VII. READING AND WRITING.

There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom desistance from life must be preached. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.

Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many.

“The yellow ones”: so are called the preachers of death, or “the black ones.” But I will show them unto you in other colours besides. Another century of readers—and spirit itself will stink.

There are the terrible ones who carry about in themselves the beast of prey, and have no choice except lusts or self-laceration.

They have not yet become men, those terrible ones: may they preach desistance from life, and pass away themselves!

There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when they begin to die, and long for doctrines of lassitude and renunciation.

They would fain be dead, and we should approve of their wish! Let us beware of awakening those dead ones, and of damaging those living coffins!

They meet an invalid, or an old man, or a corpse—and immediately they say: “Life is refuted!”

But they only are refuted, and their eye, which seeth only one aspect of existence. The courage which scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins—it wanteth to laugh.

Shrouded in thick melancholy, and eager for the little casualties that bring death: thus do they wait, and clench their teeth.

Or else, they grasp at sweetmeats, and mock at their childishness thereby: they cling to their straw of life, and mock at their still clinging to it.

Their wisdom speaketh thus: “A fool, he who remaineth alive; but so far are we fools!

“Life is only suffering”: so say others, and lie not.

And let this be the teaching of your virtue: “Thou shalt slay thyself!

“Lust is sin,”—so say some who preach death—“let us go apart and beget no children!”

“Giving birth is troublesome,”—say others—“why still give birth? One beareth only the unfortunate!” And they also are preachers of death.

“Pity is necessary,”—so saith a third party. “Take what I have!

Were they consistently pitiful, then would they make their neighbours sick of life.

But they want to be rid of life; what care they if they bind others still faster with their chains and gifts!— But there is always, also, some method in madness.

And ye also, to whom life is rough labour and disquiet, are ye not very tired of life?

All ye to whom rough labour is dear, and the rapid, new, and strange—ye put up with yourselves badly; your diligence is flight, and the will to self-forgetfulness.

If ye believed more in life, then would ye devote yourselves less to the momentary.

Everywhere resoundeth the voices of those who preach death; and the earth is full of those to whom death hath to be preached.

Or “life eternal”; it is all the same to me—if only they pass away quickly!— Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!

I learned to walk; since then have I let myself run. I learned to fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a spot.

Now am I light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself. Now there danceth a God in me.—

Thus spake Zarathustra.