-And verily, wherever this «Holy Spirit» led its knights, always in such campaigns did- goats and geese, and wry-heads and guy-heads run fore-most!-
O my brothers, not backward shall your nobility gaze, but outward! Exiles shall you be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands!
Your children’s land shall you love: let this love be your new nobility,-the undiscovered in the remotest seas! For it do I bid your sails search and search!
To your children shall you make amends for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall you thus redeem! This new table do I place over you!
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13.
«Why should one live? All is vain! To live- that is to thresh straw; to live-that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.-
Such ancient babbling still passes for «wisdom»; because it is old, however, and smells mustily, therefore is it the more honored. Even mould ennobles.-
Children might thus speak: they shun the fire because it has burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom.
And he who ever «threshes straw,» why should he be allowed to rail at threshing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle!
Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them, not even good hunger:- and then do they rail: «All is vain!»
But to eat and drink well, my brothers, is verily no vain art! Break up, break up for me the law-tablets of the never-joyous ones!
202
14.
«To the clean are all things clean»- thus say the people. I, however, say to you: To the swine all things become swinish!
Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): «The world itself is a filthy monster.»
For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world from the backside- the afterworldly!
To those do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembles man, in that it has a backside,- so much is true!
There is in the world much filth: so much is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!
There is wisdom in the fact that much in the world smells badly: loath-ing itself creates wings, and fountain-divining powers!
In the best there is still something to loathe; and the best is still something that must be overcome!-
O my brothers, there is much wisdom in the fact that much filth is in the world!-
203
15.
Such sayings did I hear pious afterworldly speak to their consciences, and verily without wickedness or guile,- although there is nothing more guileful in the world, or more wicked.
«Let the world be as it is! Raise not a finger against it!»
«Let whoever will choke and stab and skin and scrape the people: raise not a finger against it! Thereby will they learn to renounce the world.»
«And your own reason- this shall you yourself stifle and choke; for it is a reason of this world,- thereby will you learn yourself to renounce the world.»-
-Shatter, shatter, O my brothers, those old law-tablets of the pious! Tat-ter the maxims of the world-maligners!-
204
16.
«He who learns much unlearns all violent cravings»- that do people now whisper to one another in all the dark lanes.
«Wisdom wearies, nothing is worth while; you shall not crave!»- this new table found I hanging even in the public markets.
Break up for me, O my brothers, break up also that new table! The weary-o’-the-world put it up, and the preachers of death and the jailer: for lo, it is also a sermon for slavery:-
Because they learned badly and not the best, and everything too early and everything too fast; because they ate badly: from thence has resulted their ruined stomach;-
-For a ruined stomach, is their spirit: it persuades to death! For verily, my brothers, the spirit is a stomach!
Life is a well of delight, but to him in whom the ruined stomach speaks, the father of affliction, all fountains are poisoned.
To discern: that is delight to the lion-willed! But he who has become weary, is himself merely «willed»; with him play all the waves.
And such is always the nature of weak men: they lose themselves on their way. And at last asks their weariness: «Why did we ever go on the way? All is indifferent!»
To them sounds it pleasant to have preached in their ears: «Nothing is worth while! You shall not will!» That, however, is a sermon for slavery.
O my brothers, a fresh blustering wind comes Zarathustra to all way-weary ones; many noses will he yet make sneeze!
Even through walls blows my free breath, and into prisons and im-prisoned spirits!
Willing emancipates: for willing is creating: so do I teach. And only for creating shall you learn!
And also the learning shall you learn only from me, the learning well!-He who has ears let him hear!
205
17.
There stands the boat- there goes it over, perhaps into vast nothingness-but who wills to enter into this «Perhaps»?
None of you want to enter into the death-boat! How should you then be world-weary ones!
World-weary ones! And have not even withdrawn from the earth! Eager did I ever find you for the earth, amorous still of your own earth-weariness!
Not in vain does your lip hang down:- a small worldly wish still sits on it! And in your eye- floats there not a little cloud of unforgotten earthly bliss?
There are on the earth many good inventions, some useful, some pleasant: for their sake is the earth to be loved.
And many such good inventions are there, that they are like woman’s breasts: useful at the same time, and pleasant.
You world-weary ones, however! You earth-idlers! You, shall one beat with stripes! With stripes shall one again make you sprightly limbs.
For if you be not invalids, or decrepit creatures, of whom the earth is weary, then are you sly sloths, or dainty, sneaking pleasure-cats. And if you will not again run gaily, then shall you- pass away!
To the incurable shall one not seek to be a physician: thus teaches Zarathustra:- so shall you pass away!
But more courage is needed to make an end than to make a new verse: that do all physicians and poets know well.-
206
18.
O my brothers, there are law-tablets which weariness framed, and law-tablets which slothfulness framed, corrupt slothfulness: although they speak similarly, they want to be heard differently.-
See this languishing one! Only a span-breadth is he from his goal; but from weariness has he lain down obstinately in the dust, this brave one!
From weariness yawns he at the path, at the earth, at the goal, and at himself: not a step further will he go,- this brave one!
Now glows the sun upon him, and the dogs lick at his sweat: but he lies there in his obstinacy and preferrs to languish:-
-A span-breadth from his goal, to languish! you will have to drag him into his heaven by the hair of his head- this hero!
Better still that you let him lie where he has lain down, that sleep may come to him, the comforter, with cooling patter-rain.
Let him lie, until of his own accord he awakens,- until of his own ac-cord he repudiates all weariness, and what weariness has taught through him!
Only, my brothers, see that you scare the dogs away from him, the idle skulkers, and all the swarming vermin:-
-All the swarming vermin of the «cultured,» that- feast on the sweat of every hero!-
207
19.
I form circles around me and sacred boundaries; ever fewer ascend with me ever higher mountains: I build a mountain-range out of ever holier mountains.-
But wherever you would ascend with me, O my brothers, take care lest a parasite ascend with you!
A parasite: that is a reptile, a creeping, cringing reptile, that tries to fat-ten on your infirm and sore places.
And this is its art: it divines where ascending souls are weary, in your trouble and dejection, in your sensitive modesty, does it build its loath-some nest.
Where the strong are weak, where the noble are all-too-gentle- there builds it its loathsome nest; the parasite lives where the great have small sore-places.
What is the highest of all species of being, and what is the lowest? The parasite is the lowest species; yet he who is of the highest species feeds most parasites.
For the soul which has the longest ladder, and can go deepest down: how could there fail to be most parasites upon it?-
-The most comprehensive soul, which can run and stray and rove fur-thest in itself; the most necessary soul, which out of joy flings itself into chance:-
-The soul in Being, which plunges into Becoming; the possessing soul, which seeks to attain desire and longing:-
-The soul fleeing from itself, which overtakes itself in the widest cir-cuit; the wisest soul, to which folly speaks most sweetly:-
-The soul most self-loving, in which all things have their current and counter-current, their ebb and their flow:- oh, how could the loftiest soul fail to have the worst parasites?
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20.
O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: What falls, that shall one also push!
Everything of today- it falls, it decays; who would preserve it! But I- I wish also to push it!
Know you the delight which rolls stones into precipitous depths?-Those men of today, see just how they roll into my depths!
A prelude am I to better players, O my brothers! An example! Do ac-cording to my
