Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/391

 CONVERSATION WITH THE KINGS

" Once in the year of the Lord one, I opine, The Sibyl spake thus, she was drunk, without wine : ' Alas ! Now all goeth wrong on its way ! Ne'er so deep sank the world ! Decay ! Decay ! Rome grew a whore, a brothel she grew, Rome's Caesar a beast, and God a Jew ! ' "

��At these lines of Zarathustra the kings rejoiced. But the king on the right said : " O Zarathustra, how \$ell it was that we went out to see thee !

For thine enemies showed us thy picture in their looking-glass. There thou lookedst with a devil's grimace and scornful laughter, so that we were afraid of thee.

But of what good was it ! Ever again thou stungest us in ear and heart with thy sayings. Then at last we said : ' What matter how he may look ! '

We must hear him, him who teacheth : ' Ye shall love peace as a means for new wars, and a short peace better than a long ! '

Nobody hath ever said such war-like words : ' What is good ? To be brave is good ! It is the good war that halloweth every cause/

O Zarathustra, hearing such words, our fathers' blood moved in our body. That was like the speech of spring unto old wine barrels.

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