Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/314

 is any longer genuine, but your mouth is so: that is to say, the disgust that cleaves to your mouth."- -

-"Who are you at all!" cried here the old magician with defiant voice, "who dares to speak thus to me, the greatest man now living?"- and a green flash shot from his eye at Zarathustra. But immediately after he changed, and said sadly:

"O Zarathustra, I am weary of it, I am disgusted with my arts, I am not great, why do I dissemble! But you know it well- I sought for greatness!

A great man I wanted to appear, and persuaded many; but the lie has been beyond my power. On it do I collapse.

O Zarathustra, everything is a lie in me; but that I collapse- this my collapsing is genuine!"-

"It honors you," said Zarathustra gloomily, looking down with sidelong glance, "it honors you that you sought for greatness, but it betrays you also. You are not great.

You bad old magician, that is the best and the honestest thing I honor in you, that you have become weary of yourself, and have expressed it: 'I am not great.'

Therein do I honor you as a penitent-in-spirit, and although only for the twinkling of an eye, in that one moment wast you- genuine.

But tell me, what seek you here in my forests and rocks? And if you have put yourself in my way, what proof of me would you have?-

-Wherein did you put me to the test?"

Thus spoke Zarathustra, and his eyes sparkled. But the old magician kept silence for a while; then said he: "Did I put you to the test? I- seek only.

O Zarathustra, I seek a genuine one, a right one, a simple