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5.
It carries me away, my soul dances. Day’s-work! Day’s-work! Who is to be master of the world?
The moon is cool, the wind is still. Ah! Ah! Have you already flown high enough? You have danced: a leg, nevertheless, is not a wing.
You good dancers, now is all delight over: wine has become lees, every cup has become brittle, the sepulchres mutter.
You have not flown high enough: now do the sepulchres mutter: «Free the dead! Why is it so long night? does not the moon make us drunken?»
You higher men, free the sepulchres, awaken the corpses! Ah, why does the worm still burrow? There approaches, there approaches, the hour,-
-There booms the clock-bell, there thrills still the heart, there burrows still the wood-worm, the heart-worm. Ah! Ah! The world is deep!
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6.
Sweet lyre! Sweet lyre! I love your tone, your drunken, ranunculine tone!- how long, how far has come to me your tone, from the distance, from the ponds of love!
You old clock-bell, you sweet lyre! Every pain has torn your heart, father-pain, fathers’-pain, forefathers’-pain; your speech has become ripe,-
-Ripe like the golden autumn and the afternoon, like my hermit heart-now say you: The world itself has become ripe, the grape turns brown,
-Now does it wish to die, to die of happiness. You higher men, do you not feel it? There wells up mysteriously an odour,
-A perfume and odour of eternity, a rosy-blessed, brown, gold-wine-odour of old happiness.
-Of drunken midnight-death happiness, which sings: the world is deep, and deeper than the day could read!
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7.
Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I am too pure for you. Touch me not! has not my world just now become perfect?
My skin is too pure for your hands. Leave me alone, you dull, doltish, stupid day! Is not the midnight brighter?
The purest are to be masters of the world, the least known, the strongest, the midnight-souls, who are brighter and deeper than any day. O day, you grope for me? you feel for my happiness? For you am I
rich, lonesome, a treasure-pit, a gold chamber?
O world, you want me? Am I worldly for you? Am I spiritual for you? Am I divine for you? But day and world, you are too coarse,-
-Have cleverer hands, grasp after deeper happiness, after deeper un-happiness, grasp after some God; grasp not after me:
-My unhappiness, my happiness is deep, you strange day, but yet am I no God, no God’s-hell: deep is its woe.
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8.
God’s woe is deeper, you strange world! Grasp at God’s woe, not at me! What am I! A drunken sweet lyre,-
-A midnight-lyre, a bell-frog, which no one understands, but which must speak before deaf ones, you higher men! For you do not under-stand me!
Gone! Gone! O youth! O noontide! O afternoon! Now have come even-ing and night and midnight,- the dog howls, the wind:
-Is the wind not a dog? It whines, it barks, it howls. Ah! Ah! how she sighs! how she laughs, how she wheezes and pants, the midnight!
How she just now speaks soberly, this drunken poetess! has she per-haps overdrunk her drunkenness? has she become overawake? does she ruminate?
-Her woe does she ruminate over, in a dream, the old, deep midnight-and still more her joy. For joy, although woe be deep, joy is deeper still than grief can be.
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9.
You grape-vine! Why do you praise me? Have I not cut you! I am cruel, you bleedest-: what means your praise of my drunken cruelty?
«Whatever has become perfect, everything mature- wants to die!» so say you. Blessed, blessed be the vintner’s knife! But everything immature wants to live: alas!
Woe says: «Hence! Go! Away, you woe!» But everything that suffers wants to live, that it may become mature and lively and longing,
-Longing for the further, the higher, the brighter. «I want heirs,» so says everything that suffers, «I want children, I do not want myself,»-
Joy, however, does not want heirs, it does not want children,- joy wants itself, it wants eternity, it wants recurrence, it wants everything eternally-like-itself.
Woe says: «Break, bleed, you heart! Wander, you leg! you wing, fly! Onward! upward! you pain!» Well! Cheer up! O my old heart: Woe says: «Hence! Go!»
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10.
You higher men, what think ye? Am I a soothsayer? Or a dreamer? Or a drunkard? Or a dream-reader? Or a midnight-bell?
Or a drop of dew? Or a fume and fragrance of eternity? Hear you it not? Smell you it not? Just now has my world become perfect, midnight is also mid-day,-
Pain is also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun,- go away! or you will learn that a sage is also a fool.
Said you ever Yes to one joy? O my friends, then said you Yes also to all woe. All things are enlinked, enlaced and enamoured,-
-Wanted you ever once to come twice; said you ever: «You please me, happiness! Instant! Moment!» then wanted you all to come back again!
-All anew, all eternal, all enlinked, enlaced and enamoured, Oh, then did you love the world,-
-You eternal ones, you love it eternally and for all time: and also to woe do you say: Hence! Go! but come back! For joys all want- eternity!
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11.
All joy wants the eternity of all things, it wants honey, it wants lees, it wants drunken midnight, it wants graves, it wants grave-tears’ consola-tion, it wants gilded evening-red-
-What does not joy want! it is thirstier, heartier, hungrier, more fright-ful, more mysterious, than all woe: it wants itself, it bites into itself, the ring’s will wriths in it,-
-It wants love, it wants hate, it is over-rich, it gives, it throws away, it begs for some one to take from it, it thanks the taker, it would rather be hated,-
-So rich is joy that it thirsts for woe, for hell, for hate, for shame, for the lame, for the world,- for this world, Oh, you know it indeed!
You higher men, for you does it long, this joy, this irrepressible, blessed joy- for your woe, you failures! For failures, longs all eternal joy.
For joys all want themselves, therefore do they also want grief! O hap-piness, O pain! Oh break, you heart! You higher men, do learn it, that joys want eternity.
-Joys want the eternity of all things, they want deep, profound eternity!
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12.
Have you now learned my song? Have you divined what it would say? Well! Cheer up! You higher men, sing now my roundelay!
Sing now yourselves the song, the name of which is «Once more,» the signification of which is «To all eternity!»- sing, you higher men, Zarathustra’s roundelay!
O man! Take heed!
What says deep midnight’s voice indeed? «I slept my sleep-,
«From deepest dream I’ve woke, and plead:-«The world is deep,
«And deeper than the day could read. «Deep is its woe-,
«Joy- deeper still than grief can be: «Woe says: Hence! Go!
«But joys all want eternity-,
«-Want deep, profound eternity!»
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Chapter 20 The Sign
IN THE morning, however, after this night, Zarathustra jumped up from his couch, and, having girded his loins, he came out of his cave glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains.
«You great star,» spoke he, as he had spoken once before, «you deep eye of happiness, what would be all your happiness if you had not those for whom you shine!
And if they remained in their chambers whilst you are already awake, and come and give and distribute, how would your proud modesty up-braid for it!
Well! they still sleep, these higher men, whilst I am awake: they are not my proper companions! Not for them do I wait here in my mountains.
At my work I want to be, at my day: but they understand not what are the signs of my morning, my step- is not for them the awakening-call.
They still sleep in my cave; their dream still drinks at my drunken songs. The audient ear for me- the obedient ear, is yet lacking in their limbs.»
-This had Zarathustra spoken to his heart when the sun arose: then looked he inquiringly aloft, for he heard above him the sharp call of his eagle. «Well!» called he upwards, «thus is it pleasing and proper to me. My animals are awake, for I am awake.
My eagle is awake, and like me honors the sun. With eagle-talons does it grasp at the new light. You are my proper animals; I love you.
But still do I lack my proper men!»-
Thus spoke Zarathustra; then, however, it happened that all on a sud-den he became aware that he was flocked around and fluttered around, as if by innumerable birds,- the whizzing of so many wings, however, and the crowding around his head was so great that he shut his eyes. And verily, there came down upon him as it were a cloud, like a cloud of
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arrows which pours upon a new enemy. But behold, here it was a cloud of love, and showered upon a new friend.
«What happens to me?» thought Zarathustra in his astonished heart, and slowly seated himself on the big stone which lay close to the exit from his cave. But while he grasped about with his hands, around him, above him and below him, and repelled the tender birds, behold, there then happened to him something still stranger: for he grasped thereby unawares into a mass of thick,
