ellar when thy
spirit endeavoureth to open all prison doors.

Still art thou a prisoner--it seemeth to me--who deviseth liberty
for himself: ah! sharp becometh the soul of such prisoners, but also
deceitful and wicked.

To purify himself, is still necessary for the freedman of the spirit.
Much of the prison and the mould still remaineth in him: pure hath his
eye still to become.

Yea, I know thy danger. But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not
thy love and hope away!

Noble thou feelest thyself still, and noble others also feel thee still,
though they bear thee a grudge and cast evil looks. Know this, that to
everybody a noble one standeth in the way.

Also to the good, a noble one standeth in the way: and even when they
call him a good man, they want thereby to put him aside.

The new, would the noble man create, and a new virtue. The old, wanteth
the good man, and that the old should be conserved.

But it is not the danger of the noble man to turn a good man, but lest
he should become a blusterer, a scoffer, or a destroyer.

Ah! I have known noble ones who lost their highest hope. And then they
disparaged all high hopes.

Then lived they shamelessly in temporary pleasures, and beyond the day
had hardly an aim.

"Spirit is also voluptuousness,"--said they. Then broke the wings of
their spirit; and now it creepeth about, and defileth where it gnaweth.

Once they thought of becoming heroes; but sensualists are they now. A
trouble and a terror is the hero to them.

But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not away the hero in thy
soul! Maintain holy thy highest hope!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

IX. THE PREACHERS OF DEATH.

There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom
desistance from life must be preached.

Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the
many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the "life
eternal"!

"The yellow ones": so are called the preachers of death, or "the black
ones." But I will show them unto you in other colours besides.

There are the terrible ones who carry about in themselves the beast of
prey, and have no choice except lusts or self-laceration. And even their
lusts are self-laceration.

They have not yet become men, those terrible ones: may they preach
desistance from life, and pass away themselves!

There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when
they begin to die, and long for