Chapter 7

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. XVI. 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 I; the THOU hath been consecrated, but not yet the I: so man presseth nigh unto his neighbour. 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 yourselves 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 yourselves; 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 knowledge, but more so, he who speaketh contrary to his ignorance. 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 himself, 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 overflowing 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 together 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 to-day; 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. XVII. 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 affliction. 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. 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 individual; 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 disdain thee? Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they heavily to thine account. Thou camest 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 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 soothsayer, 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. With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus succumbeth.— Thus spake Zarathustra. XVIII. OLD AND YOUNG WOMEN. “Why stealest thou along so furtively in the twilight, Zarathustra? And what hidest thou so carefully under thy mantle? Is it a treasure that hath been given thee? Or a child that hath been born thee? Or goest thou thyself on a thief’s errand, thou friend of the evil?”— Verily, my brother, said Zarathustra, it is a treasure that hath been given me: it is a little truth which I carry. But it is naughty, like a young child; and if I hold not its mouth, it screameth too loudly. As I went on my way alone to-day, at the hour when the sun declineth, there met me an old woman, and she spake thus unto my soul: “Much hath Zarathustra spoken also to us women, but never spake he unto us concerning woman.” And I answered her: “Concerning woman, one should only talk unto men.” “Talk also unto me of woman,” said she; “I am old enough to forget it presently.” And I obliged the old woman and spake thus unto her: Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution—it is called pregnancy. Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man? Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything. Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly. Too sweet fruits—these the warrior liketh not. Therefore liketh he woman;—bitter is even the sweetest woman. Better than man doth woman understand children, but man is more childish than woman. In the true man there is a child hidden: it wanteth to play. Up then, ye women, and discover the child in man! A plaything let woman be, pure and fine like the precious stone, illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come. Let the beam of a star shine in your love! Let your hope say: “May I bear the Superman!” In your love let there be valour! With your love shall ye assail him who inspireth you with fear! In your love be your honour! Little doth woman understand otherwise about honour. But let this be your honour: always to love more than ye are loved, and never be the second. Let man fear woman when she loveth: then maketh she every sacrifice, and everything else she regardeth as worthless. Let man fear woman when she hateth: for man in his innermost soul is merely evil; woman, however, is mean. Whom hateth woman most?—Thus spake the iron to the loadstone: “I hate thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee.” The happiness of man is, “I will.” The happiness of woman is, “He will.” “Lo! now hath the world become perfect!”—thus thinketh every woman when she obeyeth with all her love. Obey, must the woman, and find a depth for her surface. Surface, is woman’s soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water. Man’s soul, however, is deep, its current gusheth in subterranean caverns: woman surmiseth its force, but comprehendeth it not.— Then answered me the old woman: “Many fine things hath Zarathustra said, especially for those who are young enough for them. Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right about them! Doth this happen, because with women nothing is impossible? And now accept a little truth by way of thanks! I am old enough for it! Swaddle it up and hold its mouth: otherwise it will scream too loudly, the little truth.” “Give me, woman, thy little truth!” said I. And thus spake the old woman: “Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!”— Thus spake Zarathustra. XIX. THE BITE OF THE ADDER. One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arms over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get away. “Not at all,” said Zarathustra, “as yet hast thou not received my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long.” “Thy journey is short,” said the adder sadly; “my poison is fatal.” Zarathustra smiled. “When did ever a dragon die of a serpent’s poison?”—said he. “But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough to present it to me.” Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked his wound. When Zarathustra once told this to his disciples they asked him: “And what, O Zarathustra, is the moral of thy story?” And Zarathustra answered them thus: The destroyer of morality, the good and just call me: my story is immoral. When, however, ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you. And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a little also! And should a great injustice befall you, then do quickly five small ones besides. Hideous to behold is he on whom injustice presseth alone. Did ye ever know this? Shared injustice is half justice. And he who can bear it, shall take the injustice upon himself! A small revenge is humaner than no revenge at all. And if the punishment be not also a right and an honour to the transgressor, I do not like your punishing. Nobler is it to own oneself in the wrong than to establish one’s right, especially if one be in the right. Only, one must be rich enough to do so. I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel. Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes? Devise me, then, the love which not only beareth all punishment, but also all guilt! Devise me, then, the justice which acquitteth every one except the judge!