IX. The Preachers of Death

There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom desistance from life must be preached. Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life…

Zarathustra says the earth is full of preachers of death and of the superfluous. He then describes the 'terrible ones', who carry a beast of prey within them and have only lusts or self-laceration.

There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when they begin to die, and long for doctrines of lassitude and renunciation. They would fain be dead, and we should approve of their wish! Let us beware…

The consumptive ones begin to die as soon as they are born. Seeing an invalid or a corpse, they say life is refuted, but Zarathustra says it is their own eye that is refuted. They wait gloomily for death or cling to life while mocking themselves for clinging.

“Life is only suffering”: so say others, and lie not.

Zarathustra grants that these others do not lie, then tells them to see that they cease, and to make 'Thou shalt slay thyself' the teaching of their virtue.

“Lust is sin,”—so say some who preach death—“let us go apart and beget no children!” “Giving birth is troublesome,”—say others—“why still give birth? One beareth only the unfortunate!” And they also are preachers of…

Zarathustra lists those who condemn lust and childbearing and those who preach pity. If the pitiful were consistent they would make their neighbours sick of life; their true goodness would be to be wicked.

And ye also, to whom life is rough labour and disquiet, are ye not very tired of life? Are ye not very ripe for the sermon of death? All ye to whom rough labour is dear, and the rapid, new, and strange—ye put up with…

Zarathustra turns on his hearers who love rough labour and the new and strange. He calls their diligence flight and the will to self-forgetfulness. He ends by saying he does not mind whether it is death or 'life eternal', so long as they pass away quickly.