16

‘He who learneth much unlearneth all violent cravings’—that do people now whisper to one another in all the dark lanes.

‘Wisdom wearieth, nothing is worth while; thou shalt not crave!’ This new table found I hanging even in the public markets.

Break up for me, O my brethren, break up also that new table! The weary-o’-the-world put it up, and the preachers of death and the jailer; for lo, it is also a sermon for slavery—

Because they learned badly and not the best, and everything too early and everything too fast; because they ate badly: from thence hath resulted their ruined stomach—

For a ruined stomach, is their spirit; it persuadeth to death! For verily, my brethren, the spirit is a stomach!

Life is a well of delight, but to him in whom the ruined stomach speaketh, the father of affliction, all fountains are poisoned.

To discern: that is delight to the lion-willed! But he who hath become weary is himself merely ‘willed’; with him play all the waves.

And such is always the nature of weak men: they lose themselves on their way. And at last asketh their weariness: ‘Why did we ever go on the way? All is indifferent!’

To them soundeth it pleasant to have preached in their ears: ‘Nothing is worth while! Ye shall not will!’ That, however, is a sermon for slavery.

O my brethren, a fresh blustering wind cometh Zarathustra unto all way-weary ones; many noses will he yet make sneeze!

Even through walls bloweth my free breath, and in into prisons and imprisoned spirits!

Willing emancipateth; for willing is creating: so do I teach. And only for creating shall ye learn!

And also the learning shall ye learn only from me, the learning well! He who hath ears let him hear!

17

There standeth the boat; thither goeth it over, perhaps into vast nothingness—but who willeth to enter into this ‘Perhaps’?

None of you want to enter into the death-boat! How should ye then be world-weary ones!

World-weary ones! And have not even withdrawn from the earth! Eager did I ever find you for the earth, amorous still of your own earth-weariness!

Not in vain doth your lip hang down: a small worldly wish still sitteth thereon! And in your eye—floateth there not a cloudlet of unforgotten earthly bliss?

There are on the earth many good inventions, some useful, some pleasant: for their sake is the earth to be loved.

And many such good inventions are there, that they are like woman’s breasts: useful at the same time, and pleasant