t is
bird-nature:--verily, deadly hostile, supremely hostile, originally
hostile! Oh, whither hath my hostility not flown and misflown!

Thereof could I sing a song--and WILL sing it: though I be alone in an
empty house, and must sing it to mine own ears.

Other singers are there, to be sure, to whom only the full house
maketh the voice soft, the hand eloquent, the eye expressive, the heart
wakeful:--those do I not resemble.--

2.

He who one day teacheth men to fly will have shifted all landmarks; to
him will all landmarks themselves fly into the air; the earth will he
christen anew--as "the light body."

The ostrich runneth faster than the fastest horse, but it also thrusteth
its head heavily into the heavy earth: thus is it with the man who
cannot yet fly.

Heavy unto him are earth and life, and so WILLETH the spirit of gravity!
But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:--thus
do _I_ teach.

Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected, for with them
stinketh even self-love!

One must learn to love oneself--thus do I teach--with a wholesome and
healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving
about.

Such roving about christeneth itself "brotherly love"; with these words
hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially
by those who have been burdensome to every one.

And verily, it is no commandment for to-day and to-morrow to LEARN to
love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and
patientest.

For to its possessor is all possession well concealed, and of all
treasure-pits one's own is last excavated--so causeth the spirit of
gravity.

Almost in the cradle are we apportioned with heavy words and worths:
"good" and "evil"--so calleth itself this dowry. For the sake of it we
are forgiven for living.

And therefore suffereth one little children to come unto one, to forbid
them betimes to love themselves--so causeth the spirit of gravity.

And we--we bear loyally what is apportioned unto us, on hard shoulders,
over rugged mountains! And when we sweat, then do people say to us:
"Yea, life is hard to bear!"

But man himself only is hard to bear! The reason thereof is that he
carrieth too many extraneous things on his shoulders. Like the camel
kneeleth he down, and letteth himself be well laden.

Especially the strong load-bearing man in whom reverence resideth. Too
many EXTRANEOUS heavy words and wor