Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/255

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tiers believe that to blessedness after death pertains- permission-to-sit!)

Nor even that a Spirit called Holy, led your forefathers into promised lands, which I do not praise: for where the worst of all trees grew- the cross,- in that land there is nothing to praise!-

-And verily, wherever this "Holy Spirit" led its knights, always in such campaigns did- goats and geese, and wry-heads and guy-heads run foremost!-

O my brothers, not backward shall your nobility gaze, but outward! Exiles shall you be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands!

Your children's land shall you love: let this love be your new nobility,- the undiscovered in the remotest seas! For it do I bid your sails search and search!

To your children shall you make amends for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall you thus redeem! This new table do I place over you!


13.

"Why should one live? All is vain! To live- that is to thresh straw; to live- that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.-

Such ancient babbling still passes for "wisdom"; because it is old, however, and smells mustily, therefore is it the more honored. Even mould ennobles.-

Children might thus speak: they shun the fire because it has burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom.