--- title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra" author: "Friedrich Nietzsche" translator: "Thomas Common" languages: [en] shelf: "Philosophy" section: 63 of 95 url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/63/ cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 63. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/63/" --- # Thus Spake Zarathustra *Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common* A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs. ## 63. LVI. Old and New Tables · 3 of 6 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/63/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/63/#p-N [¶0] For many noble ones are needed, and many kinds of noble ones, FOR A NEW NOBILITY! Or, as I once said in parable: “That is just divinity, that there are Gods, but no God!” ### 12 [¶2] O my brethren, I consecrate you and point you to a new nobility: ye shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future;— [¶3] —Verily, not to a nobility which ye could purchase like traders with traders’ gold; for little worth is all that hath its price. [¶4] Let it not be your honour henceforth whence ye come, but whither ye go! Your Will and your feet which seek to surpass you—let these be your new honour! [¶5] Verily, not that ye have served a prince—of what account are princes now!—nor that ye have become a bulwark to that which standeth, that it may stand more firmly. [¶6] Not that your family have become courtly at courts, and that ye have learned—gay-coloured, like the flamingo—to stand long hours in shallow pools: [¶7] (For ABILITY-to-stand is a merit in courtiers; and all courtiers believe that unto blessedness after death pertaineth—PERMISSION-to-sit!) [¶8] 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!— [¶9] —And verily, wherever this “Holy Spirit” led its knights, always in such campaigns did—goats and geese, and wryheads and guyheads run FOREMOST!— [¶10] O my brethren, not backward shall your nobility gaze, but OUTWARD! Exiles shall ye be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands! [¶11] Your CHILDREN’S LAND shall ye love: let this love be your new nobility,—the undiscovered in the remotest seas! For it do I bid your sails search and search! [¶12] Unto your children shall ye MAKE AMENDS for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall ye THUS redeem! This new table do I place over you! ### 13 [¶14] “Why should one live? All is vain! To live—that is to thrash straw; to live—that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.”— [¶15] Such ancient babbling still passeth for “wisdom”; because it is old, however, and smelleth mustily, THEREFORE is it the more honoured. Even mould ennobleth.— [¶16] Children might thus speak: they SHUN the fire because it hath burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom. [¶17] And he who ever “thrasheth straw,” why should he be allowed to rail at thrashing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle! [¶18] Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them, not even good hunger:—and then do they rail: “All is vain!” [¶19] But to eat and drink well, my brethren, is verily no vain art! Break up, break up for me the tables of the never-joyous ones! ### 14 [¶21] “To the clean are all things clean”—thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! [¶22] Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): “The world itself is a filthy monster.” [¶23] For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE—the backworldsmen! [¶24] TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside,—SO MUCH is true! [¶25] There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster! [¶26] There is wisdom in the fact that much in the world smelleth badly: loathing itself createth wings, and fountain-divining powers! [¶27] In the best there is still something to loathe; and the best is still something that must be surpassed!— [¶28] O my brethren, there is much wisdom in the fact that much filth is in the world!— ### 15 [¶30] Such sayings did I hear pious backworldsmen speak to their consciences, and verily without wickedness or guile,—although there is nothing more guileful in the world, or more wicked. [¶31] “Let the world be as it is! Raise not a finger against it!” [¶32] “Let whoever will choke and stab and skin and scrape the people: raise not a finger against it! Thereby will they learn to renounce the world.” [¶33] “And thine own reason—this shalt thou thyself stifle and choke; for it is a reason of this world,—thereby wilt thou learn thyself to renounce the world.”— [¶34] —Shatter, shatter, O my brethren, those old tables of the pious! Tatter the maxims of the world-maligners!— ### 16 [¶36] “He who learneth much unlearneth all violent cravings”—that do people now whisper to one another in all the dark lanes. [¶37] “Wisdom wearieth, nothing is worth while; thou shalt not crave!”—this new table found I hanging even in the public markets. [¶38] 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:— [¶39] 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;— [¶40] —For a ruined stomach, is their spirit: IT persuadeth to death! For verily, my brethren, the spirit IS a stomach! [¶41] Life is a well of delight, but to him in whom the ruined stomach speaketh, the father of affliction, all fountains are poisoned. [¶42] 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. [¶43] 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!” [¶44] 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.