VIII. THE TREE ON THE HILL.

By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth! Zarathustra thereupon laid hold of the tree beside which the youth sat, and spake thus:

My brethren in war!

I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy.

And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors.

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! “Uniform” one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!

Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an enemy—for YOUR enemy.

Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts!

Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more than the long.

You I advise not to work, but to fight.

One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!

Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.

War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims. What do I seek on the height?

“What is good?” ye ask. To be brave is good.

They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your good-will. Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed of their ebb. How I hate him who flieth! How tired I am on the height!”

Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!

And when your soul becometh great, then doth it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is wickedness.

In wickedness the haughty man and the weakling meet.

Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are also your successes.

Resistance—that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying! It is mine envy of thee that hath destroyed me!”—Thus spake the youth, and wept bitterly. Zarathustra, however, put his arm about him, and led the youth away with him.

To the good warrior soundeth “thou shalt” pleasanter than “I will.” And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.

Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life! Better than thy words express it, thine eyes tell me all thy danger.

Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man is something that is to be surpassed. Too unslept hath thy seeking made thee, and too wakeful.

So live your life of obedience and of war! What matter about long life!

I spare you not, I love you from my very heart, my brethren in war!—

Still art thou a prisoner—it seemeth to me—who deviseth liberty for himself: ah! sharp becometh the soul of such prisoners, but also deceitful and wicked.

To purify himself, is still necessary for the freedman of the spirit. Much of the prison and the mould still remaineth in him: pure hath his eye still to become.

Yea, I know thy danger. But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not thy love and hope away!

Noble thou feelest thyself still, and noble others also feel thee still, though they bear thee a grudge and cast evil looks. Know this, that to everybody a noble one standeth in the way.

Also to the good, a noble one standeth in the way: and even when they call him a good man, they want thereby to put him aside.

The new, would the noble man create, and a new virtue. The old, wanteth the good man, and that the old should be conserved.

But it is not the danger of the noble man to turn a good man, but lest he should become a blusterer, a scoffer, or a destroyer.

Ah! I have known noble ones who lost their highest hope. And then they disparaged all high hopes.

Then lived they shamelessly in temporary pleasures, and beyond the day had hardly an aim.

“Spirit is also voluptuousness,”—said they. Then broke the wings of their spirit; and now it creepeth about, and defileth where it gnaweth.

Once they thought of becoming heroes; but sensualists are they now. A trouble and a terror is the hero to them.

But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not away the hero in thy soul! Maintain holy thy highest hope!—

Thus spake Zarathustra.