we have already existed times without
number, and all things with us.

Thou teachest 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 smallest, so that we ourselves, in every great year, are like
ourselves in the greatest and also in the smallest.

And if thou wouldst now die, O Zarathustra, behold, we know also how
thou wouldst then speak to thyself:--but thine animals beseech thee not
to die yet!

Thou wouldst speak, and without trembling, buoyant rather with bliss,
for a great weight and worry would be taken from thee, thou patientest
one!--

'Now do I die and disappear,' wouldst thou say, 'and in a moment I am
nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies.

But the plexus of causes returneth 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 smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all
things,--

--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 willeth mine eternal
fate--as announcer do I succumb!

The hour hath now come for the down-goer to bless himself. Thus--ENDETH
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 Zarathustra 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.

LVIII. THE GREAT LONGING.

O my soul, I have taught thee to say "to-day" as "once on a time" and
"formerly," and to dance thy measure over every Here and There and
Yonder.

O my soul, I delivered thee from all by-places, I brushed down from thee
dust and spiders and twilight.

O my soul, I washed the petty shame and the by-place virtue from thee,
and persuaded thee to stand naked befo