Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

FOURTH AND LAST PART. 72. LXXII. THE SUPPER.

For at this point the soothsayer interrupted the greeting of Zarathustra and his guests: he pressed forward as one who had no time to lose, seized Zarathustra's hand and exclaimed: "But Zarathustra!

One thing is more necessary than the other, so sayest thou thyself: well, one thing is now more necessary UNTO ME than all others.

A word at the right time: didst thou not invite me to TABLE? And here are many who have made long journeys. Thou dost not mean to feed us merely with discourses?

Besides, all of you have thought too much about freezing, drowning, suffocating, and other bodily dangers: none of you, however, have thought of MY danger, namely, perishing of hunger-"

(Thus spake the soothsayer. When Zarathustra's animals, however, heard these words, they ran away in terror. For they saw that all they had brought home during the day would not be enough to fill the one soothsayer.)

"Likewise perishing of thirst," continued the soothsayer. "And although I hear water splashing here like words of wisdom--that is to say, plenteously and unweariedly, I--want WINE!

Not every one is a born water-drinker like Zarathustra. Neither doth water suit weary and withered ones: WE deserve wine--IT alone giveth immediate vigour and improvised health!"

On this occasion, when the soothsayer was longing for wine, it happened that the king on the left, the silent one, also found expression for once. "WE took care," said he, "about wine, I, along with my brother the king on the right: we have enough of wine,--a whole ass-load of it. So there is nothing lacking but bread."

"Bread," replied Zarathustra, laughing when he spake, "it is precisely bread that anchorites have not. But man doth not live by bread alone, but also by the flesh of good lambs, of which I have two:

--THESE shall we slaughter quickly, and cook spicily with sage: it is so that I like them. And there is also no lack of roots and fruits, good enough even for the fastidious and dainty,--nor of nuts and other riddles for cracking.