L. On the Olive-Mount

Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly hand-shaking. I honour him, that bad guest, but gladly leave him alone. Gladly do I run away from him; and when one runneth WELL, then…

Zarathustra speaks of winter as a bad guest he honours but runs from, to the sunny corner of his olive-mount. He prefers hardness and poverty to idol-worshipping warmth, and laughs even in his cold bed.

With a wickedness do I begin every day: I mock at the winter with a cold bath: on that account grumbleth my stern house-mate. Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally let the heavens emerge…

He mocks winter each morning and waits for the silent, snow-bearded winter-sky, which stifles even its sun. From it he has learned a silence that does not betray itself, so that no one sees his ultimate will.

Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness! And MUST I not conceal myself like one who hath swallowed gold—lest my soul should be…

Like one who has swallowed gold, he hides himself and wears stilts against enviers. He puts accidents and winter-privations around his happiness so that it is not envied.

To one man, lonesomeness is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight FROM the sick ones.

Zarathustra lets the poor squinting knaves hear his chattering and lament that he will freeze at the ice of knowledge. Meanwhile he runs with warm feet on his olive-mount and sings, mocking all pity.