OF FREE DEATH
" Many die too late, and some die too early. Still the doctrine soundeth strange : ' Die at the right time.'
' Die at the right time : ' thus Zarathustra teacheth.
Nay, he who hath never lived at the right time, hgw could he ever die at the right time? Would that he had never been born ! Thus I counsel the superfluous.
But even the superfluous put on airs about their dying, and even the hollowest nut wisheth to be cracked.
Everyone taketh dying seriously, and death is not yet a festival. Not yet have men learnt how the finest festivals are consecrated.
I show you the achieving death, which, for the living, becometh a sting and a pledge.
The achieving one dieth his death victorious, sur- rounded by hopeful ones and such as pledge them- selves.
Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festival, in which such a dying one did not consecrate the oaths of the living! H 97
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