Thus Spake Zarathustra - Penn State University

Thus Spake Zarathustra—Thou hast divined how the man feeleth who killed —Whether it be the pity of a God, or whether it behim. Stay! And if thou wilt go, thou impatient one, go human pity, it is offensive to modesty. And unwillingnessnot the way that I came. That way is bad.to help may be nobler than the virtue that rusheth to doArt thou angry with me because I have already racked so.language too long? Because I have already counselled That however—namely, pity—is called virtue itself atthee? But know that it is I, the ugliest man,present by all petty people:—they have no reverence for—Who have also the largest, heaviest feet. Where I great misfortune, great ugliness, great failure.have gone, the way is bad. I tread all paths to death and Beyond all these do I look, as a dog looketh over thedestruction.backs of thronging flocks of sheep. They are petty, goodwooled,good-willed, grey people.But that thou passedst me by in silence, that thoublushedst—I saw it well: thereby did I know thee as As the heron looketh contemptuously at shallow pools,Zarathustra.with backward-bent head, so do I look at the throng ofEvery one else would have thrown to me his alms, his grey little waves and wills and souls.pity, in look and speech. But for that—I am not beggar Too long have we acknowledged them to be right, thoseenough: that didst thou divine.petty people: so we have at last given them power asFor that I am too rich, rich in what is great, frightful, well;—and now do they teach that ‘good is only whatugliest, most unutterable! Thy shame, O Zarathustra, petty people call good.’honoured me!And ‘truth’ is at present what the preacher spake whoWith difficulty did I get out of the crowd of the pitiful,—thatI might find the only one who at present cate of the petty people, who testified of himself: ‘I—amhimself sprang from them, that singular saint and advo-teacheth that ‘pity is obtrusive’—thyself, O Zarathustra! the truth.’238