--- title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra" author: "Friedrich Nietzsche" translator: "Thomas Common" languages: [en] shelf: "Philosophy" section: 94 of 95 url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/94/ cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 94. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/94/" --- # Thus Spake Zarathustra *Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common* A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs. ## 94. LXXIX. The Drunken Song · 2 of 2 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/94/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/94/#p-N [¶0] 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. [¶1] O day, thou gropest for me? Thou feelest for my happiness? For thee am I rich, lonesome, a treasure-pit, a gold chamber? [¶2] O world, thou wantest ME? Am I worldly for thee? Am I spiritual for thee? Am I divine for thee? But day and world, ye are too coarse,— [¶3] —Have cleverer hands, grasp after deeper happiness, after deeper unhappiness, grasp after some God; grasp not after me: [¶4] —Mine unhappiness, my happiness is deep, thou strange day, but yet am I no God, no God’s-hell: DEEP IS ITS WOE. ### 8 [¶6] God’s woe is deeper, thou strange world! Grasp at God’s woe, not at me! What am I! A drunken sweet lyre,— [¶7] —A midnight-lyre, a bell-frog, which no one understandeth, but which MUST speak before deaf ones, ye higher men! For ye do not understand me! [¶8] Gone! Gone! O youth! O noontide! O afternoon! Now have come evening and night and midnight,—the dog howleth, the wind: [¶9] —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! [¶10] How she just now speaketh soberly, this drunken poetess! hath she perhaps overdrunk her drunkenness? hath she become overawake? doth she ruminate? [¶11] —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 [¶13] 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? [¶14] “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! [¶15] Woe saith: “Hence! Go! Away, thou woe!” But everything that suffereth wanteth to live, that it may become mature and lively and longing, [¶16] —Longing for the further, the higher, the brighter. “I want heirs,” so saith everything that suffereth, “I want children, I do not want MYSELF,”— [¶17] 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. [¶18] 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 [¶20] Ye higher men, what think ye? Am I a soothsayer? Or a dreamer? Or a drunkard? Or a dream-reader? Or a midnight-bell? [¶21] 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,— [¶22] 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. [¶23] 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,— [¶24] —Wanted ye ever once to come twice; said ye ever: “Thou pleasest me, happiness! Instant! Moment!” then wanted ye ALL to come back again! [¶25] —All anew, all eternal, all enlinked, enlaced and enamoured, Oh, then did ye LOVE the world,— [¶26] —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! ### 11 [¶28] All joy wanteth the eternity of all things, it wanteth honey, it wanteth lees, it wanteth drunken midnight, it wanteth graves, it wanteth grave-tears’ consolation, it wanteth gilded evening-red— [¶29] —WHAT doth not joy want! it is thirstier, heartier, hungrier, more frightful, more mysterious, than all woe: it wanteth ITSELF, it biteth into ITSELF, the ring’s will writheth in it,— [¶30] —It wanteth love, it wanteth hate, it is over-rich, it bestoweth, it throweth away, it beggeth for some one to take from it, it thanketh the taker, it would fain be hated,— [¶31] —So rich is joy that it thirsteth for woe, for hell, for hate, for shame, for the lame, for the WORLD,—for this world, Oh, ye know it indeed! [¶32] Ye higher men, for you doth it long, this joy, this irrepressible, blessed joy—for your woe, ye failures! For failures, longeth all eternal joy. [¶33] For joys all want themselves, therefore do they also want grief! O happiness, O pain! Oh break, thou heart! Ye higher men, do learn it, that joys want eternity. [¶34] —Joys want the eternity of ALL things, they WANT DEEP, PROFOUND ETERNITY! ### 12 [¶36] Have ye now learned my song? Have ye divined what it would say? Well! Cheer up! Ye higher men, sing now my roundelay! [¶37] Sing now yourselves the song, the name of which is “Once more,” the signification of which is “Unto all eternity!”—sing, ye higher men, Zarathustra’s roundelay! [¶38] O man! Take heed! What saith 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 saith: Hence! Go! “But joys all want eternity—, “—Want deep, profound eternity!”