the earth seemed to me a home for madcaps.

Yea, I would that the earth shook with convulsions when a saint and a
goose mate with one another.

This one went forth in quest of truth as a hero, and at last got for
himself a small decked-up lie: his marriage he calleth it.

That one was reserved in intercourse and chose choicely. But one time he
spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calleth it.

Another sought a handmaid with the virtues of an angel. But all at once
he became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become
an angel.

Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But
even the astutest of them buyeth his wife in a sack.

Many short follies--that is called love by you. And your marriage
putteth an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.

Your love to woman, and woman's love to man--ah, would that it were
sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals
alight on one another.

But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a painful
ardour. It is a torch to light you to loftier paths.

Beyond yourselves shall ye love some day! Then LEARN first of all to
love. And on that account ye had to drink the bitter cup of your love.

Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love: thus doth it cause
longing for the Superman; thus doth it cause thirst in thee, the
creating one!

Thirst in the creating one, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me,
my brother, is this thy will to marriage?

Holy call I such a will, and such a marriage.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

XXI. VOLUNTARY DEATH.

Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the
precept: "Die at the right time!

Die at the right time: so teacheth Zarathustra.

To be sure, he who never liveth at the right time, how could he ever die
at the right time? Would that he might never be born!--Thus do I advise
the superfluous ones.

But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even
the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.

Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not
a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest
festivals.

The consummating death I show unto you, which becometh a stimulus and
promise to the living.

His death, dieth the consummating one triumphantly, surrounded by hoping
and promising ones.

Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festiv