How many an afternoon I have passed beneath its shadow, having quieted the clamor of my thoughts.
Cébès: And what has it taught you?
Simon: Now, in this hour of anguish! Now I must find it again!
(They come to the foot of a huge tree.
O tree, receive me again! Alone I left the protection of your branches. And now it is alone that I return, O immovable father!
Take me once more beneath your shadow, O son of the Earth! O wood, in this hour of sorrow! O murmuring branches, impart to me
That message which I am and of which I feel within me the terrible striving.
For you yourself are only a ceaseless striving, the unwearied drawing of your body out of inanimate matter.
How you suck the earth, old tree,
Thrusting down, stretching out in every direction your strong and subtile roots! And the sky, how you cling to it! How your whole being breathes it in through one great leaf, Form of Flame!