Still are my children verdant in their first spring, standing nigh one another, and shaken in common by the winds, the trees of my garden and of my best soil.

And verily, where such trees stand beside one another, there ARE Happy Isles!

But one day will I take them up, and put each by itself alone: that it may learn lonesomeness and defiance and prudence.

Gnarled and crooked and with flexible hardness shall it then stand by the sea, a living lighthouse of unconquerable life.

Yonder where the storms rush down into the sea, and the snout of the mountain drinketh water, shall each on a time have his day and night watches, for HIS testing and recognition.

Recognised and tested shall each be, to see if he be of my type and lineage:--if he be master of a long will, silent even when he speaketh, and giving in such wise that he TAKETH in giving:--

--So that he may one day become my companion, a fellow-creator and fellow-enjoyer with Zarathustra:--such a one as writeth my will on my tables, for the fuller perfection of all things.

And for his sake and for those like him, must I perfect MYSELF: therefore do I now avoid my happiness, and present myself to every misfortune--for MY final testing and recognition.

And verily, it were time that I went away; and the wanderer's shadow and the longest tedium and the stillest hour--have all said unto me: "It is the highest time!"

The word blew to me through the keyhole and said "Come!" The door sprang subtlely open unto me, and said "Go!"

But I lay enchained to my love for my children: desire spread this snare for me--the desire for love--that I should become the prey of my children, and lose myself in them.

Desiring--that is now for me to have lost myself. I POSSESS YOU, MY CHILDREN! In this possessing shall everything be a.s.surance and nothing desire.

But brooding lay the sun of my love upon me, in his own juice stewed Zarathustra,--then did shadows and doubts fly past me.

For frost and winter I now longed: "Oh, that frost and winter would again make me crack and crunch!" sighed I:--then arose icy mist out of me.

My past burst its tomb, many pains buried alive woke up--: fully slept had they merely, concealed in corpse-clothes.

So called everything unto me in signs: "It is time!" But I--heard not, until at last mine abyss moved, and my thought bit me.

Ah, abysmal thought, which art MY thought! When shall I find strength to hear thee burrowing, and no longer tremble?

To my very throat throbbeth my heart when I hear thee burrowing! Thy muteness even is like to strangle me, thou abysmal mute one!

As yet have I never ventured to call thee UP; it hath been enough that I--have carried thee about with me! As yet have I not been strong enough for my final lion-wantonness and playfulness.

Sufficiently formidable unto me hath thy weight ever been: but one day shall I yet find the strength and the lion's voice which will call thee up!

When I shall have surmounted myself therein, then will I surmount myself also in that which is greater; and a VICTORY shall be the seal of my perfection!--

Meanwhile do I sail along on uncertain seas; chance flattereth me, smooth-tongued chance; forward and backward do I gaze--, still see I no end.

As yet hath the hour of my final struggle not come to me--or doth it come to me perhaps just now? Verily, with insidious beauty do sea and life gaze upon me round about:

O afternoon of my life! O happiness before eventide! O haven upon high seas! O peace in uncertainty! How I distrust all of you!

Verily, distrustful am I of your insidious beauty! Like the lover am I, who distrusteth too sleek smiling.

As he pusheth the best-beloved before him--tender even in severity, the jealous one--, so do I push this blissful hour before me.

Away with thee, thou blissful hour! With thee hath there come to me an involuntary bliss! Ready for my severest pain do I here stand:--at the wrong time hast thou come!

Away with thee, thou blissful hour! Rather harbour there--with my children! Hasten! and bless them before eventide with MY happiness!

There, already approacheth eventide: the sun sinketh. Away--my happiness!--

Thus spake Zarathustra. And he waited for his misfortune the whole night; but he waited in vain. The night remained clear and calm, and happiness itself came nigher and nigher unto him. Towards morning, however, Zarathustra laughed to his heart, and said mockingly: "Happiness runneth after me. That is because I do not run after women.

Happiness, however, is a woman."

XLVIII. 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sing clouds, and whatever tainteth thee? And mine own hatred have I even hated, because it tainted thee!

The pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sing clouds: those half-and-half ones, that have neither learned to bless nor to curse from the heart.