This the finest air drinking, With nostrils out-swelled like goblets, Lacking future, lacking remembrances Thus do I sit here, ye Friendly damsels dearly loved, And look at the palm-tree there, How it, to a dance-girl, like, Doth bow and bend and on its haunches bob, —One doth it too, when one view’th it long!— To a dance-girl like, who as it seem’th to me, Too long, and dangerously persistent, Always, always, just on SINGLE leg hath stood? —Then forgot she thereby, as it seem’th to me, The OTHER leg? For vainly I, at least, Did search for the amissing Fellow-jewel —Namely, the other leg— In the sanctified precincts, Nigh her very dearest, very tenderest, Flapping and fluttering and flickering skirting. Yea, if ye should, ye beauteous friendly ones, Quite take my word: She hath, alas! LOST it! Hu! Hu! Hu! Hu! Hu! It is away! For ever away! The other leg! Oh, pity for that loveliest other leg! Where may it now tarry, all-forsaken weeping? The lonesomest leg? In fear perhaps before a Furious, yellow, blond and curled Leonine monster? Or perhaps even Gnawed away, nibbled badly— Most wretched, woeful! woeful! nibbled badly! Selah. Oh, weep ye not, Gentle spirits! Weep ye not, ye Date-fruit spirits! Milk-bosoms! Ye sweetwood-heart Purselets! Weep ye no more, Pallid Dudu! Be a man, Suleika! Bold! Bold! —Or else should there perhaps Something strengthening, heart-strengthening, Here most proper be? Some inspiring text? Some solemn exhortation?— Ha! Up now! honour! Moral honour! European honour! Blow again, continue, Bellows-box of virtue! Ha! Once more thy roaring, Thy moral roaring! As a virtuous lion Nigh the daughters of deserts roaring! —For virtue’s out-howl, Ye very dearest maidens, Is more than every European fervour, European hot-hunger! And now do I stand here, As European, I can’t be different, God’s help to me! Amen! THE DESERTS GROW: WOE HIM WHO DOTH THEM HIDE! LXXVII. THE AWAKENING. 1. After the song of the wanderer and shadow, the cave became all at once full of noise and laughter: and since the assembled guests all spake simultaneously, and even the ass, encouraged thereby, no longer remained silent, a little aversion and scorn for his visitors came over Zarathustra, although he rejoiced at their gladness. For it seemed to him a sign of convalescence. So he slipped out into the open air and spake to his animals. “Whither hath their distress now gone?” said he, and already did he himself feel relieved of his petty disgust—“with me, it seemeth that they have unlearned their cries of distress!