Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.
Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from the sea.
Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby they are the more like hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in them salt slime.
They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the peacock of peacocks?
Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes doth it spread out its tail; never doth it tire of its lace-fan of silver and silk.
Disdainfully doth the buffalo glance thereat, nigh to the sand with its soul, nigher still to the thicket, nighest, however, to the swamp.
What is beauty and sea and peacock-splendour to it! This parable I speak unto the poets.
Verily, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks, and a sea of vanity!
Spectators, seeketh the spirit of the poet—should they even be buffaloes!—