On Free Death

Many die too late, and some die too early. The teaching still sounds strange: “Die at the right time!”

Die at the right time: so Zarathustra teaches.

Of course, how could one who never lives at the right time ever die at the right time? If only he had never been born!—So I counsel the superfluous.

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

Everyone takes dying seriously: but death is not yet a festival. Human beings have not yet learned how to consecrate the most beautiful festivals.

I show you the consummating death, which becomes a spur and a promise to the living.

The one who consummates dies his death victorious, surrounded by those who hope and those who make promises.

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

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

But hateful alike to the fighter and to the victor is your grinning death, which creeps up like a thief—and yet comes as master.

My death I praise to you, the free death, which comes to me because I will.

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

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

Truly, I do not want to be like the rope makers: they draw out their thread in length and themselves always walk backward as they do.

Many a one becomes too old even for his truths and victories; 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, at the right time, of—going.

One must stop letting oneself be eaten when one tastes best: those know this who want to be loved for long.

There are sour apples, to be sure, whose lot wills that they wait until the last day of autumn: and they become ripe, yellow, and wrinkled at the same time.

In some the heart grows old first, and in others the spirit. And some are old in their youth: but to be young late keeps one young long.

For many a one life turns out a failure: a poisonous worm eats its way into his heart. So let him see to it that his dying turns out all the better.

Many a one never becomes sweet; he rots already in summer. It is cowardice that holds him fast to his branch.

Far too many live, and far too long they hang on their branches. Would that a storm came and shook all this rot and worm-eaten stuff from the tree!

Would that preachers came of quick death! Those would be the right storms for me, the right 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 the earthly? It is this earthly that has too much patience with you, you blasphemers!

Truly, that Hebrew died too early whom the preachers of slow death honor: and for many it has since become their fate that he died too early.

As yet he knew only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrew, together with the hatred of the good and the just,—the Hebrew Jesus: then the longing for death overcame him.

If only he had stayed in the desert, far from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and learned to love the earth—and laughter besides!

Believe me, 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 unripe. The youth loves unripely, and unripely too he hates the human being and the earth. His heart and the wings of his spirit are still tethered and heavy.

But in the man there is more child than in the youth, and less melancholy: he understands better about death and life.

Free for death and free in death, a holy No-sayer when it is no longer time for Yes: thus he understands about death and life.

That your dying may be no blasphemy against the human being and the earth, my friends: that I beg of the honey of your soul.

In your dying your spirit and your virtue shall still glow, like an evening glow around the earth: or else your dying has turned out badly for you.

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

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

More than anything I would like to see you, my friends, throwing the golden ball! And so I linger a little while yet on earth: forgive me for it!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.