XX. CHILD AND MARRIAGE.

When Zarathustra had taken leave of the town to which his heart was attached, the name of which is “The Pied Cow,” there followed him many people who called themselves his disciples, and kept him company.

Tell me, pray: how came gold to the highest value? Because it is uncommon, and unprofiting, and beaming, and soft in lustre; it always bestoweth itself.

Only as image of the highest virtue came gold to the highest value. Goldlike, beameth the glance of the bestower.

Uncommon is the highest virtue, and unprofiting, beaming is it, and soft of lustre: a bestowing virtue is the highest virtue. Or isolation? Or discord in thee?

Verily, I divine you well, my disciples: ye strive like me for the bestowing virtue. What should ye have in common with cats and wolves?

It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul.

Insatiably striveth your soul for treasures and jewels, because your virtue is insatiable in desiring to bestow. For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!

Ye constrain all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love.

Verily, an appropriator of all values must such bestowing love become; but healthy and holy, call I this selfishness.— The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage.

Another selfishness is there, an all-too-poor and hungry kind, which would always steal—the selfishness of the sick, the sickly selfishness. But that which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, what shall I call it?

With the eye of the thief it looketh upon all that is lustrous; with the craving of hunger it measureth him who hath abundance; and ever doth it prowl round the tables of bestowers. Ah, the filth of soul in the twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain!

Sickness speaketh in such craving, and invisible degeneration; of a sickly body, speaketh the larcenous craving of this selfishness.

Tell me, my brother, what do we think bad, and worst of all? Is it not DEGENERATION?—And we always suspect degeneration when the bestowing soul is lacking.

Upward goeth our course from genera on to super-genera.

Upward soareth our sense: thus is it a simile of our body, a simile of an elevation. Such similes of elevations are the names of the virtues.

Thus goeth the body through history, a becomer and fighter.

Similes, are all names of good and evil; they do not speak out, they only hint.

Give heed, my brethren, to every hour when your spirit would speak in similes: there is the origin of your virtue.

Elevated is then your body, and raised up; with its delight, enraptureth it the spirit; so that it becometh creator, and valuer, and lover, and everything’s benefactor. But one time he spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calleth it.

When your heart overfloweth broad and full like the river, a blessing and a danger to the lowlanders: there is the origin of your virtue. But all at once he became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become an angel.

When ye are exalted above praise and blame, and your will would command all things, as a loving one’s will: there is the origin of your virtue. But even the astutest of them buyeth his wife in a sack.

When ye despise pleasant things, and the effeminate couch, and cannot couch far enough from the effeminate: there is the origin of your virtue. And your marriage putteth an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.

When ye are willers of one will, and when that change of every need is needful to you: there is the origin of your virtue. But generally two animals alight on one another.

Verily, a new good and evil is it! Verily, a new deep murmuring, and the voice of a new fountain!

Power is it, this new virtue; a ruling thought is it, and around it a subtle soul: a golden sun, with the serpent of knowledge around it. Then LEARN first of all to love. And on that account ye had to drink the bitter cup of your love.

2.

Here paused Zarathustra awhile, and looked lovingly on his disciples.

Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue!

Thus spake Zarathustra.