Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/460

 426 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, IV

Ask women ! One giveth not birth because the giving of birth causeth pleasure. The pain causeth hens and poets to cackle.

Ye creators, in you is much impure. The reason is that ye were compelled to be mothers.

A new child ! Oh, how much new dirt hath with it been born into the world ! Go unto one side ! He who hath given birth shall wash his soul pure !

13

Be not virtuous beyond your ability ! And demand nothing from yourselves contrary unto probability !

Walk in the footsteps in which your fathers' virtue hath gone ! How could ye rise high, if your fathers' will riseth not with you ?

But he who desireth to be a firstling, may see unto it, that he may not become a lastling also ! And where the vices of your fathers are, therein ye shall not strive to be saints.

He whose fathers liked women and strong wines and wild boars what, if he were to demand chastity of himself ?

It would be a folly ! It is much, verily, methinketh, for such an one, if he be the husband of one, or two, or three women.

And if he would found monasteries and write over their gates : ' The way unto what is holy,' yet I would say : ' Wherefore ? It is a new folly !

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