No More Learning

Thou shalt be closest
unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him.

Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend? It is in honour of thy
friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou art? But he wisheth thee
to the devil on that account!

He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason have ye
to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of
clothing!

Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend; for thou shalt
be unto him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.

Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep--to know how he looketh? What is
usually the countenance of thy friend? It is thine own countenance, in a
coarse and imperfect mirror.

Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep? Wert thou not dismayed at thy friend
looking so? O my friend, man is something that hath to be surpassed.

In divining and keeping silence shall the friend be a master: not
everything must thou wish to see. Thy dream shall disclose unto thee
what thy friend doeth when awake.

Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy friend wanteth pity.
Perhaps he loveth in thee the unmoved eye, and the look of eternity.

Let thy pity for thy friend be hid under a hard shell; thou shalt bite
out a tooth upon it. Thus will it have delicacy and sweetness.

Art thou pure air and solitude and bread and medicine to thy friend?
Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his
friend's emancipator.

Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou a tyrant?
Then thou canst not have friends.

Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman.
On that account woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knoweth only
love.

In woman's love there is injustice and blindness to all she doth not
love. And even in woman's conscious love, there is still always surprise
and lightning and night, along with the light.

As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and
birds. Or at the best, cows.

As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye men, who of
you are capable of friendship?

Oh! your poverty, ye men, and your sordidness of soul! As much as ye
give to your friend, will I give even to my foe, and will not have
become poorer thereby.

There is comradeship: may there be friendship!

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XV. THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS.

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: thus he discovered the
good and bad of many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on
earth than good and bad.

No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain
itself, however, it must not value as its neighbour valueth.

Much that passed for good with one people was regarded with scorn and
contempt by another: thus I found it. Much found I here called bad,
which was there decked with purple honours.

Never did the one neighbour understand the other: ever did his soul
marvel at his neighbour's delusion and wickedness.

A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo! it is the table
of their triumphs; lo! it is the voice of their Will to Power.

It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard
they call good; and what relieveth in the direst distress, the unique
and hardest of all,--they extol as holy.

Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and shine, to the dismay and envy
of their neighbours, they regard as the high and foremost thing, the
test and the meaning of all else.

Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people's need, its land,
its sky, and its neighbour, then wouldst thou divine the law of its
surmountings, and why it climbeth up that ladder to its hope.

"Always shalt thou be the foremost and prominent above others: no one
shall thy jealous soul love, except a friend"--that made the soul of a
Greek thrill: thereby went he his way to greatness.

"To speak truth, and be skilful with bow and arrow"--so seemed it alike
pleasing and hard to the people from whom cometh my name--the name which
is alike pleasing and hard to me.

"To honour father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their
will"--this table of surmounting hung another people over them, and
became powerful and permanent thereby.

"To have fidelity, and for the sake of fidelity to risk honour and
blood, even in evil and dangerous courses"--teaching itself so, another
people mastered itself, and thus mastering itself, became pregnant and
heavy with great hopes.

Verily, men have given unto themselves all their good and bad. Verily,
they took it not, they found it not, it came not unto them as a voice
from heaven.

Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself--he
created only the significance of things, a human significance!
Therefore, calleth he himself "man," that is, the valuator.

Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the
treasure and jewel of the valued things.

Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of
existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones!

Change of values--that is, change of the creating ones. Always doth he
destroy who hath to be a creator.

Creating ones were first of all peoples, and only in late times
individuals; verily, the individual himself is still the latest
creation.

Peoples once hung over them tables of the good. Love which would rule
and love which would obey, created for themselves such tables.

Older is the pleasure in the herd than the pleasure in the ego: and as
long as the good conscience is for the herd, the bad conscience only
saith: ego.

Verily, the crafty ego, the loveless one, that seeketh its advantage in
the advantage of many--it is not the origin of the herd, but its ruin.

Loving ones, was it always, and creating ones, that created good and
bad. Fire of love gloweth in the names of all the virtues, and fire of
wrath.

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did
Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones--"good"
and "bad" are they called.

Verily, a prodigy is this power of praising and blaming. Tell me, ye
brethren, who will master it for me? Who will put a fetter upon the
thousand necks of this animal?

A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have
there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking;
there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal.

But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking,
is there not also still lacking--humanity itself? --

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XVI. NEIGHBOUR-LOVE.

Ye crowd around your neighbour, and have fine words for it. But I say
unto you: your neighbour-love is your bad love of yourselves.

Ye flee unto your neighbour from yourselves, and would fain make a
virtue thereof: but I fathom your "unselfishness. "

The THOU is older than the _I_; the THOU hath been consecrated, but not
yet the _I_: so man presseth nigh unto his neighbour.

Do I advise you to neighbour-love? Rather do I advise you to
neighbour-flight and to furthest love!

Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest and future
ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things and phantoms.

The phantom that runneth on before thee, my brother, is fairer than
thou; why dost thou not give unto it thy flesh and thy bones? But thou
fearest, and runnest unto thy neighbour.

Ye cannot endure it with yourselves, and do not love yourselves
sufficiently: so ye seek to mislead your neighbour into love, and would
fain gild yourselves with his error.

Would that ye could not endure it with any kind of near ones, or their
neighbours; then would ye have to create your friend and his overflowing
heart out of yourselves.

Ye call in a witness when ye want to speak well of yourselves; and
when ye have misled him to think well of you, ye also think well of
yourselves.

Not only doth he lie, who speaketh contrary to his knowledge, but more
so, he who speaketh contrary to his ignorance. And thus speak ye
of yourselves in your intercourse, and belie your neighbour with
yourselves.

Thus saith the fool: "Association with men spoileth the character,
especially when one hath none. "

The one goeth to his neighbour because he seeketh himself, and the other
because he would fain lose himself. Your bad love to yourselves maketh
solitude a prison to you.

The furthest ones are they who pay for your love to the near ones; and
when there are but five of you together, a sixth must always die.

I love not your festivals either: too many actors found I there, and
even the spectators often behaved like actors.

Not the neighbour do I teach you, but the friend. Let the friend be the
festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of the Superman.

I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one must know how
to be a sponge, if one would be loved by overflowing hearts.

I teach you the friend in whom the world standeth complete, a capsule
of the good,--the creating friend, who hath always a complete world to
bestow.

And as the world unrolled itself for him, so rolleth it together again
for him in rings, as the growth of good through evil, as the growth of
purpose out of chance.

Let the future and the furthest be the motive of thy to-day; in thy
friend shalt thou love the Superman as thy motive.

My brethren, I advise you not to neighbour-love--I advise you to
furthest love! --

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XVII. THE WAY OF THE CREATING ONE.

Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way
unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto me.

"He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so
say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.

The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest,
"I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a
plaint and a pain.

Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam
of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.

But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto
thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!

Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A
self-rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee?

Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many
convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou art not a lusting and
ambitious one!

Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than the
bellows: they inflate, and make emptier than ever.

Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and
not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.

Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away
his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.

Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however,
shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?

Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will
as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy
law?

Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one's own law.
Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the icy breath of
aloneness.

To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day
hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes.

But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield,
and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I am alone! "

One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy
lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou
wilt one day cry: "All is false! "

There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if they do not
succeed, then must they themselves die! But art thou capable of it--to
be a murderer?

Hast thou ever known, my brother, the word "disdain"? And the anguish of
thy justice in being just to those that disdain thee?

Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they
heavily to thine account. Thou camest nigh unto them, and yet wentest
past: for that they never forgive thee.

Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the
eye of envy see thee. Most of all, however, is the flying one hated.

"How could ye be just unto me! "--must thou say--"I choose your injustice
as my allotted portion. "

Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my brother, if
thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that
account!

And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify
those who devise their own virtue--they hate the lonesome ones.

Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that
is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the fire--of the fagot
and stake.

And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily
doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him.

To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy paw; and I
wish thy paw also to have claws.

But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself always be; thou
waylayest thyself in caverns and forests.

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And past thyself and
thy seven devils leadeth thy way!

A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a sooth-sayer, and a
fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.

Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou
become new if thou have not first become ashes!

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the creating one: a God wilt
thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils!

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the loving one: thou lovest
thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself, as only the loving
ones despise.

To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth! What knoweth
he of love who hath not been obliged to despise just what he loved!

With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with thy
creating; and late only will justice limp after thee.

With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who
seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus succumbeth. --

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XVIII. OLD AND YOUNG WOMEN.

"Why stealest thou along so furtively in the twilight, Zarathustra? And
what hidest thou so carefully under thy mantle?

Is it a treasure that hath been given thee? Or a child that hath been
born thee? Or goest thou thyself on a thief's errand, thou friend of the
evil? "--

Verily, my brother, said Zarathustra, it is a treasure that hath been
given me: it is a little truth which I carry.

But it is naughty, like a young child; and if I hold not its mouth, it
screameth too loudly.

As I went on my way alone to-day, at the hour when the sun declineth,
there met me an old woman, and she spake thus unto my soul:

"Much hath Zarathustra spoken also to us women, but never spake he unto
us concerning woman. "

And I answered her: "Concerning woman, one should only talk unto men. "

"Talk also unto me of woman," said she; "I am old enough to forget it
presently. "

And I obliged the old woman and spake thus unto her:

Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one
solution--it is called pregnancy.

Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is
woman for man?

Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion.
Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the
warrior: all else is folly.

Too sweet fruits--these the warrior liketh not. Therefore liketh he
woman;--bitter is even the sweetest woman.

Better than man doth woman understand children, but man is more childish
than woman.

In the true man there is a child hidden: it wanteth to play. Up then, ye
women, and discover the child in man!

A plaything let woman be, pure and fine like the precious stone,
illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come.

Let the beam of a star shine in your love! Let your hope say: "May I
bear the Superman! "

In your love let there be valour! With your love shall ye assail him who
inspireth you with fear!

In your love be your honour! Little doth woman understand otherwise
about honour. But let this be your honour: always to love more than ye
are loved, and never be the second.

Let man fear woman when she loveth: then maketh she every sacrifice, and
everything else she regardeth as worthless.

Let man fear woman when she hateth: for man in his innermost soul is
merely evil; woman, however, is mean.

Whom hateth woman most? --Thus spake the iron to the loadstone: "I hate
thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee. "

The happiness of man is, "I will. " The happiness of woman is, "He will. "

"Lo! now hath the world become perfect! "--thus thinketh every woman when
she obeyeth with all her love.

Obey, must the woman, and find a depth for her surface. Surface, is
woman's soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water.

Man's soul, however, is deep, its current gusheth in subterranean
caverns: woman surmiseth its force, but comprehendeth it not. --

Then answered me the old woman: "Many fine things hath Zarathustra said,
especially for those who are young enough for them.

Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right
about them! Doth this happen, because with women nothing is impossible?

And now accept a little truth by way of thanks! I am old enough for it!

Swaddle it up and hold its mouth: otherwise it will scream too loudly,
the little truth. "

"Give me, woman, thy little truth! " said I. And thus spake the old
woman:

"Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip! "--

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XIX. THE BITE OF THE ADDER.

One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the
heat, with his arms over his face. And there came an adder and bit him
in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had
taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it
recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get
away. "Not at all," said Zarathustra, "as yet hast thou not received
my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long. "
"Thy journey is short," said the adder sadly; "my poison is fatal. "
Zarathustra smiled. "When did ever a dragon die of a serpent's
poison? "--said he. "But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough
to present it to me. " Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked
his wound.

When Zarathustra once told this to his disciples they asked him:
"And what, O Zarathustra, is the moral of thy story? " And Zarathustra
answered them thus:

The destroyer of morality, the good and just call me: my story is
immoral.

When, however, ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for
that would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you.

And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it
pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a
little also!

And should a great injustice befall you, then do quickly five small ones
besides. Hideous to behold is he on whom injustice presseth alone.

Did ye ever know this? Shared injustice is half justice. And he who can
bear it, shall take the injustice upon himself!

A small revenge is humaner than no revenge at all. And if the punishment
be not also a right and an honour to the transgressor, I do not like
your punishing.

Nobler is it to own oneself in the wrong than to establish one's right,
especially if one be in the right. Only, one must be rich enough to do
so.

I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there
always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel.

Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes?

Devise me, then, the love which not only beareth all punishment, but
also all guilt!

Devise me, then, the justice which acquitteth every one except the
judge!

And would ye hear this likewise? To him who seeketh to be just from the
heart, even the lie becometh philanthropy.

But how could I be just from the heart! How can I give every one his
own! Let this be enough for me: I give unto every one mine own.

Finally, my brethren, guard against doing wrong to any anchorite. How
could an anchorite forget! How could he requite!

Like a deep well is an anchorite. Easy is it to throw in a stone: if
it should sink to the bottom, however, tell me, who will bring it out
again?

Guard against injuring the anchorite! If ye have done so, however, well
then, kill him also! --

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XX. CHILD AND MARRIAGE.

I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast
I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth.

Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art
thou a man ENTITLED to desire a child?

Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy
passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee.

Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or
discord in thee?

I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments
shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation.

Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built
thyself, rectangular in body and soul.

Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that
purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!

A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously
rolling wheel--a creating one shalt thou create.

Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is
more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those
exercising such a will, call I marriage.

Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage. But that
which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones--ah, what
shall I call it?

Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the
twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain!

Marriage they call it all; and they say their marriages are made in
heaven.

Well, I do not like it, that heaven of the superfluous! No, I do not
like them, those animals tangled in the heavenly toils!

Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath
not matched!

Laugh not at such marriages! What child hath not had reason to weep over
its parents?

Worthy did this man seem, and ripe for the meaning of the earth: but
when I saw his wife, the earth seemed to me a home for madcaps.

Yea, I would that the earth shook with convulsions when a saint and a
goose mate with one another.

This one went forth in quest of truth as a hero, and at last got for
himself a small decked-up lie: his marriage he calleth it.

That one was reserved in intercourse and chose choicely. But one time he
spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calleth it.

Another sought a handmaid with the virtues of an angel. But all at once
he became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become
an angel.

Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But
even the astutest of them buyeth his wife in a sack.

Many short follies--that is called love by you. And your marriage
putteth an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.

Your love to woman, and woman's love to man--ah, would that it were
sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals
alight on one another.

But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a painful
ardour. It is a torch to light you to loftier paths.

Beyond yourselves shall ye love some day! Then LEARN first of all to
love. And on that account ye had to drink the bitter cup of your love.

Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love: thus doth it cause
longing for the Superman; thus doth it cause thirst in thee, the
creating one!

Thirst in the creating one, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me,
my brother, is this thy will to marriage?

Holy call I such a will, and such a marriage. --

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XXI. VOLUNTARY DEATH.

Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the
precept: "Die at the right time!

Die at the right time: so teacheth Zarathustra.

To be sure, he who never liveth at the right time, how could he ever die
at the right time? Would that he might never be born! --Thus do I advise
the superfluous ones.

But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even
the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.

Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not
a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest
festivals.

The consummating death I show unto you, which becometh a stimulus and
promise to the living.

His death, dieth the consummating one triumphantly, surrounded by hoping
and promising ones.

Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festival at which
such a dying one doth not consecrate the oaths of the living!

Thus to die is best; the next best, however, is to die in battle, and
sacrifice a great soul.

But to the fighter equally hateful as to the victor, is your grinning
death which stealeth nigh like a thief,--and yet cometh as master.

My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me
because _I_ want it.

And when shall I want it? --He that hath a goal and an heir, wanteth
death at the right time for the goal and the heir.

And out of reverence for the goal and the heir, he will hang up no more
withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life.

Verily, not the rope-makers will I resemble: they lengthen out their
cord, and thereby go ever backward.

Many a one, also, waxeth too old for his truths and triumphs; a
toothless mouth hath no longer the right to every truth.

And whoever wanteth to have fame, must take leave of honour betimes, and
practise the difficult art of--going at the right time.

One must discontinue being feasted upon when one tasteth best: that is
known by those who want to be long loved.

Sour apples are there, no doubt, whose lot is to wait until the last
day of autumn: and at the same time they become ripe, yellow, and
shrivelled.

In some ageth the heart first, and in others the spirit. And some are
hoary in youth, but the late young keep long young.

To many men life is a failure; a poison-worm gnaweth at their heart.
Then let them see to it that their dying is all the more a success.

Many never become sweet; they rot even in the summer. It is cowardice
that holdeth them fast to their branches.

Far too many live, and far too long hang they on their branches. Would
that a storm came and shook all this rottenness and worm-eatenness from
the tree!

Would that there came preachers of SPEEDY death! Those would be the
appropriate storms and agitators of the trees of life! But I hear only
slow death preached, and patience with all that is "earthly. "

Ah! ye preach patience with what is earthly? This earthly is it that
hath too much patience with you, ye blasphemers!

Verily, too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death
honour: and to many hath it proved a calamity that he died too early.

As yet had he known only tears, and the melancholy of the Hebrews,
together with the hatred of the good and just--the Hebrew Jesus: then
was he seized with the longing for death.

Had he but remained in the wilderness, and far from the good and just!
Then, perhaps, would he have learned to live, and love the earth--and
laughter also!

Believe it, my brethren! He died too early; he himself would have
disavowed his doctrine had he attained to my age! Noble enough was he to
disavow!

But he was still immature. Immaturely loveth the youth, and immaturely
also hateth he man and earth. Confined and awkward are still his soul
and the wings of his spirit.

But in man there is more of the child than in the youth, and less of
melancholy: better understandeth he about life and death.

Free for death, and free in death; a holy Naysayer, when there is no
longer time for Yea: thus understandeth he about death and life.

That your dying may not be a reproach to man and the earth, my friends:
that do I solicit from the honey of your soul.

In your dying shall your spirit and your virtue still shine like an
evening after-glow around the earth: otherwise your dying hath been
unsatisfactory.

Thus will I die myself, that ye friends may love the earth more for my
sake; and earth will I again become, to have rest in her that bore me.

Verily, a goal had Zarathustra; he threw his ball. Now be ye friends the
heirs of my goal; to you throw I the golden ball.

Best of all, do I see you, my friends, throw the golden ball! And so
tarry I still a little while on the earth--pardon me for it!

Thus spake Zarathustra.




XXII. THE BESTOWING VIRTUE.

1.

When Zarathustra had taken leave of the town to which his heart was
attached, the name of which is "The Pied Cow," there followed him many
people who called themselves his disciples, and kept him company. Thus
came they to a crossroad.