and ofttimes also the throne on filth.
Madmen they all seem to me, and clambering apes, and too
eager. Badly smelleth their idol to me, the cold monster: badly
they all smell to me, these idolaters.
My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of their maws
and appetites! Better break the windows and jump into the
open air!
Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the
idolatry of the superfluous!
Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from
the steam of these human sacrifices!
Open still remaineth the earth for great souls. Empty are
still many sites for lone ones and twain ones, around which
floateth the odour of tranquil seas.
Open still remaineth a free life for great souls. Verily, he
52 THUS SPAKE ZARAXHUSTRA
who possesseth little is so much the less possessed : blessed be
moderate poverty!
There, where the state ceaseth there only commenceth the
man who is not superfluous : there commenceth the song of the
necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody.
There, where the state ceaseth pray look thither, my
brethren! Do ye not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the
Superman?
Thus spake Zarathustra.
12. The Flies in the Market-Place
FLEE, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with
the noise of the great men, and stung all over with the stings
of the little ones.
Admirably do forest and rock know how to be silent with
thee. Resemble again the tree which thou lovest, the broad-
branched one silently and attentively it o'erhangeth the sea.
Where solitude endeth, there beginneth the market-place;
and where the market-place beginneth, there beginneth also
the noise of the great actors, and the buzzing of the poison-flies.
In the world even the best things are worthless without those
who represent them: those representers, the people call great
men.
Little do the people understand what is great that is to
say, the creating agency. But they have a taste for all repre-
senters and actors of great things.
THE FLIES IN THE MARKET-PLACE 53
Around the devisers of new values revolveth the world:
invisibly it revolveth. But around the actors revolve the people
and the glory: such is the course of things.
Spirit, hath the actor, but little conscience of he spirit. He
believeth always in that wherewith he maketh believe most
strongly in himself!
Tomorrow he hath a new belief, and the day after, one still
newer. Sharp perceptions hath he, like the people, and change-
able humours.
To upset that meaneth with him to prove. To drive mad
that meaneth with him to convince. And blood is counted by
him as the best of all arguments.
A truth which only glideth into fine ears, he calleth false-
hood and trumpery. Verily, he believeth only in gods that
make a great noise in the world!
Full of clattering buffoons is the market-place, and the
people glory in their great men! These are for them the masters
of the hour.
But the hour presseth them; so they press thee. And also
from thee they want Yea or Nay. Alas! thou wouldst set thy
chair betwixt For and Against?
On account of those absolute and impatient ones, be not
jealous, thou lover of truth! Never yet did truth cling to the
arm of an absolute one.
On account of those abrupt ones, return into thy security:
only in the market-place is one assailed by Yea? or Nay?
Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they
to wait until they know what hath fallen into their depths.
Away from the market-place and from fame taketh place all
that is great : away from the market-place and from fame have
ever dwelt the devisers of new values.
54 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
Flee, my friend, into thy solitude: I see thee stung all over
by the poisonous flies. Flee thither, where a rough, strong
breeze bloweth!
Flee into thy solitude! Thou hast lived too closely to the
small and the pitiable. Flee from their invisible vengeance!
Towards thee they have nothing but vengeance.
Raise no longer an arm against them! Innumerable are they,
and it is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.
Innumerable are the small and pitiable ones; and of many a
proud structure, rain-drops and weeds have been the ruin.
Thou art not stone; but already hast thou become hollow
by the numerous drops. Thou wilt yet break and burst by the
numerous drops.
Exhausted I see thee, by poisonous flies; bleeding I see
thee, and torn at a hundred spots; and thy pride will not even
upbraid.
Blood they would have from thee in all innocence; blood
their bloodless souls crave for and they sting, therefore, in
all innocence.
But thou, profound one, thou surf erest too profoundly even
from small wounds; and ere thou hadst recovered, the same
poison- worm crawled over thy hand.
Too proud art thou to kill these sweet-tooths. But take care
lest it be thy fate to suffer all their poisonous injustice!
They buzz around thee also with their praise: obtrusiveness
is their praise. They want to be close to thy skin and thy blood.
They flatter thee, as one flattereth a God or devil; they
whimper before thee, as before a God or devil. What doth it
come to! Flatterers are they, and whimperers, and nothing
more.
Often, also, do they show themselves to thee as amiable ones.
THE FLIES IN THE MARKET-PLACE 55
But that hath ever been the prudence of the cowardly. Yea!
the cowardly are wise!
They think much about thee with their circumscribed souls
thou art always suspected by them! Whatever is much
thought about is at last thought suspicious.
They punish thee for all thy virtues. They pardon thee in
their inmost hearts only for thine errors.
Because thou art gentle and of upright character, thou
sayest: "Blameless are they for their small existence." But their
circumscribed souls think: "Blamable is all great existence."
Even when thou art gentle towards them, they still feel
themselves despised by thee; and they repay thy beneficence
with secret maleficence.
Thy silent pride is always counter to their taste; they rejoice
if once thou be humble enough to be frivolous.
What we recognise in a man, we also irritate in him. There-
fore be on your guard against the small ones!
In thy presence they feel themselves small, and their base-
ness glearneth and gloweth against thee in invisible vengeance.
Sawest thou not how often they became dumb when thou
approachedst them, and how their energy left them like the
smoke of an extinguishing fire?
Yea, my friend, the bad conscience art thou of thy neigh-
bours; for they are unworthy of thee. Therefore they hate thee,
and would fain suck thy blood.
Thy neighbours will always be poisonous flies; what is great
in thee that itself must make them more poisonous, and
always more fly-like.
Flee, my friend, into thy solitude and thither, where a
rough strong breeze bloweth. It is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.
Thus spake Zarathustra.
56 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
. Chastity
I LOVE the forest. It is bad to live in cities : there, there are too
many of the lustful.
Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer than
into the dreams of a lustful woman?
And just look at these men: their eye saith it they know
nothing better on earth than to lie with a woman.
Filth is at the bottom of their souls; and alas! if their filth
hath still spirit in it!
Would that ye were perfect at least as animals! But to
animals belongeth innocence.
Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel you to
innocence in your instincts.
Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a virtue with some,
but with many almost a vice.
These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust looketh
enviously out of all that they do.
Even into the heights of their virtue and into their cold spirit
doth this creature follow them, with its discord.
And how nicely can doggish lust beg for a piece of spirit,
when a piece of flesh is denied it!
Ye love tragedies and all that breaketh the heart? But I am
distrustful of your doggish lust.
Ye have too cruel eyes, and ye look wantonly towards the
sufferers. Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the
name of fellow-suffering?
And also this parable give I unto you: Not a few who meant
to cast out their devil, went thereby into the swine themselves.
THE FRIEND 57
To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded : lest it be-
come the road to hell to filth and lust of soul.
Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for
me to do.
Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the
discerning one go unwillingly into its waters.
Verily, there are chaste ones from their very nature; they
are gentler of heart, and laugh better and oftener than you.
They laugh also at chastity, and ask: "What is chastity?
Is chastity not folly? But the folly came unto us, and not we
unto it.
We offered that guest harbour and heart: now it dwelleth
with us let it stay as long as it will!"
Thus spake Zarathustra.
14. The Friend
"ONE is always too many about me" thinketh the anchorite.
"Always once one that maketh two in the long run!"
I and me are always too earnestly in conversation: how
could it be endured, if there were not a friend?
The friend of the anchorite is always the third one: the
third one is the cork which preventeth the conversation of the
two sinking into the depth.
Ah! there are too many depths for all anchorites. Therefore,
do they long so much for a friend and for his elevation.
Our faith in others betrayeth wherein we would fain have
faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer.
58 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
And often with our love we want merely to overleap envy.
And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal
that we are vulnerable.
"Be at least mine enemy!" thus speaketh the true rever-
ence, which doth not venture to solicit friendship.
If one would have a friend, then must one also be willing
to wage war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be
capable of being an enemy.
One ought still to honour the enemy in one's friend. Canst
thou go nigh unto thy friend, and not go over to him?
In one's friend one shall have one's best enemy. Thou shalt
be closest unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him.
Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend? It is in
honour of thy friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou
art? But he wisheth thee to the devil on that account!
He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much
reason have ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were gods, ye
could then be ashamed of clothing!
Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend;
for thou shalt be unto him an arrow and a longing for the
Superman.
Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep to know how he
looketh? What is usually the countenance of thy friend? It is
thine own countenance, in a coarse and imperfect mirror.
Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep? Wert thou not dis-
mayed at thy friend looking so? O my friend, man is some-
thing that hath to be surpassed.
In divining and keeping silence shall the friend be a master:
not everything must thou wish to see. Thy dream shall dis-
close unto thee what thy friend doeth when awake.
Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy frier i
THE FRIEND 59
wanteth pity. Perhaps he loveth in thee the unmoved eye, and
the look of eternity.
Let thy pity for thy friend be hid under a hard shell; thou
shalt bite out a tooth upon it. Thus will it have delicacy and
sweetness.
Art thou pure air and solitude and bread and medicine to
thy friend? Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is
nevertheless his friend's emancipator.
Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou
a tyrant? Then thou canst not have friends.
Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed
in woman. On that account woman is not yet capable of friend-
ship: she knoweth only love.
In woman's love there is injustice and blindness to all she
doth not love. And even in woman's conscious love, there is
still always surprise and lightning and night, along with the
light.
As yet woman is not capable of friendship : women are still
cats and birds. Or at the best, cows.
As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye
men, who of you is capable of friendship?
Oh! your poverty, ye men, and your sordidness of soul! As
much as ye give to your friend, will I give even to my foe, and
will not have become poorer thereby.
There is comradeship: may there be friendship!
Thus spake Zarathustra.
60 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
The Thousand and One Goals
MANY lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: thus he dis-
covered the good and bad of many peoples. No greater power
did Zarathustra find on earth than good and bad.
No people could live without first valuing; if a people will
maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbour
valueth.
Much that passed for good with one people was regarded
with scorn and contempt by another: thus I found it. Much
found I here called bad, which was there decked with purple
honours.
Never did the one neighbour understand the other: ever
did his soul marvel at his neighbour's delusion and wickedness.
A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo! it is
the table of their triumphs; lo! it is the voice of their Will to
Power.
It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable
and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direst dis-
tress, the unique and hardest of all, they extol as holy.
Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and shine, to the
dismay and envy of their neighbours, they regard as the high
and foremost thing, the test and the meaning of all else.
Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people's need, its
land, its sky, and its neighbour, then wouldst thou divine the
law of its surmountings, and why it climbeth up that ladder to
its hope.
"Always shalt thou be the foremost and prominent above
others: no one shall thy jealous soul love, except a friend"
THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS 6 1
that made the soul of a Greek thrill: thereby went he his way
to greatness.
'To speak truth, and be skilful with bow and arrow" so
seemed it alike pleasing and hard to the people from whom
cometh my name the name which is alike pleasing and hard
to me.
"To honour father and mother, and from the root of the soul
to do their will" this table of surmounting hung another
people over them, and became powerful and permanent there-
by.
'To have fidelity, and for the sake of fidelity to risk honour
and blood, even in evil and dangerous courses" teaching it-
self so, another people mastered itself, and thus mastering
itself, became pregnant and heavy with great hopes.
Verily, men have given unto themselves all their good and
bad. Verily, they took it not, they found it not, it came not unto
them as a voice from heaven.
Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain
himself he created only the significance of things, a human-
significance! Therefore, calleth he himself "man," that is, the
valuator.
Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation
itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things.
Through valuation only is there value; and without valua-
tion the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating
ones!
Change of values that is, change of the creating ones.
Always doth he destroy who hath to be a creator.
Creating ones were first of all peoples, and only in late
times individuals; verily, the individual himself is still the
latest creation.
Peoples once hung over them tables of the good. Love which
62 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
would rule and love which would obey, created for themselves
such tables.
Older is the pleasure in the herd than the pleasure in the
ego: and as long as the good conscience is for the herd, the bad
conscience only saith : ego.
Verily, the crafty ego, the loveless one, that seeketh its
advantage in the advantage of many it is not the origin of the
herd, but its ruin.
Loving ones, was it always, and creating ones, that created
good and bad. Fire of love gloweth in the names of all the
virtues, and fire of wrath.
Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples : no greater
power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the
loving ones "good" and "bad" are they called.
Verily, a prodigy is this power of praising and blaming.
Tell me, ye brethren, who will master it for me? Who will put
a fetter upon the thousand necks of this animal?
A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand
peoples have there been. Only the fetter for the thousand
necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. As yet
humanity hath not a goal.
But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still
lacking, is there not also still lacking humanity itself?
Thus spake Zarathustra.
NEIGHBOUR-LOVE 63
16. Neighbour-Love
YE CROWD around your neighbour, and have fine words for it.
But I say unto you: your neighbour-love is your bad love of
yourselves.
Ye flee unto your neighbour from yourselves, and would
fain make a virtue thereof: but I fathom your "unselfishness."
The Thou is older than the /; the Thou hath been conse-
crated, but not yet the /: so man presseth nigh unto his neigh-
bour.
Do I advise you to neighbour-love? Rather do I advise you
to neighbour-flight and to furthest love!
Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest
and future ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things
and phantoms.
The phantom that runneth on before thee, my brother, is
fairer than thou; why dost thou not give unto it thy flesh and
thy bones? But thou fearest, and runnest unto thy neighbour.
Ye cannot endure it with yourselves, and do not love your-
selves sufficiently: so ye seek to mislead your neighbour into
love, and would fain gild yourselves with his error.
Would that ye could not endure it with any kind of near
ones, or their neighbours; then would ye have to create your
friend and his overflowing heart out of yourselves.
Ye call in a witness when ye want to speak well of your-
selves; and when ye have misled him to think well of you, ye
also think well of yourselves.
Not only doth he lie, who speaketh contrary to his knowl-
edge, but more so, he who speaketh contrary to his ignorance.
64 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
And thus speak ye of yourselves in your intercourse, and belie
your neighbour with yourselves.
Thus saith the fool: "Association with men spoileth the
character, especially when one hath none."
The one goeth to his neighbour because he seeketh him-
self, and the other because he would fain lose himself. Your
bad love to yourselves maketh solitude a prison to you.
The furthest ones are they who pay for your love to the
near ones; and when there are but five of you together, a sixth
must always die.
I love not your festivals either: too many actors found I
there, and even the spectators often behaved like actors.
Not the neighbour do I teach you, but the friend. Let the
friend be the festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of
the Superman.
I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one
must know how to be a sponge, if one would be loved by over-
flowing hearts.
I teach you the friend in whom the world standeth complete,
a capsule of the good, the creating friend, who hath always a
complete world to bestow.
And as the world unrolled itself for him, so rolleth it to-
gether again for him in rings, as the growth of good through
evil, as the growth of purpose out of chance.
Let the future and the furthest be the motive of thy today;
in thy friend shalt thou love the Superman as thy motive.
My brethren, I advise you not to neighbour-love I advise
you to furthest love!
Thus spake Zarathustra.
THE WAY OF THE CREATING ONE 65
. The Way of the Creating One
WOULDST thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou
seek the way unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto
me.
"He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation
is wrong" : so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the
herd.
The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou
sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you,"
then will it be a plaint and a pain.
Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and
the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine afflic-
tion.
But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the
way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy
strength to do so!
Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first
motion? A self -rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars
to revolve around thee?
Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so
many convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou art not
a lusting and ambitious one!
Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more
than the bellows : they inflate, and make emptier than ever.
Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I
hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.
Art thou one entitled to escape from a yoke? Many a one
hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his
servitude.
66 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra!
Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free for what?
Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set
up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself,
and avenger of thy law?
Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one's
own law. Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the
icy breath of aloneness.
To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individ-
ual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes.
But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy
pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I
am alone!"
One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too
closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as
a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: "All is false!"
There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if
they do not succeed, then must they themselves die! But art
thou capable of it to be a murderer?
Hast thou ever known, my brother, the word "disdain"?
And the anguish of thy justice in being just to those that dis-
dain thee?
Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that,
charge they heavily to thine account. Thou earnest nigh unto
them, and yet wentest past: for that they never forgive thee.
Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the
smaller doth the eye of envy see thee. Most of all, however, is
the flying one hated.
"How could ye be just unto me!" must thou say "I
choose your injustice as my allotted portion."
Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my
THE WAY OF THE CREATING ONE 67
brother, if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them
none the less on that account!
And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would
fain crucify those who devise their own virtue they hate the
lonesome ones.
Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy
to it that is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the
fire of the fagot and stake.
And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love!
Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who
meeteth him.
To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy
paw; and I wish thy paw also to have claws.
But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself
always be; thou waylayest thyself in caverns and forests.
Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And
past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way!
A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a sooth-
sayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.
Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how
couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!
Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the creating one:
a God wilt thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils!
Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the loving one:
thou lovest thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself,
as only the loving ones despise.
To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth!
What knoweth he of love who hath not been obliged to despise
just what he loved!
With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with
thy creating; and late only will justice limp after thee.
68 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love
him who seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus sue-