61. The Honey Sacrifice
-And again passed moons and years over Zarathustra's soul, and he heeded it not; his hair, however, became white. One day when he sat on a stone in front of his cave, and gazed calmly into the distance- one there gazes out on the sea, and away beyond sinuous abysses,- then went his animals thoughtfully round about him, and at last set themselves in front of him.
"O Zarathustra," said they, "gaze you out perhaps for your happiness?"- "Of what account is my happiness!" answered he, "I have long ceased to strive any more for happiness, I strive for my work."- "O Zarathustra," said the animals once more, "that say you as one who has overmuch of good things. Lie you not in a sky-blue lake of happiness?"- "You wags," answered Zarathustra, and smiled, "how well did you choose the simile! But you know also that my happiness is heavy, and not like a fluid wave of water: it presses me and will not leave me, and is like molten pitch." –
Then went his animals again thoughtfully around him, and placed themselves once more in front of him. "O Zarathustra," said they, "it is consequently for that reason that you yourself always becomes yellower and darker, although your hair looks white and flaxen? Lo, you sit in your pitch!" – "What do you say, my animals?" said Zarathustra, laughing; "verily I reviled when I spoke of pitch. As it happens with
263
