Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/216

 1 82 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II

They did not think deep enough. Therefore their feeling did not sink so deep as to reach the bottom.

Some voluptuousness and some tediousness these have even been their best meditation.

As a breathing and vanishing of ghosts I regard all the strumming of their harp. What have they known hitherto of the ardour of tones !

Besides they are not cleanly enough for me. All of them make their water muddy that it may seem deep.

And they like to let themselves appear as recon- cilers. But mediators and mixers they remain for me, and half-and-half ones and uncleanly !

Alas, it is true I have cast my net in their seas and tried to catch good fish ; but I always drew up the head of some old God.

Thus the sea gave a stone unto the hungry one. And perhaps they themselves are born from the sea.

True, one fmdeth pearls in them. So much the more are they like unto the hard shell-fish. And instead of a soul I often found salt slime in them.

From the sea they learned even its vanity. Is not the sea the peacock of peacocks ?

Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes it unfoldeth its tail; and it never wearieth of its lace-fan of silver and silk.

Defiantly looketh at it the buffalo, with soul nigh the sand, still nigher the thicket, but nighest the swamp.

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