ion to go to meet Zarathustra, and
give him their morning greeting: for they had found when they awakened
that he no longer tarried with them. When, however, they reached the
door of the cave and the noise of their steps had preceded them, the
lion started violently; it turned away all at once from Zarathustra, and
roaring wildly, sprang towards the cave. The higher men, however, when
they heard the lion roaring, cried all aloud as with one voice, fled
back and vanished in an instant.
Zarathustra himself, however, stunned and strange, rose from his seat,
looked around him, stood there astonished, inquired of his heart,
bethought himself, and remained alone. "What did I hear?" said he at
last, slowly, "what happened unto me just now?"
But soon there came to him his recollection, and he took in at a glance
all that had taken place between yesterday and to-day. "Here is indeed
the stone," said he, and stroked his beard, "on IT sat I yester-morn;
and here came the soothsayer unto me, and here heard I first the cry
which I heard just now, the great cry of distress.
O ye higher men, YOUR distress was it that the old soothsayer foretold
to me yester-morn,--
--Unto your distress did he want to seduce and tempt me: 'O
Zarathustra,' said he to me, 'I come to seduce thee to thy last sin.'
To my last sin?" cried Zarathustra, and laughed angrily at his own
words: "WHAT hath been reserved for me as my last sin?"
--And once more Zarathustra became absorbed in himself, and sat down
again on the big stone and meditated. Suddenly he sprang up,--
"FELLOW-SUFFERING! FELLOW-SUFFERING WITH THE HIGHER MEN!" he cried out,
and his countenance changed into brass. "Well! THAT--hath had its time!
My suffering and my fellow-suffering--what matter about them! Do I then
strive after HAPPINESS? I strive after my WORK!
Well! The lion hath come, my children are nigh, Zarathustra hath grown
ripe, mine hour hath come:--
This is MY morning, MY day beginneth: ARISE NOW, ARISE, THOU GREAT
NOONTIDE!"--
Thus spake Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a
morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains.
APPENDIX.
NOTES ON "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA" BY ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
I have had some opportunities of studying the conditions under which
Nietzsche is read in Germany, France, and England, and I have found
that, in each of these countries, students of his philosophy, as if
actuated by precisely similar motives and
|