-they might well be the right counsellors for us both!"--

Thus spake Zarathustra and went his way, more thoughtfully and slowly
even than before: for he asked himself many things, and hardly knew what
to answer.

"How poor indeed is man," thought he in his heart, "how ugly, how
wheezy, how full of hidden shame!

They tell me that man loveth himself. Ah, how great must that self-love
be! How much contempt is opposed to it!

Even this man hath loved himself, as he hath despised himself,--a great
lover methinketh he is, and a great despiser.

No one have I yet found who more thoroughly despised himself: even THAT
is elevation. Alas, was THIS perhaps the higher man whose cry I heard?

I love the great despisers. Man is something that hath to be
surpassed."--

LXVIII. THE VOLUNTARY BEGGAR.

When Zarathustra had left the ugliest man, he was chilled and felt
lonesome: for much coldness and lonesomeness came over his spirit, so
that even his limbs became colder thereby. When, however, he wandered
on and on, uphill and down, at times past green meadows, though also
sometimes over wild stony couches where formerly perhaps an impatient
brook had made its bed, then he turned all at once warmer and heartier
again.

"What hath happened unto me?" he asked himself, "something warm and
living quickeneth me; it must be in the neighbourhood.

Already am I less alone; unconscious companions and brethren rove around
me; their warm breath toucheth my soul."

When, however, he spied about and sought for the comforters of his
lonesomeness, behold, there were kine there standing together on an
eminence, whose proximity and smell had warmed his heart. The kine,
however, seemed to listen eagerly to a speaker, and took no heed of him
who approached. When, however, Zarathustra was quite nigh unto them,
then did he hear plainly that a human voice spake in the midst of the
kine, and apparently all of them had turned their heads towards the
speaker.

Then ran Zarathustra up speedily and drove the animals aside; for he
feared that some one had here met with harm, which the pity of the
kine would hardly be able to relieve. But in this he was deceived; for
behold, there sat a man on the ground who seemed to be persuading
the animals to have no fear of him, a peaceable man and
Preacher-on-the-Mount, out of whose eyes kindness itself preached. "What
dost thou seek here?" called out Zarathustra in astonishment.

"What do I here seek?