The gold, however, and the laughter—these doth he take out of the heart of the earth: for, that thou mayst know it,—THE HEART OF THE EARTH IS OF GOLD.”
Zarathustra tells of another fire-dog who speaks from the earth's heart and exhales gold and laughter. The first fire-dog, cowed, creeps back into his cave.
- Fidelity to the earth and the bodyTruth speaks from the earth's heart, which yields gold and laughter, not ashes.
- Laughter, dance and lightnessThe true fire-dog breathes laughter like a coloured cloud.
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that Zarathustra's interview with the fire-dog, easily dismissed as fantasy, is important because it confronts the spirit of revolution that Nietzsche most loathed, and shows that for him the world turns inaudibly around inventors of new values, not of new noise.