“⁠—So that all those years are like one another in the greatest and also in the smallest, so that we ourselves, in every great year, are like ourselves in the greatest and also in the smallest.

“And if thou wouldst now die, O Zarathustra, behold, we know also how thou wouldst then speak to thyself:⁠—but thine animals beseech thee not to die yet!

“Thou wouldst speak, and without trembling, buoyant rather with bliss, for a great weight and worry would be taken from thee, thou patientest one!⁠—

“ ‘Now do I die and disappear,’ wouldst thou say, ‘and in a moment I am nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies.

“ ‘But the plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined⁠—it will again create me! I myself pertain to the causes of the eternal return.