OF VIRTUE THAT MAKETH SMALLER 245
' We put our chair in the midst ' thus saith their simpering unto me ' exactly as far from dying gladia- tors as from happy swine.'
This is mediocrity; although it be called moderation.
��I walk through these folk and let fall many a word. But they know neither how to take nor how to keep.
They wonder that I have not come to revile lusts and vices. Nor indeed have I come to bid them be- ware of pick-pockets.
They wonder that I am not ready to sharpen and point their prudence ; as if among them there were not wiselings enough, whose voices grate mine ear like slate-pencils.
And when I cry : ' Curse all cowardly devils within yourselves who would fain whine and fold their hands and adore,' they cry: ' Zarathustra is ungodly.'
And so chiefly their teachers of submission cry. But unto their ears I rejoice to cry: 'Yea! I am Zarathustra, the ungodly ! '
These teachers of submission ! Like lice they creep wherever things are small and sick and scabbed. It is only my loathing that hindereth me from cracking them.
Up ! This is my sermon unto their ears : ' I am Zarathustra, the ungodly, who ask : " Who is more ungodly than I am that I may enjoy his teaching?"
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