Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/290

 256 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, III

Here Zarathustra interrupted the raging fool and shut his mouth.

" Stop now ! " Zarathustra cried, " I have long loathed thy speech and kin !

Why hast thou dwelt so long nigh the swamp that thou wert obliged to become a frog and a toad?

Doth not a rotten scum-like swamp-blood flow through thine own veins, that thou hast learnt to croak and slander thus?

Why wentest thou not into the forest ? Or why didst thou not plough the soil ? Is not the sea full of green islands ?

I despise thy despising. And if thou warnedst me, why didst thou not warn thyself ?

From love alone my despising and my warning bird shall fly up ; but not out of the swamp !

They call thee mine ape, thou raging fool, but I call thee my grunting pig. Through grunting thou even spoilest my praise of folly.

What then was it that made thee grunt first ? Because nobody flattered thee sufficiently, therefore thou sattest down at this filth in order to have reason to grunt much,

In order to have reason for much revenge! For revenge, thou idle fool, is all thy raging. Truly I have found thee out !

But thy foolish word doth harm unto me even where thou art right ! And if Zarathustra's word

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