My brethren in war! I love you from the very heart. I am, and was ever, your counterpart. And I am also your best enemy. So let me tell you the truth!


I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!


And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship.


I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! "Uniform" one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!


Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an enemy—for YOUR enemy. And with some of you there is hatred at first sight.


Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!


Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more than the long.


You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory!


One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!


Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.


War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims.


"What is good?" ye ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say: "To be good is what is pretty, and at the same time touching."


They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your good-will. Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed of their ebb.


Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!


And when your soul becometh great, then doth it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is wickedness. I know you.


In wickedness the haughty man and the weakling meet. But they misunderstand one another. I know you.


Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are also your successes.


Resistance—that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying!


To the good warrior soundeth "thou shalt" pleasanter than "I will." And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.


Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life!


Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man is something that is to be surpassed.


So live your life of obedience and of war! What matter about long life! What warrior wisheth to be spared!


I spare you not, I love you from my very heart, my brethren in war!—


Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brethren: here there are states.


A state? What is that? Well! open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of peoples.


A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."


It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.


Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.


Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.


This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath it devised for itself in laws and customs.


But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.


False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the biting one. False are even its bowels.


Confusion of language of good and evil; this sign I give unto you as the sign of the state. Verily, the will to death, indicateth this sign! Verily, it beckoneth unto the preachers of death!


Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised!


See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them!


"On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the regulating finger of God"—thus roareth the monster. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted fall upon their knees!


Ah! even in your ears, ye great souls, it whispereth its gloomy lies! Ah! it findeth out the rich hearts which willingly lavish themselves!


Yea, it findeth you out too, ye conquerors of the old God! Weary ye became of the conflict, and now your weariness serveth the new idol!


Heroes and honourable ones, it would fain set up around it, the new idol! Gladly it basketh in the sunshine of good consciences,—the cold monster!


Everything will it give YOU, if YE worship it, the new idol: thus it purchaseth the lustre of your virtue, and the glance of your proud eyes.


It seeketh to allure by means of you, the many-too-many! Yea, a hellish artifice hath here been devised, a death-horse jingling with the trappings of divine honours!


Yea, a dying for many hath here been devised, which glorifieth itself as life: verily, a hearty service unto all preachers of death!


The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where the slow suicide of all—is called "life."


Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft—and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them!


Just see these superfluous ones! Sick are they always; they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another, and cannot even digest themselves.


Just see these superfluous ones! Wealth they acquire and become poorer thereby. Power they seek for, and above all, the lever of power, much money—these impotent ones!


See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another, and thus scuffle into the mud and the abyss.


Towards the throne they all strive: it is their madness—as if happiness sat on the throne! Ofttimes sitteth filth on the throne.—and ofttimes also the throne on filth.


Madmen they all seem to me, and clambering apes, and too eager. Badly smelleth their idol to me, the cold monster: badly they all smell to me, these idolaters.


My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of their maws and appetites! Better break the windows and jump into the open air!


Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the idolatry of the superfluous!


Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the steam of these human sacrifices!


Open still remaineth the earth for great souls. Empty are still many sites for lone ones and twain ones, around which floateth the odour of tranquil seas.


Open still remaineth a free life for great souls. Verily, he who possesseth little is so much the less possessed: blessed be moderate poverty!


There, where the state ceaseth—there only commenceth the man who is not superfluous: there commenceth the song of the necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody.


There, where the state CEASETH—pray look thither, my brethren! Do ye not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the Superman?—


Flee, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung all over with the stings of the little ones.


Admirably do forest and rock know how to be silent with thee. Resemble again the tree which thou lovest, the broad-branched one—silently and attentively it o'erhangeth the sea.


Where solitude endeth, there beginneth the market-place; and where the market-place beginneth, there beginneth also the noise of the great actors, and the buzzing of the poison-flies.


In the world even the best things are worthless without those who represent them: those representers, the people call great men.


Little do the people understand what is great—that is to say, the creating agency. But they have a taste for all representers and actors of great things.


Around the devisers of new values revolveth the world:—invisibly it revolveth. But around the actors revolve the people and the glory: such is the course of things.


Spirit, hath the actor, but little conscience of the spirit. He believeth always in that wherewith he maketh believe most strongly—in HIMSELF!


To-morrow he hath a new belief, and the day after, one still newer. Sharp perceptions hath he, like the people, and changeable humours.


To upset—that meaneth with him to prove. To drive mad—that meaneth with him to convince. And blood is counted by him as the best of all arguments.


A truth which only glideth into fine ears, he calleth falsehood and trumpery. Verily, he believeth only in Gods that make a great noise in the world!


Full of clattering buffoons is the market-place,—and the people glory in their great men! These are for them the masters of the hour.


But the hour presseth them; so they press thee. And also from thee they want Yea or Nay. Alas! thou wouldst set thy chair betwixt For and Against?


On account of those absolute and impatient ones, be not jealous, thou lover of truth! Never yet did truth cling to the arm of an absolute one.


On account of those abrupt ones, return into thy security: only in the market-place is one assailed by Yea? or Nay?


Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know WHAT hath fallen into their depths.


Away from the market-place and from fame taketh place all that is great: away from the market-place and from fame have ever dwelt the devisers of new values.


Flee, my friend, into thy solitude: I see thee stung all over by the poisonous flies. Flee thither, where a rough, strong breeze bloweth!


Flee into thy solitude! Thou hast lived too closely to the small and the pitiable. Flee from their invisible vengeance! Towards thee they have nothing but vengeance.


Raise no longer an arm against them! Innumerable are they, and it is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.


Innumerable are the small and pitiable ones; and of many a proud structure, rain-drops and weeds have been the ruin.


Thou art not stone; but already hast thou become hollow by the numerous drops. Thou wilt yet break and burst by the numerous drops.


Exhausted I see thee, by poisonous flies; bleeding I see thee, and torn at a hundred spots; and thy pride will not even upbraid.


Blood they would have from thee in all innocence; blood their bloodless souls crave for—and they sting, therefore, in all innocence.


But thou, profound one, thou sufferest too profoundly even from small wounds; and ere thou hadst recovered, the same poison-worm crawled over thy hand.


Too proud art thou to kill these sweet-tooths. But take care lest it be thy fate to suffer all their poisonous injustice!


They buzz around thee also with their praise: obtrusiveness, is their praise. They want to be close to thy skin and thy blood.


They flatter thee, as one flattereth a God or devil; they whimper before thee, as before a God or devil. What doth it come to! Flatterers are they, and whimperers, and nothing more.


Often, also, do they show themselves to thee as amiable ones. But that hath ever been the prudence of the cowardly. Yea! the cowardly are wise!


They think much about thee with their circumscribed souls—thou art always suspected by them! Whatever is much thought about is at last thought suspicious.


They punish thee for all thy virtues. They pardon thee in their inmost hearts only—for thine errors.


Because thou art gentle and of upright character, thou sayest: "Blameless are they for their small existence." But their circumscribed souls think: "Blamable is all great existence."


Even when thou art gentle towards them, they still feel themselves despised by thee; and they repay thy beneficence with secret maleficence.


Thy silent pride is always counter to their taste; they rejoice if once thou be humble enough to be frivolous.


What we recognise in a man, we also irritate in him. Therefore be on your guard against the small ones!


In thy presence they feel themselves small, and their baseness gleameth and gloweth against thee in invisible vengeance.


Sawest thou not how often they became dumb when thou approachedst them, and how their energy left them like the smoke of an extinguishing fire?


Yea, my friend, the bad conscience art thou of thy neighbours; for they are unworthy of thee. Therefore they hate thee, and would fain suck thy blood.


Thy neighbours will always be poisonous flies; what is great in thee—that itself must make them more poisonous, and always more fly-like.


Flee, my friend, into thy solitude—and thither, where a rough strong breeze bloweth. It is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.—


I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, there are too many of the lustful.


Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?


And just look at these men: their eye saith it—they know nothing better on earth than to lie with a woman.


Filth is at the bottom of their souls; and alas! if their filth hath still spirit in it!


Would that ye were perfect—at least as animals! But to animals belongeth innocence.


Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel you to innocence in your instincts.


Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice.


These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust looketh enviously out of all that they do.


Even into the heights of their virtue and into their cold spirit doth this creature follow them, with its discord.


And how nicely can doggish lust beg for a piece of spirit, when a piece of flesh is denied it!


Ye love tragedies and all that breaketh the heart? But I am distrustful of your doggish lust.


Ye have too cruel eyes, and ye look wantonly towards the sufferers. Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the name of fellow-suffering?


And also this parable give I unto you: Not a few who meant to cast out their devil, went thereby into the swine themselves.


To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded: lest it become the road to hell—to filth and lust of soul.


Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for me to do.


Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters.


Verily, there are chaste ones from their very nature; they are gentler of heart, and laugh better and oftener than you.


They laugh also at chastity, and ask: "What is chastity?


Is chastity not folly? But the folly came unto us, and not we unto it.


We offered that guest harbour and heart: now it dwelleth with us—let it stay as long as it will!"—


"One, is always too many about me"—thinketh the anchorite. "Always once one—that maketh two in the long run!"


I and me are always too earnestly in conversation: how could it be endured, if there were not a friend?


The friend of the anchorite is always the third one: the third one is the cork which preventeth the conversation of the two sinking into the depth.


Ah! there are too many depths for all anchorites. Therefore, do they long so much for a friend, and for his elevation.


Our faith in others betrayeth wherein we would fain have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer.


And often with our love we want merely to overleap envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.


"Be at least mine enemy!"—thus speaketh the true reverence, which doth not venture to solicit friendship.


If one would have a friend, then must one also be willing to wage war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be CAPABLE of being an enemy.


One ought still to honour the enemy in one's friend. Canst thou go nigh unto thy friend, and not go over to him?


In one's friend one shall have one's best enemy. Thou shalt be closest unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him.


Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend? It is in honour of thy friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou art? But he wisheth thee to the devil on that account!


He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason have ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of clothing!


Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend; for thou shalt be unto him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.


Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep—to know how he looketh? What is usually the countenance of thy friend? It is thine own countenance, in a coarse and imperfect mirror.


Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep? Wert thou not dismayed at thy friend looking so? O my friend, man is something that hath to be surpassed.


In divining and keeping silence shall the friend be a master: not everything must thou wish to see. Thy dream shall disclose unto thee what thy friend doeth when awake.


Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy friend wanteth pity. Perhaps he loveth in thee the unmoved eye, and the look of eternity.


Let thy pity for thy friend be hid under a hard shell; thou shalt bite out a tooth upon it. Thus will it have delicacy and sweetness.


Art thou pure air and solitude and bread and medicine to thy friend? Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.


Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou a tyrant? Then thou canst not have friends.


Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. On that account woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knoweth only love.


In woman's love there is injustice and blindness to all she doth not love. And even in woman's conscious love, there is still always surprise and lightning and night, along with the light.


As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best, cows.


As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of friendship?


Oh! your poverty, ye men, and your sordidness of soul! As much as ye give to your friend, will I give even to my foe, and will not have become poorer thereby.


There is comradeship: may there be friendship!


Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: thus he discovered the good and bad of many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than good and bad.


No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbour valueth.


Much that passed for good with one people was regarded with scorn and contempt by another: thus I found it. Much found I here called bad, which was there decked with purple honours.


Never did the one neighbour understand the other: ever did his soul marvel at his neighbour's delusion and wickedness.


A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo! it is the table of their triumphs; lo! it is the voice of their Will to Power.


It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and hardest of all,—they extol as holy.


Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and shine, to the dismay and envy of their neighbours, they regard as the high and foremost thing, the test and the meaning of all else.


Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people's need, its land, its sky, and its neighbour, then wouldst thou divine the law of its surmountings, and why it climbeth up that ladder to its hope.


"Always shalt thou be the foremost and prominent above others: no one shall thy jealous soul love, except a friend"—that made the soul of a Greek thrill: thereby went he his way to greatness.


"To speak truth, and be skilful with bow and arrow"—so seemed it alike pleasing and hard to the people from whom cometh my name—the name which is alike pleasing and hard to me.


"To honour father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their will"—this table of surmounting hung another people over them, and became powerful and permanent thereby.


"To have fidelity, and for the sake of fidelity to risk honour and blood, even in evil and dangerous courses"—teaching itself so, another people mastered itself, and thus mastering itself, became pregnant and heavy with great hopes.


Verily, men have given unto themselves all their good and bad. Verily, they took it not, they found it not, it came not unto them as a voice from heaven.


Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself—he created only the significance of things, a human significance! Therefore, calleth he himself "man," that is, the valuator.


Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things.


Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones!


Change of values—that is, change of the creating ones. Always doth he destroy who hath to be a creator.


Creating ones were first of all peoples, and only in late times individuals; verily, the individual himself is still the latest creation.


Peoples once hung over them tables of the good. Love which would rule and love which would obey, created for themselves such tables.


Older is the pleasure in the herd than the pleasure in the ego: and as long as the good conscience is for the herd, the bad conscience only saith: ego.


Verily, the crafty ego, the loveless one, that seeketh its advantage in the advantage of many—it is not the origin of the herd, but its ruin.


Loving ones, was it always, and creating ones, that created good and bad. Fire of love gloweth in the names of all the virtues, and fire of wrath.


Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones—"good" and "bad" are they called.


Verily, a prodigy is this power of praising and blaming. Tell me, ye brethren, who will master it for me? Who will put a fetter upon the thousand necks of this animal?


A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal.


But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking, is there not also still lacking—humanity itself?—


Ye crowd around your neighbour, and have fine words for it. But I say unto you: your neighbour-love is your bad love of yourselves.


Ye flee unto your neighbour from yourselves, and would fain make a virtue thereof: but I fathom your "unselfishness."


The THOU is older than the I; the THOU hath been consecrated, but not yet the I: so man presseth nigh unto his neighbour.


Do I advise you to neighbour-love? Rather do I advise you to neighbour-flight and to furthest love!


Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest and future ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things and phantoms.


The phantom that runneth on before thee, my brother, is fairer than thou; why dost thou not give unto it thy flesh and thy bones? But thou fearest, and runnest unto thy neighbour.


Ye cannot endure it with yourselves, and do not love yourselves sufficiently: so ye seek to mislead your neighbour into love, and would fain gild yourselves with his error.


Would that ye could not endure it with any kind of near ones, or their neighbours; then would ye have to create your friend and his overflowing heart out of yourselves.


Ye call in a witness when ye want to speak well of yourselves; and when ye have misled him to think well of you, ye also think well of yourselves.


Not only doth he lie, who speaketh contrary to his knowledge, but more so, he who speaketh contrary to his ignorance. And thus speak ye of yourselves in your intercourse, and belie your neighbour with yourselves.


Thus saith the fool: "Association with men spoileth the character, especially when one hath none."


The one goeth to his neighbour because he seeketh himself, and the other because he would fain lose himself. Your bad love to yourselves maketh solitude a prison to you.


The furthest ones are they who pay for your love to the near ones; and when there are but five of you together, a sixth must always die.


I love not your festivals either: too many actors found I there, and even the spectators often behaved like actors.


Not the neighbour do I teach you, but the friend. Let the friend be the festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of the Superman.


I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one must know how to be a sponge, if one would be loved by overflowing hearts.


I teach you the friend in whom the world standeth complete, a capsule of the good,—the creating friend, who hath always a complete world to bestow.


And as the world unrolled itself for him, so rolleth it together again for him in rings, as the growth of good through evil, as the growth of purpose out of chance.


Let the future and the furthest be the motive of thy to-day; in thy friend shalt thou love the Superman as thy motive.


My brethren, I advise you not to neighbour-love—I advise you to furthest love!—


Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto me.


"He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.


The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.


Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.


But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!


Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A self-rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee?


Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou art not a lusting and ambitious one!


Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than the bellows: they inflate, and make emptier than ever.


Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.


Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.


Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?


Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy law?


Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one's own law. Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the icy breath of aloneness.


To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes.


But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I am alone!"


One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: "All is false!"


There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if they do not succeed, then must they themselves die! But art thou capable of it—to be a murderer?


Hast thou ever known, my brother, the word "disdain"? And the anguish of thy justice in being just to those that disdain thee?


Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they heavily to thine account. Thou camest nigh unto them, and yet wentest past: for that they never forgive thee.


Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee. Most of all, however, is the flying one hated.


"How could ye be just unto me!"—must thou say—"I choose your injustice as my allotted portion."


Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my brother, if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that account!


And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue—they hate the lonesome ones.


Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the fire—of the fagot and stake.


And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him.


To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy paw; and I wish thy paw also to have claws.


But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself always be; thou waylayest thyself in caverns and forests.


Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way!


A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a soothsayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.


Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!


Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the creating one: a God wilt thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils!


Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the loving one: thou lovest thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself, as only the loving ones despise.


To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth! What knoweth he of love who hath not been obliged to despise just what he loved!


With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with thy creating; and late only will justice limp after thee.


With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus succumbeth.—


"Why stealest thou along so furtively in the twilight, Zarathustra? And what hidest thou so carefully under thy mantle?


Is it a treasure that hath been given thee? Or a child that hath been born thee? Or goest thou thyself on a thief's errand, thou friend of the evil?"—


Verily, my brother, said Zarathustra, it is a treasure that hath been given me: it is a little truth which I carry.


But it is naughty, like a young child; and if I hold not its mouth, it screameth too loudly.


As I went on my way alone to-day, at the hour when the sun declineth, there met me an old woman, and she spake thus unto my soul:


"Much hath Zarathustra spoken also to us women, but never spake he unto us concerning woman."


And I answered her: "Concerning woman, one should only talk unto men."


"Talk also unto me of woman," said she; "I am old enough to forget it presently."


And I obliged the old woman and spake thus unto her:


Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution—it is called pregnancy.


Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man?


Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything.


Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly.


Too sweet fruits—these the warrior liketh not. Therefore liketh he woman;—bitter is even the sweetest woman.


Better than man doth woman understand children, but man is more childish than woman.


In the true man there is a child hidden: it wanteth to play. Up then, ye women, and discover the child in man!


A plaything let woman be, pure and fine like the precious stone, illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come.


Let the beam of a star shine in your love! Let your hope say: "May I bear the Superman!"


In your love let there be valour! With your love shall ye assail him who inspireth you with fear!


In your love be your honour! Little doth woman understand otherwise about honour. But let this be your honour: always to love more than ye are loved, and never be the second.


Let man fear woman when she loveth: then maketh she every sacrifice, and everything else she regardeth as worthless.


Let man fear woman when she hateth: for man in his innermost soul is merely evil; woman, however, is mean.


Whom hateth woman most?—Thus spake the iron to the loadstone: "I hate thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee."


The happiness of man is, "I will." The happiness of woman is, "He will."


"Lo! now hath the world become perfect!"—thus thinketh every woman when she obeyeth with all her love.


Obey, must the woman, and find a depth for her surface. Surface, is woman's soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water.


Man's soul, however, is deep, its current gusheth in subterranean caverns: woman surmiseth its force, but comprehendeth it not.—


Then answered me the old woman: "Many fine things hath Zarathustra said, especially for those who are young enough for them.


Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right about them! Doth this happen, because with women nothing is impossible?


And now accept a little truth by way of thanks! I am old enough for it!


Swaddle it up and hold its mouth: otherwise it will scream too loudly, the little truth."


"Give me, woman, thy little truth!" said I. And thus spake the old woman:


"Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!"—


One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arms over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get away. "Not at all," said Zarathustra, "as yet hast thou not received my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long." "Thy journey is short," said the adder sadly; "my poison is fatal." Zarathustra smiled. "When did ever a dragon die of a serpent's poison?"—said he. "But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough to present it to me." Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked his wound.


When Zarathustra once told this to his disciples they asked him: "And what, O Zarathustra, is the moral of thy story?" And Zarathustra answered them thus:


The destroyer of morality, the good and just call me: my story is immoral.


When, however, ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you.


And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a little also!


And should a great injustice befall you, then do quickly five small ones besides. Hideous to behold is he on whom injustice presseth alone.


Did ye ever know this? Shared injustice is half justice. And he who can bear it, shall take the injustice upon himself!


A small revenge is humaner than no revenge at all. And if the punishment be not also a right and an honour to the transgressor, I do not like your punishing.


Nobler is it to own oneself in the wrong than to establish one's right, especially if one be in the right. Only, one must be rich enough to do so.


I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel.


Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes?


Devise me, then, the love which not only beareth all punishment, but also all guilt!


Devise me, then, the justice which acquitteth every one except the judge!


And would ye hear this likewise? To him who seeketh to be just from the heart, even the lie becometh philanthropy.


But how could I be just from the heart! How can I give every one his own! Let this be enough for me: I give unto every one mine own.


Finally, my brethren, guard against doing wrong to any anchorite. How could an anchorite forget! How could he requite!


Like a deep well is an anchorite. Easy is it to throw in a stone: if it should sink to the bottom, however, tell me, who will bring it out again?


Guard against injuring the anchorite! If ye have done so, however, well then, kill him also!—


I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth.


Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man ENTITLED to desire a child?


Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee.


Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or discord in thee?


I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation.


Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul.


Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!


A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create.


Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage.


Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage. But that which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, what shall I call it?


Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain!


Marriage they call it all; and they say their marriages are made in heaven.


Well, I do not like it, that heaven of the superfluous! No, I do not like them, those animals tangled in the heavenly toils!


Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath not matched!


Laugh not at such marriages! What child hath not had reason to weep over its parents?


Worthy did this man seem, and ripe for the meaning of the earth: but when I saw his wife, the earth seemed to me a home for madcaps.


Yea, I would that the earth shook with convulsions when a saint and a goose mate with one another.


This one went forth in quest of truth as a hero, and at last got for himself a small decked-up lie: his marriage he calleth it.


That one was reserved in intercourse and chose choicely. But one time he spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calleth it.


Another sought a handmaid with the virtues of an angel. But all at once he became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become an angel.


Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But even the astutest of them buyeth his wife in a sack.


Many short follies—that is called love by you. And your marriage putteth an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.


Your love to woman, and woman's love to man—ah, would that it were sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals alight on one another.


But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a painful ardour. It is a torch to light you to loftier paths.


Beyond yourselves shall ye love some day! Then LEARN first of all to love. And on that account ye had to drink the bitter cup of your love.


Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love: thus doth it cause longing for the Superman; thus doth it cause thirst in thee, the creating one!


Thirst in the creating one, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me, my brother, is this thy will to marriage?


Holy call I such a will, and such a marriage.—


Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: "Die at the right time!"


Die at the right time: so teacheth Zarathustra.


To be sure, he who never liveth at the right time, how could he ever die at the right time? Would that he might never be born!—Thus do I advise the superfluous ones.


But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.


Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest festivals.


The consummating death I show unto you, which becometh a stimulus and promise to the living.


His death, dieth the consummating one triumphantly, surrounded by hoping and promising ones.


Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festival at which such a dying one doth not consecrate the oaths of the living!


Thus to die is best; the next best, however, is to die in battle, and sacrifice a great soul.


But to the fighter equally hateful as to the victor, is your grinning death which stealeth nigh like a thief,—and yet cometh as master.


My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me because I want it.


And when shall I want it?—He that hath a goal and an heir, wanteth death at the right time for the goal and the heir.


And out of reverence for the goal and the heir, he will hang up no more withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life.


Verily, not the rope-makers will I resemble: they lengthen out their cord, and thereby go ever backward.


Many a one, also, waxeth too old for his truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth hath no longer the right to every truth.


And whoever wanteth to have fame, must take leave of honour betimes, and practise the difficult art of—going at the right time.


One must discontinue being feasted upon when one tasteth best: that is known by those who want to be long loved.


Sour apples are there, no doubt, whose lot is to wait until the last day of autumn: and at the same time they become ripe, yellow, and shrivelled.


In some ageth the heart first, and in others the spirit. And some are hoary in youth, but the late young keep long young.


To many men life is a failure; a poison-worm gnaweth at their heart. Then let them see to it that their dying is all the more a success.


Many never become sweet; they rot even in the summer. It is cowardice that holdeth them fast to their branches.


Far too many live, and far too long hang they on their branches. Would that a storm came and shook all this rottenness and worm-eatenness from the tree!


Would that there came preachers of SPEEDY death! Those would be the appropriate storms and agitators of the trees of life! But I hear only slow death preached, and patience with all that is "earthly."


Ah! ye preach patience with what is earthly? This earthly is it that hath too much patience with you, ye blasphemers!


Verily, too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death honour: and to many hath it proved a calamity that he died too early.


As yet had he known only tears, and the melancholy of the Hebrews, together with the hatred of the good and just—the Hebrew Jesus: then was he seized with the longing for death.


Had he but remained in the wilderness, and far from the good and just! Then, perhaps, would he have learned to live, and love the earth—and laughter also!


Believe it, my brethren! He died too early; he himself would have disavowed his doctrine had he attained to my age! Noble enough was he to disavow!


But he was still immature. Immaturely loveth the youth, and immaturely also hateth he man and earth. Confined and awkward are still his soul and the wings of his spirit.


But in man there is more of the child than in the youth, and less of melancholy: better understandeth he about life and death.


Free for death, and free in death; a holy Naysayer, when there is no longer time for Yea: thus understandeth he about death and life.


That your dying may not be a reproach to man and the earth, my friends: that do I solicit from the honey of your soul.


In your dying shall your spirit and your virtue still shine like an evening after-glow around the earth: otherwise your dying hath been unsatisfactory.


Thus will I die myself, that ye friends may love the earth more for my sake; and earth will I again become, to have rest in her that bore me.


Verily, a goal had Zarathustra; he threw his ball. Now be ye friends the heirs of my goal; to you throw I the golden ball.


Best of all, do I see you, my friends, throw the golden ball! And so tarry I still a little while on the earth—pardon me for it!


When Zarathustra had taken leave of the town to which his heart was attached, the name of which is "The Pied Cow," there followed him many people who called themselves his disciples, and kept him company. Thus came they to a crossroad. Then Zarathustra told them that he now wanted to go alone; for he was fond of going alone. His disciples, however, presented him at his departure with a staff, on the golden handle of which a serpent twined round the sun. Zarathustra rejoiced on account of the staff, and supported himself thereon; then spake he thus to his disciples:


Tell me, pray: how came gold to the highest value? Because it is uncommon, and unprofiting, and beaming, and soft in lustre; it always bestoweth itself.


Only as image of the highest virtue came gold to the highest value. Goldlike, beameth the glance of the bestower. Gold-lustre maketh peace between moon and sun.


Uncommon is the highest virtue, and unprofiting, beaming is it, and soft of lustre: a bestowing virtue is the highest virtue.


Verily, I divine you well, my disciples: ye strive like me for the bestowing virtue. What should ye have in common with cats and wolves?


It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul.


Insatiably striveth your soul for treasures and jewels, because your virtue is insatiable in desiring to bestow.


Ye constrain all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love.


Verily, an appropriator of all values must such bestowing love become; but healthy and holy, call I this selfishness.—


Another selfishness is there, an all-too-poor and hungry kind, which would always steal—the selfishness of the sick, the sickly selfishness.


With the eye of the thief it looketh upon all that is lustrous; with the craving of hunger it measureth him who hath abundance; and ever doth it prowl round the tables of bestowers.


Sickness speaketh in such craving, and invisible degeneration; of a sickly body, speaketh the larcenous craving of this selfishness.


Tell me, my brother, what do we think bad, and worst of all? Is it not DEGENERATION?—And we always suspect degeneration when the bestowing soul is lacking.


Upward goeth our course from genera on to super-genera. But a horror to us is the degenerating sense, which saith: "All for myself."


Upward soareth our sense: thus is it a simile of our body, a simile of an elevation. Such similes of elevations are the names of the virtues.


Thus goeth the body through history, a becomer and fighter. And the spirit—what is it to the body? Its fights' and victories' herald, its companion and echo.


Similes, are all names of good and evil; they do not speak out, they only hint. A fool who seeketh knowledge from them!


Give heed, my brethren, to every hour when your spirit would speak in similes: there is the origin of your virtue.


Elevated is then your body, and raised up; with its delight, enraptureth it the spirit; so that it becometh creator, and valuer, and lover, and everything's benefactor.


When your heart overfloweth broad and full like the river, a blessing and a danger to the lowlanders: there is the origin of your virtue.


When ye are exalted above praise and blame, and your will would command all things, as a loving one's will: there is the origin of your virtue.


When ye despise pleasant things, and the effeminate couch, and cannot couch far enough from the effeminate: there is the origin of your virtue.


When ye are willers of one will, and when that change of every need is needful to you: there is the origin of your virtue.


Verily, a new good and evil is it! Verily, a new deep murmuring, and the voice of a new fountain!


Power is it, this new virtue; a ruling thought is it, and around it a subtle soul: a golden sun, with the serpent of knowledge around it.


Here paused Zarathustra awhile, and looked lovingly on his disciples. Then he continued to speak thus—and his voice had changed:


Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning of the earth! Thus do I pray and conjure you.


Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings! Ah, there hath always been so much flown-away virtue!


Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth—yea, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning!


A hundred times hitherto hath spirit as well as virtue flown away and blundered. Alas! in our body dwelleth still all this delusion and blundering: body and will hath it there become.


A hundred times hitherto hath spirit as well as virtue attempted and erred. Yea, an attempt hath man been. Alas, much ignorance and error hath become embodied in us!


Not only the rationality of millenniums—also their madness, breaketh out in us. Dangerous is it to be an heir.


Still fight we step by step with the giant Chance, and over all mankind hath hitherto ruled nonsense, the lack-of-sense.


Let your spirit and your virtue be devoted to the sense of the earth, my brethren: let the value of everything be determined anew by you! Therefore shall ye be fighters! Therefore shall ye be creators!


Intelligently doth the body purify itself; attempting with intelligence it exalteth itself; to the discerners all impulses sanctify themselves; to the exalted the soul becometh joyful.


Physician, heal thyself: then wilt thou also heal thy patient. Let it be his best cure to see with his eyes him who maketh himself whole.


A thousand paths are there which have never yet been trodden; a thousand salubrities and hidden islands of life. Unexhausted and undiscovered is still man and man's world.


Awake and hearken, ye lonesome ones! From the future come winds with stealthy pinions, and to fine ears good tidings are proclaimed.


Ye lonesome ones of to-day, ye seceding ones, ye shall one day be a people: out of you who have chosen yourselves, shall a chosen people arise:—and out of it the Superman.


Verily, a place of healing shall the earth become! And already is a new odour diffused around it, a salvation-bringing odour—and a new hope!


When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he paused, like one who had not said his last word; and long did he balance the staff doubtfully in his hand. At last he spake thus—and his voice had changed:


I now go alone, my disciples! Ye also now go away, and alone! So will I have it.


Verily, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he hath deceived you.


The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.


One requiteth a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will ye not pluck at my wreath?


Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you!


Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers!


Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.


Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you.


Verily, with other eyes, my brethren, shall I then seek my lost ones; with another love shall I then love you.


And once again shall ye have become friends unto me, and children of one hope: then will I be with you for the third time, to celebrate the great noontide with you.


And it is the great noontide, when man is in the middle of his course between animal and Superman, and celebrateth his advance to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the advance to a new morning.


At such time will the down-goer bless himself, that he should be an over-goer; and the sun of his knowledge will be at noontide.


"DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE SUPERMAN TO LIVE."—Let this be our final will at the great noontide!—


"—and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you.


Verily, with other eyes, my brethren, shall I then seek my lost ones; with another love shall I then love you."—ZARATHUSTRA, I., "The Bestowing Virtue."


After this Zarathustra returned again into the mountains to the solitude of his cave, and withdrew himself from men, waiting like a sower who hath scattered his seed. His soul, however, became impatient and full of longing for those whom he loved: because he had still much to give them. For this is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.


Thus passed with the lonesome one months and years; his wisdom meanwhile increased, and caused him pain by its abundance.


One morning, however, he awoke ere the rosy dawn, and having meditated long on his couch, at last spake thus to his heart:


Why did I startle in my dream, so that I awoke? Did not a child come to me, carrying a mirror?


"O Zarathustra"—said the child unto me—"look at thyself in the mirror!"


But when I looked into the mirror, I shrieked, and my heart throbbed: for not myself did I see therein, but a devil's grimace and derision.


Verily, all too well do I understand the dream's portent and monition: my DOCTRINE is in danger; tares want to be called wheat!


Mine enemies have grown powerful and have disfigured the likeness of my doctrine, so that my dearest ones have to blush for the gifts that I gave them.


Lost are my friends; the hour hath come for me to seek my lost ones!—


With these words Zarathustra started up, not however like a person in anguish seeking relief, but rather like a seer and a singer whom the spirit inspireth. With amazement did his eagle and serpent gaze upon him: for a coming bliss overspread his countenance like the rosy dawn.


What hath happened unto me, mine animals?—said Zarathustra. Am I not transformed? Hath not bliss come unto me like a whirlwind?


Foolish is my happiness, and foolish things will it speak: it is still too young—so have patience with it!


Wounded am I by my happiness: all sufferers shall be physicians unto me!


To my friends can I again go down, and also to mine enemies! Zarathustra can again speak and bestow, and show his best love to his loved ones!


My impatient love overfloweth in streams,—down towards sunrise and sunset. Out of silent mountains and storms of affliction, rusheth my soul into the valleys.


Too long have I longed and looked into the distance. Too long hath solitude possessed me: thus have I unlearned to keep silence.


Utterance have I become altogether, and the brawling of a brook from high rocks: downward into the valleys will I hurl my speech.


And let the stream of my love sweep into unfrequented channels! How should a stream not finally find its way to the sea!


Forsooth, there is a lake in me, sequestered and self-sufficing; but the stream of my love beareth this along with it, down—to the sea!


New paths do I tread, a new speech cometh unto me; tired have I become— like all creators—of the old tongues. No longer will my spirit walk on worn-out soles.


Too slowly runneth all speaking for me:—into thy chariot, O storm, do I leap! And even thee will I whip with my spite!


Like a cry and an huzza will I traverse wide seas, till I find the Happy Isles where my friends sojourn;—


And mine enemies amongst them! How I now love every one unto whom I may but speak! Even mine enemies pertain to my bliss.


And when I want to mount my wildest horse, then doth my spear always help me up best: it is my foot's ever ready servant:—


The spear which I hurl at mine enemies! How grateful am I to mine enemies that I may at last hurl it!


Too great hath been the tension of my cloud: 'twixt laughters of lightnings will I cast hail-showers into the depths.


Violently will my breast then heave; violently will it blow its storm over the mountains: thus cometh its assuagement.


Verily, like a storm cometh my happiness, and my freedom! But mine enemies shall think that THE EVIL ONE roareth over their heads.


Yea, ye also, my friends, will be alarmed by my wild wisdom; and perhaps ye will flee therefrom, along with mine enemies.


Ah, that I knew how to lure you back with shepherds' flutes! Ah, that my lioness wisdom would learn to roar softly! And much have we already learned with one another!


My wild wisdom became pregnant on the lonesome mountains; on the rough stones did she bear the youngest of her young.


Now runneth she foolishly in the arid wilderness, and seeketh and seeketh the soft sward—mine old, wild wisdom!


On the soft sward of your hearts, my friends!—on your love, would she fain couch her dearest one!—


The figs fall from the trees, they are good and sweet; and in falling the red skins of them break. A north wind am I to ripe figs.


Thus, like figs, do these doctrines fall for you, my friends: imbibe now their juice and their sweet substance! It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and afternoon.


Lo, what fulness is around us! And out of the midst of superabundance, it is delightful to look out upon distant seas.


Once did people say God, when they looked out upon distant seas; now, however, have I taught you to say, Superman.


God is a conjecture: but I do not wish your conjecturing to reach beyond your creating will.


Could ye CREATE a God?—Then, I pray you, be silent about all Gods! But ye could well create the Superman.


Not perhaps ye yourselves, my brethren! But into fathers and forefathers of the Superman could ye transform yourselves: and let that be your best creating!—


God is a conjecture: but I should like your conjecturing restricted to the conceivable.


Could ye CONCEIVE a God?—But let this mean Will to Truth unto you, that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the humanly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall ye follow out to the end!


And what ye have called the world shall but be created by you: your reason, your likeness, your will, your love, shall it itself become! And verily, for your bliss, ye discerning ones!


And how would ye endure life without that hope, ye discerning ones? Neither in the inconceivable could ye have been born, nor in the irrational.


But that I may reveal my heart entirely unto you, my friends: IF there were gods, how could I endure it to be no God! THEREFORE there are no Gods.


Yea, I have drawn the conclusion; now, however, doth it draw me.—


God is a conjecture: but who could drink all the bitterness of this conjecture without dying? Shall his faith be taken from the creating one, and from the eagle his flights into eagle-heights?


God is a thought—it maketh all the straight crooked, and all that standeth reel. What? Time would be gone, and all the perishable would be but a lie?


To think this is giddiness and vertigo to human limbs, and even vomiting to the stomach: verily, the reeling sickness do I call it, to conjecture such a thing.


Evil do I call it and misanthropic: all that teaching about the one, and the plenum, and the unmoved, and the sufficient, and the imperishable!


All the imperishable—that's but a simile, and the poets lie too much.—


But of time and of becoming shall the best similes speak: a praise shall they be, and a justification of all perishableness!


Creating—that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's alleviation. But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, and much transformation.


Yea, much bitter dying must there be in your life, ye creators! Thus are ye advocates and justifiers of all perishableness.


For the creator himself to be the new-born child, he must also be willing to be the child-bearer, and endure the pangs of the child-bearer.


Verily, through a hundred souls went I my way, and through a hundred cradles and birth-throes. Many a farewell have I taken; I know the heart-breaking last hours.


But so willeth it my creating Will, my fate. Or, to tell you it more candidly: just such a fate—willeth my Will.


All FEELING suffereth in me, and is in prison: but my WILLING ever cometh to me as mine emancipator and comforter.


Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipation—so teacheth you Zarathustra.


No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far from me!


And also in discerning do I feel only my will's procreating and evolving delight; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because there is will to procreation in it.


Away from God and Gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were—Gods!


But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone.


Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth an image for me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber in the hardest, ugliest stone!


Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone fly the fragments: what's that to me?


I will complete it: for a shadow came unto me—the stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me!


The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Ah, my brethren! Of what account now are—the Gods to me!—


My friends, there hath arisen a satire on your friend: "Behold Zarathustra! Walketh he not amongst us as if amongst animals?"


But it is better said in this wise: "The discerning one walketh amongst men AS amongst animals."


Man himself is to the discerning one: the animal with red cheeks.


How hath that happened unto him? Is it not because he hath had to be ashamed too oft?


O my friends! Thus speaketh the discerning one: shame, shame, shame—that is the history of man!


And on that account doth the noble one enjoin upon himself not to abash: bashfulness doth he enjoin on himself in presence of all sufferers.


Verily, I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their pity: too destitute are they of bashfulness.


If I must be pitiful, I dislike to be called so; and if I be so, it is preferably at a distance.


Preferably also do I shroud my head, and flee, before being recognised: and thus do I bid you do, my friends!


May my destiny ever lead unafflicted ones like you across my path, and those with whom I MAY have hope and repast and honey in common!


Verily, I have done this and that for the afflicted: but something better did I always seem to do when I had learned to enjoy myself better.


Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin!


And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, and to contrive pain.


Therefore do I wash the hand that hath helped the sufferer; therefore do I wipe also my soul.


For in seeing the sufferer suffering—thereof was I ashamed on account of his shame; and in helping him, sorely did I wound his pride.


Great obligations do not make grateful, but revengeful; and when a small kindness is not forgotten, it becometh a gnawing worm.


"Be shy in accepting! Distinguish by accepting!"—thus do I advise those who have naught to bestow.


I, however, am a bestower: willingly do I bestow as friend to friends. Strangers, however, and the poor, may pluck for themselves the fruit from my tree: thus doth it cause less shame.


Beggars, however, one should entirely do away with! Verily, it annoyeth one to give unto them, and it annoyeth one not to give unto them.


And likewise sinners and bad consciences! Believe me, my friends: the sting of conscience teacheth one to sting.


The worst things, however, are the petty thoughts. Verily, better to have done evilly than to have thought pettily!


To be sure, ye say: "The delight in petty evils spareth one many a great evil deed." But here one should not wish to be sparing.


Like a boil is the evil deed: it itcheth and irritateth and breaketh forth—it speaketh honourably.


"Behold, I am disease," saith the evil deed: that is its honourableness.


But like infection is the petty thought: it creepeth and hideth, and wanteth to be nowhere—until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection.


To him however, who is possessed of a devil, I would whisper this word in the ear: "Better for thee to rear up thy devil! Even for thee there is still a path to greatness!"—


Ah, my brethren! One knoweth a little too much about every one! And many a one becometh transparent to us, but still we can by no means penetrate him.


It is difficult to live among men because silence is so difficult.


And not to him who is offensive to us are we most unfair, but to him who doth not concern us at all.


If, however, thou hast a suffering friend, then be a resting-place for his suffering; like a hard bed, however, a camp-bed: thus wilt thou serve him best.


And if a friend doeth thee wrong, then say: "I forgive thee what thou hast done unto me; that thou hast done it unto THYSELF, however—how could I forgive that!"


Thus speaketh all great love: it surpasseth even forgiveness and pity.


One should hold fast one's heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one's head run away!


Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the follies of the pitiful?


Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above their pity!


Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: "Even God hath his hell: it is his love for man."


And lately, did I hear him say these words: "God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died."—


So be ye warned against pity: FROM THENCE there yet cometh unto men a heavy cloud! Verily, I understand weather-signs!


But attend also to this word: All great love is above all its pity: for it seeketh—to create what is loved!


"Myself do I offer unto my love, AND MY NEIGHBOUR AS MYSELF"—such is the language of all creators.


All creators, however, are hard.—


And one day Zarathustra made a sign to his disciples, and spake these words unto them:


"Here are priests: but although they are mine enemies, pass them quietly and with sleeping swords!


Even among them there are heroes; many of them have suffered too much—: so they want to make others suffer.


Bad enemies are they: nothing is more revengeful than their meekness. And readily doth he soil himself who toucheth them.


But my blood is related to theirs; and I want withal to see my blood honoured in theirs."—


And when they had passed, a pain attacked Zarathustra; but not long had he struggled with the pain, when he began to speak thus:


It moveth my heart for those priests. They also go against my taste; but that is the smallest matter unto me, since I am among men.


But I suffer and have suffered with them: prisoners are they unto me, and stigmatised ones. He whom they call Saviour put them in fetters:—


In fetters of false values and fatuous words! Oh, that some one would save them from their Saviour!


On an isle they once thought they had landed, when the sea tossed them about; but behold, it was a slumbering monster!


False values and fatuous words: these are the worst monsters for mortals—long slumbereth and waiteth the fate that is in them.


But at last it cometh and awaketh and devoureth and engulfeth whatever hath built tabernacles upon it.


Oh, just look at those tabernacles which those priests have built themselves! Churches, they call their sweet-smelling caves!


Oh, that falsified light, that mustified air! Where the soul—may not fly aloft to its height!


But so enjoineth their belief: "On your knees, up the stair, ye sinners!"


Verily, rather would I see a shameless one than the distorted eyes of their shame and devotion!


Who created for themselves such caves and penitence-stairs? Was it not those who sought to conceal themselves, and were ashamed under the clear sky?


And only when the clear sky looketh again through ruined roofs, and down upon grass and red poppies on ruined walls—will I again turn my heart to the seats of this God.


They called God that which opposed and afflicted them: and verily, there was much hero-spirit in their worship!


And they knew not how to love their God otherwise than by nailing men to the cross!


As corpses they thought to live; in black draped they their corpses; even in their talk do I still feel the evil flavour of charnel-houses.


And he who liveth nigh unto them liveth nigh unto black pools, wherein the toad singeth his song with sweet gravity.


Better songs would they have to sing, for me to believe in their Saviour: more like saved ones would his disciples have to appear unto me!


Naked, would I like to see them: for beauty alone should preach penitence. But whom would that disguised affliction convince!


Verily, their Saviours themselves came not from freedom and freedom's seventh heaven! Verily, they themselves never trod the carpets of knowledge!


Of defects did the spirit of those Saviours consist; but into every defect had they put their illusion, their stop-gap, which they called God.


In their pity was their spirit drowned; and when they swelled and o'erswelled with pity, there always floated to the surface a great folly.


Eagerly and with shouts drove they their flock over their foot-bridge; as if there were but one foot-bridge to the future! Verily, those shepherds also were still of the flock!


Small spirits and spacious souls had those shepherds: but, my brethren, what small domains have even the most spacious souls hitherto been!


Characters of blood did they write on the way they went, and their folly taught that truth is proved by blood.


But blood is the very worst witness to truth; blood tainteth the purest teaching, and turneth it into delusion and hatred of heart.


And when a person goeth through fire for his teaching—what doth that prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning cometh one's own teaching!


Sultry heart and cold head; where these meet, there ariseth the blusterer, the "Saviour."


Greater ones, verily, have there been, and higher-born ones, than those whom the people call Saviours, those rapturous blusterers!


And by still greater ones than any of the Saviours must ye be saved, my brethren, if ye would find the way to freedom!


Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man:—


All-too-similar are they still to each other. Verily, even the greatest found I—all-too-human!—


With thunder and heavenly fireworks must one speak to indolent and somnolent senses.


But beauty's voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened souls.


Gently vibrated and laughed unto me to-day my buckler; it was beauty's holy laughing and thrilling.


At you, ye virtuous ones, laughed my beauty to-day. And thus came its voice unto me: "They want—to be paid besides!"


Ye want to be paid besides, ye virtuous ones! Ye want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your to-day?


And now ye upbraid me for teaching that there is no reward-giver, nor paymaster? And verily, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward.


Ah! this is my sorrow: into the basis of things have reward and punishment been insinuated—and now even into the basis of your souls, ye virtuous ones!


But like the snout of the boar shall my word grub up the basis of your souls; a ploughshare will I be called by you.


All the secrets of your heart shall be brought to light; and when ye lie in the sun, grubbed up and broken, then will also your falsehood be separated from your truth.


For this is your truth: ye are TOO PURE for the filth of the words: vengeance, punishment, recompense, retribution.


Ye love your virtue as a mother loveth her child; but when did one hear of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?


It is your dearest Self, your virtue. The ring's thirst is in you: to reach itself again struggleth every ring, and turneth itself.


And like the star that goeth out, so is every work of your virtue: ever is its light on its way and travelling—and when will it cease to be on its way?


Thus is the light of your virtue still on its way, even when its work is done. Be it forgotten and dead, still its ray of light liveth and travelleth.


That your virtue is your Self, and not an outward thing, a skin, or a cloak: that is the truth from the basis of your souls, ye virtuous ones!—


But sure enough there are those to whom virtue meaneth writhing under the lash: and ye have hearkened too much unto their crying!


And others are there who call virtue the slothfulness of their vices; and when once their hatred and jealousy relax the limbs, their "justice" becometh lively and rubbeth its sleepy eyes.


And others are there who are drawn downwards: their devils draw them. But the more they sink, the more ardently gloweth their eye, and the longing for their God.


Ah! their crying also hath reached your ears, ye virtuous ones: "What I am NOT, that, that is God to me, and virtue!"


And others are there who go along heavily and creakingly, like carts taking stones downhill: they talk much of dignity and virtue—their drag they call virtue!


And others are there who are like eight-day clocks when wound up; they tick, and want people to call ticking—virtue.


Verily, in those have I mine amusement: wherever I find such clocks I shall wind them up with my mockery, and they shall even whirr thereby!


And others are proud of their modicum of righteousness, and for the sake of it do violence to all things: so that the world is drowned in their unrighteousness.


Ah! how ineptly cometh the word "virtue" out of their mouth! And when they say: "I am just," it always soundeth like: "I am just—revenged!"


With their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies; and they elevate themselves only that they may lower others.


And again there are those who sit in their swamp, and speak thus from among the bulrushes: "Virtue—that is to sit quietly in the swamp.


We bite no one, and go out of the way of him who would bite; and in all matters we have the opinion that is given us."


And again there are those who love attitudes, and think that virtue is a sort of attitude.


Their knees continually adore, and their hands are eulogies of virtue, but their heart knoweth naught thereof.


And again there are those who regard it as virtue to say: "Virtue is necessary"; but after all they believe only that policemen are necessary.


And many a one who cannot see men's loftiness, calleth it virtue to see their baseness far too well: thus calleth he his evil eye virtue.—


And some want to be edified and raised up, and call it virtue: and others want to be cast down,—and likewise call it virtue.


And thus do almost all think that they participate in virtue; and at least every one claimeth to be an authority on "good" and "evil."


But Zarathustra came not to say unto all those liars and fools: "What do YE know of virtue! What COULD ye know of virtue!"—


But that ye, my friends, might become weary of the old words which ye have learned from the fools and liars:


That ye might become weary of the words "reward," "retribution," "punishment," "righteous vengeance."—


That ye might become weary of saying: "That an action is good is because it is unselfish."


Ah! my friends! That YOUR very Self be in your action, as the mother is in the child: let that be YOUR formula of virtue!


Verily, I have taken from you a hundred formulae and your virtue's favourite playthings; and now ye upbraid me, as children upbraid.


They played by the sea—then came there a wave and swept their playthings into the deep: and now do they cry.


But the same wave shall bring them new playthings, and spread before them new speckled shells!


Thus will they be comforted; and like them shall ye also, my friends, have your comforting—and new speckled shells!—


Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.


To everything cleanly am I well disposed; but I hate to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of the unclean.


They cast their eye down into the fountain: and now glanceth up to me their odious smile out of the fountain.


The holy water have they poisoned with their lustfulness; and when they called their filthy dreams delight, then poisoned they also the words.


Indignant becometh the flame when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbleth and smoketh when the rabble approach the fire.


Mawkish and over-mellow becometh the fruit in their hands: unsteady, and withered at the top, doth their look make the fruit-tree.


And many a one who hath turned away from life, hath only turned away from the rabble: he hated to share with them fountain, flame, and fruit.


And many a one who hath gone into the wilderness and suffered thirst with beasts of prey, disliked only to sit at the cistern with filthy camel-drivers.


And many a one who hath come along as a destroyer, and as a hailstorm to all cornfields, wanted merely to put his foot into the jaws of the rabble, and thus stop their throat.


And it is not the mouthful which hath most choked me, to know that life itself requireth enmity and death and torture-crosses:—


But I asked once, and suffocated almost with my question: What? is the rabble also NECESSARY for life?


Are poisoned fountains necessary, and stinking fires, and filthy dreams, and maggots in the bread of life?


Not my hatred, but my loathing, gnawed hungrily at my life! Ah, ofttimes became I weary of spirit, when I found even the rabble spiritual!


And on the rulers turned I my back, when I saw what they now call ruling: to traffic and bargain for power—with the rabble!


Amongst peoples of a strange language did I dwell, with stopped ears: so that the language of their trafficking might remain strange unto me, and their bargaining for power.


And holding my nose, I went morosely through all yesterdays and to-days: verily, badly smell all yesterdays and to-days of the scribbling rabble!


Like a cripple become deaf, and blind, and dumb—thus have I lived long; that I might not live with the power-rabble, the scribe-rabble, and the pleasure-rabble.


Toilsomely did my spirit mount stairs, and cautiously; alms of delight were its refreshment; on the staff did life creep along with the blind one.


What hath happened unto me? How have I freed myself from loathing? Who hath rejuvenated mine eye? How have I flown to the height where no rabble any longer sit at the wells?


Did my loathing itself create for me wings and fountain-divining powers? Verily, to the loftiest height had I to fly, to find again the well of delight!


Oh, I have found it, my brethren! Here on the loftiest height bubbleth up for me the well of delight! And there is a life at whose waters none of the rabble drink with me!


Almost too violently dost thou flow for me, thou fountain of delight! And often emptiest thou the goblet again, in wanting to fill it!


And yet must I learn to approach thee more modestly: far too violently doth my heart still flow towards thee:—


My heart on which my summer burneth, my short, hot, melancholy, over-happy summer: how my summer heart longeth for thy coolness!


Past, the lingering distress of my spring! Past, the wickedness of my snowflakes in June! Summer have I become entirely, and summer-noontide!


A summer on the loftiest height, with cold fountains and blissful stillness: oh, come, my friends, that the stillness may become more blissful!


For this is OUR height and our home: too high and steep do we here dwell for all uncleanly ones and their thirst.


Cast but your pure eyes into the well of my delight, my friends! How could it become turbid thereby! It shall laugh back to you with ITS purity.


On the tree of the future build we our nest; eagles shall bring us lone ones food in their beaks!


Verily, no food of which the impure could be fellow-partakers! Fire, would they think they devoured, and burn their mouths!


Verily, no abodes do we here keep ready for the impure! An ice-cave to their bodies would our happiness be, and to their spirits!


And as strong winds will we live above them, neighbours to the eagles, neighbours to the snow, neighbours to the sun: thus live the strong winds.


And like a wind will I one day blow amongst them, and with my spirit, take the breath from their spirit: thus willeth my future.


Verily, a strong wind is Zarathustra to all low places; and this counsel counselleth he to his enemies, and to whatever spitteth and speweth: "Take care not to spit AGAINST the wind!"—


Lo, this is the tarantula's den! Wouldst thou see the tarantula itself? Here hangeth its web: touch this, so that it may tremble.


There cometh the tarantula willingly: Welcome, tarantula! Black on thy back is thy triangle and symbol; and I know also what is in thy soul.


Revenge is in thy soul: wherever thou bitest, there ariseth black scab; with revenge, thy poison maketh the soul giddy!


Thus do I speak unto you in parable, ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of EQUALITY! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones!


But I will soon bring your hiding-places to the light: therefore do I laugh in your face my laughter of the height.


Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word "justice."


Because, FOR MAN TO BE REDEEMED FROM REVENGE—that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.


Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. "Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance"—thus do they talk to one another.


"Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like us"—thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves.


"And 'Will to Equality'—that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against all that hath power will we raise an outcry!"


Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue-words!


Fretted conceit and suppressed envy—perhaps your fathers' conceit and envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance.


What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father's revealed secret.


Inspired ones they resemble: but it is not the heart that inspireth them—but vengeance. And when they become subtle and cold, it is not spirit, but envy, that maketh them so.


Their jealousy leadeth them also into thinkers' paths; and this is the sign of their jealousy—they always go too far: so that their fatigue hath at last to go to sleep on the snow.


In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss.


But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!


They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound.


Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking.


And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but—power!


My friends, I will not be mixed up and confounded with others.


There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas.


That they speak in favour of life, though they sit in their den, these poison-spiders, and withdrawn from life—is because they would thereby do injury.


To those would they thereby do injury who have power at present: for with those the preaching of death is still most at home.


Were it otherwise, then would the tarantulas teach otherwise: and they themselves were formerly the best world-maligners and heretic-burners.


With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice UNTO ME: "Men are not equal."


And neither shall they become so! What would be my love to the Superman, if I spake otherwise?


On a thousand bridges and piers shall they throng to the future, and always shall there be more war and inequality among them: thus doth my great love make me speak!


Inventors of figures and phantoms shall they be in their hostilities; and with those figures and phantoms shall they yet fight with each other the supreme fight!


Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again and again surpass itself!


Aloft will it build itself with columns and stairs—life itself: into remote distances would it gaze, and out towards blissful beauties— THEREFORE doth it require elevation!


And because it requireth elevation, therefore doth it require steps, and variance of steps and climbers! To rise striveth life, and in rising to surpass itself.


And just behold, my friends! Here where the tarantula's den is, riseth aloft an ancient temple's ruins—just behold it with enlightened eyes!


Verily, he who here towered aloft his thoughts in stone, knew as well as the wisest ones about the secret of life!


That there is struggle and inequality even in beauty, and war for power and supremacy: that doth he here teach us in the plainest parable.


How divinely do vault and arch here contrast in the struggle: how with light and shade they strive against each other, the divinely striving ones.—


Thus, steadfast and beautiful, let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely will we strive AGAINST one another!—


Alas! There hath the tarantula bit me myself, mine old enemy! Divinely steadfast and beautiful, it hath bit me on the finger!


"Punishment must there be, and justice"—so thinketh it: "not gratuitously shall he here sing songs in honour of enmity!"


Yea, it hath revenged itself! And alas! now will it make my soul also dizzy with revenge!


That I may NOT turn dizzy, however, bind me fast, my friends, to this pillar! Rather will I be a pillar-saint than a whirl of vengeance!


Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!—


The people have ye served and the people's superstition—NOT the truth!—all ye famous wise ones! And just on that account did they pay you reverence.


And on that account also did they tolerate your unbelief, because it was a pleasantry and a by-path for the people. Thus doth the master give free scope to his slaves, and even enjoyeth their presumptuousness.


But he who is hated by the people, as the wolf by the dogs—is the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer, the dweller in the woods.


To hunt him out of his lair—that was always called "sense of right" by the people: on him do they still hound their sharpest-toothed dogs.


"For there the truth is, where the people are! Woe, woe to the seeking ones!"—thus hath it echoed through all time.


Your people would ye justify in their reverence: that called ye "Will to Truth," ye famous wise ones!


And your heart hath always said to itself: "From the people have I come: from thence came to me also the voice of God."


Stiff-necked and artful, like the ass, have ye always been, as the advocates of the people.


And many a powerful one who wanted to run well with the people, hath harnessed in front of his horses—a donkey, a famous wise man.


And now, ye famous wise ones, I would have you finally throw off entirely the skin of the lion!


The skin of the beast of prey, the speckled skin, and the dishevelled locks of the investigator, the searcher, and the conqueror!


Ah! for me to learn to believe in your "conscientiousness," ye would first have to break your venerating will.


Conscientious—so call I him who goeth into God-forsaken wildernesses, and hath broken his venerating heart.


In the yellow sands and burnt by the sun, he doubtless peereth thirstily at the isles rich in fountains, where life reposeth under shady trees.


But his thirst doth not persuade him to become like those comfortable ones: for where there are oases, there are also idols.


Hungry, fierce, lonesome, God-forsaken: so doth the lion-will wish itself.


Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from Deities and adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, grand and lonesome: so is the will of the conscientious.


In the wilderness have ever dwelt the conscientious, the free spirits, as lords of the wilderness; but in the cities dwell the well-foddered, famous wise ones—the draught-beasts.


For, always, do they draw, as asses—the PEOPLE'S carts!


Not that I on that account upbraid them: but serving ones do they remain, and harnessed ones, even though they glitter in golden harness.


And often have they been good servants and worthy of their hire. For thus saith virtue: "If thou must be a servant, seek him unto whom thy service is most useful!


The spirit and virtue of thy master shall advance by thou being his servant: thus wilt thou thyself advance with his spirit and virtue!"


And verily, ye famous wise ones, ye servants of the people! Ye yourselves have advanced with the people's spirit and virtue—and the people by you! To your honour do I say it!


But the people ye remain for me, even with your virtues, the people with purblind eyes—the people who know not what SPIRIT is!


Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life: by its own torture doth it increase its own knowledge,—did ye know that before?


And the spirit's happiness is this: to be anointed and consecrated with tears as a sacrificial victim,—did ye know that before?


And the blindness of the blind one, and his seeking and groping, shall yet testify to the power of the sun into which he hath gazed,—did ye know that before?


And with mountains shall the discerning one learn to BUILD! It is a small thing for the spirit to remove mountains,—did ye know that before?


Ye know only the sparks of the spirit: but ye do not see the anvil which it is, and the cruelty of its hammer!


Verily, ye know not the spirit's pride! But still less could ye endure the spirit's humility, should it ever want to speak!


And never yet could ye cast your spirit into a pit of snow: ye are not hot enough for that! Thus are ye unaware, also, of the delight of its coldness.


In all respects, however, ye make too familiar with the spirit; and out of wisdom have ye often made an almshouse and a hospital for bad poets.


Ye are not eagles: thus have ye never experienced the happiness of the alarm of the spirit. And he who is not a bird should not camp above abysses.


Ye seem to me lukewarm ones: but coldly floweth all deep knowledge. Ice-cold are the innermost wells of the spirit: a refreshment to hot hands and handlers.


Respectable do ye there stand, and stiff, and with straight backs, ye famous wise ones!—no strong wind or will impelleth you.


Have ye ne'er seen a sail crossing the sea, rounded and inflated, and trembling with the violence of the wind?


Like the sail trembling with the violence of the spirit, doth my wisdom cross the sea—my wild wisdom!


But ye servants of the people, ye famous wise ones—how COULD ye go with me!—


'Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain.


'Tis night: now only do all songs of the loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one.


Something unappeased, unappeasable, is within me; it longeth to find expression. A craving for love is within me, which speaketh itself the language of love.


Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with light!


Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of light!


And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets and glow-worms aloft!—and would rejoice in the gifts of your light.


But I live in mine own light, I drink again into myself the flames that break forth from me.


I know not the happiness of the receiver; and oft have I dreamt that stealing must be more blessed than receiving.


It is my poverty that my hand never ceaseth bestowing; it is mine envy that I see waiting eyes and the brightened nights of longing.


Oh, the misery of all bestowers! Oh, the darkening of my sun! Oh, the craving to crave! Oh, the violent hunger in satiety!


They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a gap 'twixt giving and receiving; and the smallest gap hath finally to be bridged over.


A hunger ariseth out of my beauty: I should like to injure those I illumine; I should like to rob those I have gifted:—thus do I hunger for wickedness.


Withdrawing my hand when another hand already stretcheth out to it; hesitating like the cascade, which hesitateth even in its leap:—thus do I hunger for wickedness!


Such revenge doth mine abundance think of: such mischief welleth out of my lonesomeness.


My happiness in bestowing died in bestowing; my virtue became weary of itself by its abundance!


He who ever bestoweth is in danger of losing his shame; to him who ever dispenseth, the hand and heart become callous by very dispensing.


Mine eye no longer overfloweth for the shame of suppliants; my hand hath become too hard for the trembling of filled hands.


Whence have gone the tears of mine eye, and the down of my heart? Oh, the lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones!


Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with their light—but to me they are silent.


Oh, this is the hostility of light to the shining one: unpityingly doth it pursue its course.


Unfair to the shining one in its innermost heart, cold to the suns:—thus travelleth every sun.


Like a storm do the suns pursue their courses: that is their travelling. Their inexorable will do they follow: that is their coldness.


Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly ones, that extract warmth from the shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and refreshment from the light's udders!


Ah, there is ice around me; my hand burneth with the iciness! Ah, there is thirst in me; it panteth after your thirst!


'Tis night: alas, that I have to be light! And thirst for the nightly! And lonesomeness!


'Tis night: now doth my longing break forth in me as a fountain,—for speech do I long.


'Tis night: now do all songs of loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one.—


One evening went Zarathustra and his disciples through the forest; and when he sought for a well, lo, he lighted upon a green meadow peacefully surrounded with trees and bushes, where maidens were dancing together. As soon as the maidens recognised Zarathustra, they ceased dancing; Zarathustra, however, approached them with friendly mien and spake these words:


Cease not your dancing, ye lovely maidens! No game-spoiler hath come to you with evil eye, no enemy of maidens.


God's advocate am I with the devil: he, however, is the spirit of gravity. How could I, ye light-footed ones, be hostile to divine dances? Or to maidens' feet with fine ankles?


To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.


And even the little God may he find, who is dearest to maidens: beside the well lieth he quietly, with closed eyes.


Verily, in broad daylight did he fall asleep, the sluggard! Had he perhaps chased butterflies too much?


Upbraid me not, ye beautiful dancers, when I chasten the little God somewhat! He will cry, certainly, and weep—but he is laughable even when weeping!


And with tears in his eyes shall he ask you for a dance; and I myself will sing a song to his dance:


A dance-song and satire on the spirit of gravity my supremest, powerfulest devil, who is said to be "lord of the world."—


And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the maidens danced together:


Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O Life! And into the unfathomable did I there seem to sink.


But thou pulledst me out with a golden angle; derisively didst thou laugh when I called thee unfathomable.


"Such is the language of all fish," saidst thou; "what THEY do not fathom is unfathomable.


But changeable am I only, and wild, and altogether a woman, and no virtuous one:


Though I be called by you men the 'profound one,' or the 'faithful one,' 'the eternal one,' 'the mysterious one.'


But ye men endow us always with your own virtues—alas, ye virtuous ones!"


Thus did she laugh, the unbelievable one; but never do I believe her and her laughter, when she speaketh evil of herself.


And when I talked face to face with my wild Wisdom, she said to me angrily: "Thou willest, thou cravest, thou lovest; on that account alone dost thou PRAISE Life!"


Then had I almost answered indignantly and told the truth to the angry one; and one cannot answer more indignantly than when one "telleth the truth" to one's Wisdom.


For thus do things stand with us three. In my heart do I love only Life—and verily, most when I hate her!


But that I am fond of Wisdom, and often too fond, is because she remindeth me very strongly of Life!


She hath her eye, her laugh, and even her golden angle-rod: am I responsible for it that both are so alike?


And when once Life asked me: "Who is she then, this Wisdom?"—then said I eagerly: "Ah, yes! Wisdom!


One thirsteth for her and is not satisfied, one looketh through veils, one graspeth through nets.


Is she beautiful? What do I know! But the oldest carps are still lured by her.


Changeable is she, and wayward; often have I seen her bite her lip, and pass the comb against the grain of her hair.


Perhaps she is wicked and false, and altogether a woman; but when she speaketh ill of herself, just then doth she seduce most."


When I had said this unto Life, then laughed she maliciously, and shut her eyes. "Of whom dost thou speak?" said she. "Perhaps of me?


And if thou wert right—is it proper to say THAT in such wise to my face! But now, pray, speak also of thy Wisdom!"


Ah, and now hast thou again opened thine eyes, O beloved Life! And into the unfathomable have I again seemed to sink.—


Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the dance was over and the maidens had departed, he became sad.


"The sun hath been long set," said he at last, "the meadow is damp, and from the forest cometh coolness.


An unknown presence is about me, and gazeth thoughtfully. What! Thou livest still, Zarathustra?


Why? Wherefore? Whereby? Whither? Where? How? Is it not folly still to live?—


Ah, my friends; the evening is it which thus interrogateth in me. Forgive me my sadness!


Evening hath come on: forgive me that evening hath come on!"


"Yonder is the grave-island, the silent isle; yonder also are the graves of my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life."