“My contempt and my longing increase together; the higher I clamber, the more do I despise him who clambereth. What doth he seek on the height?

“How ashamed I am of my clambering and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting! How I hate him who flieth! How tired I am on the height!”

Here the youth was silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood, and spake thus:

“This tree standeth lonely here on the hills; it hath grown up high above man and beast.

“And if it wanted to speak, it would have none who could understand it: so high hath it grown.

“Now it waiteth and waiteth⁠—for what doth it wait? It dwelleth too close to the seat of the clouds; it waiteth perhaps for the first lightning?”