Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/68

 34 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I

Man he was, and but a poor piece of man and the I. From mine own ashes and flame it came unto me, that ghost, yea verily ! It did not come unto me from beyond !

What happened, brethren? I overcame myself, the sufferer, and carrying mine own ashes unto the mountains invented for myself a brighter flame. And lo ! the ghost departed from me !

Now to me, the convalescent, it would be suffer- ing and pain to believe in such ghosts : suffering it were now for me and humiliation. Thus I speak unto the back-worlds-men.

Sorrow and weakness created all back-worlds ; and that short madness of happiness which only the most sorrowful experience.

Weariness which, with one jump, with a jump of death, wanteth to reach the last, a poor ignorant weariness which is not even willing any more to will : it created all Gods and back-worlds.

Believe me, my brethren ! It was the body which despaired of the body with the fingers of a befooled spirit it groped at the last walls.

Believe me, my brethren ! It was the body which despaired of earth, it heard the womb of existence speak unto it.

And there it yearned to get through the last walls with its head, and not with its head only beyond, to 'the other world.'

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