therefore essentially 'absent'. Absent in a fundamental sense—never simply at hand, but absent in his essence, in his essentially being away, removed into essential having been and future—essentially absencing and never at hand, yet existent in his essential absence. Transposed into the possible, he must constantly be mistaken concerning what is actual. And only because he is thus mistaken and transposed can he become seized by terror. And only where there is the perilousness of being seized by terror do we find the bliss of astonishment—being torn away in that wakeful manner that is the breath of all philosophizing, and which the greats among the philosophers called ἐνθουσιασμός—as witnessed by the last of the greats, Friedrich Nietzsche, in that song of Zarathustra's which he called the "intoxicated song" and in which we also experience what the world is:
O Man! Attend!
What does deep midnight's voice contend?
"I slept my sleep,
"And now awake at dreaming's end:
"The world is deep,
"Deeper than day can comprehend.
"Deep is its woe,
"Joy-deeper than heart's agony:
"Woe says: Fade! Go!
"But all joy wants eternity,
"Wants deep, profound eternity!"2
2. [Tr: Slightly amended version of the translation by R. J. Hollingdale, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (London: Penguin, 1988), p. 333.]