Ye world-weary ones, however! Ye earth-idlers! You shall one beat with stripes! With stripes shall one again make you sprightly limbs.

For if ye be not invalids, or decrepit creatures, of whom the earth is weary, then are ye sly sloths, or dainty, sneaking pleasure-cats. And if ye will not again run gaily, then shall ye—pass away!

To the incurable shall one not seek to be a physician: thus teacheth Zarathustra—so shall ye pass away!

But more courage is needed to make an end than to make a new verse: that do all physicians and poets know well.

18

O my brethren, there are tables which weariness framed, and tables which slothtulness framed, corrupt slothfulness; although they speak similarly, they want to be heard differently—

See this languishing one! Only a span-breadth is he from his goal; but from weariness hath he lain down obstinately in the dust, this brave one!

From weariness yawneth he at the path, at the earth, at the goal, and at himself; not a step further will he go—this brave one!

Now gloweth the sun upon him, and the dogs lick at his sweat; but he lieth there in his obstinacy and preferreth to languish—

A span-breadth from his goal, to languish! Verily, ye will have to drag him into his heaven by the hair of his head—this hero!

Better still that ye let him lie where he hath lain down, that sleep may come unto him, the comforter, with cooling patter-rain.

Let him lie, until of his own accord he awakeneth—until of his own accord he repudiateth all weariness, and what weariness hath taught through him!

Only, my brethren, see that ye scare the dogs away from him, the idle skulkers, and all the swarming vermin—

All the swarming vermin of the ‘cultured’, that—feast on the sweat of every hero!

19

I form circles around me and holy boundaries; ever fewer ascend with me ever higher mountains; I build a mountain-range out of ever holier mountains—

But wherever ye would ascend with me, O my brethren, take care lest a parasite ascend with you!

A parasite: that is a reptile, a creeping, cringing reptile that trieth to fatten on your infirm and sore places.

And this is its art: it divineth where ascending souls are weary; in your trouble and dejection, in your sensitive modesty, doth it build its loathsome nest.

Where the strong are weak, where the noble are all-too-gentle— there buildeth it its loathsome nest; the parasite liveth where the great have small sore-places.

What is the highest of all species of being, and what is the lowest? The parasite is the lowest species; he, however, who is of the highest species feedeth most parasites.