self the same house of existence. All things separate, all things
again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of
existence.

Every moment beginneth existence, around every 'Here' rolleth the ball
'There.' The middle is everywhere. Crooked is the path of eternity."--

--O ye wags and barrel-organs! answered Zarathustra, and smiled once
more, how well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days:--

--And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me! But I bit off
its head and spat it away from me.

And ye--ye have made a lyre-lay out of it? Now, however, do I lie here,
still exhausted with that biting and spitting-away, still sick with mine
own salvation.

AND YE LOOKED ON AT IT ALL? O mine animals, are ye also cruel? Did
ye like to look at my great pain as men do? For man is the cruellest
animal.

At tragedies, bull-fights, and crucifixions hath he hitherto been
happiest on earth; and when he invented his hell, behold, that was his
heaven on earth.

When the great man crieth--: immediately runneth the little man thither,
and his tongue hangeth out of his mouth for very lusting. He, however,
calleth it his "pity."

The little man, especially the poet--how passionately doth he accuse
life in words! Hearken to him, but do not fail to hear the delight which
is in all accusation!

Such accusers of life--them life overcometh with a glance of the eye.
"Thou lovest me?" saith the insolent one; "wait a little, as yet have I
no time for thee."

Towards himself man is the cruellest animal; and in all who call
themselves "sinners" and "bearers of the cross" and "penitents," do not
overlook the voluptuousness in their plaints and accusations!

And I myself--do I thereby want to be man's accuser? Ah, mine animals,
this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his baddest is necessary
for his best,--

--That all that is baddest is the best POWER, and the hardest stone for
the highest creator; and that man must become better AND badder:--

Not to THIS torture-stake was I tied, that I know man is bad,--but I
cried, as no one hath yet cried:

"Ah, that his baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very
small!"

The great disgust at man--IT strangled me and had crept into my throat:
and what the soothsayer had presaged: "All is alike, nothing is worth
while, knowledge strangleth."

A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally weary, fatally
intoxicated sadness, which s