4umi Friedrich Nietzsche : Thus Spoke Zarathustra / The Bite of the Adder

19. The Bite of the Adder

One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arm over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get away. "Not at all," said Zarathustra, "as yet hast thou not received my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long." "Thy journey is short," said the adder sadly; "my poison is fatal." Zarathustra smiled. "When did ever a dragon die of a serpent's poison?"—said he. "But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough to present it to me." Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked his wound.

When Zarathustra once told this to his disciples they asked him: "And what, O Zarathustra, is the moral of thy story?" And Zarathustra answered them thus:

The destroyer of morality, the good and just call me: my story is immoral.

When, however, ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you.

And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a little also!

And should a great injustice befall you, then do quickly five small ones besides. Hideous to behold is he on whom injustice presseth alone.

Did ye ever know this? Shared injustice is half justice. And he who can bear it, shall take the injustice upon himself!

A small revenge is humaner than no revenge at all. And if the punishment be not also a right and an honour to the transgressor, I do not like your punishing.

Nobler is it to own oneself in the wrong than to establish one's right, especially if one be in the right. Only, one must be rich enough to do so.

I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel.

Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes?

Devise me, then, the love which not only beareth all punishment, but also all guilt!

Devise me, then, the justice which acquitteth every one except the judge!

And would ye hear this likewise? To him who seeketh to be just from the heart, even the lie becometh philanthropy.

But how could I be just from the heart! How can I give every one his own! Let this be enough for me: I give unto every one mine own.

Finally, my brethren, guard against doing wrong to any anchorite. How could an anchorite forget! How could he requite!

Like a deep well is an anchorite. Easy is it to throw in a stone: if it should sink to the bottom, however, tell me, who will bring it out again?

Guard against injuring the anchorite! If ye have done so, however, well then, kill him also!—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

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 Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra Prologue The Three Metamorphoses The Academic Chairs of Virtue Backworldsmen The Despisers of the Body Joys and Passions The Pale Criminal Reading and Writing The Tree on the Hill The Preachers of Death War and Warriors The New Idol The Flies in the Market-Place Chastity The Friend The Thousand and One Goals Neighbour-Love The Way of the Creating One Old and Young Women The Bite of the Adder Child and Marriage Voluntary Death The Bestowing Virtue The Child with the Mirror In the Happy Isles The Pitiful The Priests The Virtuous The Rabble The Tarantulas The Famous Wise Ones The Night-Song The Dance-Song The Grave-Song Self-Surpassing The Sublime Ones The Land of Culture Immaculate Perception Scholars Poets Great Events The Soothsayer Redemption Manly Prudence The Stillest Hour The Wanderer The Vision and the Enigma Involuntary Bliss Before Sunrise The Bedwarfing Virtue On the Olive-Mount On Passing-by The Apostates The Return Home The Three Evil Things The Spirit of Gravity Old and New Tables The Convalescent The Great Longing The Second Dance Song The Seven Seals The Honey Sacrifice The Cry of Distress Talk with the Kings The Leech The Magician Out of Service The Ugliest Man The Voluntary Beggar The Shadow Noontide The Greeting The Supper The Higher Man The Song of Melancholy Science Among Daughters of the Desert The Awakening The Ass-Festival The Drunken Song The Sign The Antichrist