Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/510

 4/6 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, IV

This had Zarathustra said unto his heart, when the sun rose. Then he asking looked upward, for he heard above him the sharp cry of his eagle. " Up ! " he shouted upward, "thus it pleaseth me and is due unto me. Mine animals are awake, for I am awake.

Mine eagle is awake and, like me, honoureth the sun. With an eagle's claws he graspeth for the new light. Ye are my proper animals. I love you.

But my proper men are still lacking unto me ! "

Thus spake Zarathustra. Then it came to pass that he heard of a sudden that he was surrounded by numberless birds that swarmed and fluttered. But the whizzing of so many wings, and the thronging round his head were so great that he shut his eyes. And, verily, like a cloud something fell upon him, like a cloud of arrows discharged over a new enemy. But, behold, here it was a cloud of love, and it hovered over a new friend.

"What happeneth unto me?" Zarathustra thought in his astonished heart, and slowly sat down on the big stone which lay beside the exit of his cave. But while he grasped with his hands round himself, and above himself, and below himself, and kept back the tender birds, behold, something still stranger hap- pened unto him. He unawares laid hold of dense warm shaggy hair. At the same time a roaring was heard before him, a gentle, long roaring of a lion.

" The sign conieth" said Zarathustra, and his heart

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