Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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 steam 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.