LII. The Apostates

Ah, lieth everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow! And how much honey of hope did I carry hence into my beehives! Those young hearts have already all become old—and…

Zarathustra sees his once green and hopeful young followers grown weary and pious again. He concludes that most men are cowardly, that his first companions are corpses and buffoons, and that he should let the withered leaves go.

Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on the way: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons. His second companions, however—they will call themselves his BELIEVERS,—will be a…

One of Zarathustra's type first meets corpses and buffoons, then a host of believers full of love and folly. He is warned not to bind his heart to them.

It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, and whoever hath his conscience in his head.

Zarathustra tells the apostates to their faces that they pray again. He says that for those with an intellectual conscience, prayer is shameful, urged on by a faint-hearted devil within.

And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnal birds again fly abroad. The hour hath come for all light-dreading people, the vesper hour and leisure hour, when they do not—“take leisure.” I hear…

Zarathustra describes the dusk-hour revival: small hidden communities, cross-spiders, swamp-anglers, a hymn-poet, a spiritualist and a howl-piper. Some have become night-watchmen who wake old things.

Five words about old things did I hear yester-night at the garden-wall: they came from such old, sorrowful, arid night-watchmen. “For a father he careth not sufficiently for his children: human fathers do this better!”—…

Zarathustra overhears two old night-watchmen at a garden-wall complain that God neglects his children and demands belief instead of proving himself. He almost chokes with laughter at such doubts.

They did not “begloom” themselves to death—that do people fabricate! On the contrary, they—LAUGHED themselves to death once on a time!

When a jealous old God declared there was only one God, the other gods laughed and said that divinity is precisely that there are gods but no God.

Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed “The Pied Cow.” For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once more his cave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly on account…

Zarathustra spoke this in the city called The Pied Cow, two days from his cave and his animals, glad of his coming return.