 | Thus Spake Zarathustra |  |
1.
AH, LIETH everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow! And how much honey of hope did I carry hence into my beehives!
Those young hearts have already all become old-and not old even! only weary, ordinary, comfortable:-they declare it: "We have again become pious."
Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: but the feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even their morning valour!
Verily, many of them once lifted their legs like the dancer; to them winked the laughter of my wisdom:-then did they bethink themselves. Just now have I seen them bent down-to creep to the cross.
Around light and liberty did they once flutter like gnats and young poets. A little older, a little colder: and already are they mystifiers, and mumblers and mollycoddles.
Did perhaps their hearts despond, because lonesomeness had swallowed me like a whale? Did their ear perhaps hearken yearningly-long for me in vain, and for my trumpet-notes and herald-calls?
-Ah! Ever are there but few of those whose hearts have persistent courage and exuberance; and in such remaineth also the spirit patient. The rest, however, are cowardly.
The rest: these are always the great majority, the common-place, the superfluous, the far-too many-those all are cowardly!-
Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on the way: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons.
His second companions, however-they will call themselves his believers,-will be a living host, with much love, much folly, much unbearded veneration.
To those believers shall he who is of my type among men not bind his heart; in those spring-times and many-hued meadows shall he not believe, who knoweth the fickly faint-hearted human species!
Could they do otherwise, then would they also will otherwise. The half-and-half spoil every whole. That leaves become withered,-what is there to lament about that!
Let them go and fall away, O Zarathustra, and do not lament! Better even to blow amongst them with rustling winds,-
-Blow amongst those leaves, O Zarathustra, that everything withered may run away from thee the faster!-
| Thus Spake Zarathustra | |