Key Arguments

• Conditional escalation: a triad of 'If ever' clauses culminates in the inference to desire for Eternity, showing a logical-ethical progression from creative mixing to willing recurrence.
• Marriage metaphor: calling recurrence 'the nuptial ring of all rings' presents eternal return as a joyous marriage to becoming, not resignation.
• Affirmation’s criterion: only one who can integrate and transfigure contraries has the strength to will their eternal return.

Source Quotes

4 If ever I drank full draughts from that foaming spice-and mixing-jug in which all things are well mixed: If ever my hand poured the farthest to the nearest and fire to spirit and joy to pain and the wickedest to the kindest: If I myself am a grain of that redemptive salt which ensures that all things in the mixing-jug are well mixed:– – for there is a salt that binds good to evil; and even the most evil is good for spicing and for the ultimate foaming-over:– Oh how should I not lust after Eternity and after the nuptial ring of all rings– the ring of recurrence?

Key Concepts

• If ever I drank full draughts from that foaming spice-and mixing-jug in which all things are well mixed
• If ever my hand poured the farthest to the nearest and fire to spirit and joy to pain and the wickedest to the kindest
• Oh how should I not lust after Eternity and after the nuptial ring of all rings– the ring of recurrence?

Context

Conclusion of the stanza’s conditionals: the achieved power to mix and redeem leads to the longing for eternal recurrence as the supreme seal of affirmation.

Perspectives

Nietzsche

Agrees: the ethical test of eternal return is passed only by a creator who can affirm the whole, including opposites; the nuptial image marks joyful consent to fate.

Zarathustra

Seals his vow: because I have drunk and mixed and redeemed, I must desire to wed Eternity in the ring of recurrence.