chers of EQUALITY! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly
revengeful ones!

But I will soon bring your hiding-places to the light: therefore do I
laugh in your face my laughter of the height.

Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your
den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word
"justice."

Because, FOR MAN TO BE REDEEMED FROM REVENGE--that is for me the bridge
to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.

Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. "Let it be
very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our
vengeance"--thus do they talk to one another.

"Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like
us"--thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves.

"And 'Will to Equality'--that itself shall henceforth be the name of
virtue; and against all that hath power will we raise an outcry!"

Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in
you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves
thus in virtue-words!

Fretted conceit and suppressed envy--perhaps your fathers' conceit and
envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance.

What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in
the son the father's revealed secret.

Inspired ones they resemble: but it is not the heart that inspireth
them--but vengeance. And when they become subtle and cold, it is not
spirit, but envy, that maketh them so.

Their jealousy leadeth them also into thinkers' paths; and this is the
sign of their jealousy--they always go too far: so that their fatigue
hath at last to go to sleep on the snow.

In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is
maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss.

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse
to punish is powerful!

They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer
the hangman and the sleuth-hound.

Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their
souls not only honey is lacking.

And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for
them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but--power!

My friends, I will not be mixed up and confounded with others.

There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time
preachers of equality, and tarantulas.

That they speak in favour of