Guard against injuring the hermit! But if you have done so, well then kill him also!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 20 Child and Marriage
I HAVE a question for you alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, I cast this question into your soul, that I may know its depth.
You are young, and desire child and marriage. But I ask you: are you a man entitled to desire a child?
Are you the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of your pas-sions, the master of your virtues? Thus do I ask you.
Or does the animal speak in your wish, and need? Or loneliness? Or discord in you?
Let your victory and freedom long for a child. You shall build living monuments to your victory and freedom.
You shall build beyond yourself. But first of all you must be built yourself, solid in body and soul.
You shall propagate yourself not only onward, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help you!
You shall create a higher body, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel- you shall create a creator.
Marriage: so call I the will of the two to create the one that is more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those exer-cising such a will, I call marriage.
Let this be the significance and the truth of your marriage. But that which the all-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones- ah, what shall I call it?
Ah, the poverty of soul in the two! Ah, the filth of soul in the two! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the two!
They call it marriage; and they say their marriages are made in heaven. Well I do not like that heaven of the superfluous! No, I do not like
them, those animals tangled in the heavenly net!
Keep far from me that God who limps near to bless what he has not matched!
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Do not laugh at such marriages! What child has not had reason to weep over its parents?
This man seemed worthy, and ripe for the meaning of the earth: but when I saw his wife, the earth seemed to me an asylum of madmen.
Yes, I wish 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 him-self a small dressed-up lie: his marriage he calls it.
That one was reserved and chose warily. But then he spoilt his com-pany for all time: his marriage he calls it.
Another sought a handmaid with the virtues of an angel. But then he became the handmaid of a woman, and now he must become an angel.
Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But even the most astute of them buys his wife in a poke.
Many brief follies- that you call love. And your marriage puts an end to your many brief follies, with one long stupidity.
Your love of woman, and woman’s love of man- ah, if only it were sympathy for suffering and veiled gods! But usually, two animals find each another.
But even your best love is only an enraptured parable and a painful ar-dor. It is a torch to light loftier paths for you.
You shall love beyond yourselves some day! So first, learn to love. And for that you have to drink the bitter cup of your love.
Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love; thus does it cause longing for the Superman; thus does it cause thirst in you, the creator!
Thirst in the creator, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me, my brother, is this your will to marriage?
Sacred I call such a will, and such a marriage.-Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 21 Free Death
MANY die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange sounds the pre-cept: «Die at the right time!
Die at the right time: thus teaches Zarathustra.
To be sure, how could he who never lives at the right time ever die at the right time? If only he had never been born!- Thus do I advise the superfluous.
But even the superfluous make a show of their death, and even the hollowest nut wants to be cracked.
All regard dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not a festival. People have not yet learned to inaugurate the finest festivals.
I teach you the death which consummates, and becomes a spur and promise to the living.
He who consummates his life, then dies triumphant, surrounded by those who hope and promise.
Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festival at which one who dies in this way does not consecrate the oaths of the living!
Thus to die is best; the next best, however, is to die in battle, and squander a great soul.
But equally hateful to vanquished and victor, is the grinning death which steals nigh like a thief,- and yet comes as master.
My death I praise to you, the voluntary death, which comes to me be-cause I want it.
And when shall I want it?- He that has a goal and an heir, wants death at the right time for the goal and the heir.
And from reverence for the goal and heir, he will hang no more withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life.
I will not imitate the rope-makers: they lengthen out their cord and al-ways walk backward.
And many grow too old for their truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth no longer has the right to every truth.
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And whoever wants fame must take leave of honor and practice the difficult art of- leaving at the right time.
One must stop being eaten when one tastes best: those who want to be long loved know this.
There are sour apples, no doubt, whose lot is to wait until the last day of autumn: and at once they become ripe, yellow, and shrivelled.
In some the heart ages first, and in others the spirit. And some are hoary in youth, but those who are young latest keep young longer.
To many men life is a failure; a poison-worm gnaws at their heart. Then at least let their dying be a success.
Many never become sweet; they rot even in the summer. Cowardice holds them fast to their branches.
Far too many live, and far too long do they hang on their branches. If only a storm would come and shake all that is rotten and worm-eaten from the tree!
If only there were preachers of quick death! They would be the right storms and shakers of the trees of life! But I hear only the slow death preached, and patience with all that is «earthly.»
Ah! you preach patience with what is earthly? It is the earthly that has too much patience with you, you blasphemers!
Too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death honor: and it is a calamity to many that he died too early.
As yet he knew only tears, and the melancholy of the Hebrews, and hatred of the good and just- the Hebrew Jesus: then he was seized with longing for death.
If only he had remained in the wilderness, far from the good the just! Perhaps then he would have learned to live and love the earth- and laughter also!
Believe me, my brothers! He died too early; he himself would have re-canted his doctrine had he reached my age! He was noble enough to recant!
But he was still immature. The youth loves immaturely, and he also hates immaturely both man and earth. His soul and the wings of his spir-it are still confined and awkward.
But in man there is more of the child than in the youth, and less melan-choly: he better understands life and death.
Free for death, and free in death; a sacred Nosayer, when there is no longer time for Yes: thus he understands death and life.
That your dying be no reproach to man and the earth, my friends: that I ask of the honey of your soul.
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In your dying, your spirit and your virtue shall still shine like an sun-set around the earth: otherwise your dying has gone badly.
Thus I will die myself, that you, my friends, may love the earth more for my sake; and earth will I again become, to have rest in her that bore me.
Zarathustra had a goal; he threw his ball. Now you, my friends, are the heirs of my goal; to you I throw the golden ball.
I like best of all to see you, my friends, throw the golden ball! And so I tarry a little while on the earth- pardon me for it!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 22 The Giving Virtue
1.
WHEN Zarathustra had taken leave of the town to which his heart was attached, the name of which is «The Pied Cow,» many people who called themselves his disciples followed him, and kept him company. Thus they came to a crossroads. Then Zarathustra told them that he now wanted to walk alone; for he was fond of walking alone. His disciples, however, presented him a staff with a golden handle, on which a serpent twined round the sun. Zarathustra rejoiced on account of the staff, and leaned on it; then thus he spoke to his disciples:
Tell
