It were the height of presumption to attempt to fix any particular interpretation of my own to the words of this song. With what has gone before, the reader, while reading it as poetry, should be able to seek and find his own meaning in it. The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence appears for the last time here, in an art-form. Nietzsche lays stress upon the fact that all happiness, all delight, longs for repetitions, and just as a child cries “Again! Again!” to the adult who happens to be amusing him; so the man who sees a meaning, and a joyful meaning, in existence must also cry “Again!” and yet “Again!” to all his life.
criticism · Notes: Part IV
All joy wants repetition
Ludovici declines to fix an interpretation of the drunken song but notes that recurrence appears here for the last time: all delight longs for repetition, and the man who sees a joyful meaning in existence must cry 'Again!' to all his life, as a child does.
On Zarathustra
- Eternal recurrenceRecurrence as the joyful cry 'Again!' to all one's life.
- Affirmation (Yea-saying, amor fati)Delight wills repetition.