LXX. Noontide

—And Zarathustra ran and ran, but he found no one else, and was alone and ever found himself again; he enjoyed and quaffed his solitude, and thought of good things—for hours. About the hour of noontide, however, when…

Running alone, Zarathustra finds an old tree wrapped in a vine heavy with grapes. He wants grapes but prefers to lie down and sleep, with his eyes still open on the tree.

“Hush! Hush! Hath not the world now become perfect? What hath happened unto me? As a delicate wind danceth invisibly upon parqueted seas, light, feather-light, so—danceth sleep upon me. No eye doth it close to me, it…

Falling asleep, Zarathustra speaks to his heart of sleep that dances lightly over him and leaves his soul awake. He compares himself to a ship in a calm cove and bids his soul keep silent as noontide drinks a drop of golden happiness.

LITTLE maketh up the BEST happiness.

Zarathustra takes back his old saying that little suffices for happiness, calling it blasphemy. He now sees that the gentlest and lightest things make up the best happiness.

—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,…

Time seems to fly away and Zarathustra feels he has fallen into eternity, stung to the heart. He chases the vanishing golden ring, then bids his legs and heart rise, while his soul defends itself and sinks back into sleep.

“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…

Zarathustra rouses himself, frightened by a sunbeam on his face. He asks heaven when it will drink his strange soul back into itself, then rises as if from drunkenness and sees that he has slept only briefly.