The two kings

Ere Zarathustra had been an hour on his way in the mountains and forests, he saw all at once a strange procession. Right on the path which he was about to descend came two kings walking, bedecked with crowns and purple…

Zarathustra, an hour down the mountain, hides in a thicket as two crowned kings pass driving a laden ass. He remarks that he sees two kings and only one ass; the kings overhear and answer that they think the same thing but do not say it.

“Good manners?” replied angrily and bitterly the other king: “what then do we run out of the way of? Is it not ‘good manners’? Our ‘good society’? Better, verily, to live among anchorites and goatherds, than with our…

The king on the right says 'good society' and 'nobility' are false and foul, and he prefers the sound peasant. He says the kings have become mere show-pieces who must pass for the first men among the rabble, and he is weary of that imposture. His brother tells him his old sickness has seized him and that someone is listening.

Immediately thereupon, Zarathustra, who had opened ears and eyes to this talk, rose from his hiding-place, advanced towards the kings, and thus began: “He who hearkeneth unto you, he who gladly hearkeneth unto you, is…

Zarathustra steps out, names himself, and says he too is seeking the higher man. The kings say they are recognised. They say the worst misfortune is when the mighty are not also the first men, because then everything becomes false and monstrous.

What have I just heard? answered Zarathustra. What wisdom in kings! I am enchanted, and verily, I have already promptings to make a rhyme thereon:— —Even if it should happen to be a rhyme not suited for every one’s…

Zarathustra, delighted by the kings' wisdom, says he will answer in rhyme and that he has long since stopped considering long ears. The ass brays 'Y-E-A', and Zarathustra recites a rhyme in which a Sybil laments that the world has sunk low, Rome has become a harlot and God has turned Jew.

With those rhymes of Zarathustra the kings were delighted; the king on the right, however, said: “O Zarathustra, how well it was that we set out to see thee! For thine enemies showed us thy likeness in their mirror:…

The king on the right says Zarathustra's enemies had shown him as a devil, but his words pricked the kings anyway. They quote his warlike sayings, which stirred their fathers' blood, and they praise the fathers who thirsted for war and were ashamed of long peace.

We must HEAR him; him who teacheth: ‘Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace more than the long!’

The king quotes Zarathustra's earlier saying about peace and war.

—When the kings thus discoursed and talked eagerly of the happiness of their fathers, there came upon Zarathustra no little desire to mock at their eagerness: for evidently they were very peaceable kings whom he saw…

Zarathustra wants to mock the kings' warlike eagerness, since they are evidently peaceable, but he restrains himself. He points them to his cave and says a cry of distress is calling him away. He adds that kings, whose chief remaining virtue is the ability to wait, will learn waiting well.

It was late in the afternoon only when Zarathustra, after long useless searching and strolling about, again came home to his cave. When, however, he stood over against it, not more than twenty paces therefrom, the thing…

Returning home, Zarathustra hears the cry of distress again, this time from his own cave. He finds all the men he met that day sitting there, and greets them with courteous curiosity.

“O Zarathustra, by the way in which thou hast given us thy hand and thy greeting, we recognise thee as Zarathustra. Thou hast humbled thyself before us; almost hast thou hurt our reverence—: —Who however could have…

The king on the right says Zarathustra's humility uplifts them, compares him to a tall pine, and says many are asking who he is. He asks for the great hope they need to live.

Thus spake the king on the right, and seized the hand of Zarathustra in order to kiss it; but Zarathustra checked his veneration, and stepped back frightened, fleeing as it were, silently and suddenly into the far…

Zarathustra steps back when the king tries to kiss his hand, then returns and promises plain language. The king on the left aside takes this to mean bluntness.

On this occasion, when the soothsayer was longing for wine, it happened that the king on the left, the silent one, also found expression for once. “WE took care,” said he, “about wine, I, along with my brother the king…

The silent king says they have wine but no bread. Zarathustra answers that anchorites have none, offers two lambs, roots, fruits and nuts, and says everyone, kings included, must help.

Thus spake Zarathustra; the king on the right however answered and said: “Strange! Did one ever hear such sensible things out of the mouth of a wise man? And verily, it is the strangest thing in a wise man, if over and…

The king on the right marvels that a wise man can be sensible and not an ass. The ass answers 'Ye-a' with ill-will, and the long supper begins, with talk only of the higher man.

“Go not away!” said then the wanderer who called himself Zarathustra’s shadow, “abide with us—otherwise the old gloomy affliction might again fall upon us. Now hath that old magician given us of his worst for our good,…

The shadow asks Zarathustra not to go. He says the magician's song, the pope's tears and the kings' pretended composure show the old melancholy still lurking. He recalls an after-dinner song he once made among Oriental maidens, then takes the magician's harp and begins to sing.

All on a sudden however, Zarathustra’s ear was frightened: for the cave which had hitherto been full of noise and laughter, became all at once still as death;—his nose, however, smelt a sweet-scented vapour and…

The cave falls silent and fills with incense. Zarathustra looks in and finds all the higher men kneeling and praying to the ass, and the ugliest man begins a litany.