eth on his back, the submissive one; and there is also wisdom that is
submissive, and doggish, and pious, and obsequious.

Hateful to it altogether, and a loathing, is he who will never defend
himself, he who swalloweth down poisonous spittle and bad looks, the
all-too-patient one, the all-endurer, the all-satisfied one: for that is
the mode of slaves.

Whether they be servile before Gods and divine spurnings, or before men
and stupid human opinions: at ALL kinds of slaves doth it spit, this
blessed selfishness!

Bad: thus doth it call all that is spirit-broken, and
sordidly-servile--constrained, blinking eyes, depressed hearts, and the
false submissive style, which kisseth with broad cowardly lips.

And spurious wisdom: so doth it call all the wit that slaves, and
hoary-headed and weary ones affect; and especially all the cunning,
spurious-witted, curious-witted foolishness of priests!

The spurious wise, however, all the priests, the world-weary, and those
whose souls are of feminine and servile nature--oh, how hath their game
all along abused selfishness!

And precisely THAT was to be virtue and was to be called virtue--to
abuse selfishness! And "selfless"--so did they wish themselves with good
reason, all those world-weary cowards and cross-spiders!

But to all those cometh now the day, the change, the sword of judgment,
THE GREAT NOONTIDE: then shall many things be revealed!

And he who proclaimeth the EGO wholesome and holy, and selfishness
blessed, verily, he, the prognosticator, speaketh also what he knoweth:
"BEHOLD, IT COMETH, IT IS NIGH, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!"

Thus spake Zarathustra.

LV. THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY.

1.

My mouthpiece--is of the people: too coarsely and cordially do I
talk for Angora rabbits. And still stranger soundeth my word unto all
ink-fish and pen-foxes.

My hand--is a fool's hand: woe unto all tables and walls, and whatever
hath room for fool's sketching, fool's scrawling!

My foot--is a horse-foot; therewith do I trample and trot over stick and
stone, in the fields up and down, and am bedevilled with delight in all
fast racing.

My stomach--is surely an eagle's stomach? For it preferreth lamb's
flesh. Certainly it is a bird's stomach.

Nourished with innocent things, and with few, ready and impatient
to fly, to fly away--that is now my nature: why should there not be
something of bird-nature therein!

And especially that I am hostile to the spirit of gravity, tha