e Ages
will fail to see the allusion here to the asinaria festa which were by
no means uncommon in France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe during the
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries.

Chapter LXXVIII. The Ass-Festival.

At length, in the middle of their feast, Zarathustra bursts in upon
them and rebukes them soundly. But he does not do so long; in the
Ass-Festival, it suddenly occurs to him, that he is concerned with a
ceremony that may not be without its purpose, as something foolish but
necessary--a recreation for wise men. He is therefore highly pleased
that the higher men have all blossomed forth; they therefore require
new festivals,--"A little valiant nonsense, some divine service and
ass-festival, some old joyful Zarathustra fool, some blusterer to blow
their souls bright."

He tells them not to forget that night and the ass-festival, for "such
things only the convalescent devise! And should ye celebrate it again,"
he concludes, "do it from love to yourselves, do it also from love to
me! And in remembrance of ME!"

Chapter LXXIX. The Drunken Song.

It were the height of presumption to attempt to fix any particular
interpretation of my own to the words of this song. With what has gone
before, the reader, while reading it as poetry, should be able to seek
and find his own meaning in it. The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence
appears for the last time here, in an art-form. Nietzsche lays stress
upon the fact that all happiness, all delight, longs for repetitions,
and just as a child cries "Again! Again!" to the adult who happens to
be amusing him; so the man who sees a meaning, and a joyful meaning, in
existence must also cry "Again!" and yet "Again!" to all his life.

Chapter LXXX. The Sign.

In this discourse, Nietzsche disassociates himself finally from the
higher men, and by the symbol of the lion, wishes to convey to us that
he has won over and mastered the best and the most terrible in nature.
That great power and tenderness are kin, was already his belief in
1875--eight years before he wrote this speech, and when the birds and
the lion come to him, it is because he is the embodiment of the two
qualities. All that is terrible and great in nature, the higher men are
not yet prepared for; for they retreat horror-stricken into the cave
when the lion springs at them; but Zarathustra makes not a move towards
them. He was tempted to them on the previous day, he says, but "That
hath had its