From The Gay
Science by Friederich Nietzsche
The Madman
"Have you not heard of that madman who
lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried
incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not
believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter.
Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said
another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or
emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst
and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?"
he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are
his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea?
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we
unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we
moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward,
sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not
straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty
space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all
the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet
of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything
yet of God's decomposition? God's too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead.
And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console
ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has
yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off
us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement,
what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed
too great for us? Must we not ourselves become god's simply to be worthy of it?
There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for
the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history
hitherto".
Here the madman fell silent and
again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in
astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went
out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not
come yet. The tremendous event is still on it's way, still traveling - it has
not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light
of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before
they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the
distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves".
It has been further related that
on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem.
Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are
these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"