scene The seven seals (the Yea and Amen song)
Seven refrains of love for eternity and the marriage-ring of rings.
9 passages
If I be a diviner and full of the divining spirit which wandereth on high mountain-ridges, ‘twixt two seas,— Wandereth ‘twixt the past and the future as a heavy cloud—hostile to sultry plains, and to all that is weary…
Zarathustra pictures himself as a heavy cloud between past and future, ready to flash. He ends with the refrain that he loves Eternity, the only woman by whom he would have children.
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Oh, how could I not be ardent for Eternity and for the marriage-ring of rings—the ring of the return?
The first appearance of the refrain that closes every seal.
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If ever my wrath hath burst graves, shifted landmarks, or rolled old shattered tables into precipitous depths: If ever my scorn hath scattered mouldered words to the winds, and if I have come like a besom to…
Zarathustra recalls his destroying wrath and scorn, yet claims to be world-blessing beside the monuments of old world-maligners. The refrain follows.
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If ever a breath hath come to me of the creative breath, and of the heavenly necessity which compelleth even chances to dance star-dances: If ever I have laughed with the laughter of the creative lightning, to which the…
He speaks of heavenly necessity compelling even chance to dance star-dances, and of playing dice with the Gods until the earth quakes.
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If ever I have drunk a full draught of the foaming spice- and confection-bowl in which all things are well mixed: If ever my hand hath mingled the furthest with the nearest, fire with spirit, joy with sorrow, and the…
Zarathustra describes a bowl in which furthest and nearest, joy and sorrow, harshest and kindest are well mixed, and himself as a grain of its saving salt.
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If I be fond of the sea, and all that is sealike, and fondest of it when it angrily contradicteth me: If the exploring delight be in me, which impelleth sails to the undiscovered, if the seafarer’s delight be in my…
He loves the sea and the exploring delight that drives sails to the undiscovered. He cries that the shore has vanished and the last chain has fallen.
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If my virtue be a dancer’s virtue, and if I have often sprung with both feet into golden-emerald rapture: If my wickedness be a laughing wickedness, at home among rose-banks and hedges of lilies: —For in laughter is all…
Zarathustra calls his virtue a dancer's, and says that in laughter all evil is present but absolved. He names his Alpha and Omega: every body a dancer, every spirit a bird.
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And if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, every body a dancer, and every spirit a bird: and verily, that is my Alpha and Omega!—
He declares his first and last principle.
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If ever I have spread out a tranquil heaven above me, and have flown into mine own heaven with mine own pinions: If I have swum playfully in profound luminous distances, and if my freedom’s avian wisdom hath come to…
Flying in his own heaven, he hears the wisdom of birds: there is no above or below, so sing and speak no more. The last refrain closes the song.
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