u liest
in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd
playeth his pipe.

Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The
world is perfect.

Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo--hush!
The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now
drink a drop of happiness--

--An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh
over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus--laugheth a God. Hush!--

--'For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!' Thus spake I
once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: THAT have I now
learned. Wise fools speak better.

The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a
lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance--LITTLE maketh up
the BEST happiness. Hush!

--What hath befallen me: Hark! Hath time flown away? Do I not fall? Have
I not fallen--hark! into the well of eternity?

--What happeneth to me? Hush! It stingeth me--alas--to the heart? To
the heart! Oh, break up, break up, my heart, after such happiness, after
such a sting!

--What? Hath not the world just now become perfect? Round and ripe? Oh,
for the golden round ring--whither doth it fly? Let me run after it!
Quick!

Hush--" (and here Zarathustra stretched himself, and felt that he was
asleep.)

"Up!" said he to himself, "thou sleeper! Thou noontide sleeper! Well
then, up, ye old legs! It is time and more than time; many a good
stretch of road is still awaiting you--

Now have ye slept your fill; for how long a time? A half-eternity! Well
then, up now, mine old heart! For how long after such a sleep mayest
thou--remain awake?"

(But then did he fall asleep anew, and his soul spake against him and
defended itself, and lay down again)--"Leave me alone! Hush! Hath not
the world just now become perfect? Oh, for the golden round ball!--

"Get up," said Zarathustra, "thou little thief, thou sluggard! What!
Still stretching thyself, yawning, sighing, falling into deep wells?

Who art thou then, O my soul!" (and here he became frightened, for a
sunbeam shot down from heaven upon his face.)

"O heaven above me," said he sighing, and sat upright, "thou gazest at
me? Thou hearkenest unto my strange soul?

When wilt thou drink this drop of dew that fell down upon all earthly
things,--when wilt thou drink this strange soul--

--When, thou well of eternity! thou joyous, awful, noontide abys