In vain! Goad further! Cruellest goader! No dog—thy game just am I, Cruellest huntsman! Thy proudest of captives, Thou robber ’hind the cloud-banks ... Speak finally! Thou lightning-veiled one! Thou unknown one! Speak! What wilt thou, highway-ambusher, from—ME? What WILT thou, unfamiliar—God? What? Ransom-gold? How much of ransom-gold? Solicit much—that bid’th my pride! And be concise—that bid’th mine other pride! Ha! Ha! ME—wantest thou? me? —Entire?... Ha! Ha! And torturest me, fool that thou art, Dead-torturest quite my pride? Give LOVE to me—who warm’th me still? Who lov’th me still?— Give ardent fingers, Give heartening charcoal-warmers, Give me, the lonesomest, The ice (ah! seven-fold frozen ice, For very enemies, For foes, doth make one thirst), Give, yield to me, Cruellest foe, —THYSELF!— Away! There fled he surely, My final, only comrade, My greatest foe, Mine unfamiliar— My hangman-God!... —Nay! Come thou back! WITH all of thy great tortures! To me the last of lonesome ones, Oh, come thou back! All my hot tears in streamlets trickle Their course to thee! And all my final hearty fervour— Up-glow’th to THEE! Oh, come thou back, Mine unfamiliar God! my PAIN! My final bliss! 2. —Here, however, Zarathustra could no longer restrain himself; he took his staff and struck the wailer with all his might. “Stop this,” cried he to him with wrathful laughter, “stop this, thou stage-player! Thou false coiner! Thou liar from the very heart! I know thee well! I will soon make warm legs to thee, thou evil magician: I know well how—to make it hot for such as thou!” —“Leave off,” said the old man, and sprang up from the ground, “strike me no more, O Zarathustra! I did it only for amusement! That kind of thing belongeth to mine art. Thee thyself, I wanted to put to the proof when I gave this performance. And verily, thou hast well detected me! But thou thyself—hast given me no small proof of thyself: thou art HARD, thou wise Zarathustra! Hard strikest thou with thy ‘truths,’ thy cudgel forceth from me—THIS truth!” —“Flatter not,” answered Zarathustra, still excited and frowning, “thou stage-player from the heart! Thou art false: why speakest thou—of truth! Thou peacock of peacocks, thou sea of vanity; WHAT didst thou represent before me, thou evil magician; WHOM was I meant to believe in when thou wailedst in such wise?” “THE PENITENT IN SPIRIT,” said the old man, “it was him—I represented; thou thyself once devisedst this expression— —The poet and magician who at last turneth his spirit against himself, the transformed one who freezeth to death by his bad science and conscience.