Here, where amid seas the island rose, a steeply towering sacrificial stone, here beneath a black sky Zarathustra lit for himself his mountain fire a fire-signal for seamen blown off course, a question-mark for those who possess answers...

This flame with light-grey belly its eager tongue flicking the chill horizon, its neck arched out to ever purer heights a snake raised upright with impatience: this signal I set up before me.

My soul, my soul itself, is this flame: insatiable for new horizons its silent glowing passion blazes upward. Why did Zarathustra flee from beasts and men? Why did he flee from all firm land? Six solitudes he knew already but the sea itself had too little solitude for him, the island welcomed him, and on the mountain he became a flame, and when now he whirls his fishing-line it is a seventh solitude he seeks to catch.

Seamen blown off course! Rubble of old stars! You seas of the future! Unexplored sky! to all that knows solitude do I now throw this line: give answer to the flame's impatience, catch me, the fisherman on high mountains, my seventh, final solitude!