Ghost-breathing and ghost-whisking, seemeth to me all the jingle-jangling of their harps; what have they known hitherto of the fervour of tones!— They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddle their water that it may seem deep. And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but mediaries and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!— Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God. Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from the sea. Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby they are the more like hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in them salt slime. They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the peacock of peacocks? Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes doth it spread out its tail; never doth it tire of its lace-fan of silver and silk. Disdainfully doth the buffalo glance thereat, nigh to the sand with its soul, nigher still to the thicket, nighest, however, to the swamp. What is beauty and sea and peacock-splendour to it! This parable I speak unto the poets. Verily, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks, and a sea of vanity! Spectators, seeketh the spirit of the poet—should they even be buffaloes!— But of this spirit became I weary; and I see the time coming when it will become weary of itself. Yea, changed have I seen the poets, and their glance turned towards themselves. Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing; they grew out of the poets.— Thus spake Zarathustra. XL. GREAT EVENTS. There is an isle in the sea—not far from the Happy Isles of Zarathustra—on which a volcano ever smoketh; of which isle the people, and especially the old women amongst them, say that it is placed as a rock before the gate of the nether-world; but that through the volcano itself the narrow way leadeth downwards which conducteth to this gate. Now about the time that Zarathustra sojourned on the Happy Isles, it happened that a ship anchored at the isle on which standeth the smoking mountain, and the crew went ashore to shoot rabbits. About the noontide hour, however, when the captain and his men were together again, they saw suddenly a man coming towards them through the air, and a voice said distinctly: “It is time! It is the highest time!” But when the figure was nearest to them (it flew past quickly, however, like a shadow, in the direction of the volcano), then did they recognise with the greatest surprise that it was Zarathustra; for they had all seen him before except the captain himself, and they loved him as the people love: in such wise that love and awe were combined in equal degree. “Behold!” said the old helmsman, “there goeth Zarathustra to hell!”