For your animals know it well, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you are the teacher of the eternal return,- that is now your fate!
That you must be the first to teach this teaching- how could this great fate not be your greatest danger and infirmity!
Behold, we know what you teach: that all things eternally return, and ourselves with them, and that we have already existed times without number, and all things with us.
You teach that there is a great year of Becoming, a prodigy of a great year; it must, like a sand-glass, ever turn up anew, that it may anew run down and run out:-
-So that all those years are like one another in the greatest and also in the small, so that we ourselves, in every great year, are like ourselves in the greatest and also in the small.
And if you would now die, O Zarathustra, behold, we know also how you would then speak to yourself:- but your animals beseech you not to die yet!
You would speak, and without trembling, buoyant rather with bliss, for a great weight and worry would be taken from you, you patientest one!-
‘Now do I die and disappear,’ would you say, ‘and in a moment I am nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies.
But the plexus of causes returns in which I am intertwined,- it will again create me! I myself pertain to the causes of the eternal return.
I come again with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent- not to a new life, or a better life, or a similar life:
-I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its greatest and its small, to teach again the eternal return of all things,-
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-To speak again the word of the great noontide of earth and man, to announce again to man the Superman.
I have spoken my word. I break down by my word: so wills my eternal fate- as announcer do I perish!
The hour has now come for the down-goer to bless himself. Thus- ends Zarathustra’s down-going.'»- —
When the animals had spoken these words they were silent and waited, so that Zarathustra might say something to them; but Zarathus-tra did not hear that they were silent. On the contrary, he lay quietly with closed eyes like a person sleeping, although he did not sleep; for he communed just then with his soul. The serpent, however, and the eagle, when they found him silent in such wise, respected the great stillness around him, and prudently retired.
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Chapter 14 The Great Longing
O MY soul, I have taught you to say «today» as «once on a time» and «formerly,» and to dance your measure over every Here and There and Yonder.
O my soul, I delivered you from all by-places, I brushed down from you dust and spiders and twilight.
O my soul, I washed the petty shame and the by-place virtue from you, and persuaded you to stand naked before the eyes of the sun.
With the storm that is called «spirit» did I blow over your surging sea; all clouds did I blow away from it; I strangled even the strangler called «sin.»
O my soul, I gave you the right to say No like the storm, and to say Yes as the open heaven says Yes: calm as the light remain you, and now walk through denying storms.
O my soul, I restored to you liberty over the created and the uncre-ated; and who knows, as you know, the voluptuousness of the future?
O my soul, I taught you the contempt which does not come like worm-eating, the great, the loving contempt, which loves most where it con-temns most.
O my soul, I taught you so to persuade that you persuade even the grounds themselves to you: like the sun, which persuades even the sea to its height.
O my soul, I have taken from you all obeying and knee-bending and homage-paying; I have myself given you the names, «Change of need» and «Fate.»
O my soul, I have given you new names and gay-colored playthings, I have called you «Fate» and «the Circuit of circuits» and «the Navel-string of time» and «the Azure bell.»
O my soul, to your domain gave I all wisdom to drink all new wines, and also all immemorially old strong wines of wisdom.
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O my soul, every sun shed I upon you, and every night and every si-lence and every longing:- then grew you up for me as a vine.
O my soul, exuberant and heavy do you now stand forth, a vine with swelling udders and full clusters of brown golden grapes:-
-Filled and weighted by your happiness, waiting from superabund-ance, and yet ashamed of your waiting.
O my soul, there is nowhere a soul which could be more loving and more comprehensive and more extensive! Where could future and past be closer together than with you?
O my soul, I have given you everything, and all my hands have be-come empty by you:- and now! Now say you to me, smiling and full of melancholy: «Which of us owes thanks?-
-Do the giver not owe thanks because the receiver received? Is giving not a necessity? Is receiving not- pitying?»
O my soul, I understand the smiling of your melancholy: your over-abundance itself now stretches out longing hands!
Your fulness looks forth over raging seas, and seeks and waits: the longing of over-fulness looks forth from the smiling heaven of your eyes!
And verily, O my soul! Who could see your smiling and not melt into tears? The angels themselves melt into tears through the over-gracious-ness of your smiling.
Your graciousness and over-graciousness, is it which will not com-plain and weep: and yet, O my soul, longs your smiling for tears, and your trembling mouth for sobs.
«Is not all weeping complaining? And all complaining, accusing?» Thus speak you to yourself; and therefore, O my soul, will you rather smile than pour forth your grief-
-Than in gushing tears pour forth all your grief concerning your ful-ness, and concerning the craving of the vine for the vintager and vintage-knife!
But will you not weep, will you not weep forth your purple melan-choly, then will you have to sing, O my soul!- Behold, I smile myself, who foretell you this:
-You will have to sing with passionate song, until all seas turn calm to hearken to your longing,-
-Until over calm longing seas the bark glides, the golden marvel, around the gold of which all good, bad, and marvellous things frisk:-
-Also many large and small animals, and everything that has light marvellous feet, so that it can run on violet-blue paths,-
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-Towards the golden marvel, the spontaneous bark, and its master: he, however, is the vintager who waits with the diamond vintage-knife,-
-Your great deliverer, O my soul, the nameless one- for whom future songs only will find names! And verily, already has your breath the fra-grance of future songs,-
-Already glow you and dream, already drink you thirstily at all deep echoing wells of consolation, already reposes your melancholy in the bliss of future songs!- —
O my soul, now have I given you all, and even my last possession, and all my hands have become empty by you:- that I bade you sing, behold, that was my last thing to give!
That I bade you sing,- say now, say: which of us now- owes thanks?-Better still, however: sing to me, sing, O my soul! And let me thank you!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 15
The Second Dance Song
1.
«INTO your eyes gazed I lately, O Life: gold saw I gleam in your night-eyes,- my heart stood still with delight:
-A golden bark saw I gleam on darkened waters, a sinking, drinking, reblinking, golden swing-bark!
At my dance-frantic foot, do you cast a glance, a laughing, question-ing, melting, thrown glance:
Twice only moved you your rattle with your little hands- then did my feet swing with dance-fury.-
My heels reared aloft, my toes they hearkened,- you they would know: has not the dancer his ear- in his toe!
To you did I spring: then fled you back from my bound; and towards me waved your fleeing, flying tresses round!
Away from you did I spring, and from your snaky tresses: then stood you there half-turned, and in your eye caresses.
With crooked glances- do you teach me crooked courses; on crooked courses learn my feet- crafty fancies!
I fear you near, I love you far; your flight allures me, your seeking se-cures me:- I suffer, but for you, what would I not gladly bear!
For you, whose coldness inflames, whose hatred misleads, whose flight enchains, whose mockery- pleads:
-Who would not hate you, you great bindress, in-windress, temptress, seekress, findress! Who would not love you, you innocent, impatient, wind-swift, child-eyed sinner!
Where pull you me now, you paragon and tomboy? And now fool you me fleeing; you sweet romp does annoy!
I dance after you, I follow even faint traces lonely. Where are you? Give me your hand! Or your finger only!
Here are caves and thickets: we shall go astray!- Halt! Stand still! See you not owls and bats in fluttering fray?
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You bat! you owl! you would play me foul? Where are we? From the dogs have you learned thus to bark and howl.
You gnash on me sweetly with little white teeth; your evil eyes shoot out upon me, your
