Fenrir's Fangs

 48. Before Sunrise

  O HEAVEN above me, thou pure, thou deep heaven! Thou abyss of light!
Gazing on thee, I tremble with divine desires.
  Up to thy height to toss myself- that is my depth! In thy purity
to hide myself- that is mine innocence!
  The God veileth his beauty: thus hidest thou thy stars. Thou
speakest not: thus proclaimest thou thy wisdom unto me.
  Mute o'er the raging sea hast thou risen for me to-day; thy love and
thy modesty make a revelation unto my raging soul.
  In that thou camest unto me beautiful, veiled in thy beauty, in that
thou spakest unto me mutely, obvious in thy wisdom:
  Oh, how could I fail to divine all the modesty of thy soul! Before
the sun didst thou come unto me- the lonesomest one.
  We have been friends from the beginning: to us are grief,
gruesomeness, and ground common; even the sun is common to us.
  We do not speak to each other, because we know too much-: we keep
silent to each other, we smile our knowledge to each other.
  Art thou not the light of my fire? Hast thou not the sister-soul
of mine insight?
  Together did we learn everything; together did we learn to ascend
beyond ourselves to ourselves, and to smile uncloudedly:-
  -Uncloudedly to smile down out of luminous eyes and out of miles
of distance, when under us constraint and purpose and guilt stream
like rain.
  And wandered I alone, for what did my soul hunger by night and in
labyrinthine paths? And climbed I mountains, whom did I ever seek,
if not thee, upon mountains?
  And all my wandering and mountain-climbing: a necessity was it
merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:- to fly only, wanteth mine
entire will, to fly into thee!
  And what have I hated more than passing clouds, and whatever
tainteth thee? And mine own hatred have I even hated, because it
tainted thee!
  The passing clouds I detest- those stealthy cats of prey: they
take from thee and me what is common to us- the vast unbounded Yea-
and Amen- saying.
  These mediators and mixers we detest- the passing clouds: those
half-and-half ones, that have neither learned to bless nor to curse
from the heart.
  Rather will I sit in a tub under a closed heaven, rather will I
sit in the abyss without heaven, than see thee, thou luminous
heaven, tainted with passing clouds!
  And oft have I longed to pin them fast with the jagged gold-wires of
lightning, that I might, like the thunder, beat the drum upon their
kettle-bellies:-
  -An angry drummer, because they rob me of thy Yea and Amen!- thou
heaven above me, thou pure, thou luminous heaven! Thou abyss of
light!- because they rob thee of my Yea and Amen.
  For rather will I have noise and thunders and tempest-blasts, than
this discreet, doubting cat-repose; and also amongst men do I hate
most of all the soft-treaders, and half-and-half ones, and the
doubting, hesitating, passing clouds.
  And "he who cannot bless shall learn to curse!"- this clear teaching
dropt unto me from the clear heaven; this star standeth in my heaven
even in dark nights.
  I, however, am a blesser and a Yea-sayer, if thou be but around
me, thou pure, thou luminous heaven! Thou abyss of light!- into all
abysses do I then carry my beneficent Yea-saying.
  A blesser have I become and a Yea-sayer: and therefore strove I long
and was a striver, that I might one day get my hands free for
blessing.
  This, however, is my blessing: to stand above everything as its
own heaven, its round roof, its azure bell and eternal security: and
blessed is he who thus blesseth!
  For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good
and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive
shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.
  Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that
"above all things there standeth the heaven of chance, the heaven of
innocence, the heaven of hazard, the heaven of wantonness."
  "Of Hazard"- that is the oldest nobility in the world; that gave I
back to all things; I emancipated them from bondage under purpose.
  This freedom and celestial serenity did I put like an azure bell
above all things, when I taught that over them and through them, no
"eternal Will"- willeth.
  This wantonness and folly did I put in place of that Will, when I
taught that "In everything there is one thing impossible-
rationality!"
  A little reason, to be sure, a germ of wisdom scattered from star to
star- this leaven is mixed in all things: for the sake of folly,
wisdom is mixed in all things!
  A little wisdom is indeed possible; but this blessed security have I
found in all things, that they prefer- to dance on the feet of chance.
  O heaven above me! thou pure, thou lofty heaven! This is now thy
purity unto me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and
reason-cobweb:-
  -That thou art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that thou
art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players!-
  But thou blushest? Have I spoken unspeakable things? Have I
abused, when I meant to bless thee?
  Or is it the shame of being two of us that maketh thee blush!-
Dost thou bid me go and be silent, because now- day cometh?
  The world is deep:- and deeper than e'er the day could read. Not
everything may be uttered in presence of day. But day cometh: so let
us part!
  O heaven above me, thou modest one! thou glowing one! O thou, my
happiness before sunrise! The day cometh: so let us part!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.