Thus Spoke Zarathustra (10 page)

You are not yet free, you still
search
for freedom. Your search has fatigued you and made you too wakeful.

You long for the open heights, your soul thirsts for the stars. But your bad instincts too thirst for freedom.

Your fierce dogs long for freedom; they bark for joy in their cellar when your spirit aspires to break open all prisons.

To me you are still a prisoner who imagines freedom: ah,
such prisoners of the soul become clever, but also deceitful and base.

The free man of the spirit, too, must still purify himself. Much of the prison and rottenness still remain within him: his eye still has to become pure.

Yes, I know your peril. But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject your love and hope!

You still feel yourself noble, and the others, too, who dislike you and cast evil glances at you, still feel you are noble. Learn that everyone finds the noble man an obstruction.

The good, too, find the noble man an obstruction: and even when they call him a good man they do so in order to make away with him.

The noble man wants to create new things and a new virtue. The good man wants the old things and that the old things shall be preserved.

But that is not the danger for the noble man – that he may become a good man – but that he may become an impudent one, a derider, a destroyer.

Alas, I have known noble men who lost their highest hope. And henceforth they slandered all high hopes.

Henceforth they lived impudently in brief pleasures, and they had hardly an aim beyond the day.

‘Spirit is also sensual pleasure’ – thus they spoke. Then the wings of their spirit broke: now it creeps around and it makes dirty what it feeds on.

Once they thought of becoming heroes: now they are sensualists. The hero is to them an affliction and a terror.

But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject the hero in your soul! Keep holy your highest hope!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of the Preachers of Death

T
HERE
are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom departure from life must be preached.

The earth is full of the superfluous, life has been corrupted by the many-too-many. Let them be lured by ‘eternal life’ out of this life!

Yellow men or black men: that is what the preachers of death are called. But I want to show them to you in other colours.

There are the dreadful creatures who carry a beast of prey around within them, and have no choice except lusts or self-mortification. And even their lusts are self-mortification.

They have not yet even become men, these dreadful creatures. Let them preach departure from life and depart themselves!

There are the consumptives of the soul: they are hardly born before they begin to die and to long for doctrines of weariness and renunciation.

They would like to be dead, and we should approve their wish! Let us guard against awakening these dead men and damaging these living coffins.

They encounter an invalid or an old man or a corpse; and straightway they say ‘Life is refuted!’

But only they are refuted, they and their eye that sees only one aspect of existence.

Muffled in deep depression, and longing for the little accidents that bring about death: thus they wait and clench their teeth.

Or: they snatch at sweets and in doing so mock their childishness: they cling to their straw of life and mock that they are still clinging to a straw.

Their wisdom runs: ‘He who goes on living is a fool, but we are such fools! And precisely that is the most foolish thing in life!’

‘Life is only suffering’ – thus others of them speak, and they do not lie: so see to it that
you
’ cease to live! So see to it that the life which is only suffering ceases!

And let the teaching of your virtue be: ‘You shall kill yourself! You shall steal away from yourself!’

‘Lust is sin’ – thus say some who preach death – ‘let us go aside and beget no children!’

‘Giving birth is laborious’ – say others – ‘why go on giving birth? One gives birth only to unhappy children!’ And they too are preachers of death.

‘Men are to be pitied’ – thus say others again. ‘Take what I have! Take what I am! By so much less am I bound to life!’

If they were compassionate from the very heart they would seek to make their neighbours disgusted with life. To be evil -that would be their true good.

But they want to escape from life: what is it to them that, with their chains and gifts, they bind others still more firmly to it?

And you too, you to whom life is unrestrained labour and anxiety: are you not very weary of life? Are you not very ripe for the sermon of death?

All of you, to whom unrestrained labour, and the swift, the new, the strange, are dear, you endure yourselves ill, your industry is flight and will to forget yourselves.

If you believed more in life, you would devote yourselves less to the moment. But you have insufficient capacity for waiting – or even for laziness!

Everywhere resound the voices of those who preach death: and the earth is full of those to whom death must be preached.

Or ‘eternal life’: it is all the same to me – provided they pass away quickly!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of War and Warriors

W
E
do not wish to be spared by our best enemies, nor by those whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth!

My brothers in war! I love you from the very heart, I am and have always been of your kind. And I am also your best enemy. So let me tell you the truth!

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

And if you cannot be saints of knowledge, at least be its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such sainthood.

I see many soldiers: if only I could see many warriors! What they wear is called uniform: may what they conceal with it not be uniform too!

You should be such men as are always looking for an enemy –
for your
enemy. And with some of you there is hate at first sight.

You should seek your enemy, you should wage your war – a war for your opinions. And if your opinion is defeated, your honesty should still cry triumph over that!

You should love peace as a means to new wars. And the short peace more than the long.

I do not exhort you to work but to battle. I do not exhort you to peace, but to victory. May your work be a battle, may your peace be a victory!

One can be silent and sit still only when one has arrow and bow: otherwise one babbles and quarrels. May your peace be a victory!

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I tell you: it is the good war that hallows every cause.

War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your pity but your bravery has saved the unfortunate up to now.

‘What is good?’ you ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say: ‘To be good is to be what is pretty and at the same time touching.’

They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the modesty of your kind-heartedness. You feel ashamed of your flow, while others feel ashamed of their ebb.

Are you ugly? Very well, my brothers! Take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!

And when your soul grows great, it grows arrogant, and there is wickedness in your sublimity. I know you.

In wickedness, the arrogant and the weak man meet. But they misunderstand one another. I know you.

You may have enemies whom you hate, but not enemies whom you despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the success of your enemy shall be your success too.

To rebel – that shows nobility in a slave. Let your nobility show itself in obeying! Let even your commanding be an obeying!

To a good warrior, ‘thou shalt’ sounds more agreeable than ‘I will’. And everything that is dear to you, you should first have commanded to you.

Let your love towards life be love towards your highest hope: and let your highest hope be the highest idea of life!

But you should let me commend to you your highest idea -and it is: Man is something that should be overcome.

Thus live your life of obedience and war! What good is long life? What warrior wants to be spared?

I do not spare you, I love you from the very heart, my brothers in war!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of the New Idol

T
HERE
are still peoples and herds somewhere, but not with us, my brothers: here there are states.

The state? What is that? Well then! Now open your ears, for now I shall speak to you of the death of peoples.

The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies, too; and this lie creeps from its mouth: ‘I, the state, am the people.’

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

It is destroyers who set snares for many and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred desires over them.

Where a people still exists, there the people do not understand the state and hate it as the evil eye and sin against custom and law.

I offer you this sign: every people speaks its own language of good and evil: its neighbour does not understand this language. It invented this language for itself in custom and law.

But the state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies – and whatever it has, it has stolen.

Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth. Even its belly is false.

Confusion of the language of good and evil; I offer you this sign as the sign of the state. Truly, this sign indicates the will to death! Truly, it beckons to the preachers of death!

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

Just see how it lures them, the many-too-many! How it devours them, and chews them, and re-chews them!

‘There is nothing greater on earth than I, the regulating finger of God’ – thus the monster bellows. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted sink to their knees!

Ah, it whispers its dismal lies to you too, you great souls! Ah, it divines the abundant hearts that like to squander themselves!

Yes, it divines you too, you conquerors of the old God! You grew weary in battle and now your weariness serves the new idol!

It would like to range heroes and honourable men about it, this new idol! It likes to sun itself in the sunshine of good consciences – this cold monster!

It will give
you
everything if
you
worship it, this new idol: thus it buys for itself the lustre of your virtues and the glance of your proud eyes.

It wants to use you to lure the many-too-many. Yes, a cunning device of Hell has here been devised, a horse of death jingling with the trappings of divine honours!

Yes, a death for many has here been devised that glorifies itself as life: truly, a heart-felt service to all preachers of death!

I call it the state where everyone, good and bad, is a poison-drinker: the state where everyone, good and bad, loses himself: the state where universal slow suicide is called – life.

Just look at these superfluous people! They steal for themselves the works of inventors and the treasures of the wise: they call their theft culture – and they turn everything to sickness and calamity.

Just look at these superfluous people! They are always ill, they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another and cannot even digest themselves.

Just look at these superfluous people! They acquire wealth and make themselves poorer with it. They desire power and especially the lever of power, plenty of money – these impotent people!

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

They all strive towards the throne: it is a madness they have – as if happiness sat upon the throne! Often filth sits upon the throne – and often the throne upon filth, too.

They all seem madmen to me and clambering apes and too vehement. Their idol, that cold monster, smells unpleasant to me: all of them, all these idolaters, smell unpleasant to me.

My brothers, do you then want to suffocate in the fumes of their animal mouths and appetites? Better to break the window and leap into the open air.

Avoid this bad odour! Leave the idolatry of the superfluous!

Avoid this bad odour! Leave the smoke of these human sacrifices!

The earth still remains free for great souls. Many places -the odour of tranquil seas blowing about them – are still empty for solitaries and solitary couples.

A free life still remains for great souls. Truly, he who possesses little is so much the less possessed: praised be a moderate poverty!

Only there, where the state ceases, does the man who is not superfluous begin: does the song of the necessary man, the unique and irreplaceable melody, begin.

There, where the state
ceases
– look there, my brothers. Do you not see it: the rainbow and the bridges to the Superman?

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of the Flies of the Market-place

F
LEE,
my friend, into your solitude! I see you deafened by the uproar of the great men and pricked by the stings of the small ones.

Forest and rock know well how to be silent with you. Be like the tree again, the wide-branching tree that you love: calmly and attentively it leans out over the sea.

Where solitude ceases, there the market-place begins; and where the market-place begins, there begins the uproar of the great actors and the buzzing of the poisonous flies.

In the world even the best things are worthless apart from him who first presents them: people call these presenters ‘great men’.

The people have little idea of greatness, that is to say: creativeness. But they have a taste for all presenters and actors of great things.