Here, however, did Zarathustra interrupt the foaming fool, and shut his mouth.—
Stop this at once! called out Zarathustra, long have thy speech and thy species disgusted me!
Why didst thou live so long by the swamp, that thou thyself hadst to become a frog and a toad?
Floweth there not a tainted, frothy, swamp-blood in thine own veins, when thou hast thus learned to croak and revile?
Why wentest thou not into the forest? Or why didst thou not till the ground? Is the sea not full of green islands?
I despise thy contempt; and when thou warnedst me—why didst thou not warn thyself?
Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; but not out of the swamp!—
They call thee mine ape, thou foaming fool: but I call thee my grunting-pig,—by thy grunting, thou spoilest even my praise of folly.
What was it that first made thee grunt? Because no one sufficiently FLATTERED thee:—therefore didst thou seat thyself beside this filth, that thou mightest have cause for much grunting,—
—That thou mightest have cause for much VENGEANCE! For vengeance, thou vain fool, is all thy foaming; I have divined thee well!
But thy fools’-word injureth ME, even when thou art right! And even if Zarathustra’s word WERE a hundred times justified, thou wouldst ever—DO wrong with my word!
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that the fool of 'On Passing-by' is Nietzsche's extreme opposite and his imitator, the iconoclast who destroys out of resentment and revenge, with whom the public confuses Nietzsche, who destroys out of love; Zarathustra's rebuke of him should warn readers against associating Nietzsche with noisy revolutionists.