Gone! Gone! O youth! O noontide! O afternoon! Now have come evening and night and midnight; the dog howleth, the wind —

Is the wind not a dog? It whineth, it barketh, it howleth. Ah! Ah! How she sigheth! How she laugheth, how she wheezeth and panteth, the midnight!

How she just now speaketh soberly, this drunken poetess! Hath she perhaps overdrunk her drunkenness? Hath she become over-awake? Doth she ruminate?

Her woe doth 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.

9

Thou grape-vine! Why dost thou praise me? Have I not cut thee! I am cruel, thou bleedest — what meaneth thy praise of my drunken cruelty?

‘Whatever hath become perfect, everything mature — wanteth to die!’ So sayest thou. Blessed, blessed be the vintner’s knife! But everything immature wanteth to live; alas!

Woe saith: ‘Hence! Go! Away, thou woe!’ But everything that suffereth wanteth to live, that it may become mature and lively and longing —

Longing for the further, the higher, the brighter. ‘I want heirs,’ so saith everything that suffereth, ‘I want children, I do not want myself’ —

Joy, however, doth not want heirs, it doth not want children — joy wanteth itself, it wanteth eternity, it wanteth recurrence, it wanteth everything eternally-like-itself.

Woe saith: ‘Break, bleed, thou heart! Wander, thou leg! Thou wing, fly! Onward, upward, thou pain!’ Well! Cheer up, O mine old heart! Woe saith: ‘Hence! Go!’

10

Ye 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 ye it not? Smell ye it not? Just now hath my world become perfect, midnight is also midday —

Pain is also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun — go away, or ye will learn that a sage is also a fool!

Said ye ever Yea to one joy? O my friends, then said ye Yea also unto all woe. All things are enlinked, enlaced and enamoured —

Wanted ye ever once to come twice; said ye ever: ‘Thou pleasest me, happiness! Instant! Moment!’ then wanted ye all to come back again!

All anew, all eternal, all enlinked, enlaced and enamoured. Oh, then did ye love the world —

Ye eternal ones, ye love it eternally and for all time and also unto woe do ye say: ‘Hence! Go, but come back! For joys all want — eternity!’