Courage slayeth also giddiness at abysses: and where doth man not stand at abysses! Is not seeing itself—seeing abysses?
Courage is the best slayer: courage slayeth also fellow-suffering. Fellow-suffering, however, is the deepest abyss: as deeply as man looketh into life, so deeply also doth he look into suffering.
Courage, however, is the best slayer, courage which attacketh: it slayeth even death itself; for it saith: “WAS THAT life? Well! Once more!”
In such speech, however, there is much sound of triumph. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear.—
2.
“Halt, dwarf!” said I. “Either I—or thou! I, however, am the stronger of the two:—thou knowest not mine abysmal thought! IT—couldst thou not endure!”
Then happened that which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a gateway just where we halted.
“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued, “it hath two faces. Two roads come together here: these hath no one yet gone to the end of.
This long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward—that is another eternity.
They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:—and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘This Moment.’