"What with man is the ape? A joke or a sore shame. Man shall be the same for the overman, a joke or a sore shame. "Behold, I teach you the overman! "The overman is the significance of the earth. Your will shall say; the overman shall be the significance of the earth. "I conjure you, my brethren, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak unto you of superterrestrial hopes! Poisoners they are whether they know it or not. "Verily, a muddy stream is man. One must be the ocean to be able to receive a muddy stream without becoming unclean. "Behold, I teach you the overman: he is that ocean, in him your great contempt can sink. "What is the greatest thing ye can experience? That is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which not only your happiness, but your reason and virtue as well, turn loathsome. "I love him who is of a free spirit and of a free heart: thus his head is merely the intestine of his heart, but his heart driveth him to destruction. "I love all those who are like heavy drops falling one by one from the dark cloud lowering over men: they announce the coming of the lightning and perish in the announcing. "Behold, I am an announcer of the lightning and a heavy drop from the clouds; that lightning's name it the overman." Zarathustra comes as an enemy of the good and the just. He says: "Lo, the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh to pieces their tables of values,--the law-breaker, the criminal:--but he is the creator. "The destroyer of morality I am called by the good and just: my tale is immoral." [Illustration: COINS OF ANCIENT ELIS. Each is worth two drachmæ. One shows on the obverse a Zeus head with a laurel wreath, the other a winged Victory.] Nietzsche's favorite animals are the proud eagle and the cunning serpent, the former because it typifies aristocracy, the latter as the wisest among all creatures of the earth. It is a strange and exceptional combination, for these two animals are commonly represented as enemies. The eagle and serpent was the emblem of ancient Elis and is at present the coat-of-arms of Mexico, but in both cases the eagle is interpreted to be the conqueror of the serpent, not its friend, carrying it as his prey in his claws. Zarathustra's philosophy is a combination of the eagle's pride and the serpent's wisdom, which Nietzsche describes thus: "Lo! an eagle swept through the air in wide circles, a serpent hanging from it not like a prey, but like a friend: coiling round its neck. "They are mine animals,' said Zarathustra and rejoiced heartily. "The proudest animal under the sun, and the wisest animal under the sun have set out to reconnoitre.