446 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, IV
Thou hast nourished us with strong men's food and powerful sayings. Do not let us at dessert be attacked again by tender, effeminate spirits!
Thou alone makest the air round thee strong and clear ! Have I ever found on earth air so good as with thee, in thy cave ?
Many different lands have I seen, my nose hath learnt to examine and estimate many kinds of air ; but with thee my nostrils taste their highest delight !
Unless it be, unless it be oh, forgive an old reminiscence ! Forgive me an old desert song I once composed among daughters of the desert.
For with them there was the same good bright oriental air ! There was I furthest from cloudy, damp, melancholy Old-Europe !
Then I loved oriental girls of that tribe, and other blue kingdoms of heaven, over which hung no clouds and no thoughts.
Ye will not believe how prettily they sat there, when they did not dance ; deep, but without thoughts ; like little secrets ; like riddles with ribbons ; like nuts at dessert ;
Many-coloured and strange, verily ! but without clouds ; riddles that can be read. To please such girls I then invented my dessert psalm."
Thus spake the wanderer who called himself Zara- thustra's shadow. And before anybody could answer him, he had seized the old wizard's harp, crossed his
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