In this dialogue between the dancers, Life and her lover, these words occur: O Zarathustra, thou art far from loving me as dearly as thou sayest; thou art not faithful enough to me. There is an old, heavy booming-clock; it boometh by night up to thy cave. When thou hearest this clock at midnight, then dost thou think until noon that soon thou wilt forsake me.
And then follows, in conclusion, the song of the old midnight clock. But in the fourth part of the work, in the section called "The Sleepwalker's Song," this short strophe is interpreted line by line; in form half like a mediæval watchman's chant, half like the hymn of a mystic, it contains the mysterious spirit of Nietzsche's esoteric doctrine concentrated in the shortest formula--
Midnight is drawing on, and as mysteriously, as terribly, and as cordially as the midnight bell speaketh to Zarathustra, so calleth he to the higher men: At midnight many a thing is heard which may not be heard by day; and the midnight speaketh: O man, take heed!
Whither hath time gone? Have I not sunk into deep wells? The world sleepeth. And shuddering it asketh: Who is to be master of the world? What saith the deep midnight?
The bell boometh, the wood-worm burroweth, the heart-worm gnaweth: Ah! the world is deep.
But the old bell is like a sonorous instrument; all pain hath bitten into its heart, the pain of fathers and forefathers; and all joy hath set it swinging, the joy of fathers and forefathers--there riseth from the bell an odour of eternity, a rosy-blessed, golden-wine perfume of old happiness, and this song: The world is deep, and deeper than the day had thought.
I am too pure for the rude hands of the day. The purest shall be masters of the world, the unacknowledged, the strongest, the midnight-souls, who are brighter and deeper than any day. Deep is its woe.
But joy goeth deeper than heart's grief. For grief saith: Break, my heart! Fly away, my pain! Woe saith: Begone!
But, ye higher men, said ye ever Yea to a single joy, then said ye also Yea unto all woe. For joy and woe are linked, enamoured, inseparable. And all beginneth again, all is eternal. All joys desire eternity, deep, deep, eternity.
This, then, is the midnight song--
"Oh Mensch! Gieb Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? 'Ich schlief, ich schlief-- Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht:-- Die Welt ist tief, Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht. Tief ist ihr Weh-- Lust--tiefer noch als Herzeleid: Weh spricht: Vergeh! Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit-- --will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!'"