Ye higher men, it is getting on to midnight: then will I say something into your ears, as that old clock-bell saith it into mine ear,—
—As mysteriously, as frightfully, and as cordially as that midnight clock-bell speaketh it to me, which hath experienced more than one man:
—Which hath already counted the smarting throbbings of your fathers’ hearts—ah! ah! how it sigheth! how it laugheth in its dream! the old, deep, deep midnight!
Hush! Hush! Then is there many a thing heard which may not be heard by day; now however, in the cool air, when even all the tumult of your hearts hath become still,—
—Now doth it speak, now is it heard, now doth it steal into overwakeful, nocturnal souls: ah! ah! how the midnight sigheth! how it laugheth in its dream!
—Hearest thou not how it mysteriously, frightfully, and cordially speaketh unto THEE, the old deep, deep midnight?
O MAN, TAKE HEED!
Woe to me! Whither hath time gone? Have I not sunk into deep wells? The world sleepeth—
Ah! Ah! The dog howleth, the moon shineth. Rather will I die, rather will I die, than say unto you what my midnight-heart now thinketh.
Already have I died. It is all over. Spider, why spinnest thou around me? Wilt thou have blood? Ah! Ah! The dew falleth, the hour cometh—
—The hour in which I frost and freeze, which asketh and asketh and asketh: “Who hath sufficient courage for it?
—Who is to be master of the world? Who is going to say: THUS shall ye flow, ye great and small streams!”
—The hour approacheth: O man, thou higher man, take heed! this talk is for fine ears, for thine ears—WHAT SAITH DEEP MIDNIGHT’S VOICE INDEED?
It carrieth me away, my soul danceth. Day’s-work! Day’s-work! Who is to be master of the world?
The moon is cool, the wind is still. Ah! Ah! Have ye already flown high enough? Ye have danced: a leg, nevertheless, is not a wing.
Ye good dancers, now is all delight over: wine hath become lees, every cup hath become brittle, the sepulchres mutter.
Ye have not flown high enough: now do the sepulchres mutter: “Free the dead! Why is it so long night? Doth not the moon make us drunken?”
Ye higher men, free the sepulchres, awaken the corpses! Ah, why doth the worm still burrow? There approacheth, there approacheth, the hour,—
—There boometh the clock-bell, there thrilleth still the heart, there burroweth still the wood-worm, the heart-worm. Ah! Ah! THE WORLD IS DEEP!
What the critics said
Brandes says that the midnight clock's song closing the Second Dance Song, interpreted line by line in Part IV, concentrates Nietzsche's esoteric doctrine in its shortest formula: joy and woe are inseparable, saying Yea to one joy is saying Yea to all woe, and all joy wants deep eternity.