XVIII. OLD AND YOUNG WOMEN.

I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth. And what hidest thou so carefully under thy mantle?

Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man ENTITLED to desire a child? Or goest thou thyself on a thief’s errand, thou friend of the evil?”—

Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues?

Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity?

I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child.

Beyond thyself shalt thou build.

Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward!

A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create.

Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it.

Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage.

Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the twain!

Marriage they call it all; and they say their marriages are made in heaven. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

Well, I do not like it, that heaven of the superfluous!

Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath not matched! Therefore liketh he woman;—bitter is even the sweetest woman.

Laugh not at such marriages!

Worthy did this man seem, and ripe for the meaning of the earth: but when I saw his wife, the earth seemed to me a home for madcaps. Up then, ye women, and discover the child in man!

Yea, I would that the earth shook with convulsions when a saint and a goose mate with one another.

This one went forth in quest of truth as a hero, and at last got for himself a small decked-up lie: his marriage he calleth it. Let your hope say: “May I bear the Superman!”

That one was reserved in intercourse and chose choicely. But one time he spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calleth it.

Another sought a handmaid with the virtues of an angel. But all at once he became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become an angel. But let this be your honour: always to love more than ye are loved, and never be the second.

Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes.

Many short follies—that is called love by you.

Your love to woman, and woman’s love to man—ah, would that it were sympathy for suffering and veiled deities!

But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a painful ardour.

Beyond yourselves shall ye love some day!

Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love: thus doth it cause longing for the Superman; thus doth it cause thirst in thee, the creating one! Surface, is woman’s soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water.

Thirst in the creating one, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me, my brother, is this thy will to marriage?

Holy call I such a will, and such a marriage.—

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.