My soul, to your domain gave I all wisdom to drink all new wines, and also all immemorially old strong wines of wisdom.
My soul, every sun shed I upon you, and every night and every silence and every longing:- then grewest you up for me as a vine.
My soul, exuberant and heavy dost you now stand forth, a vine with swelling udders and full clusters of brown golden grapes:-Filled and weighted by your happiness, waiting from superabundance, and yet ashamed of your waiting.
My soul, there is nowhere a soul which could be more loving and more comprehensive and more extensive! Where could future and past be closer together than with you?
My soul, I have given you everything, and all my hands have become empty by you:- and now! Now sayest you to me, smiling and full of melancholy: “Which of us oweth thanks?-Doth the giver not owe thanks because the receiver received? Is bestowing not a necessity? Is receiving not- pitying?”
My soul, I understand the smiling of your melancholy: thine over-abundance itself now stretcheth out longing hands!
Your fulness looketh forth over raging seas, and seeketh and waiteth: the longing of over-fulness looketh forth from the smiling heaven of thine eyes!
And verily, My soul! Who could see your smiling and not melt into tears? The angels themselves melt into tears through the over-graciousness of your smiling.
Your graciousness and over-graciousness, is it which will not complain and weep: and yet, My soul, longeth your smiling for tears, and your trembling mouth for sobs.
“Is not all weeping complaining? And all complaining, accusing?” Thus speakest you to yourself; and therefore, My soul, wilt you rather smile than pour forth your grief-Than in gushing tears pour forth all your grief concerning your fulness, and concerning the craving of the vine for the vintager and vintage-knife!
But wilt you not weep, wilt you not weep forth your purple melancholy, then wilt you have to sing, My soul!- Behold, I smile myself, who foretell you this:
-You wilt have to sing with passionate song, until all seas turn calm to hearken unto your longing,-Until over calm longing seas the bark glideth, the golden marvel, around the gold of which all good, bad, and marvellous things frisk:-Also many large and small animals, and everything that hath light marvellous feet, so that it can run on violet-blue paths,-Towards the golden marvel, the spontaneous bark, and its master: he, however, is the vintager who waiteth with the diamond vintage-knife,-your great deliverer, My soul, the nameless one- for whom future songs only will find names! And verily, already hath your breath the fragrance of future songs,-Already glowest you and dreamest, already drinkest you thirstily at all deep echoing wells of consolation, already reposeth your melancholy in the bliss of future songs!- My soul, now have I given you all, and even my last possession, and all my hands have become empty by you:- that I bade you sing, behold, that was my last thing to give!
That I bade you sing,- say now, say: which of us now- oweth thanks?- Better still, however: sing unto me, sing, My soul! And let me thank you!
