Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/308



1.
WHEN however Zarathustra had gone round a rock, then saw he on the same path, not far below him, a man who threw his limbs about like a maniac, and at last tumbled to the ground on his belly. "Halt!" said then Zarathustra to his heart, "he there must surely be the higher man, from him came that dreadful cry of distress,- I will see if I can help him." When, however, he ran to the spot where the man lay on the ground, he found a trembling old man with fixed eyes; and in spite of all Zarathustra's efforts to lift him and set him again on his feet, it was all in vain. The unfortunate one, also, did not seem to notice that some one was beside him; on the contrary, he continually looked around with moving gestures, like one forsaken and isolated from all the world. At last, however, after much trembling, and convulsion, and curling-himself-up, he began to lament thus:

Who warm'th me, who lov'th me still?

Give ardent fingers!

Give heartening charcoal-warmers!

Prone, outstretched, trembling,

Like him, half dead and cold, whose feet one warm'th-

And shaken, ah! by unfamiliar fevers,

Shivering with sharpened, icy-cold frost-arrows,

By you pursued, my fancy!

Ineffable! Recondite! Sore-frightening!

You huntsman 'hind the cloud-banks!