To me, however, did the heart writhe with laughter, and was like to break; it knew not where to go, and sunk into the midriff.

Verily, it will be my death yet — to choke with laughter when I see asses drunken, and hear night-watchmen thus doubt about God.

Hath the time not long since passed for all such doubts? Who may nowadays awaken such old slumbering, light-shunning things!

With the old Deities hath it long since come to an end — and verily, a good joyful Deity-end had they!

They did not ‘begloom’ themselves to death — that do people fabricate! On the contrary, they — laughed themselves to death once on a time!

That took place when the ungodliest utterance came from a God himself — the utterance: ‘There is but one God! Thou shalt have no other Gods before me!’ —

An old grim-beard of a God, a jealous one, forgot himself in such wise —

And all the Gods then laughed, and shook upon their thrones, and exclaimed: ‘Is it not just divinity that there are Gods, but no God?’

He that hath an ear let him hear.

Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed ‘The Pied Cow’. For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once more his cave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly on account of the nighness of his return home.