 | Thus Spake Zarathustra |  |
9.
Thou grape-vine! Why dost thou praise me? Have I not cut thee! I am cruel, thou bleedest-: what meaneth thy praise of my drunken cruelty?
"Whatever hath become perfect, everything mature-wanteth to die!" so sayest thou. Blessed, blessed be the vintner's knife! But everything immature wanteth to live: alas!
Woe saith: "Hence! Go! Away, thou woe!" But everything that suffereth wanteth to live, that it may become mature and lively and longing,
-Longing for the further, the higher, the brighter. "I want heirs," so saith everything that suffereth, "I want children, I do not want myself,"-
Joy, however, doth not want heirs, it doth not want children,-joy wanteth itself, it wanteth eternity, it wanteth recurrence, it wanteth everything eternally-like-itself.
Woe saith: "Break, bleed, thou heart! Wander, thou leg! Thou wing, fly! Onward! upward! thou pain!" Well! Cheer up! O mine old heart: Woe saith: "Hence! Go!"
| Thus Spake Zarathustra | |