1.
Ah, lieth everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow! And how much honey of hope did I carry hence into my beehives!
Those young hearts have already all become old--and not old even! only weary, ordinary, comfortable:--they declare it: "We have again become pious."Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: but the feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even their morning valour!
Verily, many of them once lifted their legs like the dancer; to them winked the laughter of my wisdom:--then did they bethink themselves. Just now have I seen them bent down--to creep to the cross.
Around light and liberty did they once flutter like gnats and young poets.
A little older, a little colder: and already are they mystifiers, and mumblers and mollycoddles.
Did perhaps their hearts despond, because lonesomeness had swallowed me like a whale? Did their ear perhaps hearken yearningly-long for me INVAIN, and for my trumpet-notes and herald-calls?
--Ah! Ever are there but few of those whose hearts have persistent courage and exuberance; and in such remaineth also the spirit patient. The rest, however, are COWARDLY.
The rest: these are always the great majority, the common-place, the superfluous, the far-too many--those all are cowardly!--Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on the way: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons.
His second companions, however--they will call themselves his BELIEVERS,--will be a living host, with much love, much folly, much unbearded veneration.
To those believers shall he who is of my type among men not bind his heart;in those spring-times and many-hued meadows shall he not believe, who knoweth the fickly faint-hearted human species!
COULD they do otherwise, then would they also WILL otherwise. The half-and-half spoil every whole. That leaves become withered,--what is there to lament about that!
Let them go and fall away, O Zarathustra, and do not lament! Better even to blow amongst them with rustling winds,----Blow amongst those leaves, O Zarathustra, that everything WITHERED may run away from thee the faster!--2.
"We have again become pious"--so do those apostates confess; and some of them are still too pusillanimous thus to confess.
Unto them I look into the eye,--before them I say it unto their face and unto the blush on their cheeks: Ye are those who again PRAY!
It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, and whoever hath his conscience in his head. For THEE it is a shame to pray!
Thou knowest it well: the faint-hearted devil in thee, which would fain fold its arms, and place its hands in its bosom, and take it easier:--this faint-hearted devil persuadeth thee that "there IS a God!"THEREBY, however, dost thou belong to the light-dreading type, to whom light never permitteth repose: now must thou daily thrust thy head deeper into obscurity and vapour!
