THE CONVALESCENT ONE 321
Thou teachest that there is a great year of becoming, a monstrous, great year. It must, like an hourglass, ever turn upside down again in order to run down and run out
So that all these years are like unto each other, in the greatest and in the smallest things ; so that in every great year we are like unto ourselves, in the greatest and in the smallest things.
And if thou wouldst now die, O Zarathustra be- hold, we even know what thou wouldst then say unto thyself. But thine animals pray thee not to die yet ! 'Thou wouldst speak, and without trembling, on the contrary breathing deeply with happiness. For a great burden and sultriness would be taken from thee, thou most patient one !
'Now I die and vanish,' thou wouldst say, 'and in a moment I shall be nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies. *
But the knot of causes recurreth in which I am twined. It will create me again ! I myself belong unto the causes of eternal recurrence.
I come back, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent not for a new life, or a better life, or an eternal life.
I come eternally back unto this one and the same life, in the greatest things and in the smallest things, in order to teach once more the eternal recurrence of all things ;
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