Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

THIRD PART. 49. XLIX. THE BEDWARFING VIRTUE. (continued)

Love ever your neighbour as yourselves--but first be such as LOVE THEMSELVES--

--Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!" Thus speaketh Zarathustra the godless.--

But why talk I, when no one hath MINE ears! It is still an hour too early for me here.

Mine own forerunner am I among this people, mine own cockcrow in dark lanes.

But THEIR hour cometh! And there cometh also mine! Hourly do they become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller,--poor herbs! poor earth!

And SOON shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie, and verily, weary of themselves--and panting for FIRE, more than for water!

O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide!--Running fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues:--

--Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: It cometh, it is nigh, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

Thus spake Zarathustra.