More About Nietzsche

      Night has come; now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain.

      Night has come; only now all the songs of lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.

      Something unstilled, unstillable is within me; it wants to be voiced. A craving for love is within me; it speaks the language of love.

      Light am I; ah, that I were night! But this is my loneliness that I am girt with light. Ah, that I were dark and nocturnal! How I would suck at the breasts of light! And even you would I bless, you little sparkling stars and glowworms up there, and be overjoyed with your gifts of light.

      But I live in my own light; I drink back into myself the flames that break out of me. I do not know the happiness of those who receive; and I have often dreamed that even stealing must be more blessed than receiving. This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from giving; this is my envy, that I see waiting eyes and the lit-up nights of longing. Oh, wretchedness of all givers! Oh, darkening of my sun! Oh, craving to crave! Oh, ravenous hunger in satiation!

      They receive from me, but do I touch their souls? There is a cleft between giving and receiving; and the narrowest cleft is the last to be bridged. A hunger grows out of my beauty: I should like to hurt those for whom I shine; I should like to rob those to whom I give; thus do I hunger for malice. To withdraw my hand when the other hand already reaches out to it; to linger like the waterfall, which lingers evenwhile it plunges; thus do I hunger for malice. Such revenge my fullness plots: such spite wells up out of my loneliness. My happiness in giving died in giving; my virtue tired of itself in its overflow.

      The danger of those who always give is that they lose their sense of shame; and the heart and hand of those who always mete out becomes callous from always meting out. My eye no longer wells over at the shame of those who beg; my hand has grown too hard for the trembling of filled hands. Where have the tears of my eyes gone and the down of my heart? Oh, the loneliness of all givers! Oh, the taciturnity of all who shine!

      Many suns revolve in the void: to all that is dark they speak with their light--to me they are silent. Oh, this is the enmity of the light against what shines: merciless it moves in its orbit. Injust in its heart against all that shines, cold against suns--thus moves every sun.

      They suns fly like a storm in their orbits: that is their motion. They follow their inexorable will: that is their coldness.

      Oh, it is only you, you dark ones, you nocturnal ones, who create warmth out of that which shines. It is only you who drink milk and refreshment out of the udders of light.

      Alas, ice is all around me, my hand is burned by the icy. Alas, thirst is within me that languishes after your thirst.

      Night has come: alas, that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal! And loneliness!

      Night has come: now my craving breaks out of me like a well; to speak I crave.

      Night has come; now all fountains speak more loudly. Any my soul too is a fountain.

      Night has come; now all the songs of lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.

      Thus sang Zarathustra.

                        -- Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Night Song," Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The Nietzsche Page at the University of Southern California have some interesting things about this much-abused philosopher. The particular essay which contains the above quote is beautifully lyrical in Walter Kaufmann's translation.

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