of the great longing

(from thus spake zarathustra, by friedrich nietzsche)

o my soul, i taught you to say 'today' as well as 'once' and 'formerly' and to dance your dance over every here and there and over-there.
o my soul, i rescued you from all corners, i brushed dust, spiders, and twilight away from you.
o my soul, i washed the petty shame and corner-virtue away from you and persuaded you to stand naked before the eyes of the sun.
with the storm which is called 'spirit' i blew across your surging sea; i blew all clouds away, i keeled even that killerbird called 'sin'.
o my soul, i gave you the right to say No like the storm and to say Yes as the open sky says Yes: now, silent as light you stand, and you pass through denying storms.
o my soul, i gave you back freedom over created and uncreated things: and who knows as you know the delight of things to come?
o my soul, i taught you contempt that comes not as the gnawing of a worm, the great, the loving contempt which loves most where it despises most.
oh my soul, i took from you all obeying, knee-bending, and obsequiousness; i myself gave you the names 'dispeller of care' and 'destiny'.
o my soul, i gave you new names and many-coloured toys, i called you 'destiny' and 'encompassment of encompassments' and 'time's umbilical cord' and 'azure bell'.
o my soul, i gave your soil all wisdom to drink, all new wines and also all immemorially ancient strong wines of wisdom.
o my soul, i poured every sun and every night and every silence and every longing upon you: - then you grew up for me like a vine.
o my soul, now you stand superabundant and heavy, a vine with swelling udders and close-crowded golden-brown wine-grapes:
oppressed and weighed down by your happiness, expectant from abundance and yet bashful because of your expectancy.
o my soul, now there is nowhere a soul more loving and encompassing and spacious!  where could future and past be closer together than with you?
o my soul, i have given you everything and my hands have become empty through you: and now! now you ask me smiling and full of melancholy: 'which of us owes thanks?  does the giver not owe thanks to the receiver for receiving?  is giving not a necessity?  is taking not - compassion?'
o my soul, i understand the smile of your melancholy:  your superabundance itself now stretches out longing hands!
your fullness looks out over raging seas and searches and waits; the longing of over-fullness gazes out of the smiling heaven of your eyes!
and truly, o my soul!  who could behold your smile and not dissolve into tears?  the angels themselves dissolve into tears through the over-kindness of your smile.
it is your kindness and over-kindness that wishes not to complain and weep: and yet your smile longs for tears, o my soul, and your trembling mouth for sobs.
'is all weeping not a complaining?  and all complaining not an accusing?' thus you speak to yourself, and because of that, o my soul, you will rather smile than pour forth your sorrow,
pour forth in gushing tears all your sorrow at your fullness and at all the desire of the vine for the vintager and the vine-knife!
but if you will not weep nor alleviate in weeping your purple melancholy, you will have to sing, o my soul!  behold, i smile myself, who foretold you this:
to sing with an impetuous song, until all seas grow still to listen to your longing,
until, over still, longing seas, the boat glides, the golden marvel around whose gold all good, bad, marvellous things leap:
and many great and small beasts also, and everything that has light, marvellous feet that can run upon violet paths,
towards the golden marvel, the boat of free will, and to its master: he however, is the vintager who waits with diamond-studded vine-knife,
your great redeemer, o my soul, the nameless one for whom only future songs will find a name!  and truly, your breath is already fragrant with future songns,
already you glow and dream, already you drink thirstily from all deep, resounding wells of comfort, already your melancholy reposes in the bliss of future songs!
o my soul, now i have given you everything and even the last thing i had to give, and my hands have become empty through you: - that i bade you sing, behold that was the last thing i had to give!
that i bade you sing, now say, say: which of us now - owes thanks?  but better still: sing for me, sing, o my soul!  and let me pay thanks!

thus spoke zarathustra.