of the virtuous

from thus spoke zarathustra by friedrich nietzsche

"one has to speak with thunder and heavenly fireworks to feeble and dormant senses.
but the voice of beauty speaks softly: it steals into only the most awakened soulds.
gently my mirror laughed at you, you virtuous, today.  and thus came its voice to me: 'they want to be - paid as well!'
you want to be paid as well, you virtuous!  do you want reward for virtue and heaven for earth and eternity for your today?
and are you now angry with me because i teach that there is no reward-giver nor paymaster?  and truly, i do not even teach that virtue is its own reward.
alas, this is my sorrow: reward and punishment have been lyingly introduced into the foundation of things - and now even into the foundation of your souls, you virtuous!
but my words, like the snout of the boar, shall tear up the foundations of your souls; you shall call me a ploughshare.
all the secrets of your heart shall be brought to light; and when you lie, grubbed up and broken, in the sunlight, then your falsehood will be separated from your truth.
for this is your truth: you are too pure for the dirt of the words: revenge, punishment, reward, retribution.
you love your virtue as the mother her child; but when was it heard of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?
your virtue is your dearest self.  the ring's desire is in you: to attain itself again - every ring struggles and turns itself to that end.
and every work of your virtue is like a star extinguished: its light is for ever travelling - and when will it cease from travelling?
thus the light of your virtue is still travelling even when its task is done  though it be forgotten and dead, its beam of light still lives and travels.
that your virtue is your Self and not something alien, a skin, a covering: that is the truth from the bottom of your souls, you virtuous!
but there are indeed those to whom virtue is a writhing under the whip: and you have listened too much to their cries!
and with others, their vices grow lazy and they call that virtue; and once their hatred and jealousy stretch themselves to rest, their 'justice' becomes lively and rubs its sleepy eyes.
and there are others who are drawn downward: their devils draw them.  but the more they sink, the more brightly shines their eye and the longing for their god.
alas, their cry, too, has come to your ears, you virtuous: 'what i am not, that, that to me is god and virtue!'
and there are others who go along, heavy and creaking, like carts carrying stones downhill: they speak much of the dignity and virtue - their brake they call virtue!
and there are others who are like household clocks wound up: they repeat their tick-tock and want people to call tick-tock - virtue.
truly, i have fun with these: wherever i find such clocks i shall wind them up with my mockery; let them chime as well as tick!
and others are proud of their handful of righteousness and for its sake commit wanton outrage upon all things: so that the world is drowned in their unrighteousness.
alas, how ill the word 'virtue' sounds in their mouths!  and when they say: 'i am just,' it always sounds like: 'i am revenged!'
they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies with their virtue; and they raise themselves only in order to lower others.
and again, there are those who sit in their swamp and speak thus from the rushes: 'virtue - that means to sit quietly in the swamp.
'we bit nobody and avoid him who wants to bite: and in everything we hold the opinion that is given us.'
and again, there are those who like posing and think: virtue is a sort of pose.
their knees are always worshipping and their hands are glorifications of virtue, but their heart knows nothing of it.
and again, there are those who hold it a virtue to say: 'virtue is necessary'; but fundamentally they believe only that the police are necessary.
and many a one who cannot see the sublime in man calls it virtue that he can see his baseness all-too-closely: thus he calls his evil eye virtue.
and some want to be edified and raised up and call it virtue; and others want to be thrown down - and call it virtue too.
and in that way almost everyone firmly believes he is participating in virtue; and at least asserts he is an expert on 'good' and 'evil'.
but zarathustra has not come to say to all these liars and fools: 'what do you know of virtue?  what could you know of virtue?'
no, he has come that you, my friends, might grow weary of the old words you have learned from the fools and liars.
that you might grow weary of the words 'reward', 'retribution', 'punishment', 'righteous revenge'.
that you might grow weary of saying: 'an action is good when it is unselfish.'
ah, my friends!  that your Self be in the action, as the mother is in the child: let that be your maxim of virtue!
truly, i have taken a hundred maxims and your virtues' dearest playthings away from you; and you scold me now, as children scold.
they were playing on the sea-shore - then came a wave and swept their playthings into the deep: now they cry.
but the same wave shall bring them new playthings and pour out new coloured sea-shells before them!
thus they will be consoled; and you too, my friends, shall, like them, have your consolations - and new coloured sea-shells!

thus spoke zarathustra.