ZARATHUSTRA’S DISCOURSES
XXXI. THE NIGHT-SONG
by Friedrich Nietzsche
'Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also
is a gushing fountain.
'Tis night: now only do all songs of the loving ones awake. And my soul
also is the song of a loving one.
Something unappeased, unappeasable, is within me; it longs to find
expression. A craving for love is within me, which speaks itself the
language of love.
Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be robed
with light!
Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of
light!
And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets and glow-worms
aloft!--and would rejoice in the gifts of your light.
But I live in mine own light, I drink again into myself the flames that
break forth from me.
I know not the happiness of the receiver; and often have I dreamt that
stealing must be more blessed than receiving.
It is my poverty that my hand never ceases bestowing; it is mine envy that
I see waiting eyes and the brightened nights of longing.
Oh, the misery of all bestowers! Oh, the darkening of my sun! Oh, the
craving to crave! Oh, the violent hunger in satiety!
They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a gap between
giving and receiving; and the smallest gap has finally to be bridged over.
A hunger rises out of my beauty: I should like to injure those I
illumine; I should like to rob those I have gifted:--thus do I hunger for
wickedness.
Withdrawing my hand when another hand already stretched out to it;
hesitating like the cascade, which hesitates even in its leap:--thus do I
hunger for wickedness!
Such revenge does mine abundance think of: such mischief wells out of my
lonesomeness.
My happiness in bestowing died in bestowing; my virtue became weary of
itself by its abundance!
He who ever bestows is in danger of losing his shame; to him who ever
dispenses, the hand and heart become callous by their very dispensing.
Mine eye no longer overflows for the shame of suppliants; my hand has
become too hard for the trembling of filled hands.
Whence have gone the tears of mine eye, and the down of my heart? Oh, the
lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones!
Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with
their light--but to me they are silent.
Oh, this is the hostility of light to the shining one: unpityingly does it
pursue its course.
Unfair to the shining one in its innermost heart, cold to the suns:--thus
travels every sun.
Like a storm do the suns pursue their courses: that is their travelling.
Their inexorable will do they follow: that is their coldness.
Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly ones, that extract warmth from the
shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and refreshment from the light's
udders!
Ah, there is ice around me; my hand burns with the iciness! Ah, there is
thirst in me; it pants after your thirst!
'Tis night: alas, that I have to be light! And thirst for the nightly!
And lonesomeness!
'Tis night: now does my longing break forth in me as a fountain,--for
speech do I long.
'Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also
is a gushing fountain.
'Tis night: now do all songs of loving ones awake. And my soul also is
the song of a loving one.--
Thus sang Zarathustra.
the first thought of Zarathustra