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<h2> XXVII. THE VIRTUOUS. </h2>
<p>With thunder and heavenly fireworks must one speak to indolent and
somnolent senses.</p>
<p>But beauty’s voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened
souls.</p>
<p>Gently vibrated and laughed unto me to-day my buckler; it was beauty’s
holy laughing and thrilling.</p>
<p>At you, ye virtuous ones, laughed my beauty to-day. And thus came its
voice unto me: “They want—to be paid besides!”</p>
<p>Ye want to be paid besides, ye virtuous ones! Ye want reward for virtue,
and heaven for earth, and eternity for your to-day?</p>
<p>And now ye upbraid me for teaching that there is no reward-giver, nor
paymaster? And verily, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward.</p>
<p>Ah! this is my sorrow: into the basis of things have reward and punishment
been insinuated—and now even into the basis of your souls, ye
virtuous ones!</p>
<p>But like the snout of the boar shall my word grub up the basis of your
souls; a ploughshare will I be called by you.</p>
<p>All the secrets of your heart shall be brought to light; and when ye lie
in the sun, grubbed up and broken, then will also your falsehood be
separated from your truth.</p>
<p>For this is your truth: ye are TOO PURE for the filth of the words:
vengeance, punishment, recompense, retribution.</p>
<p>Ye love your virtue as a mother loveth her child; but when did one hear of
a mother wanting to be paid for her love?</p>
<p>It is your dearest Self, your virtue. The ring’s thirst is in you: to
reach itself again struggleth every ring, and turneth itself.</p>
<p>And like the star that goeth out, so is every work of your virtue: ever is
its light on its way and travelling—and when will it cease to be on
its way?</p>
<p>Thus is the light of your virtue still on its way, even when its work is
done. Be it forgotten and dead, still its ray of light liveth and
travelleth.</p>
<p>That your virtue is your Self, and not an outward thing, a skin, or a
cloak: that is the truth from the basis of your souls, ye virtuous ones!—</p>
<p>But sure enough there are those to whom virtue meaneth writhing under the
lash: and ye have hearkened too much unto their crying!</p>
<p>And others are there who call virtue the slothfulness of their vices; and
when once their hatred and jealousy relax the limbs, their “justice”
becometh lively and rubbeth its sleepy eyes.</p>
<p>And others are there who are drawn downwards: their devils draw them. But
the more they sink, the more ardently gloweth their eye, and the longing
for their God.</p>
<p>Ah! their crying also hath reached your ears, ye virtuous ones: “What I am
NOT, that, that is God to me, and virtue!”</p>
<p>And others are there who go along heavily and creakingly, like carts
taking stones downhill: they talk much of dignity and virtue—their
drag they call virtue!</p>
<p>And others are there who are like eight-day clocks when wound up; they
tick, and want people to call ticking—virtue.</p>
<p>Verily, in those have I mine amusement: wherever I find such clocks I
shall wind them up with my mockery, and they shall even whirr thereby!</p>
<p>And others are proud of their modicum of righteousness, and for the sake
of it do violence to all things: so that the world is drowned in their
unrighteousness.</p>
<p>Ah! how ineptly cometh the word “virtue” out of their mouth! And when they
say: “I am just,” it always soundeth like: “I am just—revenged!”</p>
<p>With their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies; and
they elevate themselves only that they may lower others.</p>
<p>And again there are those who sit in their swamp, and speak thus from
among the bulrushes: “Virtue—that is to sit quietly in the swamp.</p>
<p>We bite no one, and go out of the way of him who would bite; and in all
matters we have the opinion that is given us.”</p>
<p>And again there are those who love attitudes, and think that virtue is a
sort of attitude.</p>
<p>Their knees continually adore, and their hands are eulogies of virtue, but
their heart knoweth naught thereof.</p>
<p>And again there are those who regard it as virtue to say: “Virtue is
necessary”; but after all they believe only that policemen are necessary.</p>
<p>And many a one who cannot see men’s loftiness, calleth it virtue to see
their baseness far too well: thus calleth he his evil eye virtue.—</p>
<p>And some want to be edified and raised up, and call it virtue: and others
want to be cast down,—and likewise call it virtue.</p>
<p>And thus do almost all think that they participate in virtue; and at least
every one claimeth to be an authority on “good” and “evil.”</p>
<p>But Zarathustra came not to say unto all those liars and fools: “What do
YE know of virtue! What COULD ye know of virtue!”—</p>
<p>But that ye, my friends, might become weary of the old words which ye have
learned from the fools and liars:</p>
<p>That ye might become weary of the words “reward,” “retribution,”
“punishment,” “righteous vengeance.”—</p>
<p>That ye might become weary of saying: “That an action is good is because
it is unselfish.”</p>
<p>Ah! my friends! That YOUR very Self be in your action, as the mother is in
the child: let that be YOUR formula of virtue!</p>
<p>Verily, I have taken from you a hundred formulae and your virtue’s
favourite playthings; and now ye upbraid me, as children upbraid.</p>
<p>They played by the sea—then came there a wave and swept their
playthings into the deep: and now do they cry.</p>
<p>But the same wave shall bring them new playthings, and spread before them
new speckled shells!</p>
<p>Thus will they be comforted; and like them shall ye also, my friends, have
your comforting—and new speckled shells!—</p>
<p>Thus spake Zarathustra.</p>
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