21. I

21. I love the brave: but it is not enough to be a swordsman,—one must also know WHEREON to use swordsmanship! And often is it greater bravery to keep quiet and pass by, that THEREBY one may reserve oneself for a worthier foe! Ye shall only have foes to be hated; but not foes to be despised: ye must be proud of your foes. Thus have I already taught. For the worthier foe, O my brethren, shall ye reserve yourselves: therefore must ye pass by many a one,— —Especially many of the rabble, who din your ears with noise about people and peoples. Keep your eye clear of their For and Against! There is there much right, much wrong: he who looketh on becometh wroth. Therein viewing, therein hewing—they are the same thing: therefore depart into the forests and lay your sword to sleep! Go YOUR ways! and let the people and peoples go theirs!—gloomy ways, verily, on which not a single hope glinteth any more! Let there the trader rule, where all that still glittereth is—traders’ gold. It is the time of kings no longer: that which now calleth itself the people is unworthy of kings. See how these peoples themselves now do just like the traders: they pick up the smallest advantage out of all kinds of rubbish! They lay lures for one another, they lure things out of one another,—that they call “good neighbourliness.” O blessed remote period when a people said to itself: “I will be—MASTER over peoples!” For, my brethren, the best shall rule, the best also WILLETH to rule! And where the teaching is different, there—the best is LACKING.