My sighing sat on all human graves, and could no longer arise: my sighing and questioning croaked and choked, and gnawed and nagged day and night:
—“Ah, man returneth eternally! The small man returneth eternally!”
Naked had I once seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man: all too like one another—all too human, even the greatest man!
All too small, even the greatest man!—that was my disgust at man! And the eternal return also of the smallest man!—that was my disgust at all existence!
Ah, Disgust! Disgust! Disgust!—Thus spake Zarathustra, and sighed and shuddered; for he remembered his sickness. Then did his animals prevent him from speaking further.
“Do not speak further, thou convalescent!”—so answered his animals, “but go out where the world waiteth for thee like a garden.
Go out unto the roses, the bees, and the flocks of doves! Especially, however, unto the singing birds, to learn SINGING from them!
For singing is for the convalescent; the sound ones may talk. And when the sound also want songs, then want they other songs than the convalescent.”
—“O ye wags and barrel-organs, do be silent!” answered Zarathustra, and smiled at his animals. “How well ye know what consolation I devised for myself in seven days!
That I have to sing once more—THAT consolation did I devise for myself, and THIS convalescence: would ye also make another lyre-lay thereof?”