On the Pale Criminal

You do not want to kill, you judges and sacrificers, until the animal has nodded? Behold, the pale criminal has nodded: out of his eye speaks the great contempt.

“My I is something that shall be overcome: my I is to me the great contempt for the human being”: so it speaks out of this eye.

That he judged himself was his highest moment: do not let the sublime one go back down into his lowliness!

There is no redemption for one who suffers so from himself, except a quick death.

Your killing, you judges, shall be a pity and not a revenge. And as you kill, see to it that you yourselves justify life!

It is not enough that you reconcile yourselves with the one you kill. Let your sadness be love of the Übermensch: so you justify your living on!

“Enemy” you shall say, but not “villain”; “sick man” you shall say, but not “scoundrel”; “fool” you shall say, but not “sinner.”

And you, red judge, if you were to say aloud all that you have already done in thought: everyone would cry out, “Away with this filth and poisonous worm!”

But the thought is one thing, the deed another, the image of the deed another still. The wheel of cause does not roll between them.

An image made this pale man pale. He was equal to his deed when he did it: but he could not bear its image once it was done.

From then on he always saw himself as the doer of one deed. Madness I call this: the exception turned itself into his essence.

The chalk line spellbinds the hen; the stroke he struck spellbound his poor reason—madness after the deed I call this.

Listen, you judges! There is another madness besides: and that is before the deed. Ah, you did not crawl deep enough into this soul!

Thus speaks the red judge: “Why did this criminal murder? He wanted to rob.” But I tell you: his soul wanted blood, not plunder: he thirsted for the bliss of the knife!

But his poor reason did not understand this madness and talked him round. “What does blood matter!” it said. “Do you not want at least to take some plunder with it? To take a revenge?”

And he listened to his poor reason: its speech lay on him like lead,—so he robbed when he murdered. He did not want to be ashamed of his madness.

And now once again the lead of his guilt lies on him, and once again his poor reason is so stiff, so paralyzed, so heavy.

If only he could shake his head, his burden would roll off: but who shakes this head?

What is this human being? A heap of diseases that reach out into the world through the spirit: there they want to take their prey.

What is this human being? A tangle of wild serpents that seldom have rest among themselves,—so they go off each on its own and seek prey in the world.

Look at this poor body! What it suffered and craved, this poor soul interpreted to itself,—it interpreted it as murderous lust and greed for the bliss of the knife.

Whoever becomes sick now is overtaken by the evil that is evil now: he wants to cause pain with what causes him pain. But there were other times and another evil and good.

Once doubt was evil, and the will to the Self. Back then the sick man became a heretic and a witch: as heretic and witch he suffered and wanted to cause suffering.

But this will not go into your ears: it harms your good people, you tell me. But what do your good people matter to me!

Much about your good people disgusts me, and truly not their evil. How I wish they had a madness of which they would perish, like this pale criminal!

Truly, I wish their madness were called truth or loyalty or justice: but they have their virtue in order to live long, and in a wretched contentment.

I am a railing by the torrent: let whoever can grasp me grasp me! But your crutch I am not.—

Thus spoke Zarathustra.