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…

Zarathustra opens with his precept and says those who never live at the right time cannot die at the right time. He says death is not yet a festival.

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…

The ideal death is triumphant, surrounded by hoping ones; next best is death in battle. Both are contrasted with the grinning death that steals in like a thief. He who has a goal and an heir wants death at the right time.

My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me because _I_ want it.

Zarathustra praises the death that comes because he wants it.

Verily, not the rope-makers will I resemble: they lengthen out their cord, and thereby go ever backward. Many a one, also, waxeth too old for his truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth hath no longer the right to every…

Zarathustra says many grow too old for their truths and should leave while they taste best. Others hang on the branch too long, held by cowardice, and he wishes a storm would shake them down.

Would that there came preachers of SPEEDY death! Those would be the appropriate storms and agitators of the trees of life! But I hear only slow death preached, and patience with all that is “earthly.” Ah! ye preach…

He wishes for preachers of speedy death and mocks those who preach slow death. The Hebrew Jesus, immature and seized by longing for death, might have disavowed his doctrine had he lived longer. He who is mature is free for death and free in death.

That your dying may not be a reproach to man and the earth, my friends: that do I solicit from the honey of your soul. In your dying shall your spirit and your virtue still shine like an evening after-glow around the…

Zarathustra asks that his friends' dying be no reproach to man and the earth, but shine like an evening after-glow. He will become earth again, and throws the golden ball of his goal to his friends.