The danger of the happiest. – To have refined senses and a refined taste; to be accustomed to the exquisite and most excellent things of the spirit as one is to the proper and most usual food; to enjoy a strong, bold, audacious soul; to go through life with a calm eye and a firm step, always prepared for the most extreme situations – as for a feast and full of yearning for undiscovered worlds and seas, people, and gods; to hearken to all cheerful music as if brave men, soldiers, seafarers were perhaps seeking a short rest and merriment there – and in the deepest pleasure of the moment to be overcome by tears and the whole crimson melancholy of the happy: who would not like all of this to be his possession, his state! It was the happiness of Homer! The happiness of the one who invented their gods for the Greeks – I mean, his gods for himself! But don’t disregard the fact that with this Homeric happiness in one’s soul one is also more capable of suffering than any other creature under the sun! Only at this price can one buy the most precious shell hitherto washed ashore by the waves of existence! As its owner, one becomes ever more refined in pain and eventually too refined; in the end, any slight discontentment and disgust was enough to spoil life for Homer. He had been unable to solve a silly little riddle posed to him by some young fishermen!12 Yes, the little riddles are the danger for those who are happiest!