t the same action performed by a given
number of men, loses its identity precisely that same number of
times.--"Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi."

At the last eight verses many readers may be tempted to laugh. In
England we almost always laugh when a man takes himself seriously at
anything save sport. And there is of course no reason why the reader
should not be hilarious.--A certain greatness is requisite, both in
order to be sublime and to have reverence for the sublime. Nietzsche
earnestly believed that the Zarathustra-kingdom--his dynasty of a
thousand years--would one day come; if he had not believed it so
earnestly, if every artist in fact had not believed so earnestly in
his Hazar, whether of ten, fifteen, a hundred, or a thousand years, we
should have lost all our higher men; they would have become pessimists,
suicides, or merchants. If the minor poet and philosopher has made us
shy of the prophetic seriousness which characterized an Isaiah or a
Jeremiah, it is surely our loss and the minor poet's gain.

Chapter LXII. The Cry of Distress.

We now meet with Zarathustra in extraordinary circumstances. He is
confronted with Schopenhauer and tempted by the old Soothsayer to commit
the sin of pity. "I have come that I may seduce thee to thy last sin!"
says the Soothsayer to Zarathustra. It will be remembered that in
Schopenhauer's ethics, pity is elevated to the highest place among the
virtues, and very consistently too, seeing that the Weltanschauung is
a pessimistic one. Schopenhauer appeals to Nietzsche's deepest and
strongest sentiment--his sympathy for higher men. "Why dost thou conceal
thyself?" he cries. "It is THE HIGHER MAN that calleth for thee!"
Zarathustra is almost overcome by the Soothsayer's pleading, as he
had been once already in the past, but he resists him step by step. At
length he can withstand him no longer, and, on the plea that the higher
man is on his ground and therefore under his protection, Zarathustra
departs in search of him, leaving Schopenhauer--a higher man in
Nietzsche's opinion--in the cave as a guest.

Chapter LXIII. Talk with the Kings.

On his way Zarathustra meets two more higher men of his time; two
kings cross his path. They are above the average modern type; for their
instincts tell them what real ruling is, and they despise the mockery
which they have been taught to call "Reigning." "We ARE NOT the first
men," they say, "and have nevertheless to STAND FOR them: of this