Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/40

 poisoned, of whom earth is weary : begone with them !

Once the offence against God was the greatest offence, but God died, so that these offenders died also. Now the most terrible of things is to offend earth and rate the intestines of the inscrutable one higher than the significance of earth!

Once soul looked contemptuously upon body; that contempt then being the highest ideal : soul wished the body meagre, hideous, starved. Thus soul thought it could escape body and earth.

Oh ! that soul was itself meagre, hideous, starved : cruelty was the lust of that soul!

But ye also, my brethren, speak : what telleth your body of your soul ? Is your soul not poverty and dirt and a miserable ease ?

Verily, a muddy stream is man. One must be a sea to be able to receive a muddy stream without becoming unclean.

Behold, I teach you beyond-man : he is that sea, in him your great contempt can sink.

What is the greatest thing ye can experience? That is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which not only your happiness, but your reason and virtue as well turn loathsome.

The hour in which ye say: 'What is my happiness worth ! It is poverty and dirt and a miserable ease. But my happiness should itself justify existence ! '