Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

FOURTH AND LAST PART. 71. LXXI. THE GREETING. (continued)

--For higher ones, stronger ones, triumphanter ones, merrier ones, for such as are built squarely in body and soul: LAUGHING LIONS must come!

O my guests, ye strange ones--have ye yet heard nothing of my children? And that they are on the way to me?

Do speak unto me of my gardens, of my Happy Isles, of my new beautiful race--why do ye not speak unto me thereof?

This guests'-present do I solicit of your love, that ye speak unto me of my children. For them am I rich, for them I became poor: what have I not surrendered,

--What would I not surrender that I might have one thing: THESE children, THIS living plantation, THESE life-trees of my will and of my highest hope!"

Thus spake Zarathustra, and stopped suddenly in his discourse: for his longing came over him, and he closed his eyes and his mouth, because of the agitation of his heart. And all his guests also were silent, and stood still and confounded: except only that the old soothsayer made signs with his hands and his gestures.