or falsity), just as he suffers from every bad opinion. For he submits to both;
he feels himself subjected to them on the basis of that oldest of
instincts for submission which breaks out in him. It is “the slave” in the
blood of the vain man, a trace of the slave’s roguishness—and how much of the
“slave” still remains nowadays in woman, for example!—that tries to tempt
him into good opinions of himself; in the same way it’s the slave who later
prostrates himself immediately in front of these opinions, as if he had not
summoned them up. —To state the matter once again: vanity is an atavism.
262
A species
arises, a type becomes established and strong, under the long struggle with
essentially unchanging, unfavourable conditions. By contrast, we know
from the experience of breeders that species which receive an ultra-abundant
nourishment and, in general, an increase in protection and care immediately
tend towards variety in the type in the strongest manner and are rich in
wonders and monstrosities (as well as monstrous vices). Now, let’s look for a
moment at an aristocratic commonwealth, for example, an ancient Greek polis
[city state] or Venice, as an organization, whether voluntary or
involuntary, for the purpose of breeding. There are men there living
together who rely upon themselves and who want their species to succeed mainly
because it has to succeed or run the fearful risk of being annihilated.
Here there is a lack of that advantage, that abundance, that protection under
which variations are encouraged. The species senses the need for itself as a
species, as something which, particularly thanks to its hardness, uniformity,
simplicity of form, can generally succeed and enable itself to keep going in
the constant struggles with neighbours or with the rebellious oppressed people
or with those who threaten rebellion. The most varied experience teaches them
which characteristics they have to thank, above all, for the fact that they are
still there, in spite of all the gods and men, that they have always been
victorious. These characteristics they call virtues, and they cultivate only
these virtues to any great extent. They do that with force—in fact, they desire
force. Every aristocratic morality is intolerant in its education of the young,
its provisions for women, its marriage customs, its relationships between young
and old, its penal laws (which fix their eyes only on those who are
deviants)—it reckons intolerance itself among the virtues, under the name
“justice.” A type with few but very strong characteristics, a species of
strict, war-like, shrewdly laconic people, united and reserved (and, as such,
having the most sophisticated feelings for the magic and nuances of
society) will in this way establish itself over the succession of generations.
The constant struggle with unvarying, unfavourable conditions is, as
mentioned, the factor that makes a type fixed and hard. Finally, however, at
some point a fortunate time arises, which lets the immense tension ease.
Perhaps there are no more enemies among the neighbours, and the means for
living, even for enjoying life, are there in abundance. With one blow the bond
and the compulsion of the old discipline are torn apart: that discipline no
longer registers as necessary, as a condition of existence—if it wished to
remain in existence, it could do so only as a form of luxury, as an
archaic taste. Variation, whether as something abnormal (something higher,
finer, rarer) or as degeneration and monstrosity, suddenly bursts onto the
scene in the greatest abundance and splendour; the individual dares to be
individual and stand out. At these historical turning points there appear
alongside each other and often involved and mixed up together marvellous, multifaceted,
jungle-like growths, an upward soaring, a kind of tropical tempo in competitiveness
for growing and an immense annihilation and self-destruction, thanks to the
wild egoisms turned against each other and, as it were, exploding, which
wrestle with one another “for sun and light” and no longer know how to derive
any limit, any restraint, or any consideration from the morality they have had
up to that point. This very morality was the one which built up such immense
power, which bent the bow in such a threatening manner— now, at this moment, it
has become “outdated.” The dangerous and disturbing point is reached where the
greater, more multifaceted, and more comprehensive life lives over and
above the old morality; the “individual” stands there, forced to give himself
his own laws, his own arts and tricks for self-preservation, self-raising,
self-redemption. Nothing but new what-for’s, nothing but new how-to’s,
no common formula any more, misunderstanding and contempt bound up together,
decay, spoilage, and the highest desires tied together in a ghastly way, the
genius of the race brimming over from all the horns of plenty with good and
bad, a catastrophic simultaneous presence of spring and autumn, full of new
charms and veils, characteristic of young, still unexhausted, still unwearied
depravity. Once again there’s danger there, the mother of morality, great
danger, this time transferred into the individual, into one’s neighbour and
friend, into the alleyways, into one’s own child, into one’s own heart, into
all the most personal and most secret wishes and desires. What will the moral
philosophers who emerge at such a time now have to preach? They discover, these
keen observers and street loafers, that things are quickly coming to an end,
that everything around them is going rotten and spreading corruption, that
nothing lasts until the day after tomorrow, except for one kind of person, the
incurably mediocre. Only the mediocre have the prospect of succeeding,
of reproducing themselves—they are the people of the future, the only
survivors, “Be like them! Become mediocre!”—from now on that’s the only
morality which still makes sense, which people still hear.—But it is difficult
to preach, this morality of mediocrity!—it may never admit what it is and what
it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one’s neighbour—it
will have difficulty concealing its irony!
263
There is an instinct
for rank which, more than anything, is already an indication of a high
rank. There is a delight in the nuances of respect which permits us to
surmise a noble origin and habits. The refinement, good, and loftiness of a
soul are put to a dangerous test when something goes past in front of it which
is of the first rank, but which is not yet protected by the shudders of authority
from prying clutches and crudities: something that goes its way unmarked,
undiscovered, tempting, perhaps arbitrarily disguised and hidden, like a living
touchstone. The man whose task and practice is to investigate souls will use
precisely this art in a number of different forms in order to establish the ultimate
value of a soul, the unalterable innate order of rank to which it belongs: he
will put it to the test for its instinct of reverence. Différence engendre
haine [difference engenders hatred]: the nastiness of some natures suddenly
spurts out like dirty water when some sacred container, some precious object
from a locked shrine, some book with marks of a great destiny is carried by. On
the other hand, there is an involuntary falling silent, a hesitation in the
eye, an end to all gestures, things which express that a soul feels
close to something most worthy of reverence. The way in which reverence for the
Bible in Europe has, on the whole, been maintained so far is perhaps the
best piece of discipline and refinement of tradition for which Europe owes a
debt of thanks to Christianity: such books of profundity and ultimate significance
need for their protection an externally imposed tyranny of authority in order to
last for those thousands of years which are necessary to exhaust them and
sort out what they mean. Much has been achieved when in the great mass of
people (the shallow ones and all sorts of people with diarrhoea) that feeling
has finally been cultivated that they are not permitted to touch everything,
that there are sacred experiences before which they have to pull off their
shoes and which they must keep their dirty hands off—this is almost the highest
intensification of their humanity. By contrast, perhaps nothing makes the
so-called educated people, those who have faith in “modern ideas,” so nauseating
as their lack of shame, the comfortable impudence in their eyes and hands, with
which they touch, lick, and grope everything, and it is possible that these
days among a people, one still finds in the common folk, particularly among the
peasants, more relative nobility of taste and tactful reverence than
among the newspaper-reading demi-monde of the spirit, among the
educated.
264
One cannot
erase from a human being’s soul those actions which his ancestors loved most
and carried out most steadfastly: whether they were, for example, industrious
savers attached to a writing table and money box, modest and bourgeois in their
desires, as well as modest in their virtues, or whether they were accustomed to
live giving orders from morning until night, fond of harsh entertainment and,
along with that, perhaps of even harsher duties and responsibilities; or
whether, finally, they had at some time or other once sacrificed the old
privileges of their birth and possessions in order to live entirely for their faith—their
“God”—as men of an unrelenting and delicate conscience, which blushes when
confronted with any compromise. It is in no way possible that a man does not
possess in his body the characteristics and preferences of his parents and
forefathers, no matter what appearance might say to the contrary. This is the
problem of race. If we know something about the parents, then we may draw a
conclusion about the child: some unpleasant excess or other, some lurking envy,
a crude habit of self-justification—as these three together have at all times
made up the essential type of the rabble—something like that must be passed
onto the child as surely as corrupt blood, and with the help of the best
education and culture people will succeed only in deceiving others about
such heredity. And nowadays what else does education and culture want! In our
age, one very much of the people—I mean to say our uncouth age—“education” and
“culture” must basically be the art of deception—to mislead about the
origin of the inherited rabble in one’s body and soul. Today an educator who
preached truthfulness above everything else and constantly shouted at his
students “Be true! Be natural! Act as you really are!”—even such a virtuous and
true-hearted jackass would after some time learn to take hold of that furca
[pitchfork] of Horace, in order to naturam expellere [drive out nature].
With what success? “Rabble” usque recurret [always returns].*
265
At the risk of
annoying innocent ears, I propose the following: egoism belongs to the nature
of the noble soul; I mean that unshakeable faith that to a being such as “we
are” other beings must be subordinate by nature and have to sacrifice
themselves. The noble soul takes this fact of its egoism without any question
mark and without the feeling that there is anything harsh, compelled, or
arbitrary in it, much more as something that may be established in the
fundamental law of things. If he sought out a name for this, he would say “It
is justice itself.” In some circumstances which make him hesitate at first, he
admits that there are those with rights equal to his own. As soon as he has
cleared up this question of rank, he moves among these equals who have the same
rights as his with the same confident modesty and sophisticated reverence which
he has in his dealings with himself—in accordance with an inborn heavenly
mechanism which all the stars understand. It is one more part of his
egoism, this sophistication and self-restraint in his relations with his
equals—every star is such an egoist—: it honours itself in them and in
the rights which it concedes to them. It has no doubt that the exchange of
respect and rights, as the essential quality of all interactions, also
belongs to the natural condition of things. The noble soul gives as it takes,
out of the passionate and sensitive instinct for repayment, which lies deep
within it. The idea “favour” has no sense and agreeable fragrance inter
pares [among equals]; there may be a sublime manner of allowing presents
from above to wash over one, as it were, and of drinking them up thirstily like
water drops, but for this art and gesture the noble soul has no skill. Here its
egoism hinders it: in general, it is not happy to look “up above”—instead it
looks either directly forward, horizontally and slowly, or down—it knows
that it is on a height.
266
“We can only
truly respect highly the man who is not seeking himself” Goethe to Rat
Schlosser.
267
There is a
saying among the Chinese that mothers really teach their children: siao-sin,
“Make your heart small!” This is the essential and basic tendency of
late civilizations: I have no doubt that an ancient Greek would recognize this
self-diminution in us contemporary Europeans as well—and for that reason alone
we would already go “against his taste.”
268
Ultimately, what
does it mean to be ignoble?—Words are sound signals for ideas, but ideas are
more or less firm image signs for sensations which return frequently and occur
together, for groups of sensations. To understand each other, it is not yet
sufficient that people use the same words; they must use the same words also
for the same form of inner experiences; ultimately they must hold their
experience in common with each other. That’s why human beings belonging
to a single people understand each other better among themselves than
associations of different peoples, even when they themselves use the same
language; or rather, when human beings have lived together for a long time
under similar conditions (climate, soil, danger, needs, work), then something arises
out of that which “understands itself,” a people. In all souls, a similar number
of frequently repeating experiences have won the upper hand over those which
come more rarely; people understand each other on the basis of the former,
quickly and with ever-increasing speed—the history of language is the history
of a process of abbreviation. On the basis of this rapid understanding, people
bind with one another, closely and with ever-increasing closeness. The greater
the danger, the greater the need quickly and easily to come to agreement over what
needs to be done; not to misunderstand each other when in danger is what people
simply cannot do without in their interactions. With every friendship or love
affair people still make this test: nothing of that sort lasts as soon as
people reach the point where, with the same words, one of the two feels, means,
senses, wishes, or fears something different from the other one. (The fear of
the “eternal misunderstanding”: that is the benevolent genius which so often
prevents people of different sexes from over-hasty unions, to which their
senses and hearts urge them—and not some Schopenhauerish “genius of the
species”!—). Which groups of sensations within the soul wake up most rapidly,
seize the word, give the order—that decides about the whole rank ordering of
its values, that finally determines its tables of goods. The assessments of
value in a man reveal something about the structure of his soul and
where it looks for its conditions of life, its essential needs. Now, assume
that need has always brought together only such people as could indicate with
similar signs similar needs, similar experiences, then it would generally turn
out that the easy ability to communicate need, that is, in the last
analysis, familiarity with only average and common experiences, must
have been the most powerful of all the forces which have so far determined
things among human beings. People who are more similar and more ordinary were
and always have been at an advantage; the more exceptional, more refined,
rarer, and more difficult to understand easily remain isolated; in their
isolation they are subject to accidents and rarely propagate themselves. People
have to summon up huge counter-forces to cross this natural, all-too-natural progressus
in simile [advance into similarity], the further training of human beings
into what’s similar, ordinary, average, herd-like—into what’s common.
269
The more a
psychologist—a born and inevitable psychologist and analyst of the soul—turns
himself towards exceptional examples and human beings, the greater the danger
to him of suffocation from pity. He has to be hard and cheerful, more so
than another man. For the corruption and destruction of loftier men, of the
stranger type of soul, is the rule: it is terrible to have such a rule always
before one’s eyes. The multifaceted torture of the psychologist who has
uncovered this destructiveness, who once discovers and then almost
always rediscovers throughout all history this entire inner “hopelessness” of
the loftier people, this eternal “too late!” in every sense, can perhaps one
day come to the point where he turns with bitterness against his own lot and
attempts self-destruction—where he “corrupts” himself. With almost every
psychologist we will see a revealing inclination for and delight in associating
with ordinary and well-adjusted people: that indicates that he always needs
healing, that he requires some sort of refuge and forgetting, far from what his
insights and incisions, his “trade,” has laid on his conscience. Fear of his
memory is characteristic of him. He is easily reduced to silence before the
judgments of others; he listens with an unmoving face as people revere, admire,
love, and transfigure where he has seen, or he even hides his silence,
while he expressly agrees with some foreground point of view or other. Perhaps
the paradox of his situation gets so terrible that the crowd, the educated, and
the enthusiasts learn great admiration precisely where he has learned great
pity as well as great contempt—the admiration for “great men” and miraculous
animals for whose sake people bless and honour the fatherland, the earth, the
value of humanity, and themselves, those to whom they draw the attention of the
young and whom they use as role models in their education . . . And who knows
whether in all great examples up to this point the very same thing has not
happened: the crowd worshipped a god—and the “god” was only a poor sacrificial
animal! Success has always been the greatest liar, and the “work” itself is a
success; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer is disguised in his
creation to the point where he is unrecognizable; the “work” of the artist and
the philosopher first invents the man who has created it or is supposed to have
created it; the “great men,” as they are honoured, are small inferior works of
fiction in the background; in the world of historical values counterfeit is
king. These great poets, for example, this Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi,
Kleist, Gogol (I don’t dare mention greater names, but I have them in mind)—perhaps
have to be the way they are now: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous,
childish, careless and sudden with trust and mistrust; with souls in which some
fracture or other normally has to be concealed; often taking revenge in their
works for an inner slur, often seeking with their flights upward to forget some
all-too-true memory, often lost in the mud and almost infatuated, until they
become like will o’ the wisps around a swamp and pretend that they are
stars—then the populace may well call them idealists—often struggling against a
long disgust, with a recurring ghost of unbelief which makes them cold and
forces them to yearn for gloria [glory] and to gobble up “belief in
themselves” from the hands of intoxicated flatterers—what torture are these
great artists and the loftier human beings in general for the man who has once
guessed who they are! It is so understandable that these artists should so
readily experience from woman—who is clairvoyant in the world of suffering and
who unfortunately also seeks to help and to save far beyond her powers—those
eruptions of unlimited and most devoted pity which the crowd, above all
the worshipping masses, does not understand and which it showers with curious
and complacent interpretations. This pity regularly deceives itself about its
power; woman may believe that love can do everything—that’s a belief
essential to her. Alas, anyone who knows about the heart can guess how poor,
stupid, helpless, presumptuous, mistaken, more easily destroyed than saved even
the best and most profound love is! It is possible that beneath the sacred
story and disguise of the life of Jesus there lies hidden one of the most
painful examples of the martyrdom of knowledge about love: the martyrdom
of the most innocent and most desiring heart, which was never satisfied with
any human love, which demanded love, to be loved and nothing else, with
hardness, with madness, with fearful outbreaks against those who denied him
love; the history of a poor man unsatisfied and insatiable with love, who had
to invent hell in order to send there those who did not wish to love
him—and who finally, having grown to understand human love, had to invent a God
who is entirely love, who is capable of total love—who takes pity on
human love because it is so pathetic, so unknowing! Anyone who feels this way,
who knows about love in this way—seeks death.—But why dwell on
such painful things? Assuming we don’t have to.—
270
The spiritual
arrogance and disgust of every man who has suffered deeply—how profoundly
men can suffer almost determines their order of rank—his chilling certainty,
with which he is thoroughly soaked and coloured, that thanks to his suffering he
knows more than the cleverest and wisest can know, that he has known and at
some point been “at home” in many terrible far-off worlds, about which “you
know nothing!” . . . this spiritual and silent arrogance of the sufferer, this
pride of the one chosen to know, of the “initiate,” of the one who has almost
been sacrificed, finds all kinds of disguises necessary to protect himself from
contact with prying and compassionate hands and, in general, from everything
which is not his equal in pain. Profound suffering ennobles; it separates. One
of the most sophisticated forms of disguise is Epicureanism and a certain
future courageousness in taste adopted as a show, which takes suffering lightly
and resists everything sad and deep. There are “cheerful men” who use
cheerfulness because it makes them misunderstood—they want to be
misunderstood. There are “scientific men” who use science because that provides
a cheerful appearance and because being scientific enables one to infer that
the man is superficial—they want to tempt people to a false conclusion.
There are free, impudent spirits who would like to hide and deny that they are
broken, proud, incurable hearts; and now and then even foolishness is a mask
for an unholy, all-too-certain knowledge. Hence, it follows that it’s part of a
more sophisticated humanity to have reverence “for the mask” and not to pursue
psychology and curiosity in the wrong place.
271
What most
profoundly divides two men is a different sense and degree of cleanliness. What
help is all honesty and mutual utility, what help is all the good will for each
other: in the end the fact remains—they “can’t stand each other’s smell!” The
highest instinct for cleanliness puts the person marked by it in the strangest
and most dangerous isolation, as a saint: for that’s simply what saintliness
is—the highest spiritualization of the instinct in question. Any awareness of
an indescribable abundance of pleasure in the bath, any lust and thirst which
constantly drives the soul out of the night into the morning and out of
cloudiness, the “affliction,” into what is bright, gleaming, profound, fine;
just as such a tendency singles out—it is a noble tendency—so it also separates.
The pity of the saint is pity for the dirt of those who are human,
all-too-human. And there are degrees and heights where the saint feels pity
itself as contamination, as dirt . . .
272
Signs of
nobility: never thinking of reducing our duties to duties for everyone; not
wanting to give up one’s own responsibility, not wanting to share it; to
include one’s privileges and acting on them among one’s duties.
273
A human being
who strives for something great looks at everyone he meets along his way either
as a means or as a delay and an obstacle—or as a temporary place to rest. His
characteristic high-quality goodness towards his fellow men is first
possible when he has reached his height and governs. His impatience and his
awareness that until that point he is always sentenced to comedy—for even war
is a comedy and conceals, just as every means hides the end—corrupt all
contacts for him: this kind of man knows loneliness and what is most poisonous
in it.
274
The problem for
those who wait.—For a higher man in whom the solution to a problem
lies asleep, strokes of luck and all sorts of unpredictable things are
necessary for him to swing into action at just the right time—“for an eruption,”
as we could say. Ordinarily it does not happen, and in all the corners
of the earth sit people waiting, who hardly know to what extent they are
waiting, but even less that they are waiting in vain. From time to time the
call to wake up, that chance which provides the “permission” for action comes
too late—at a time when the best youth and power for action have already been
used up in sitting still. And many a man, in the very moment he “sprang up,”
has found to his horror that his limbs have gone to sleep and his spirit is
already too heavy! “It is too late,” he says to himself, having lost faith in
himself, and is now forever useless. —In the realm of the genius, could
“Raphael without hands,” taking that phrase in the widest sense, perhaps not be
the exception but the rule?*—Genius is perhaps not really so rare, but the five
hundred hands needed to tyrannize the kairos, “the right time,”
to seize chance by the forelock!
275
Anyone who does
not want to see the height of a man looks all the more keenly at what is
low and in his foreground—and in the process gives himself away.
276
With all kinds
of injury and loss the lower and cruder soul is better off than the more noble
one: the dangers for the latter must be greater; the probability that it will
go wrong and die is even immense, given the multifaceted nature of its living
conditions.—With a lizard a finger which has been lost grows back: not so with
a man.
277
Bad enough! The
old story again! When we have finished building our house, we suddenly notice
that we have learned something in the process, something we simply had to
know before we started to build. The eternally tiresome “Too late!”—The
melancholy of everything finished! . . .
278
Wanderer, who
are you? I see you going on your way, without scorn, without love, with
unfathomable eyes, damp and sad like a lead sinker which has come back
unsatisfied from every depth into the light—what was it looking for down
there?—with a breast which does not sigh, with a lip which hides its disgust,
with a hand which now grasps only slowly: Who are you? What have you been
doing? Have a rest here: this place is hospitable to everyone—relax! And
whoever you happen to be, what would you like now? What do you need to recuperate?
Just name it: what I have I’ll offer you! “For relaxation? For recuperation? O
you inquisitive man, what are you talking about! But give me, I beg . . .”
What? What? Say it!—“One more mask! A second mask!” . . . .
279
Men of profound
sorrow betray themselves when they are happy: they have a way of grabbing
happiness as if they would like to overwhelm and strangle it from
jealousy—alas, they know too well that it’s running away from them!
280
“Bad! Bad!
What? Is he not going—back?”—Yes! But you understand him badly if you complain
about it. He’s going back, as every man does who wants to make a huge jump.—
281
“Will people
believe me? But I demand that people believe me: I have always thought only
badly of myself and about myself, only in very rare cases, only when under
compulsion, always without delight ‘for the subject,’ ready to wander off from
‘myself,’ always without faith in the conclusion, thanks to the uncontrollable
mistrust of the possibility of self-knowledge which has taken me so far
that I find even the idea of ‘immediate knowledge,’ which the theoreticians
allow themselves, a contradictio in adjecto [contradiction in terms]:
this entire fact is almost the surest thing I know about myself. Within me
there must be some kind of aversion to believing anything definite about
myself. Is a riddle perhaps hidden in that? Probably, but fortunately nothing
for my own teeth. Perhaps it reveals the species to which I belong?—But not to
me: and that’s enough to satisfy me.”
282
“But what has
happened to you?”—“I don’t know,” he said, hesitating; “perhaps the harpies
have flown over my table.”* Occasionally nowadays it
happens that a mild, moderate, reserved man suddenly becomes violent, smashes
plates, throws over the table, screams, stomps around, slanders the entire
world—and finally goes to the side ashamed, furious with himself.—Where? What
for? To starve off on his own? To suffocate on his memory? Anyone who has the
desires of a lofty discriminating soul and only rarely finds his table set and
his nourishment ready will be in great danger at all times: but today the
danger is extraordinary. Thrown into a noisy and uncouth age, with which he
does not want to eat out of the same dish, he can easily perish from hunger and
thirst, or, if he finally nonetheless “catches on,”—from sudden disgust.—All of
us have probably already sat at tables where we did not belong; and it’s
precisely the most spiritual ones among us who are the most difficult to feed,
who know that dangerous dyspepsia which comes from a sudden insight and
disappointment about our food and those sitting next to us at the table—the after-dinner
disgust.
283
Assuming that
one wants to praise at all, there’s a refined and at the same time noble
self-control which always gives praise only where one does not agree:—in
other cases one would really be praising oneself, something that contradicts
good taste—naturally, a self-control which provides a good opportunity and
provocation for one to be constantly misunderstood. In order to permit
oneself this true luxury of taste and morality, one must not live among
spiritual fools, but rather among people whose misunderstandings and false
ideas are still amusing for their sophistication—or one will have to pay dearly
for it!—“He is praising me: thus, he admits I’m right”—this asinine way
of making conclusions ruins half of life for us hermits, for it brings the
asses into our neighbourhood and friendship.
284
To live with an
immense and proud composure: always beyond.—To have and not have one’s
feelings, one’s for and against, voluntarily, to condescend to them for hours,
to sit on them, as if on a horse, often as if on a donkey:—for one needs
to know how to use their stupidity as well as their fire. To preserve one’s
three hundred foregrounds, as well as one’s dark glasses: for there are
occasions when no one should be allowed to look into our eyes, even less into
our “reasons.” And to select for company that mischievous and cheerful vice,
courtesy. And to remain master of one’s four virtues: courage, insight,
sympathy, and loneliness. For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime
tendency and impulse for cleanliness, which senses how contact between one
person and another—“in society”—must inevitably bring impurity with it. Every
community somehow, somewhere, sometime makes people— “common.”
285
The greatest
events and ideas—but the greatest ideas are the greatest events—are understood
last of all: the generations contemporary with them do not experience
such events—they go on living past them. What happens then is something like in
the realm of the stars. The light of the most distant star comes to men last of
all: and before that light arrives, men deny that there are stars there.
“How many centuries does a spirit need in order to be understood?”—that is also
a standard with which people construct a rank ordering and etiquette, as is necessary,
for spirits and stars.—
286
“Here the view
is free, the spirit elevated.”—But there is a reverse kind of person who is
also on the heights and also has a free view—but who looks down.
287
What is noble?
What does the word “noble” still mean to us nowadays? What reveals the noble
human being, how do people recognize him, under this heavy, oppressive sky at
the beginning of the rule of the rabble, which is making everything opaque and
leaden?—It is not the actions which prove him—actions are always ambiguous,
always inscrutable—; nor is it the “works.” Among artists and scholars today we
find a sufficient number of those who through their works reveal how a profound
desire for what is noble drives them: but this very need for what is
noble is fundamentally different from the needs of the noble soul itself and is
really the eloquent and dangerous indication that such a soul is lacking. It’s
not the works; it’s the belief which decides here, which here establishes
the order of rank, to take up once more an old religious formula with a new and
more profound understanding: some basic certainty which a noble soul has about
itself, something which does not allow itself to be sought out or found or
perhaps even to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself.—
288
There are human
beings who have spirit in an inevitable way. They may toss and turn as they
wish and hold their hands in front of their tell-tale eyes (—as if the hand
were not a give away!—): finally it always comes out that they have something
which they are hiding, that is, spirit. One of the most sophisticated ways to
deceive, at least for as long as possible, and to present oneself successfully
as stupider than one is—what in common life is often as desirable as an
umbrella—is called enthusiasm, including what belongs with it, for
example, virtue. For, as Galiani, who must have known, says:—vertu est
enthousiasme [virtue is enthusiasm].
289
In the writings
of a hermit we always hear something of the echo of desolation, something of
the whispers and the timid gazing around of isolation; from his strongest
words, even from his screaming, still resounds a new and dangerous kind of
silence, of concealment. Whoever has sat down, year in and year out, day and
night, alone in an intimate dispute and conversation with his soul, whoever has
become a cave bear or digger for treasure or guardian of treasure and dragon in
his own cavern—it can be a labyrinth but also a gold mine—such a man’s very
ideas finally take on a distinct twilight colouring and smell as much of mould
as they do of profundity, something incommunicable and reluctant, which blows
cold wind over everyone passing by. The hermit does not believe that a philosopher—assuming
that a philosopher has always first been a hermit—has ever expressed his real
and final opinion in his books. Don’t people write books expressly to hide what
they have stored inside them?—In fact, he will have doubts whether a
philosopher could generally have “real and final” opinions, whether in
his case behind every cave there does not still lie, and must lie, an even
deeper cavern—a more comprehensive, stranger, richer world beyond the surface,
an abyss behind every reason, under every “foundation.” Every philosophy is a foreground-philosophy—that
is the judgment of a hermit: “There is something arbitrary about the fact that he
remained here, looked back, looked around, that at this point he set his
shovel aside and did not dig more deeply—there is also something suspicious about
it.” Every philosophy also hides a philosophy; every opinion is also a
hiding place, every word is also a mask.
290
Every deep
thinker is more afraid of being understood than being misunderstood. In the
latter case, perhaps his vanity suffers, but the former hurts his heart, his
sympathy, which always says, “Alas, why do you want to have it as hard
as I did?”
291
Man, a
multifaceted, lying, artificial, and impenetrable animal, who spooks other
animals less by his power than by his cunning and intelligence, has invented
good conscience in order to enjoy his own soul for once as something simple;
and all of morality is a long spirited falsification, thanks to which it’s at
all possible to enjoy a glimpse at the soul. From this point of view, perhaps
much more belongs to the idea of “art” than people commonly believe.
292
A philosopher:
that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and
dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his very own thoughts as if from
outside, as if from above and below, as if they are experiences and lightning
strikes tailor-made for him; who himself is perhaps a storm which moves
along pregnant with new lightning flashes; a fateful man, around whom things
always rumble and mutter and gape and mysteriously close. A philosopher: alas,
a being which often runs away from itself, often is afraid of itself—but which
is too curious not to “come back to itself” again and again. . .
293
A man who says,
“That pleases me. I take that for my own and will protect it and defend it
against everyone”; a man who can carry out a task, put a decision into effect,
remain true to an idea, hold on to a woman, punish and cast down an insolent
person; a man who has his anger and his sword and to whom the weak, the
suffering, the distressed, and even the animals are happy to go and belong to
by nature—in short, a man who is by nature a master—when such a man has
pity, well, this pity is worth something! But what is there in the pity
of those who suffer! Or even of those who preach pity! Today in almost all of
Europe there is a pathological susceptibility and sensitivity to pain, as well
as a nasty lack of restraint in complaining, a mollycoddling, which likes to
dress itself up with religion and philosophical bits and pieces as something
loftier—there is a formal culture of suffering. In my view, the unmanliness
of what is christened “pity” in such enthusiastic circles is what always
strikes the eye first.—We must excommunicate this latest form of bad taste,
powerfully and thoroughly; and finally I wish that people would set against
their hearts and throats the good amulet “gai saber,”—gay science”, to
clarify this matter for the Germans.
294
The Olympian
vice.—In spite of that philosopher who, as a genuine Englishman, tried to
make laughing a defamation of character among all thinking men—“Laughter is a
serious infirmity of human nature which every thinking man will strive to
overcome” (Hobbes)—I would really allow myself to order the ranks of
philosophers according to the rank of their laughter—right up to those who are
capable of golden laughter.* And
assuming that the gods also practise philosophy, a fact which many conclusions
have already driven me to—I don’t doubt
that in the process they know how to laugh in a superhuman and new
way—and at the expense of all serious things! Gods delight in making fun: even
where sacred actions are concerned, it seems they cannot stop laughing.
295
The genius of
the heart, as that great hidden presence possesses it, the tempter-god and born
pied piper of the conscience, whose voice knows how to climb down into the
underworld of every soul, who does not say a word or cast a glance in which
there does not lie some concern with and trace of temptation, whose mastery
includes the fact that he understands how to seem—and not what he is, but what
for those who follow him is one more compulsion to press themselves
always closer to him, to follow him ever more inwardly and fundamentally:—that
genius of the heart, who makes all noise and self-satisfaction fall silent and
teaches it to listen, who smooths out the rough souls and gives them a new
desire to taste,—to lie still as a mirror so that the deep heaven reflects
itself in them—; the genius of the heart who teaches the foolish and over-hasty
hand to hesitate and reach out more delicately; who senses the hidden and
forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under the thick
cloudy ice and is a divining rod for every grain of gold which has lain buried
for a long time in a dungeon crammed with mud and sand; the genius of the
heart, at whose touch everyone goes forward richer, not divinely gifted and
surprised, not as if delighted and oppressed with strange, fine things, but
richer in his own self, newer to himself than previously, broken open, blown
upon and sounded out by a thawing wind, more uncertain perhaps, more tender,
more fragile, more broken, but full of hopes which as yet have no names, full
of new will and flowing, full of new dissatisfactions and opposing currents . .
. But what am I doing, my friends? Whom am I speaking to you about? Have I
forgotten myself so much that I have not once named him to you? It could be
that you have already guessed for yourself who this dubious spirit and god is
who wants to be praised in such a way. For just as things go with anyone
who from the time he walked on childish legs has always been on the move and
through alien territory, so many strange and not un-dangerous spirits have
crossed my path, too, above all the one I have just been speaking about, who
has come again and again, namely, no less a spirit than the god Dionysus,
that enormously ambiguous and tempter god, to whom in earlier times, as you
know, I offered up my first work, in all secrecy and reverence—as the last
person, so I thought, who had offered a sacrifice to him: for I found no
one who understood what I was doing then.*
Meanwhile I learned a great deal, much too much, about the philosophy of this
god, and, as mentioned, from mouth to mouth—I, the last disciple and initiate
of the god Dionysus: and I might well at last begin to give you, my friends, a
little taste of this philosophy, as much as I am permitted? In a hushed voice,
as is reasonable: for this concerns a number of things which are secret, new,
strange, odd, mysterious. Even the fact that Dionysus is a philosopher and that
the gods also carry on philosophy seems to me a novelty which is not harmless
and which perhaps might excite mistrust precisely among philosophers—among you,
my friends it has less against it, although it could be that it comes too late
and not at the right moment: for people have revealed to me that nowadays you
are not happy to believe in god and gods. Also perhaps the fact that in my
explanation I must proceed with more candour than is always pleasing to the
strict habits of your ears? Certainly the god under discussion went further,
very much further, in conversations like this and was always several steps
ahead of me . . . in fact, if it were permitted, I would, following human
practices, attach to him beautifully solemn names of splendour and virtue; I
would have to provide a great deal of praise for his courage as an explorer and
discoverer, for his daring honesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such
a god has no idea how to begin with all this venerable rubbish and pageantry.
“Keep that,” he would say, “for yourself and people like you and anyone else
who needs it! I have no reason to decorate my nakedness!”—Do people sense that this
type of divinity and philosopher perhaps lacks shame? He said it this way once,
“In some circumstances, I love human beings”—and in saying that, he was
alluding to Ariadne, who was present—“for me a human being is a pleasant,
brave, inventive animal which has no equal on earth; it finds the right path
even in every labyrinth. I like him: I often reflect how I could bring him
further forwards and make him stronger, more evil, and more profound than he
is.”—“Stronger, more evil, and more profound?” I asked shocked. “Yes,” he said
once more, “stronger, more evil, and more profound, also more beautiful”—and
with that the tempter god smiled with his halcyon smile, as if he had just
uttered an enchanting compliment We can see here also that it is not just shame
this divinity lacks—; and there are in general good reasons to suppose that in
some things the gods collectively could learn from us human beings. We human
beings are—more human. . .*
296
Alas, what are
you then, my written and painted thoughts! It’s not so long ago that you were
still so colourful, young, and malicious, full of stings and secret seasonings,
so that you made me sneeze and laugh.—And now? You have already stripped off
your novelty and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths: you already
look so immortal, so heartbreakingly honest, so boring! And was it ever
different? What things we transcribe in our writing and painting, we mandarins
with a Chinese paintbrush, we immortalizers of things which let
themselves be written—what are the only things we are capable of painting?
Alas, always only what is just about to fade and is beginning to lose its
fragrance! Alas, always only storms which are worn out and withdrawing and old
yellow feelings! Alas, always only birds which have exhausted themselves flying
and lost their way and now let themselves be caught by hand—by our hand!
We immortalize what can no longer live and fly, only tired and crumbling
things! And it is only your afternoon, my written and painted thoughts,
for which I alone have colours, many colours perhaps, many colourful caresses
and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds:—but no one will sense from me
how you looked in your dawn, you sudden sparks and miracles of my loneliness,
you, my old loved ones—my wicked thoughts!
. .
. Horace:
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC) an important poet in classical Rome. [Back to Text]
. .
. Raphael
(1483-1520): major Italian painter of the Renaissance, who died at age
thirty-seven. [Back to Text]
. . harpies: winged monsters from
Greek mythology who steal food. [Back to Text]