SECOND PART.
33. XXXIII. THE GRAVE-SONG. (continued)
And when I performed my hardest task, and celebrated the triumph of my
victories, then did ye make those who loved me call out that I then grieved
them most.
Verily, it was always your doing: ye embittered to me my best honey, and
the diligence of my best bees.
To my charity have ye ever sent the most impudent beggars; around my
sympathy have ye ever crowded the incurably shameless. Thus have ye
wounded the faith of my virtue.
And when I offered my holiest as a sacrifice, immediately did your "piety"
put its fatter gifts beside it: so that my holiest suffocated in the fumes
of your fat.
And once did I want to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens
did I want to dance. Then did ye seduce my favourite minstrel.
And now hath he struck up an awful, melancholy air; alas, he tooted as a
mournful horn to mine ear!
Murderous minstrel, instrument of evil, most innocent instrument! Already
did I stand prepared for the best dance: then didst thou slay my rapture
with thy tones!
Only in the dance do I know how to speak the parable of the highest
things:--and now hath my grandest parable remained unspoken in my limbs!
Unspoken and unrealised hath my highest hope remained! And there have
perished for me all the visions and consolations of my youth!
How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and surmount such wounds? How
did my soul rise again out of those sepulchres?
Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would
rend rocks asunder: it is called MY WILL. Silently doth it proceed, and
unchanged throughout the years.
Its course will it go upon my feet, mine old Will; hard of heart is its
nature and invulnerable.
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