ON VOLUNTARY DEATH

ON VOLUNTARY DEATH

MANY DIE TOO LATE, and a few die too early. Still the teaching sounds strange: “Die at the right time!”

Die at the right time: thus teaches Zarathustra.

To be sure, how could those who never live at the right time die at the right time? Better if they had never been born!—Thus I advise the superfluous.

But even the superfluous still make a great thing of their dying, and even the hollowest nut still wants to be cracked.

Every one regards death as an important matter: but as yet death is not a festival. As yet men have not learned how to consecrate the most beautiful festivals.

I show you the consummating death, which shall be a spur and a promise to the survivors.

He that consummates his life dies his death triumphantly, surrounded by those with hope and promise.

Thus one should learn to die; and there should be no festivals where such a dying one does not consecrate the oaths of the living!

To die thus is best; but the next best is: to die in battle and to squander a great soul.

But equally hateful to the fighter as to the victor is your grinning death, which steals near like a thief-and yet comes as master.

My death, praise I to you, the voluntary death, which comes to me because I want it.

And when shall I want it?-Whoever has a goal and an heir, wants death at the right time for the goal and the heir.

And out of reverence for the goal and the heir, he will hang up no more withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life.

Truly, I do not want to resemble the rope makers: they spin out their yarn and always walk backwards.

Many a one grows too old even for his truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth no longer has the right to every truth.

And everyone who wants to have fame must take leave of honor in good time and practice the difficult art of-going at the right time.

One must stop letting oneself be eaten when one tastes best: that is known by those who want to be long loved.

To be sure, there are sour apples whose lot is to wait until the last day of autumn: and they become ripe, yellow, and shriveled all at once.

In some the heart ages first and in others the spirit. And some are old in their youth: but those who are young late stay young long.

To many men life is a failure: a poison-worm gnaws at their heart. Then let them see to it that their dying is all the more a success.

Many never become sweet; they rot even in the summer. It is cowardice that holds them fast to their branches.

All-too-many live and all-too-long they hang on their branches. Would that a storm came and shook all this rottenness and wormeatenness from the tree!

Would that there came preachers of speedy death! Those would be the appropriate storms and shakers of the trees of life! But I hear only slow death preached, and patience with all that is “earthly.”

Ah, you preach patience with what is earthly? It is the earthly that has too much patience with you, you blasphemers!

Truly, too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death honor: and to many it has proved a calamity that he died too early.

As yet he had known only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrews, together with the hatred of the good and just—the Hebrew Jesus: then he was seized with the longing for death.

Had he but remained in the wilderness and far from the good and just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and to love the earth-and laughter too!

Believe it, my brothers! He died too early; he himself would have recanted his teaching had he lived to my age! He was noble enough to recant!

But he was still immature. The youth loves immaturely and immaturely too he hates man and earth. His mind and the wings of his spirit are still bound and heavy.

But there is more child in the man than in the youth, and less melancholy: he has a better understanding of life and death.

Free for death and free in death, able to say a holy No when there is no longer time for Yes: thus he understands death and life.

That your dying may not be a blasphemy against man and earth, my friends: that is what I beg from the honey of your soul.

In your dying your spirit and your virtue should still glow like a sunset around the earth: otherwise your dying has turned out badly.

Thus I want to die myself, that you friends may love the earth more for my sake; and I want to become earth again, to have rest in her that bore me.

Truly, Zarathustra had a goal, he threw his ball: now you friends are the heirs of my goal, I throw the golden ball to you.

Best of all I like to see you too, my friends, throwing the golden ball! And so I still linger a little on the earth: forgive me for it!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.