JOY IS
DEEPER STILL THAN GRIEF CAN BE.

9.

Thou grape-vine! Why dost thou praise me? Have I not cut thee! I am
cruel, thou bleedest--: what meaneth thy praise of my drunken cruelty?

"Whatever hath become perfect, everything mature--wanteth to die!" so
sayest thou. Blessed, blessed be the vintner's knife! But everything
immature wanteth to live: alas!

Woe saith: "Hence! Go! Away, thou woe!" But everything that suffereth
wanteth to live, that it may become mature and lively and longing,

--Longing for the further, the higher, the brighter. "I want heirs,"
so saith everything that suffereth, "I want children, I do not want
MYSELF,"--

Joy, however, doth not want heirs, it doth not want children,--joy
wanteth itself, it wanteth eternity, it wanteth recurrence, it wanteth
everything eternally-like-itself.

Woe saith: "Break, bleed, thou heart! Wander, thou leg! Thou wing, fly!
Onward! upward! thou pain!" Well! Cheer up! O mine old heart: WOE SAITH:
"HENCE! GO!"

10.

Ye higher men, what think ye? Am I a soothsayer? Or a dreamer? Or a
drunkard? Or a dream-reader? Or a midnight-bell?

Or a drop of dew? Or a fume and fragrance of eternity? Hear ye it not?
Smell ye it not? Just now hath my world become perfect, midnight is also
mid-day,--

Pain is also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun,--go
away! or ye will learn that a sage is also a fool.

Said ye ever Yea to one joy? O my friends, then said ye Yea also unto
ALL woe. All things are enlinked, enlaced and enamoured,--

--Wanted ye ever once to come twice; said ye ever: "Thou pleasest me,
happiness! Instant! Moment!" then wanted ye ALL to come back again!

--All anew, all eternal, all enlinked, enlaced and enamoured, Oh, then
did ye LOVE the world,--

--Ye eternal ones, ye love it eternally and for all time: and also unto
woe do ye say: Hence! Go! but come back! FOR JOYS ALL WANT--ETERNITY!

11.

All joy wanteth the eternity of all things, it wanteth honey, it
wanteth lees, it wanteth drunken midnight, it wanteth graves, it wanteth
grave-tears' consolation, it wanteth gilded evening-red--

--WHAT doth not joy want! it is thirstier, heartier, hungrier, more
frightful, more mysterious, than all woe: it wanteth ITSELF, it biteth
into ITSELF, the ring's will writheth in it,--

--It wanteth love, it wanteth hate, it is over-rich, it bestoweth, it
throweth away, it beggeth for some one to take from it, it thanketh the
taker, it would fai