At Noon

—And Zarathustra ran and ran and found no one anymore and was alone and found himself again and again and enjoyed and sipped his solitude and thought of good things,—for hours. But around the hour of noon, when the sun stood right over Zarathustra’s head, he passed an old, crooked, and gnarled tree, which was embraced all around by the rich love of a grapevine and hidden from itself: from it yellow grapes hung in abundance toward the wanderer. Then he felt a desire to quench a little thirst and break off a grape for himself; but when he was already stretching out his arm to do so, he desired something else still more: namely to lie down beside the tree, at the hour of perfect noon, and to sleep.

This Zarathustra did; and as soon as he lay on the ground, in the stillness and secrecy of the many-colored grass, he had already forgotten his little thirst and fell asleep. For, as Zarathustra’s proverb says: One thing is more necessary than the other. Only his eyes stayed open:—for they could not get enough of seeing and praising the tree and the love of the vine. But as he fell asleep Zarathustra spoke thus to his heart:

Still! Still! Has the world not just become perfect? What is happening to me?

As a delicate wind, unseen, dances on the inlaid sea, lightly, light as a feather: so—sleep dances on me.

It does not close my eyes, it leaves my soul awake. It is light, truly! light as a feather.

It persuades me, I do not know how?, it dabs at me inwardly with a caressing hand, it compels me. Yes, it compels me, so that my soul stretches out:—

—how long and weary it grows, my strange soul! Did a seventh day’s evening come to it right at noon? Has it wandered too long already, blissful, among good and ripe things?

It stretches out long, long,—longer! it lies still, my strange soul. Too much that is good it has tasted already; this golden sadness weighs on it, it twists its mouth.

—Like a ship that has run into its stillest bay:—now it leans against the earth, weary of the long voyages and the uncertain seas. Is the earth not more faithful?

As such a ship lies up against the land, nestles against it:—then it is enough for a spider to spin its thread to it from the land. No stronger ropes are needed there.

Like such a weary ship in the stillest bay: so I too now rest near the earth, faithful, trusting, waiting, tied to it with the faintest threads.

O happiness! O happiness! Would you like to sing, O my soul? You are lying in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour when no shepherd plays his flute.

Take care! Hot noon is sleeping on the meadows. Do not sing! Still! The world is perfect.

Do not sing, you winged thing of the grass, O my soul! Do not even whisper! Look—still! old noon is sleeping, he is moving his mouth: is he not just now drinking a drop of happiness—

—an old brown drop of golden happiness, of golden wine? Something flits over him, his happiness laughs. So—a god laughs. Still!—

—“For happiness, how little is enough for happiness!” So I once said, and thought myself clever. But it was a blasphemy: that I have learned now. Clever fools speak better.

Precisely the least thing, the softest, lightest, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a flit, an eye’s blink—little makes up the kind of the best happiness. Still!

—What has happened to me: Listen! Has time flown away? Am I not falling? Did I not fall—listen! into the well of eternity?

—What is happening to me? Still! It stings me—woe—in the heart? In the heart! Oh break, break, heart, after such happiness, after such a sting!

—What? Has the world not just become perfect? Round and ripe? Oh, the golden round ring—where is it flying? Shall I run after it! Quick!

Still—(and here Zarathustra stretched and felt that he was asleep.)—

Up! he said to himself, you sleeper! You noon sleeper! Well then, up, you old legs! It is time and more than time; many a good stretch of road is still left for you—

Now you have slept yourselves out, for how long? Half an eternity! Well then, up now, my old heart! How long may you take, after such a sleep—to wake yourself out?

(But then he was already falling asleep anew, and his soul spoke against him and resisted and lay down again)—“Leave me alone! Still! Has the world not just become perfect? Oh, the golden round ball!”—

“Get up,” said Zarathustra, “you little thief, you thief of days! What? Still stretching, yawning, sighing, falling down into deep wells?

“But who are you! O my soul!” (and here he was startled, for a sunbeam fell down from the sky onto his face)

“O sky above me,” he said, sighing, and sat upright, “are you watching me? Are you listening to my strange soul?

“When will you drink this drop of dew that has fallen on all earthly things,—when will you drink this strange soul—

“—when, well of eternity! you cheerful, dreadful abyss of noon! when will you drink my soul back into yourself?”

Thus spoke Zarathustra, and rose from his resting place by the tree as if from a strange drunkenness: and behold, the sun still stood right over his head. But one might rightly conclude from this that Zarathustra had not slept long at that time.