The Gay Science – “Parable of the Madman” Friedrich Nietzsche

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The Gay Science – “Parable of the Madman”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1882)

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 seek God! I seek

God!"—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he

provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child?

asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage?

emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?"

he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But

how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe

away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its

sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we

not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still

any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the

breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on

us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the

noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the

divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we

have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and

mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who

will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals

of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this

deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of

it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of

this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent

and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it

broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not

yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the

ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time;

deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more

distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several

churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account,

he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if

they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"