The stillest hour

Do ye know the terror of him who falleth asleep?— To the very toes he is terrified, because the ground giveth way under him, and the dream beginneth. This do I speak unto you in parable. Yesterday at the stillest hour…

In a dream-like terror, as the ground gives way, a voice without sound asks 'Thou knowest it, Zarathustra?' He admits he knows but says he will not speak it and pleads that it is beyond his power.

Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: “What matter about their mockery! Thou art one who hast unlearned to obey: now shalt thou command! Knowest thou not who is most needed by all? He who commandeth great…

The voice calls his refusal to rule his most unpardonable obstinacy. He says he lacks the lion's voice; it replies that the stillest words bring the storm.

It is the stillest words which bring the storm.

The voice answers Zarathustra's lack of a lion's voice with a line about quiet thoughts that guide the world.

And I answered: “I am ashamed.” Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: “Thou must yet become a child, and be without shame. The pride of youth is still upon thee; late hast thou become young: but he who…

Ashamed, Zarathustra again says 'I will not.' Laughter lacerates him, and the voice sends him back to solitude to grow mellow. He lies drenched in sweat.

And verily, it were time that I went away; and the wanderer’s shadow and the longest tedium and the stillest hour—have all said unto me: “It is the highest time!” The word blew to me through the keyhole and said “Come!”…

The shadow, the tedium and the stillest hour tell him it is the highest time. He lies enchained by desire for love, stewed in the sun of his own love. He longs for frost, and old pains wake until his thought bites him.

Another matter, however, is forsakenness. For, dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy bird screamed overhead, when thou stoodest in the forest, irresolute, ignorant where to go, beside a corpse:— —When thou…

Lonesomeness recalls the corpse in the forest, the isle where he gave wine to the thirsty and was left thirsty himself, and the stillest hour that drove him out with 'Speak and succumb!'