Many a one have I found who stretched and inflated himself, and the people cried: ‘Behold; a great man!’ But what good do all bellows do! The wind cometh out at last.
At last bursteth the frog which hath inflated itself too long: then cometh out the wind. To prick a swollen one in the belly, I call good pastime. Hear that, ye boys!
Our to-day is of the populace: who still KNOWETH what is great and what is small! Who could there seek successfully for greatness! A fool only: it succeedeth with fools.
Thou seekest for great men, thou strange fool? Who TAUGHT that to thee? Is to-day the time for it? Oh, thou bad seeker, why dost thou—tempt me?”—
Thus spake Zarathustra, comforted in his heart, and went laughing on his way.
LXVI. OUT OF SERVICE.
Not long, however, after Zarathustra had freed himself from the magician, he again saw a person sitting beside the path which he followed, namely a tall, black man, with a haggard, pale countenance: THIS MAN grieved him exceedingly. “Alas,” said he to his heart, “there sitteth disguised affliction; methinketh he is of the type of the priests: what do THEY want in my domain?
What! Hardly have I escaped from that magician, and must another necromancer again run across my path,—
—Some sorcerer with laying-on-of-hands, some sombre wonder-worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-maligner, whom, may the devil take!