For the sake of the leech did I lie here by this swamp, like a fisher, and already had mine outstretched arm been bitten ten times, when there biteth a still finer leech at my blood, Zarathustra himself!
O happiness! O miracle! Praised be this day which enticed me into the swamp! Praised be the best, the livest cupping-glass, that at present liveth; praised be the great conscience-leech Zarathustra!”—
Thus spake the trodden one, and Zarathustra rejoiced at his words and their refined reverential style. “Who art thou?” asked he, and gave him his hand, “there is much to clear up and elucidate between us, but already methinketh pure clear day is dawning.”
“I am THE SPIRITUALLY CONSCIENTIOUS ONE,” answered he who was asked, “and in matters of the spirit it is difficult for any one to take it more rigorously, more restrictedly, and more severely than I, except him from whom I learnt it, Zarathustra himself.
Better know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on one’s own account, than a sage on other people’s approbation! I—go to the basis:
—What matter if it be great or small? If it be called swamp or sky? A handbreadth of basis is enough for me, if it be actually basis and ground!
—A handbreadth of basis: thereon can one stand. In the true knowing-knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small.”
“Then thou art perhaps an expert on the leech?” asked Zarathustra; “and thou investigatest the leech to its ultimate basis, thou conscientious one?”
“O Zarathustra,” answered the trodden one, “that would be something immense; how could I presume to do so!
That, however, of which I am master and knower, is the BRAIN of the leech:—that is MY world!