Before Sunrise

(from Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra)

O sky above me!  O pure, deep sky!  You abyss of light!  Gazing into you, I tremble with divine desires.

To case myself into your height – that is my depth!  To hide myself in your purity – that is my innocence!

The god is veiled by his beauty: thus you hide your stars.  You do not speak: thus you proclaim to me your wisdom.

You have risen for me today, mute over the raging sea; your love and your modesty speak a revelation to my raging soul.

That you have come to me, beautiful, veiled in your beauty; that you have spoken to me mutely, manifest in your wisdom:

Oh how should I not divine all that is modest in your soul!  You came to me before the sun, to me the most solitary man.

We have been friends from the beginning: we have grief and terror and world in common; we have even the sun in common.

We do not speak to one another, because we know too much: we are silent together, we smile our knowledge to one another.

Are you not the light of my fire?  Do you not have the sister-soul of my insight?

Together we learned everything; together we learned to mount above ourselves to ourselves and to smile uncloudedly – to smile uncloudedly down from bright eyes and from miles away when under us compulsion and purpose and guilt stream like rain.

And when I wandered alone, what did my soul hunger after by night and on treacherous paths?  And when I climbed mountains, whom did I always seek, if not you, upon mountains?

And all my wandering and mountain climbing: it was merely a necessity and an expedient of clumsiness: my whole will desires only to fly, to fly into you.

And what have I hated more than passing clouds and all that defiles you?  And I have hated ever my own hatred, because it defiled you!

I dislike the passing clouds, these stealthy cats of prey: they take from you and from me what we have in common – the vast and boundless declaration of Yes and Amen.

We dislike these mediators and mixers, the passing clouds: these half-and-halfers, who have learned neither to bless nor to curse from the heart.

I would rather sit in a barrel under a closed sky, rather sit in an abyss without sky, than see you, luminous sky, defiled by passing clouds!

And ofter I longed to bind them fast with jagged golden wires of lightning, so that I, like the thunder, might drum upon their hollow bellies – an angry drummer, because they rob me of your Yes! and Amen!  O sky above me, you pure sky!  You luminous sky!  You abyss of light! – because they rob me of my Yes! and Amen!

For I would rather have noise and thunder and storm-curses than this cautious, uncertain feline repose; and among men, too, I hate most all soft-walkers and half-and-halfers and uncertain, hesitating passing clouds.

And “He who cannot bless shall learn to curse!” – this clear teaching fell to me from the clear sky, this star in my sky even on dark nights.

I, however, am one who blesses and declares Yes, if only you are around me, you pure, luminous sky!  You abyss of light! – then into all abysses do I carry my consecrating declaration Yes.

I have become one who blesses and one who declares Yes: and for that I wrestled long and was a wrestler, so that I might one day have my hands free for blessing.

This, however, is my blessing: To stand over everything as its own sky, and its round roof, its azure bell and eternal certainty: and happy is he who thus blesses!

For all things are baptized at the fount of eternity and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are only intervening shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.

Truly, it is a blessing and not blasphemy when I teach: “Above all things stands the heaven of chance, the heaven of innocence, the heaven of accident, the heaven of wantonness.”

“Lord chance” – he is the world’s oldest nobility, which I have given back to all things; I have released them from servitude under purpose.

I set this freedom and celestial cheerfulness over all things like an azure bell when I taught that no ‘eternal will’ acts over them and through them.

I set this wantonness and this foolishness in place of that will when I taught: “With all things one thing is impossible – rationality!”

A little reason, to be sure, a seed of wisdom scattered from star to star – this leaven is mingled with all things: for the sake of foolishness is wisdom mingled with all things.

A little wisdom is no doubt possible; but I have found this happy certainty in all things: that they prefer – to dance on the feet of chance.

O sky above me, you pure, lofty sky!  This is now your purity to me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and spider’s web in you – that you are to me a dance floor for divine chances, that you are to me a god’s table for divine dice and dicers!

But are you blushing?  Did I say something unspeakable?  Did I slander you when I meant to bless you?

Or is it the shame of our being together which makes you blush?  Are you telling me to go and be silent because now – day is coming?

The world is deep: and deeper than day has ever comprehended.  Not everything may be spoken in the presence of day.  But day is coming: so let us part!

O sky above me, you modest, glowing sky!  O you, my happiness before sunrise!  Day is coming, so let us part!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.