My hand pulled at the serpent, and pulled:⁠—in vain! I failed to pull the serpent out of his throat. Then there cried out of me: “Bite! Bite!

“Its head off! Bite!”⁠—so cried it out of me; my horror, my hatred, my loathing, my pity, all my good and my bad cried with one voice out of me.⁠—

Ye daring ones around me! Ye venturers and adventurers, and whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! Ye enigma-enjoyers!

Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret unto me the vision of the lonesomest one!

For it was a vision and a foresight:⁠— what did I then behold in parable? And who is it that must come some day?