Who is the shepherd into whose throat the serpent thus crawled? Who is the man into whose throat all the heaviest and blackest will thus crawl?

—The shepherd however bit as my cry had admonished him; he bit with a strong bite! Far away did he spit the head of the serpent⁠—: and sprang up.⁠—

No longer shepherd, no longer man⁠—a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, that laughed ! Never on earth laughed a man as he laughed!

O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter⁠⸺and now gnaweth a thirst at me, a longing that is never allayed.