Tag Archives: Zarathustra
Hot Noon Sleeps on the Meadows
O happiness! O happiness! Would you sing, 0 my soul? You are lying in the grass. But this is the secret solemn hour when no shepherd plays his pipe. Refrain! Hot noon sleeps on the meadows. Do not sing! Still! The world is perfect. Do not sing, you winged one in the grass, 0 my soul – do not even whisper! Behold still! – the old noon sleeps, his mouth moves: is he not just now drinking a drop of happiness, an old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? It slips over him, his happiness laughs. Thus laughs a god. Still!
“O happiness, how little is sufficient for happiness!” Thus I spoke once and seemed clever to myself. But it was a blasphemy: that I have learned now. Clever fools speak better. Precisely the least, the softest. lightest, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a breeze, a moment’s glance – it is little that makes the best happiness. Still!
What happened to me? Listen! Did time perhaps fly away? Do I not fall? Did I not fall – listen! – into the well of eternity? What is happening to me? Still! I have been stung, alas – in the heart? In the heart! Oh break, break, heart, after such happiness, after such a sting. How? Did not the world become perfect just now? Round and ripe? Oh, the golden round ring where may it fly? Shall I run after it? Quick! Still! (And here Zarathustra stretched and felt that he was asleep.)
“Up!” he said to himself; “you sleeper! You noon napper! Well, get up, old legs! It is time and overtime; many a good stretch of road still lies ahead of you. Now you have slept out-how long? Half an eternity! Well! Up with you now, my old heart! After such a sleep, how long will it take you to – wake it off?” (But then he fell asleep again, and his soul spoke against him and resisted and lay down again. ) “Leave me alone! Still! Did not the world become perfect just now? Oh, the golden round ball!”
“Get up!” said Zarathustra, “you little thief, you lazy little thief of time! What? Still stretching, yawning, sighing, falling into deep wells? Who are you? 0 my soul!” (At this point he was startled, for a sunbeam fell from the sky onto his face.) “0 heaven over me!” he said, sighing, and sat up. “You are looking on? You are listening to my strange soul? When will you drink this drop of dew which has fallen upon all earthly things? When will you drink this strange soul? When, well of eternity? Cheerful, dreadful abyss of noon! When will you drink my soul back into yourself?”
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he got up from his resting place at the tree as from a strange drunkenness; and behold, the sun still stood straight over his head. But from this one might justly conclude that Zarathustra had not slept long.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com
Zarathustra’s Noon
And Zarathustra ran and ran and did not find anybody any more, and he was alone and found himself again and again, and he enjoyed and quaffed his solitude and thought of good things for hours. But around the hour of noon, when the sun stood straight over Zarathustra’s head, he came to an old crooked and knotty tree that was embraced, and hidden from itself, by the rich love of a grapevine; and yellow grapes hung from it in abundance, inviting the wanderer. Then he felt the desire to quench a slight thirst and to break off a grape; but even as he was stretching out his arm to do so, he felt a still greater desire for something else: namely, to lie down beside the tree at the perfect noon hour, and to sleep.
This Zarathustra did; and as soon as he lay on the ground in the stillness and secrecy of the many-hued grass, he forgot his slight thirst and fell asleep. For, as Zarathustra’s proverb says, one thing is more necessary than another. Only his eyes remained open: for they did not tire of seeing and praising the tree and the love of the grapevine. Falling asleep, however, Zarathustra spoke thus to his heart:
Still! Still! Did not the world become perfect just now? What is happening to me? As a delicate wind dances unseen on an inlaid sea, light, feather-light, thus sleep dances on me. My eyes he does not close, my soul he leaves awake. Light he is, verily, featherlight. He persuades me, I know not how. He touches me inwardly with caressing hands, he conquers me. Yes, he conquers me and makes my soul stretch out: how she is becoming long and tired, my strange soul! Did the eve of a seventh day come to her at noon? Has she already roamed happily among good and ripe things too long? She stretches out long, long-longer. She lies still, my strange soul. Too much that is good has she tasted; this golden sadness oppresses her, she makes a wry mouth.
Like a ship that has sailed into its stillest cove – now it leans against the earth, tired of the long voyages and the uncertain seas. Is not the earth more faithful? The way such a ship lies close to, and nestles to, the land – it is enough if a spider spins its thread to it from the land: no stronger ropes are needed now. Like such a tired ship in the stillest cove, I too rest now near the earth, faithful, trusting, waiting, tied to it with the softest threads.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Part IV
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com
Rainbow Bridges: Free Life
Escape from the bad smell!
Escape from the steam of these human sacrifices!
The earth is free even now for great souls. There are still many empty seats for the lonesome and the twosome, fanned by the fragrance of silent seas.
A free life is still free for great souls. Verily, whoever possesses little is possessed that much less: praised be a little poverty!
Only where the state ends, there begins the human being who is not superfluous: there begins the song of necessity, the unique and inimitable tune.
Where the state ends — look there, my brothers! Do you not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the overman?
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
