But this is the very idea of Dionysus. Another consideration leads to this idea. The psychological problem presented by the type of Zarathustra is, how can he, who in an unprecedented manner says no, and acts no, in regard to all that which has been affirmed hitherto, remain nevertheless a yea-saying spirit? how can he who bears the heaviest destiny on his shoulders and whose very life-task is a fatality, yet be the brightest and the most transcendental of spirits—for Zarathustra is a dancer? how can he who has the hardest and most terrible grasp of reality, and who has thought the most "abysmal thoughts," nevertheless avoid conceiving these things as objections to existence, or even as objections to the eternal recurrence of existence?—how is it that on the contrary he finds reasons for being himself the eternal affirmation of all things, "the tremendous and unlimited saying of Yea and Amen"?... "Into every abyss do I bear the benediction of my yea to Life." ... But this, once more, is precisely the idea of Dionysus.
7
What language will such a spirit speak, when he speaks unto his soul? The language of the dithyramb. I am the inventor of the dithyramb. Hearken unto the manner in which Zarathustra speaks to his soul Before Sunrise (iii. 48). Before my time such emerald joys and divine tenderness had found no tongue. Even the profoundest melancholy of such a Dionysus takes shape as a dithyramb. As an example of this I take "The Night-Song,"—the immortal plaint of one who, thanks to his superabundance of light and power, thanks to the sun within him, is condemned never to love.
"It is night: now do all gushing springs raise their voices. And my soul too is a gushing spring.
"It is night: now only do all lovers burst into song. And my soul too is the song of a lover.
"Something unquenched and unquenchable is within me, that would raise its voice. A craving for love is within me, which itself speaketh the language of love.
"Light am I: would that I were night! But this is my loneliness, that I am begirt with light.
"Alas, why am I not dark and like unto the night! How joyfully would I then suck at the breasts of light!
"And even you would I bless, ye twinkling starlets and glow-worms on high! and be blessed in the gifts of your light.
"But in mine own light do I live, ever back into myself do I drink the flames I send forth.