Thus sighed the soothsayer; with his last sigh, however, Zarathustra again became serene and assured, like one who hath come out of a deep chasm into the light. “Nay! Nay! Three times Nay!” exclaimed he with a strong voice, and stroked his beard—“THAT do I know better! There are still Happy Isles! Silence THEREON, thou sighing sorrow-sack!
Zarathustra recovers his serenity, tells the soothsayer to stop splashing him with misery, and decides to go at once to the forest where the cry came from.
- Affirmation (Yea-saying, amor fati)Zarathustra answers the soothsayer's emptiness with a strong refusal and insists that Happy Isles still exist.
- The higher menHe resolves to seek the higher man in the forest, in his own domain.
What the critics said
Ludovici identifies the soothsayer of 'The Cry of Distress' with Schopenhauer, whose pessimistic ethics place pity highest, and reads the scene as Schopenhauer tempting Nietzsche to his last sin through his deepest sentiment, sympathy for higher men.
Ludovici identifies the soothsayer of 'The Cry of Distress' with Schopenhauer, whose pessimistic ethics place pity highest, and reads the scene as Schopenhauer tempting Nietzsche to his last sin through his deepest sentiment, sympathy for higher men.