Zarathustra listens to the reproach, smiles and hesitates. "True," he says at last, "but thou also knowest. ..." They gaze at each other, and he tells her something in her ear, among all her confused, stupid yellow tresses. "What though I die?" he says; "nothing can separate, nothing can reconcile, for every moment has its return, every moment is eternal."
"What," answers the goddess, "that thou knowest, Zarathustra? That no one knoweth."
Their eyes meet. They look at the green meadow over which the cool of evening was spreading; they weep, then, in silence, they listen, they understand the eleven sayings of the old bell which strikes midnight in the mountain.
One! Oh man! Lose not sight!
Two! What saith the deep midnight?
Three! I lay in sleep, in sleep;
Four! From deep dream, I woke to light.
Five! The world is deep,
Six! And deeper than ever day thought it might.
Seven! Deep is its woe—