Thus Spake Zarathustra Part 52

--And verily, wherever this "Holy Spirit" led its knights, always in such campaigns did--goats and geese, and wryheads and guyheads run FOREMOST!--

O my brethren, not backward shall your n.o.bility gaze, but OUTWARD!

Exiles shall ye be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands!

Your CHILDREN'S LAND shall ye love: let this love be your new n.o.bility,--the undiscovered in the remotest seas! For it do I bid your sails search and search!

Unto your children shall ye MAKE AMENDS for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall ye THUS redeem! This new table do I place over you!

13.

"Why should one live? All is vain! To live--that is to thrash straw; to live--that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm."--

Such ancient babbling still pa.s.seth for "wisdom"; because it is old, however, and smelleth mustily, THEREFORE is it the more honoured. Even mould enn.o.bleth.--

Children might thus speak: they SHUN the fire because it hath burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom.

And he who ever "thrasheth straw," why should he be allowed to rail at thrashing! 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 brethren, is verily no vain art! Break up, break up for me the tables of the never-joyous ones!

14.

"To the clean are all things clean"--thus say the people. I, however, say unto 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 backworldsmen!

TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath 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 smelleth badly: loathing itself createth wings, and fountain-divining powers!

In the best there is still something to loathe; and the best is still something that must be surpa.s.sed!--

O my brethren, there is much wisdom in the fact that much filth is in the world!--

15.

Such sayings did I hear pious backworldsmen 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 sc.r.a.pe the people: raise not a finger against it! Thereby will they learn to renounce the world."

"And thine own reason--this shalt thou thyself stifle and choke; for it is a reason of this world,--thereby wilt thou learn thyself to renounce the world."--

--Shatter, shatter, O my brethren, those old tables of the pious! Tatter the maxims of the world-maligners!--

16.

"He who learneth much unlearneth all violent cravings"--that do people now whisper to one another in all the dark lanes.

"Wisdom wearieth, nothing is worth while; thou shalt not crave!"--this new table found I hanging even in the public markets.

Break up for me, O my brethren, 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 hath resulted their ruined stomach;--

--For a ruined stomach, is their spirit: IT persuadeth to death! For verily, my brethren, the spirit IS a stomach!

Life is a well of delight, but to him in whom the ruined stomach speaketh, the father of affliction, all fountains are poisoned.

To discern: that is DELIGHT to the lion-willed! But he who hath 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 asketh their weariness: "Why did we ever go on the way?

All is indifferent!"

TO THEM soundeth it pleasant to have preached in their ears: "Nothing is worth while! Ye shall not will!" That, however, is a sermon for slavery.

O my brethren, a fresh bl.u.s.tering wind cometh Zarathustra unto all way-weary ones; many noses will he yet make sneeze!

Even through walls bloweth my free breath, and in into prisons and imprisoned spirits!

Willing emanc.i.p.ateth: for willing is creating: so do I teach. And ONLY for creating shall ye learn!

And also the learning shall ye LEARN only from me, the learning well!--He who hath ears let him hear!

17.

There standeth the boat--thither goeth it over, perhaps into vast nothingness--but who willeth to enter into this "Perhaps"?

None of you want to enter into the death-boat! How should ye 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 doth your lip hang down:--a small worldly wish still sitteth thereon! And in your eye--floateth there not a cloudlet 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s: useful at the same time, and pleasant.

Ye world-weary ones, however! Ye earth-idlers! You, shall one beat with stripes! With stripes shall one again make you sprightly limbs.

For if ye be not invalids, or decrepit creatures, of whom the earth is weary, then are ye sly sloths, or dainty, sneaking pleasure-cats. And if ye will not again RUN gaily, then shall ye--pa.s.s away!