dst
thou with the grimace of a devil, and sneeringly: so that we were afraid
of thee.

But what good did it do! Always didst thou prick us anew in heart and
ear with thy sayings. Then did we say at last: What doth it matter how
he look!

We must HEAR him; him who teacheth: 'Ye shall love peace as a means to
new wars, and the short peace more than the long!'

No one ever spake such warlike words: 'What is good? To be brave is
good. It is the good war that halloweth every cause.'

O Zarathustra, our fathers' blood stirred in our veins at such words: it
was like the voice of spring to old wine-casks.

When the swords ran among one another like red-spotted serpents, then
did our fathers become fond of life; the sun of every peace seemed to
them languid and lukewarm, the long peace, however, made them ashamed.

How they sighed, our fathers, when they saw on the wall brightly
furbished, dried-up swords! Like those they thirsted for war. For a
sword thirsteth to drink blood, and sparkleth with desire."--

--When the kings thus discoursed and talked eagerly of the happiness of
their fathers, there came upon Zarathustra no little desire to mock at
their eagerness: for evidently they were very peaceable kings whom he
saw before him, kings with old and refined features. But he restrained
himself. "Well!" said he, "thither leadeth the way, there lieth the
cave of Zarathustra; and this day is to have a long evening! At present,
however, a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from you.

It will honour my cave if kings want to sit and wait in it: but, to be
sure, ye will have to wait long!

Well! What of that! Where doth one at present learn better to wait
than at courts? And the whole virtue of kings that hath remained unto
them--is it not called to-day: ABILITY to wait?"

Thus spake Zarathustra.

LXIV. THE LEECH.

And Zarathustra went thoughtfully on, further and lower down, through
forests and past moory bottoms; as it happeneth, however, to every one
who meditateth upon hard matters, he trod thereby unawares upon a man.
And lo, there spurted into his face all at once a cry of pain, and two
curses and twenty bad invectives, so that in his fright he raised his
stick and also struck the trodden one. Immediately afterwards, however,
he regained his composure, and his heart laughed at the folly he had
just committed.

"Pardon me," said he to the trodden one, who had got up enraged, and had
seated himself, "par