XLIX. THE BEDWARFING VIRTUE.

Thus slowly wandering through many peoples and divers cities, did Zarathustra return by round-about roads to his mountains and his cave. And behold, thereby came he unawares also to the gate of the GREAT CITY.

O Zarathustra, here is the great city: here hast thou nothing to seek and everything to lose. Verily, no great soul put them up as its simile!

Why wouldst thou wade through this mire? Have pity upon thy foot!

Here is the hell for anchorites’ thoughts: here are great thoughts seethed alive and boiled small. They seem to be made for silk dolls; or for dainty-eaters, who perhaps let others eat with them.”

Here do all great sentiments decay: here may only rattle-boned sensations rattle! At last he said sorrowfully: “There hath EVERYTHING become smaller!

Smellest thou not already the shambles and cookshops of the spirit?

Seest thou not the souls hanging like limp dirty rags?—And they make newspapers also out of these rags!

Hearest thou not how spirit hath here become a verbal game?

They hound one another, and know not whither!

They are cold, and seek warmth from distilled waters: they are inflamed, and seek coolness from frozen spirits; they are all sick and sore through public opinion.

All lusts and vices are here at home; but here there are also the virtuous; there is much appointable appointed virtue:—

Much appointable virtue with scribe-fingers, and hardy sitting-flesh and waiting-flesh, blessed with small breast-stars, and padded, haunchless daughters.

There is here also much piety, and much faithful spittle-licking and spittle-backing, before the God of Hosts.

“From on high,” drippeth the star, and the gracious spittle; for the high, longeth every starless bosom.

The moon hath its court, and the court hath its moon-calves: unto all, however, that cometh from the court do the mendicant people pray, and all appointable mendicant virtues.

“I serve, thou servest, we serve”—so prayeth all appointable virtue to the prince: that the merited star may at last stick on the slender breast! Let us see that it doth not bring a plague upon us!”

But the moon still revolveth around all that is earthly: so revolveth also the prince around what is earthliest of all—that, however, is the gold of the shopman.

The God of the Hosts of war is not the God of the golden bar; the prince proposeth, but the shopman—disposeth!

By all that is luminous and strong and good in thee, O Zarathustra!

Here floweth all blood putridly and tepidly and frothily through all veins: spit on the great city, which is the great slum where all the scum frotheth together! A girdle of spines is their praise unto me: it scratcheth me even when I take it off.

Spit on the city of compressed souls and slender breasts, of pointed eyes and sticky fingers—

—On the city of the obtrusive, the brazen-faced, the pen-demagogues and tongue-demagogues, the overheated ambitious:— Verily, to such measure and ticktack, it liketh neither to dance nor to stand still.

Where everything maimed, ill-famed, lustful, untrustful, over-mellow, sickly-yellow and seditious, festereth pernicious:—

—Spit on the great city and turn back!—

Here, however, did Zarathustra interrupt the foaming fool, and shut his mouth.— With comfort, however, moderate virtue only is compatible.

Stop this at once! called out Zarathustra, long have thy speech and thy species disgusted me!

Why didst thou live so long by the swamp, that thou thyself hadst to become a frog and a toad?

Floweth there not a tainted, frothy, swamp-blood in thine own veins, when thou hast thus learned to croak and revile? But there is much lying among small people.

Why wentest thou not into the forest? Or why didst thou not till the ground?

I despise thy contempt; and when thou warnedst me—why didst thou not warn thyself?

Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; but not out of the swamp!— For only he who is man enough, will—SAVE THE WOMAN in woman.

They call thee mine ape, thou foaming fool: but I call thee my grunting-pig,—by thy grunting, thou spoilest even my praise of folly.

What was it that first made thee grunt?

—That thou mightest have cause for much VENGEANCE!

But thy fools’-word injureth ME, even when thou art right! And even if Zarathustra’s word WERE a hundred times justified, thou wouldst ever—DO wrong with my word!

Round, fair, and considerate are they to one another, as grains of sand are round, fair, and considerate to grains of sand.

Modestly to embrace a small happiness—that do they call “submission”! and at the same time they peer modestly after a new small happiness.

In their hearts they want simply one thing most of all: that no one hurt them. Thus do they anticipate every one’s wishes and do well unto every one.

That, however, is COWARDICE, though it be called “virtue.”—

And when they chance to speak harshly, those small people, then doIhear therein only their hoarseness—every draught of air maketh them hoarse.

Shrewd indeed are they, their virtues have shrewd fingers. But they lack fists: their fingers do not know how to creep behind fists.

Virtue for them is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have they made the wolf a dog, and man himself man’s best domestic animal.

“We set our chair in the MIDST”—so saith their smirking unto me—“and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine.”

That, however, is—MEDIOCRITY, though it be called moderation.—

3.

I pass through this people and let fall many words: but they know neither how to take nor how to retain them.

They wonder why I came not to revile venery and vice; and verily, I came not to warn against pickpockets either!

They wonder why I am not ready to abet and whet their wisdom: as if they had not yet enough of wiseacres, whose voices grate on mine ear like slate-pencils!

And when I call out: “Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that would fain whimper and fold the hands and adore”—then do they shout: “Zarathustra is godless.”

And especially do their teachers of submission shout this;—but precisely in their ears do I love to cry: “Yea! I AM Zarathustra, the godless!”

Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is aught puny, or sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust preventeth me from cracking them.

Well! This is my sermon for THEIR ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who saith: “Who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?”

I am Zarathustra the godless: where do I find mine equal? And all those are mine equals who give unto themselves their Will, and divest themselves of all submission.

I am Zarathustra the godless! I cook every chance in MY pot. And only when it hath been quite cooked do I welcome it as MY food.

And verily, many a chance came imperiously unto me: but still more imperiously did my WILL speak unto it,—then did it lie imploringly upon its knees—

—Imploring that it might find home and heart with me, and saying flatteringly: “See, O Zarathustra, how friend only cometh unto friend!”—

But why talk I, when no one hath MINE ears! And so will I shout it out unto all the winds:

Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish—

—By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions!

Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become GREAT, it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks!

Also what ye omit weaveth at the web of all the human future; even your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that liveth on the blood of the future.

And when ye take, then is it like stealing, ye small virtuous ones; but even among knaves HONOUR saith that “one shall only steal when one cannot rob.”

“It giveth itself”—that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say unto you, ye comfortable ones, that IT TAKETH TO ITSELF, and will ever take more and more from you!

Ah, that ye would renounce all HALF-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action!

Ah, that ye understood my word: “Do ever what ye will—but first be such as CAN WILL.

Love ever your neighbour as yourselves—but first be such as LOVE THEMSELVES—

—Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!” Thus speaketh Zarathustra the godless.—

But why talk I, when no one hath MINE ears! It is still an hour too early for me here.

Mine own forerunner am I among this people, mine own cockcrow in dark lanes.

But THEIR hour cometh! And there cometh also mine! Hourly do they become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller,—poor herbs! poor earth!

And SOON shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie, and verily, weary of themselves—and panting for FIRE, more than for water!

O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide!—Running fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues:—

—Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: It cometh, it is nigh, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

Thus spake Zarathustra.