Great noontide as humanity's coming of age

The last verse introduces the expression, “THE GREAT NOONTIDE!” In the poem to be found at the end of “Beyond Good and Evil”, we meet with the expression again, and we shall find it occurring time and again in Nietzsche’s works. It will be found fully elucidated in the fifth part of “The Twilight of the Idols”; but for those who cannot refer to this book, it were well to point out that Nietzsche called the present period—our period—the noon of man’s history. Dawn is behind us. The childhood of mankind is over. Now we KNOW; there is now no longer any excuse for mistakes which will tend to botch and disfigure the type man. “With respect to what is past,” he says, “I have, like all discerning ones, great toleration, that is to say, GENEROUS self-control.... But my feeling changes suddenly, and breaks out as soon as I enter the modern period, OUR period. Our age KNOWS...” (See Note on Chapter LXX.).