 | Thus Spake Zarathustra |  |
3.
I pass through this people and let fall many words: but they know neither how to take nor how to retain them.
They wonder why I came not to revile venery and vice; and verily, I came not to warn against pickpockets either!
They wonder why I am not ready to abet and whet their wisdom: as if they had not yet enough of wiseacres, whose voices grate on mine ear like slate-pencils!
And when I call out: "Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that would fain whimper and fold the hands and adore"-then do they shout: "Zarathustra is godless."
And especially do their teachers of submission shout this;-but precisely in their ears do I love to cry: "Yea! I am Zarathustra, the godless!"
Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is aught puny, or sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust preventeth me from cracking them.
Well! This is my sermon for their ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who saith: "Who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?"
I am Zarathustra the godless: where do I find mine equal? And all those are mine equals who give unto themselves their Will, and divest themselves of all submission.
I am Zarathustra the godless! I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it hath been quite cooked do I welcome it as my food.
And verily, many a chance came imperiously unto me: but still more imperiously did my Will speak unto it,-then did it lie imploringly upon its knees-
-Imploring that it might find home and heart with me, and saying flatteringly: "See, O Zarathustra, how friend only cometh unto friend!"-
But why talk I, when no one hath mine ears! And so will I shout it out unto all the winds:
Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish-
-By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions!
Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become great, it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks!
Also what ye omit weaveth at the web of all the human future; even your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that liveth on the blood of the future.
And when ye take, then is it like stealing, ye small virtuous ones; but even among knaves honour saith that "one shall only steal when one cannot rob."
"It giveth itself"-that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say unto you, ye comfortable ones, that it taketh to itself, and will ever take more and more from you!
Ah, that ye would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action!
Ah, that ye understood my word: "Do ever what ye will-but first be such as can will.
Love ever your neighbour as yourselves-but first be such as love themselves-
-Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!" Thus speaketh Zarathustra the godless.-
But why talk I, when no one hath mine ears! It is still an hour too early for me here.
Mine own forerunner am I among this people, mine own cockcrow in dark lanes.
But their hour cometh! And there cometh also mine! Hourly do they become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller,-poor herbs! poor earth!
And soon shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie, and verily, weary of themselves-and panting for fire, more than for water!
O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide!-Running fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues:-
-Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: It cometh, it is nigh, the great noontide!
Thus spake Zarathustra.
| Thus Spake Zarathustra | |