On The Friend
"There is always one too many around me" - thus thinks the hermit. "Always one times one-eventually that makes two."
I and me are always too deep in conversation: how could one stand if there were no friend? For the hermit the friend is always the third person: the third is the cork that prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depths. Alas, there are too many depths for all hermits; therefore they long so for a friend and his height.
Our faith in others betrays in what respect we would like to have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often love is only a device to overcome envy. And often one attacks and makes and enemy in order to conceal that one is open to attack. "At least be my enemy"-thus speaks true reverence, which does not dare ask for friendship.
If one wants to have a friend one must also want to wage war for him: and to wage war, one must be capable of being an enemy.
In a friend one should still honor the enemy. Can you go close to your friend without going over to him?
In a friend one should have one's best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him.
You do not want to put on anything for your friend? Should it be an honor for your friend that you give yourself to him as you are? But he sends you to the devil for that. He who makes no secret of himself, enrages: so much reason have you for fearing nakedness. Indeed, if you were gods, then you might be ashamed of your clothes. You cannot groom yourself too beautifully for your friend: for you shall be to him as an arrow and a longing for the overman.
Have you ever seen your friend asleep - and found out how he looks? What is the face of your friend anyway? It is your own face in a rough and imperfect mirror.
Have you ever seen your friend asslep? Were you not shocked that your friend looks like that? O my friend, man is something that must be overcome.
A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything. Your dream should betray to you what your friend does while awake.
Your compassion should be a guess - to know first whether your friend wants compassion. Perhaps what he loves in you is the unbroken eye and the glance of eternity. Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell, and you should break a tooth on it. That way it will have delicacy and sweetness.
Are you pure air and solitude and bread and medicine for your friend? Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nevertheless redeem their friends.
Are you a slave? Then you cannot be a friend, Are you a tyrant? Then you cannot have friends. All-too-long have a slave and a tyrant been concealed in woman. Therefore woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love.
Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love. And even in the knowing love of a woman there are still assault and lightning and night alongside light.
Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best, cows.
Woman is not yet capable of friendship. But tell me, you men, who among you is capable of friendship?
Alas, behold your poverty, you men, and the meanness of your souls! As much as you give the friend, I will give even my enemy, and I shall not be any the poorer for it. There is comradeship: let there be friendship!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Part I
Friedrich Nietzsche
"There is always one too many around me" - thus thinks the hermit. "Always one times one-eventually that makes two."
I and me are always too deep in conversation: how could one stand if there were no friend? For the hermit the friend is always the third person: the third is the cork that prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depths. Alas, there are too many depths for all hermits; therefore they long so for a friend and his height.
Our faith in others betrays in what respect we would like to have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often love is only a device to overcome envy. And often one attacks and makes and enemy in order to conceal that one is open to attack. "At least be my enemy"-thus speaks true reverence, which does not dare ask for friendship.
If one wants to have a friend one must also want to wage war for him: and to wage war, one must be capable of being an enemy.
In a friend one should still honor the enemy. Can you go close to your friend without going over to him?
In a friend one should have one's best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him.
You do not want to put on anything for your friend? Should it be an honor for your friend that you give yourself to him as you are? But he sends you to the devil for that. He who makes no secret of himself, enrages: so much reason have you for fearing nakedness. Indeed, if you were gods, then you might be ashamed of your clothes. You cannot groom yourself too beautifully for your friend: for you shall be to him as an arrow and a longing for the overman.
Have you ever seen your friend asleep - and found out how he looks? What is the face of your friend anyway? It is your own face in a rough and imperfect mirror.
Have you ever seen your friend asslep? Were you not shocked that your friend looks like that? O my friend, man is something that must be overcome.
A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything. Your dream should betray to you what your friend does while awake.
Your compassion should be a guess - to know first whether your friend wants compassion. Perhaps what he loves in you is the unbroken eye and the glance of eternity. Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell, and you should break a tooth on it. That way it will have delicacy and sweetness.
Are you pure air and solitude and bread and medicine for your friend? Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nevertheless redeem their friends.
Are you a slave? Then you cannot be a friend, Are you a tyrant? Then you cannot have friends. All-too-long have a slave and a tyrant been concealed in woman. Therefore woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love.
Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love. And even in the knowing love of a woman there are still assault and lightning and night alongside light.
Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best, cows.
Woman is not yet capable of friendship. But tell me, you men, who among you is capable of friendship?
Alas, behold your poverty, you men, and the meanness of your souls! As much as you give the friend, I will give even my enemy, and I shall not be any the poorer for it. There is comradeship: let there be friendship!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Part I
Friedrich Nietzsche
