The night-song

‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain. ‘Tis night: now only do all songs of the loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one. Something…

At night Zarathustra compares his soul to a gushing fountain and to the song of a lover. He feels an unappeasable craving for love that speaks in the language of love.

Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with light! Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of light! And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets…

Zarathustra says he is light and wishes he were dark, so that he could suck at the breasts of light. He lives in his own light and knows only giving, and he calls this the misery of all bestowers.

They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a gap ‘twixt giving and receiving; and the smallest gap hath finally to be bridged over. A hunger ariseth out of my beauty: I should like to injure those I…

Zarathustra feels a gap between giving and receiving and a hunger to injure and rob those he has gifted. His happiness in bestowing has died in the act, and his hand has grown hard.

Whence have gone the tears of mine eye, and the down of my heart? Oh, the lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones! Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with…

Zarathustra laments the loneliness and silence of all shining ones. The many suns circle in desert space and travel on pitilessly, each following its own will.

Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly ones, that extract warmth from the shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and refreshment from the light’s udders! Ah, there is ice around me; my hand burneth with the iciness! Ah,…

Zarathustra envies the dark ones who drink milk from the light's udders and says there is ice around him and thirst within him. The opening refrain returns, and the narrator says Zarathustra sang it.