Whoever knows the reader will do nothing more for the reader. One more century of readers - and the spirit itself will stink. That everyone is allowed to learn to read ruins not only writing in the long run, but thinking too. Once the spirit was God, then it became human and now it is even becoming rabble. Whoever writes in blood and proverbs does not want to be read, but to be learned by heart. In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that one must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those who are addressed should be great and tall. The air thin and pure, danger near and the spirit full of cheerful spite: these fit together well. I want to have goblins around me, for I am courageous. Courage that scares off ghosts creates its own goblins - courage wants to laugh. Inolonger sympathize with you; this cloud beneath me, this black and heavy thing at which I laugh - precisely this is your thundercloud. You look upward when you long for elevation. And I look down because I am elevated. Who among you can laugh and be elevated at the same time? Whoever climbs the highest mountain laughs at all tragic plays and tragic realities. Courageous, unconcerned, sarcastic, violent - thus wisdom wants us: she is a woman and always loves only a warrior. You say to me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But why would you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening? Life is hard to bear: but then do not carry on so tenderly! We are all of us handsome, load bearing jack- and jillasses. What have we in common with the rosebud that trembles because a drop of dew lies on its body? It is true: we love life not because we are accustomed to life but because we are accustomed to love. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. Andeventome,onewholikes life, it seems butterflies and soap bubbles and whatever is of their kind among human beings know most about happiness. Thus Spoke Zarathustra I'm changing too fast. My today contradicts my yesterday. I often skip steps when I climb - no step forgives me that.


If I am at the top then I always find myself alone. No one speaks with me, the frost of loneliness makes me shiver. What do I want in the heights? How ashamed I am of my climbing and stumbling! How I mock my violent panting! HowIhatetheflyingone!HowwearyIamintheheights!' Here the young man fell silent. And Zarathustra regarded the tree at which they stood and spoke thus: 'This tree stands here lonely on the mountain; it grew high beyond humans and animals. And if it wanted to speak, it would have no one who understood it: so high it grew. Now it waits and waits - but for what does it wait? It lives too near the clouds' abode: it waits for the first lightning bolt?' When Zarathustra had said this the young man cried out, gesturing agitatedly: 'Yes, Zarathustra, you speak the truth. I longed for my destruction when I aspired to the heights, and you are the lightning for which I waited! Look, what am I anymore, now that you have appeared among us! It is my envy of you that has destroyed me!' - Thus spoke the young man and he wept bitterly. But Zarathustra put his arm around him and led him away. And after they had walked together for a while Zarathustra started speaking thus: 'It tears my heart apart. Better than your words can say, your eyes tell me all your danger. You are still not free, you seek freedom. Your seeking made you sleepdeprived and over-awake. You aspire to the free heights, your soul thirsts for the stars. But your wicked instincts also thirst for freedom. Your wild dogs want to get free; they bark with joy in their cellar when your spirit contrives to liberate all prisons. To me you are still a prisoner who plots his freedom. Alas, the soul of such prisoners grows clever, but also deceptive and rotten. The one who is free of spirit must still purify himself. Much prison and mold is left in him: his eyes must still become pure. Yes, I know your danger. But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away your love and hope!


, First Part = You still feel noble, and the others who grudge you and give you the. , First Part = evil eye, they still feel your nobility too. Know that a noble person stands. in everyone's way., First Part = Anoble person also stands in the way of the good: and even when they. , First Part = call him a good man, they do so in order to get rid of him.. , First Part = The noble person wants to create new things and a new virtue. The. , First Part = good person wants old things, and for old things to be preserved.. , First Part = But it is not the danger of the noble one that he will become a good. , First Part = person, but a churl, a mocker, an annihilator.. , First Part = Oh, I knew noble people who lost their highest hope. And then they. , First Part = Then they lived churlishly in brief pleasures, scarcely casting their. , First Part = goals beyond the day.. , First Part = Once they thought of becoming heroes: now they are libertines. To. , First Part = they preach departure from life and pass away themselves! There are the consumptive of the soul: scarcely are they born when. , First Part = they begin to die and long for the teachings of weariness and resignation. They would like to be dead and we shall honor their will! Let us beware. On the Preachers of Death, First Part = There are preachers of death, and the earth is full of people to whom departure from life must be preached.. The earth is full of the superfluous, life is spoiled by the all too many. May they be lured from this life with the 'eternal life!', First Part = . , First Part = 'Yellow ones,' so the preachers of death are called, or 'black ones.'. , First Part = There are the terrible ones, who carry the predator about in themselves and have no choice but lust or self-laceration. And even their lusting is. But I want to show them to you in still different colors., First Part = . of waking these dead and disturbing these living coffins!, First Part = They encounter a sick or a very old person or a corpse, and right away they say 'life is refuted!'


But only they are refuted and their eyes, which see only the one face of existence. Cloaked in thick melancholy and greedy for the small accidents that bring death, thus they wait and clench their teeth. Or again: they reach for candy while mocking their childishness; they cling to their straw of life and mock the fact that they cling to a straw. Their wisdom says: 'A fool who goes on living, but we are such fools! And precisely that is the most foolish thing about life!' 'Life is only suffering,' so speak others, and do not lie; then see to it that you cease. Then see to it that the life that is only suffering ceases! And let the doctrine of your virtue speak thus: 'Thou shalt kill thyself! Thou shalt steal thyself away!' 'Sex is sin,' say the ones who preach death - 'let us step aside and not beget children!' 'Giving birth is strenuous,' - say the others - 'why continue to give birth? One bears only the unhappy!' And they too are preachers of death. 'Pity is needed,' - so say the third kind. 'Take what I have! Take what I am! All the less does life bind me!' If they were the pitying kind through and through, they would ruin the lives of their neighbors. Being evil - that would be their proper goodness. But they want to get free of life; what do they care that they bind others still tighter with their chains and gifts! And you too, for whom life is hectic work and unrest: are you not very weary of life? Are you not very ripe for the sermon of death? All of you who are in love with hectic work and whatever is fast, new, strange - you find it hard to bear yourselves, your diligence is escape and the will to forget yourself. If you believed more in life, you would hurl yourself less into the moment. But you do not have enough content in yourselves for waiting not even for laziness! Everywhere sounds the voice of those who preach death: and the earth is full of people to whom departure from life must be preached. Or 'the eternal life.' It's all the same to me - if only they pass away quickly! Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Watch them scramble, these swift monkeys! They scramble all over each other and thus drag one another down into the mud and depths. They all want to get to the throne, it is their madness - as if happiness sat on the throne! Often mud sits on the throne - and often too the throne on mud. Mad all of them seem to me, and scrambling monkeys and overly aroused. Their idol smells foul to me, the cold monster: together they all smell foul to me, these idol worshipers. My brothers, do you want to choke in the reek of their snouts and cravings? Smash the windows instead and leap into the open! Get out of the way of the bad smell! Go away from the idol worship of the superfluous! Get out of the way of the bad smell! Get away from the steam of these human sacrifices! Even now the earth stands open for great souls. Many seats are still empty for the lonesome and twosome, fanned by the fragrance of silent seas. Anopenlife still stands open for great souls. Indeed, whoever possesses little is possessed all the less: praised be a small poverty! There, where the state ends, only there begins the human being who is not superfluous; there begins the song of necessity, the unique and irreplaceable melody. There, where the state ends - look there, my brothers! Do you not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the overman? - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Flee, my friend, into your solitude! I see you dazed by the noise of the great men and stung by the stings of the little. Woodandcliffknowworthilyhowtokeepsilentwithyou.Beoncemore like the tree that you love, the broad-branching one: silent and listening it hangs over the sea. Where solitude ends, there begins the market place; and where the market place begins, there begins too the noise of the great actors and the buzzing of poisonous flies.


In the world even the best things are still worthless without the one per-, First Part = . son who first performs them: the people call these great men performers. Thepeople little understand what is great, that is: the creator. But they, First Part = . have a sense for all performers and actors of great things. The world revolves around the inventors of new values: - it revolves, First Part = . invisibly. But the people and fame revolve around actors: thus is the course, First Part = . A truth that slips into only the finer ears he calls a lie and nothing., First Part = . of the world., First Part = . Spirit the actor has, but little conscience of spirit. He always believes, First Part = . in whatever makes people believe most strongly - believe in him ! Tomorrow he will have a new belief and the day after tomorrow an, First Part = . even newer one. He has hasty senses, like the people, and a fickle ability, First Part = . Return to your safety on account of these precipitous types: only in the, First Part = . him that means: to convince. And blood to him is the best of all possible, First Part = . grounds., First Part = . Indeed, he only believes in gods that make great noise in the world!, First Part = . The market place is full of pompous jesters - and the people are proud, First Part = . revenge., First Part = . they want a Yes or a No. Alas, do you want to set your chair between pro and contra? Be without envy on account of these unconditional and pressing types,, First Part = they want a Yes or a No. Alas, do you want to set your chair between pro and contra? Be without envy on account of these unconditional and pressing types,. you lover of truth! Never before has truth hung on the arm of an, First Part = you lover of truth! Never before has truth hung on the arm of an. absolutist., First Part = . market place is one assaulted with Yes? or No?, First Part = market place is one assaulted with Yes? or No?. For all deep wells experience is slow; they must wait long before they, First Part = . know what fell into their depth. Away from the market place and fame all greatness takes place; away,


First Part = . from the market place and fame the inventors of new values have lived all, First Part = from the market place and fame the inventors of new values have lived all. along., First Part = . Flee, my friend, into your solitude: I see you stung by poisonous flies. Flee where raw, strong air blows!, First Part = . Flee into your solitude! You have lived too long near the small and, First Part = . the pitiful. Flee their invisible revenge! Against you they are nothing but, First Part = the pitiful. Flee their invisible revenge! Against you they are nothing but


Do not raise your arm against them anymore! They are innumerable, and it is not your lot to be a shoo-fly. Innumerable are these small and pitiful ones; and rain drops and weeds have sufficed to bring down many a proud structure. You are no stone, but already you have become hollow from many drops. You will shatter and burst still from many drops. I see you weary from poisonous flies, torn bloody in a hundred places, and yet your pride does not even become angered. They want blood from you in all innocence, their bloodless souls demand blood - and so they sting away in all innocence. But you, deep one, you suffer too deeply even from small wounds; and before you could even heal yourself, the same poisonous worm crawled across your hand. You are too proud to slay these sweet-toothed creatures. But beware, or it will become your doom to bear all their poisonous injustice! They also buzz around you with their praise; importunity is their praising! They want the closeness of your skin and your blood. They flatter you like a god or devil; they snivel before you as before a god or devil. What's the use! They are sycophants and snivelers and nothing more. Often too they give themselves charming airs. But that has always been the cleverness of cowards; yes, cowards are clever! They think about you much with their narrow souls - you always give them pause! Everything that is thought about much gives pause. Theypunishyoufor all your virtues. What they forgive you thoroughly are only - your mistakes. Because you are mild and of just temperament, you say: 'They are not guilty of their petty existence.' But their narrow souls think: 'All great existence is guilty.' Even when you are mild toward them they still feel despised by you; and they repay your benefaction with hidden malefactions. Your wordless pride always contradicts their taste; they jubilate if only you are modest enough to be vain. That which we recognize in a person we also inflame in him - therefore beware of the petty! They feel small before you, and their baseness glimmers and glows at you in invisible revenge.


Haven'tyounoticedhowoftentheyfallsilentwhenyouapproachthem,, = . and how their strength abandoned them like the smoke of a dying fire?, = . Yes my friend, you are the bad conscience of your neighbors, for they are unworthy of you. Therefore they hate you and would like much to, = . suck your blood., = . Your neighbors will always be poisonous flies; that which is great in, = . you-that itself must make them more poisonous and ever more fly-like., = . Flee, my friend, into your solitude and where raw, strong air blows! It, = . is not your lot to be a shoo-fly. -, = . Thus spoke Zarathustra., = . On Chastity, = . I love the forest. It is bad to live in the cities; there too many are in heat. Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer than into the dreams, = . of a woman in heat?, = . on earth than to lie with a woman., = . your senses., = your senses.. Do I advise you to chastity? In some people chastity is a virtue, but in, = . many it is almost a vice., = . They abstain, to be sure: but the bitch, sensuality, leers with envy out, = . of everything they do., = . spirit this beast follows them with its unrest., = . And how sweetly the bitch, sensuality, knows how to beg for a piece of, = . spirit when she is denied a piece of meat!, = . mistrustful of your bitch., = . sufferers. Has your lust not simply disguised itself, and now calls itself, = . pity?, = And this parable too I give to you: not a few who wanted to drive out their devil went into swine themselves. Those for whom chastity is difficult should be advised against it, or else it could become their road to hell - that is, the mud and the heat of the soul. Do I speak of dirty things? That is not the worst of it to me. Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow the seeker of knowledge steps reluctantly into its water.


Indeed, there are chaste people through and through; they are milder of heart, they laugh more gladly and more richly than you. They laugh at chastity too and ask: 'what is chastity? Is chastity not folly? But this folly came to us, and not we to it. We offered this guest hostel and heart: now it dwells with us - may it stay as long as it wants!' Thus spoke Zarathustra.


'One is always too many around me' - thus thinks the hermit. 'Always one times one - in the long run that makes two!' I and me are always too eager in conversation: how could I stand it if there were no friend? For the hermit the friend is always a third: the third is the cork that prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depths. Oh, there are too many depths for all hermits. That is why they long so for a friend and his height. Our faith in others betrays the areas in which we would like to have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. Andoften one uses love merely to leap over envy. And often one attacks and makes an enemy in order to conceal that one is open to attack. 'At least be my enemy!' - Thus speaks true respect that does not dare to ask for friendship. If one wants a friend, then one must also want to wage war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be able to be an enemy. One should honor the enemy even in one's friend. Can you step up to your friend without stepping over to him? In one's friend one should have one's best enemy. You should be closest to him in heart when you resist him. Nietzsche's bitterness toward women, and especially his view that women are incapable of friendship, were no doubt influenced by his traumatic experience with Lou Salom e, with whom he had


Womanisnot yet capable of friendship. But tell me, you men, who then among you is capable of friendship? Oh how repulsive is your poverty, you men, and the stinginess of your souls! As much as you give your friend I will give even to my enemy, and would not be poorer for it. There is comradeship: may there be friendship! Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Many lands Zarathustra saw and many peoples; thus he discovered many peoples' good and evil. No greater market place on earth did Zarathustra find than good and evil. No people could live that did not first esteem; but if they want to preserve themselves, then they must not esteem as their neighbor esteems. Muchthat was called good by this people was called scorn and disgrace byanother:thusIfound.MuchIfoundthatwascalledevilhereanddecked in purple honors there. Never did one neighbor understand the other: always his soul was amazed at his neighbor's delusion and malice. A tablet of the good hangs over every people. Observe, it is the tablet of their overcomings; observe, it is the voice of their will to power. Praiseworthy to them is whatever they consider difficult; what is indispensable and difficult, is called good, and whatever stems from the highest need and still liberates, the rarest, the most difficult - that is praised as holy. Whatever lets them rule and triumph and shine, to the dread and envy of their neighbor, that they consider as the high, the first, the measuring, the meaning of all things. Truly, my brother, once you discover a people's need and land and sky and neighbor, you guess as well the law of their overcomings, and why they climb on this ladder to their hope. been in love. The writing of the first two parts of TSZ coincides with and chronicles Nietzsche's coming to terms with the profound betrayal he felt at the hands of both Salom'e and his friend Paul R'ee. See Adrian Del Caro, 'Andreas-Salom'e and Nietzsche: New Perspectives,' Seminar : ( ), pp. - .


'Alwaysyou shall be the first and tower above others: no one shall your jealous soul love, unless it is the friend' - this is what made the soul of a Greek tremble: with this he walked the path of greatness. 'Speak the truth and be skilled with the bow and arrow' - this seemed both dear and difficult to the people from whom my name derives - the name that is both dear and difficult to me. 'Honorfather and mother and comply with their will down to the roots of one's soul' - this tablet of overcoming a different people hung over themselves and became powerful and eternal thereby. 'Practice loyalty and for loyalty's sake risk honor and blood even on evil and dangerous things' - teaching themselves thus another people conquered themselves, and thus conquering themselves they became pregnant and heavy with great hopes. Indeed, humans gave themselves all of their good and evil. Indeed, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did not fall to them as a voice from heaven. Humans first placed values into things, in order to preserve themselves -they first created meaning for things, a human meaning! That is why they call themselves 'human,' that is: the esteemer. Esteeming is creating: hear me, you creators! Esteeming itself is the treasure and jewel of all esteemed things. Only through esteeming is there value, and without esteeming the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear me, you creators! Change of values - that is the change of creators. Whoever must be a creator always annihilates. First peoples were creators and only later individuals; indeed, the individual himself is still the youngest creation. Peoples once hung a tablet of the good over themselves. Love that wants to rule and love that wants to obey such tablets created together.


This is a direct allusion to Zoroaster, Zarathustra's namesake. The ancient religion of Zoroastrianism is still practiced by some in Iran, formerly called Persia. Nietzsche explains the significance of using the German name of Zoroaster for his modern-day prophet in Ecce Homo ,ch. , section , where he writes: 'Zarathustra is more truthful than any other thinker. His teaching and it alone has truthfulness as the supreme virtue - that is, the opposite of the cowardice of the 'idealist' who flees from reality; Zarathustra has more courage in his body than all thinkers put together. Speak the truth and be skilled with the bow and arrow , that is Persian virtue.' In this passage Nietzsche's three peoples are the Persians, the Jews, and the Germans. Thus Spoke Zarathustra Delight in the herd is older than delight in the ego, and as long as good conscience is synonymous with herd, only bad conscience says: ego. Truly, the sly ego, loveless, wanting its benefit in the benefit of the many: that is not the origin of the herd, but instead its going under. It was always lovers and creators who created good and evil. The fire of love glows in the names of all virtues and the fire of wrath. Zarathustra saw many lands and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the works of the lovers: 'good' and 'evil' are their names. Truly, a behemoth is the power of this praising and blaming. Tell me, who will conquer it for me, you brothers? Tell me, who will throw the fetters over the thousand necks of this beast? A thousand goals there have been until now, for there have been a thousand peoples. Only the fetters for the thousand necks are still missing, the one goal is missing. Humanity still has no goal. But tell me, my brothers: if humanity still lacks a goal, does it not also still lack - humanity itself? - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


You crowd around your neighbor and you have pretty words for it. But I say to you: your love of the neighbor is your bad love of yourselves. You flee to your neighbor to escape yourself and you want to make a virtue of it: but I see through your 'selflessness.' The You is older than the I; the You is pronounced sacred, but not yet the I: and so humans crowd around their neighbors. Do I recommend love of the neighbor to you? I prefer instead to recommend flight from the neighbor and love of the farthest! Higher than love of the neighbor is love of the farthest and the future; higher still than love of human beings is love of things and ghosts. This ghost that runs before you, my brother, is more beautiful than you; why do you not give it your flesh and your bones? But you are afraid and run to your neighbor.


You cannot stand yourselves and do not love yourselves enough: now you want to seduce your neighbor to love and gild yourselves with his error. I wish you were unable to stand all these neighbors and their neighbors; then you would have to create your friend and his overflowing heart out of yourself. Youinvite a witness when you want someone to speak well of you; and when you have seduced him into thinking well of you, you then think well of yourselves. Not only he lies who speaks though he knows better, but the real liar is the one who speaks though he knows nothing. And so you visit each other and speak of yourselves and deceive your neighbor with yourselves. Thus speaks the fool: 'The company of people ruins one's character, especially when one has none.' Onepersongoestohis neighbor because he seeks himself, and the other because he would like to lose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes your loneliness into a prison. Those farther away pay for your love of the neighbor; and even when you are together five at a time, always a sixth one must die. Nor do I love your festivals: too many actors I found there, and even the spectators behaved often like actors. I do not teach you the neighbor, but the friend. The friend shall be your festival of the earth and an anticipation of the overman. I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one must understand how to be a sponge, if one wants to be loved by overflowing hearts. I teach you the friend in whom the world stands complete, a bowl of goodness - the creating friend who always has a complete world to bestow. And just as the world rolled apart for him, so it rolled together again in rings, as the becoming of good through evil, as the becoming of purpose out of accident. Let the future and the farthest be the cause of your today: in your friend you shall love the overman as your cause. My brothers, I do not recommend love of the neighbor to you: I recommend love of the farthest to you. Thus spoke Zarathustra. Thus Spoke Zarathustra


Do you want to go into isolation, my brother? Do you want to seek the way to yourself? Linger a bit longer and listen to me. 'Whoever seeks easily gets lost himself. All isolation is guilt,' thus speaks the herd. And long have you belonged to the herd. The voice of the herd will still resonate in you too. And when you will say 'I no longer am of one conscience with you,' then it will be a lament and a pain. Behold, this pain itself bore the one conscience, and the last shimmer of this conscience still glows on your misery. But you want to go the way of your misery, which is the way to yourself? Then show me your right and your strength to it! Are you a new strength and a new right? A first movement? A wheel rolling out of itself? Can you compel even the stars to revolve around you? Oh, there is so much lust for the heights! There are so many spasms of the ambitious! Show me that you are not one of the lustful and the ambitious! Oh, there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than a bellows: they puff up and make emptier. You call yourself free? Your dominating thought I want to hear, and not that you escaped from a yoke. Are you the kind of person who had the right to escape from a yoke? There are some who threw away their last value when they threw away their servitude. Free from what? What does Zarathustra care! But brightly your eyes should signal to me: free for what ? Can you give yourself your own evil and good and hang your will above yourself like a law? Can you be your own judge and the avenger of your law? It is terrible to be alone with the judge and avenger of one's own law. Thusdoes a star get thrown out into desolate space and into the icy breath of solitary being. Today you suffer still from the many, you lonely one: for today you still have your courage and your hopes intact.


Joche , yoke, is the same word in German and English. Here Nietzsche specifically has a yoke in mind because he is addressing the possibility of freedom among those who are yoked. In 'On a Thousand and One Goals,' Nietzsche uses the word Fesseln (fetters) in connection with the beast with a thousand necks, not yoke as indicated in the Kaufmann translation.


But one day solitude will make you weary, one day your pride will cringe and your courage will gnash its teeth. One day you will cry 'I am alone!' One day will you will no longer see your high, and your low will be all too near; your sublimity itself will frighten you like a ghost. One day you will cry: 'Everything is false!' There are feelings that want to kill the lonely one; if they do not succeed, well, then they must die themselves! But are you capable of being a murderer? Do you know the word 'contempt' yet, my brother? And the agony of your justice, namely to be just to those who despise you? You compel many to relearn about you; they weigh that heavily against you. You came near to them and yet passed by: they will never forgive you that. You pass over and beyond them, but the higher you climb the smaller you are to the eyes of envy. But the ones who fly they hate most. 'How would you be just toward me?' - you must say - 'I choose your injustice as my fair share.' Injustice and filth they throw at the lonely one. But my brother, if you want to be a star then you must shine through for them all the more! And beware of the good and the just! They like to crucify those who invent their own virtue - they hate the lonely one. Beware too of holy simplicity! Everything is unholy to it that is not simple; it also likes to play with fire - the stake. And beware of the attacks of your love! Too quickly the lonely one extends his hand to those he encounters. To some people you should not give your hand, but instead only your paw: and I want that your paw also has claws. But the worst enemy whom you can encounter will always be yourself; you ambush yourself in caves and woods. Lonely one, you go the way to yourself! And past you yourself leads your way and past your seven devils! To your own self you will be heretic and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy man and villain. You must want to burn yourself up in your own flame: how could you become new if you did not first become ashes! Lonely one, you go the way of the creator: you will create yourself a god out of your seven devils! Thus Spoke Zarathustra


Lonely one, you go the way of the lover: you love yourself and that is why you despise yourself as only lovers despise. The lover wants to create because he despises! What does he know of love who did not have to despise precisely what he loved! With your love go into your isolation and with your creativity, my brother; and only later will justice limp after you. With my tears go into your isolation, my brother. I love him who wants to create over and beyond himself and thus perishes. - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


'Why do you creep about so timidly in the twilight, Zarathustra? And what do you conceal so cautiously beneath your coat? Is it a treasure that was given to you? Or a child that was born to you? Or do you yourself now walk the paths of thieves, you friend of the evil?' - 'Indeed, my brother!' spoke Zarathustra. 'It is a treasure that was given to me: it is a little truth, which I carry. But it is unruly like a young child, and if I do not hold its mouth shut, then it cries out too loudly. As I went my way alone today, at the hour when the sun sets, I met a little old woman and she spoke thus to my soul: 'Much has Zarathustra spoken also to us women, and yet he has never spoken to us about woman.' And I replied to her: 'About woman one should speak only to men.' 'Speak to me too about woman,' she said. 'I am old enough to forget it right away.' And I humored the little old woman and spoke thus to her: Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy. A man is for woman a means: the end is always the child. But what is woman for a man? Two things the real man wants: danger and play. That is why he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything. A man should be raised for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior: everything else is folly.


Bundle it up and hold its mouth shut, or else it will cry out too loudly, this little truth.' 'Give me your little truth, woman!' I said. And thus spoke the little old woman: 'You go to women? Do not forget the whip!' - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


One day Zarathustra had fallen asleep beneath a fig tree, since it was hot, and he had laid his arm over his face. Then an adder came along and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra cried out in pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the snake; it recognized the eyes of Zarathustra, turned around awkwardly and tried to get away. 'Not so fast,' spoke Zarathustra. 'You have not yet accepted my thanks! You waked me in time, my way is still long.' 'Your way is still short,' said the adder sadly: 'My poison kills.' Zarathustra smiled. 'Since when did a dragon ever die of snake poison?' he said. 'But take back your poison! You are not rich enough to give it to me.' Then the snake fell upon his neck once again and licked his wound. When Zarathustra once told this to his disciples they asked: 'And what, oh Zarathustra, is the moral of your story?' To which Zarathustra responded thus: 'The annihilator of morals the good and just call me: my story is immoral. If you should have an enemy, then do not requite him evil with good, for that would shame him. Instead prove that he has does you some good. And be angry rather than shaming someone! And if you are cursed at, I do not like it that you want to bless. Better to curse along a bit! And if a great wrong befell you, then quickly add five small ones to it! Ghastly to behold is a person who suffers a wrong all by himself. Did you know this already? A wrong shared is half a right. And the one who should take a wrong upon himself is the one who can bear it! Recent scholarship on Nietzsche's view of women reveals a deeper appreciation of women than the one suggested here, which is seductively misleading. In the photo of Nietzsche, Paul R ee, and Lou Salom e, the two men are 'in harness' in front of a tiny cart, while Lou Salom e holds a toy whip. See Adrian Del Caro, 'Nietzsche, Sacher-Masoch, and the Whip,' German Studies Review : ( ), pp. - .


, First Part = A small revenge is more humane than no revenge at all. And if the. , First Part = punishment is not also a right and an honor for the transgressor, then I. , First Part = It is more noble to pronounce oneself wrong than to remain right,. , First Part = especially if one is right. Only one has to be rich enough for that.. , First Part = I do not like your cold justice; and from the eyes of your judges gazes. , First Part = Tell me, where is the justice found that is love with seeing eyes?. , First Part = Then invent me the kind of love that not only bears all punishment but. also all guilt!, First Part = . , First Part = Then invent me the kind of justice that pardons everyone, except the. , First Part = And do you want to hear this too? In the person who would be thor-. But how could I want to be thoroughly just! How can I give to each his, First Part = oughly just, even lies become philanthropy.. , First Part = own! Let this be enough for me: I give to each my own. Finally, my brothers, beware of doing wrong to any hermits! How could. , First Part = a hermit forget? How could he requite?. A hermit is like a deep well. It is easy to throw in a stone; but once it, First Part = I want your victory and your freedom to long for a child. You should. Beware of offending the hermit! But if you've already done so, well you: are you a person who has a right to wish for a child? Are you the victor, the self conqueror, the master of your senses, the Or do the animal and neediness speak out of your wish? Or loneliness? Or discord with yourself?, First Part = Your should build over and beyond yourself. But first I want you built. , First Part = has sunk to the bottom, tell me: who would fetch it up again?. then, kill him too!', First Part = Thus spoke Zarathustra.. On Child and Marriage, First Part = . I have a question for you alone, my brother: like a plumb bob I cast this question into your soul, in order to know how deep it is., First Part = . You are young and wish


for a child and marriage for yourself. But I ask, First Part = . ruler of your virtues? Thus I ask you., First Part = . build living monuments to your victory and your liberation., First Part = . yourselves, square in body and soul., First Part =


You should not only reproduce, but surproduce! May the garden of marriage help you to that! Youshould create a higher body, a first movement, a wheel rolling out of itself - a creator you should create. Marriage: that is what I call the will by two for creating the one who is more than those who created it. Respect for one another I call marriage, and respect for the one who wills such a willing. Let this be the meaning and the truth of your marriage. But that which the far-too-many call marriage, these superfluous ones - oh, what do I call that? Oh, this poverty of the soul by two! Oh, this filth of the soul by two! Oh, this pitiful contentment by two! Marriage they call all this; and they say their marriages are made in heaven. Well, I do not like it, this heaven of the superfluous! No, I do not like them, these animals tangled in the heavenly net! And may the God stay away from me who limps up to bless what he has not joined together! Donot laugh at such marriages! Which child would not have reason to weep about its parents? Worthy this man seemed to me, and ripe for the meaning of the earth; butwhenIsawhiswoman,theearthseemedtomeahouseforthesenseless. Indeed, I wish the earth would quake in convulsions whenever a saint and a goose mate. This one went forth like a hero seeking truths, and finally he bagged himself a little dressed up lie. He calls it his marriage. That one was socially reserved and a choosy chooser. But all at once he ruined his company once and for all: he calls it his marriage. That one sought a maid with the virtues of an angel. But all at once he became the maid of a woman and now he even has to turn himself into an angel. Cautious I found all buyers now, and all have cunning eyes. But even the cunning man still buys his wife in a poke. Manybrief follies - that is what you call love. And your marriage makes an end of many brief follies, as one long stupidity. Your love of woman and woman's love of man, oh! If only it were compassion for suffering and for disguised gods! But mostly it is two animals discovering each other.


'Vom freien Tode' - on free death - suggests der Freitod , suicide (death entered into freely). As usual Nietzsche's emphasis is on the quality of one's life, here juxtaposed with the symbolism of one's death. My death I praise to you, the free death that comes to me because I want. And when will I want it? - Whoever has a goal and an heir wants death at the right time for his goal and heir. And out of reverence for his goal and heir he will no longer hang withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life. Indeed, I do not want to be like the rope makers: they stretch out their threads and in doing so always walk backwards. Some become too old even for their truths and victories; a toothless mouth no longer has the right to every truth. And everyone who wants to have fame must take leave of honor from time to time and practice the difficult art of leaving - at the right time. One must stop letting oneself be eaten when one tastes best; this is known by those who want to be loved for a long time. There are sour apples, to be sure, whose lot demands that they wait for the last day of autumn; and immediately they become ripe, yellow and wrinkled. With some the heart ages first and with others the mind. A few are hoary in their youth, but the late young stay long young. For some life fails: a poisonous worm eats its way to their heart. Let them see to it that their dying succeeds all the more. Some never become sweet, they rot already in summer. It is cowardice that keeps them clinging to the branch. Far too many live and far too long they hang on their branches. Would that a storm came to shake all this rot and worm-food from the tree! Would that preachers of the quick death came! They would be the right storms and shakers of the trees of life for me! But I hear only preaching of the slow death and patience with all things 'earthly.' Indeed, you preach patience with earthly things? It is the earthly things that have too much patience with you, you slanderers! Truly, too early did that Hebrew die, the one who is honored by the preachers of slow death; and for many it has since become their doom that he died too early.


He still knew only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrews, together with the hatred of the good and just - the Hebrew Jesus; then longing for death overcame him. Thus spoke Zarathustra.


When Zarathustra had taken leave of the city, which was dear to his heart and whose name was The Motley Cow, many who called themselves his disciples followed him, and they provided him escort. Thus they came to a crossroads; then Zarathustra told them he wanted to walk alone now, for he was a friend of walking alone. In parting, however, his disciples 'Von der schenkenden Tugend,' with schenken meaning 'to bestow' rather than merely 'to give.' German uses schenken to connote the special kind of giving as a gift, a present, a grant, or a donation. 'Giving' captures some of this, but German uses geben (to give) just as English does.


presented him with a staff upon whose golden knob a snake encircled the sun. Zarathustra was delighted with the staff and leaned on it; then he spoke thus to his disciples. Tell me now: how did gold come to have the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and mild in its luster; it bestows itself always. Only as the image of the highest virtue did gold come to have the highest value. Goldlike gleams the gaze of the bestower. Golden luster makes peace between moon and sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and mild in its luster: a bestowing virtue is the highest virtue. Truly,Iguessyouwell,mydisciples:likemeyoustriveforthebestowing virtue. What would you have in common with cats or wolves? This is your thirst: to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves, and therefore you thirst to amass all riches in your soul. Insatiably your soul strives for treasures and gems, because your virtue is insatiable in wanting to bestow. You compel all things to and into yourselves, so that they may gush back from your well as the gifts of your love. Indeed, such a bestowing love must become a robber of all values, but hale and holy I call this selfishness. There is another selfishness, one all too poor, a hungering one that always wants to steal; that selfishness of the sick, the sick selfishness. With the eye of the thief it looks at all that gleams; with the greed of hunger it eyes those with ample food; and always it creeps around the table of the bestowers. Sickness speaks out of such craving and invisible degeneration; the thieving greed of this selfishness speaks of a diseased body. Tell me, my brothers: what do we regard as bad and worst? Is it not degeneration ?-Andwealwaysdiagnosedegenerationwherethebestowing soul is absent. Upward goes our way, over from genus to super-genus. But a horror to us is the degenerating sense which speaks: 'Everything for me.'


Degeneration ( Entartung ) is based on genus, just as Entartung is based on Art , meaning genus, species, type, or kind. Nietzsche's concern is with the human species, which he sees threatened by degeneration. Those humans who possess a superabundance of the bestowing virtue are transitioning from human (the species or Art ) to superhuman ( Uber-Art ). In Part Zarathustra will again refer specifically to a new 'beautiful species.'


Upward flies our sense; thus it is a parable of our body, a parable of elevation. Such elevation parables are the names of the virtues. Thus the body goes through history, becoming and fighting. And the spirit - what is it to the body? The herald of its fights and victories, companion and echo. Parables are all names of good and evil: they do not express, they only hint. A fool who wants to know of them! Pay attention, my brothers, to every hour where your spirit wants to speak in parables: there is the origin of your virtue. There your body is elevated and resurrected; with its bliss it delights the spirit, which becomes creator and esteemer and lover and benefactor of all things. Whenyourheartflowsbroadandfulllikeariver,ablessing and a danger to adjacent dwellers: there is the origin of your virtue. When you are sublimely above praise and blame, and your will wants to command all things, as the will of a lover: there is the origin of your virtue. When you despise pleasantness and the soft bed, and cannot bed down far enough away from the softies: there is the origin of your virtue. When you are the ones who will with a single will, and this turning point of all need points to your necessity: there is the origin of your virtue. Indeed, it is a new good and evil! Indeed, a new, deep rushing and the voice of a new spring! It is power, this new virtue; it is a ruling thought and around it a wise soul: a golden sun and around it the snake of knowledge. Here Zarathustra was silent for a while and looked with love at his disciples. Then he continued to speak thus - and his voice had transformed. Remainfaithfultotheearth,mybrothers,withthepowerofyourvirtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth! Thus I beg and beseech you. Donot let it fly away from earthly things and beat against eternal walls with its wings! Oh, there has always been so much virtue that flew away! Like me, guide the virtue that has flown away back to the earth - yes, back to the body and life: so that it may give the earth its meaning, a human meaning! Thus Spoke Zarathustra


In a hundred ways thus far the spirit as well as virtue has flown away and failed. Oh, in our body now all this delusion and failure dwells: there they have become body and will. In a hundred ways thus far spirit as well as virtue has essayed and erred. Indeed, human beings were an experiment. Alas, much ignorance and error have become embodied in us! Not only the reason of millennia - their madness too breaks out in us. It is dangerous to be an heir. Still we struggle step by step with the giant called accident, and over all humanity thus far nonsense has ruled, the sense-less. Let your spirit and your virtue serve the meaning of the earth, my brothers:andthevalueofallthingswillbepositednewlybyyou!Therefore you shall be fighters! Therefore you shall be creators! Knowingly the body purifies itself; experimenting with knowledge it elevates itself; all instincts become sacred in the seeker of knowledge; the soul of the elevated one becomes gay. Physician, help yourself: thus also you help your sick. Let that be his best help, that he sees with his own eyes the one who heals himself. There are a thousand paths that have never yet been walked; a thousand healths and hidden islands of life. Human being and human earth are still unexhausted and undiscovered. Wake and listen, you lonely ones! From the future come winds with secretive wingbeats; good tidings are issued to delicate ears. You lonely of today, you withdrawing ones, one day you shall be a people: from you who have chosen yourselves a chosen people shall grow and from them the overman. Indeed, the earth shall yet become a site of recovery! And already a new fragrance lies about it, salubrious - and a new hope! When Zarathustra had said these words, he grew silent like one who has notspokenhislastword.Longheweighedthestaffinhishand,doubtfully. Finally he spoke thus, and his voice had transformed. 'Alone I go now, my disciples! You also should go now, and alone! Thus I want it. Thus spoke Zarathustra.


. . . and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. Indeed, with different eyes, my brothers, will I then seek my lost ones; with a different love will I love you then. Zarathustra , 'On the Bestowing Virtue' ( , p. ).


The Child with the Mirror, 1 = . At this time Zarathustra returned again to the mountains and to the solitude of his cave and withdrew from mankind, waiting like a sower who has cast his seeds. But his soul grew full of impatience and desire for, 1 = . those whom he loved, because he still had much to give them. For this is, 1 = . the hardest thing: to close the open hand out of love, and to preserve a, 1 = . sense of shame as a bestower., 1 = . Thus moons and years passed for the lonely one; but his wisdom grew, 1 = . and its fullness caused him pain., 1 = . But one morning he woke already before dawn, reflected for a long time, 1 = . on his bed and at last spoke to his heart:, 1 = . What frightened me so in my dream that it waked me? Did not a child, 1 = . approach me carrying a mirror? 'Oh Zarathustra' - spoke the child to me - 'look at yourself in the, 1 = . mirror!', 1 = . But when I looked into the mirror I cried out, and my heart was shaken;, 1 = . forIdid not see myself there, but a devil's grimace and scornful laughter. Indeed, all too well I understand the dream's sign and warning: my, 1 = . teaching is in danger, weeds want to be wheat!, 1 = . Myenemies have become powerful and have distorted the image of my teaching, so that those dearest to me must be ashamed of the gifts I gave, 1 = . them., 1 = . My friends are lost to me; the hour has arrived to seek my lost ones! -, 1 = . ened person fighting for air, but instead more like a seer and a singer on, 1 = . whom the spirit has descended. In amazement his eagle and his snake, 1 = . looked at him, for like the dawn an impending happiness lay upon his face., 1 = . What just happened to me, my animals? - said Zarathustra. Am I not, 1 = . transformed? Did bliss not come to me like a storm wind?, 1 = . Foolish is my happiness and it will speak foolish things: it is still too, 1 = . young - so have patience with it!, 1 = . Iamwounded by my happiness:


all sufferers shall be physicians to me!, 1 = . Once again I may descend to my friends and also to my enemies!, 1 = . Zarathustra may speak again and bestow and do what he loves best for, 1 = . , 1 = loved ones! Thus Spoke Zarathustra My impatient love floods over in torrents, downward, toward sunrise and sunset. From silent mountains and thunderheads of pain my soul roars into the valleys. ToolonghaveIlongedandgazedintothedistance.ToolongIbelonged to solitude - thus I forgot how to be silent. I have become mouth through and through, and a brook's bounding from high boulders: I want to plunge my speech down into the valleys. And may my torrent of love plunge into impasses! How could a torrent not finally make its way to the sea! Truly, there is a lake in me, a hermit-like and self-sufficient lake; but my torrent of love tears it along - down to the sea! New ways I go, a new speech comes to me; I became weary, like all creators, of old tongues. My spirit no longer wants to wander on worn soles. All speech runs too slowly for me: - I leap into your chariot, storm! And I shall whip even you with the whip of my malice! Like a shout and a jubilation I want to journey over broad seas until I find the blessed isles where my friends dwell - And my enemies among them! How I love everyone now, with whom I may simply speak! Even my enemies belong to my bliss. And when I want to mount my wildest horse, then my spear always helps me up best: it is the ever-ready servant of my foot - The spear I hurl against my enemies! How I thank my enemies that at last I may hurl it! Too great was the tension of my cloud: between lightning peals of laughter I shall throw hail showers into the depths. Violently my chest will heave then, violently it will blow its storm over mountains: thus relief comes to it. Indeed, my happiness and my freedom come like a storm! But my enemies should believe the evil one is raging over their heads. Indeed, you too will be frightened, my friends, because of my wild wisdom; and perhaps you will flee from it together with my enemies.


Oh, if only I understood how to lure you back with shepherds' flutes! Oh, if only my lioness-wisdom could learn to roar tenderly! And much we have already learned with each other! My wild wisdom wound up pregnant on lonely mountains; on naked stones she bore her young, her youngest.


Nowsherunsfoolishly through harsh desert and seeks and seeks gentle, Second Part = . turf - my old wild wisdom! Upon the gentle turf of your hearts, my friends! - upon your love she would like to bed her most beloved!, Second Part = . Thus spoke Zarathustra., Second Part = . On the Blessed Isles, Second Part = . The figs fall from the trees, they are good and sweet; and as they fall, their, Second Part = . red skin ruptures. I am a north wind to ripe figs., Second Part = . Thus, like figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends: now drink their, Second Part = . juice and their sweet flesh! It is autumn all around and pure sky and, Second Part = . afternoon., Second Part = . See what fullness is around us! And from such superabundance it is beautiful to look out upon distant seas., Second Part = . Once people said God when they gazed upon distant seas; but now I, Second Part = . have taught you to say: overman. Godisaconjecture, but I want that your conjecturing not reach further, Second Part = . than your creating will., Second Part = . Could you create a god? - Then be silent about any gods! But you could, Second Part = . selves into fathers and forefathers of the overman: and this shall be your, Second Part = . well create the overman., Second Part = . Not you yourselves perhaps, my brothers! But you could recreate your-, Second Part = . best creating! -, Second Part = . God is a conjecture: but I want your conjecturing to be limited to what, Second Part = . is thinkable., Second Part = . Could you think a God? - But let this mean will to truth to you; that, Second Part = . everything be transformed into what is humanly thinkable, humanly, Second Part = . visible, humanly feelable! You should think your own senses to their, Second Part = . conclusion!, Second Part = . reason, your image, your will, your love itself it should become! And truly,, Second Part = . knowledge? Neither into the incomprehensible nor into the irrational, Second Part = . could you have been born., Second Part = . how could I stand not to be a god! Therefore


there are no gods., Second Part =


I drew this conclusion to be sure; but now it draws me. - Godisaconjecture: but who could drink all the agony of this conjecture without dying? Should the creating person's faith be taken, and from the eagle its soaring in eagle heights? God is a thought that makes crooked everything that is straight, and causes everything that stands to turn. What? Should time be gone, and all that is not everlasting be merely a lie? To think this causes whirling and dizziness to human bones and even vomiting to the stomach: indeed, the turning disease I call it, to conjecture such things. Evil I call it and misanthropic: all this teaching of the one and the plenum and the unmoved and the sated and the everlasting! All that is everlasting - that is merely a parable! And the poets lie too much. But the best parables should speak about time and becoming: they should be praise and justification of all that is not everlasting! Creating-thatisthegreatredemptionfromsuffering,andlife'sbecoming light. But in order for the creator to be, suffering is needed and much transformation. Indeed, much bitter dying must be in your life, you creators! Therefore you are advocates and justifiers of all that is not everlasting. In order for the creator himself to be the child who is newly born, he must also want to be the birth-giver and the pain of giving birth. Indeed, through a hundred souls I went my way and through a hundred cradles and pangs of birth. Many a farewell have I taken already; I know the heartbreaking final hours. Butthusmycreating will wills it, my destiny. Or, to tell it more honestly to you: just such a destiny - my will wills. Everything that feels, suffers in me and is in prison; but my will always comes to me as my liberator and bringer of joy. Willing liberates: that is the true teaching of will and liberty - thus Zarathustra teaches it. No more willing and no more esteeming and no more creating! Oh, if only this great weariness would always keep away from me!


Even in knowing I feel only my will's lust to beget and to become; and if there is innocence in my knowledge, then this happens because the will to beget is in it.


And once Zarathustra gave a sign to his disciples and spoke these words to them: 'Here are priests, and though they are my enemies, go quietly past them and with sleeping swords! Among them too there are heroes; many of them suffered too much, so they want to make others suffer.


They are evil enemies: nothing is more vengeful than their humility. And whoever attacks them is easily besmirched. But my blood is related to theirs, and I want to know that my blood is honored even in theirs.' And when they had passed by Zarathustra was seized by pain; and not long had he wrestled with his pain when he rose and began to speak thus: 'I feel for these priests. And though I also find them distasteful, that is the least of my concerns since I have been among human beings. But I suffer and suffered with them; to me they are prisoners and marked men. The one they call redeemer clapped them in irons: - In irons of false values and words of delusion! Oh that someone would yet redeem them from their redeemer! Once they believed they landed on an island as the sea tossed them around; but see, it was a sleeping monster! False values and words of delusion: these are the worst monsters for mortals - long does doom sleep and wait in them. But at last it comes and wakes and devours and gulps whatever built itself huts upon it. Oh look at these huts that the priests built themselves! Churches they call their sweet smelling caves. Oh how repulsive is this falsified light, this stale air! Here, where the soul to its height - is denied flight! Instead their faith commands: 'Up the stairs on your knees, you sinners!' Indeed, I would rather see the shameless than the rolled back eyes of their shame and devotion! Who created such caves and stairs of penitence? Were they not those who wanted to hide and were ashamed beneath the pure sky? And only when the pure sky peeks again through broken ceilings and down upon grass and red poppy and broken walls - only then will I turn my heart again to the sites of this God. They called God what contradicted and hurt them, and truly, there was much heroics in their adoration! And they knew no other way to love their God than to nail the human being to a cross! They intended to live as corpses, they decked out their corpse in black; from their speeches I still smell the rotten spice of death chambers.


Withthunderandheavenlyfireworksonemustspeaktoslackandsleeping senses. But the voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most awakened souls. Softly today my shield trembled and laughed; it is the holy laughter and trembling of beauty. At you, virtuous ones, my beauty laughed today. And thus its voice came to me: 'They still want - to be paid!' You still want to be paid, you virtuous! Want to have reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your today? And now you're angry with me for teaching that there is no reward and paymaster? And truly, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward. Oh, this is my sorrow; reward and punishment have been lied into the ground of things - and now even into the ground of your souls, you virtuous! But like the snout of a boar my words shall tear open the ground of your souls; a plowshare I shall be to you. All the secrets of your ground shall be brought to light; and when you lie uprooted and broken in the sun, your lie also will be separated from your truth. For this is your truth: you are too pure for the filth of the words revenge, punishment, reward, retribution. Youloveyour virtue as the mother her child; but when did anyone ever hear that a mother wanted to be paid for her love? Your virtue is your dearest self. The ring's thirst is in you; every ring struggles and turns to reach itself again. And each work of your virtue is like the star that dies out; always its light is still on its way and wandering - and when will it no longer be on its way? Thus the light of your virtue is still underway, even when the work is done. And even if now forgotten and dead, its ray of light still lives and wanders. Yourvirtueshouldbeyourselfandnotaforeignthing,askin,acloaking: that is the truth from the ground of your soul, you virtuous! - But surely there are those who equate virtue with spasm under a whip, and you have listened too much to their cries!


And in this manner almost all believe they have a share of virtue; and at the very least each person wants to be an expert on 'good' and 'evil.' But Zarathustra has not come to say to all these liars and fools: 'What do you know about virtue! What could you know about virtue!' - Instead, my friends, I wish you would grow weary of the old words you have learned from the fools and liars: Grow weary of the words 'reward,' 'retribution,' 'punishment,' 'revenge in justice' - Grow weary of saying: 'What makes a deed good is that it is selfless.' Oh my friends! I wish your self were in the deed like the mother is in the child: let that be your word on virtue! Indeed, I may have taken from you a hundred words and your virtue's favorite toys; and now you are angry with me as children become angry. They played by the sea - then the wave came and tore their toys into the deep: now they weep. But the same wave shall bring them new toys and lavish new colorful shells before them! Thus will they be consoled; and like them you, too, my friends shall have your consolations - and new colorful shells! - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Life is a well of joy; but where the rabble also drinks, there all wells are poisoned. I appreciate all that is clean; but I do not like to see the grinning snouts and the thirst of the unclean. They cast their eyes down into the well; now their disgusting smile reflects back up to me from the well. They have poisoned the holy water with their lustfulness; and when they called their filthy dreams joy, they poisoned even words. Theflameshrinks when they put their dank hearts on the fire; the spirit itself seethes and smokes wherever the rabble approaches the fire. In their hands fruits becomes sickly sweet and overripe; their gaze makes fruit trees prone to windfall and withered at the crown. Andsomewhoturnedawayfromlifeonlyturnedawayfromtherabble, not wanting to share well and flame and fruit with the rabble.


My heart, upon which my summer burns, the brief, hot, melancholy, superblissful summer; how my summer heart yearns for your coolness! Gone the hesitating gloom of my spring! Gone the malice of my snowflakes in June! I have become summer and summer noon entirely! Asummer in the highest regions with cold springs and blissful silence: Oh come, my friends, and let the silence become even more blissful! For it is our height and our homeland; too high and steep we live here for all the unclean and their thirst. Cast your pure eyes into the wellspring of my joy, you friends! How could it become murky from that! It shall laugh back at you with its purity. We build our nest in the tree called future; eagles shall bring us solitary ones food in their beaks! Truly, no food in which the unclean are allowed to share! They would think they were devouring fire and burn their snouts! Truly, we keep no homesteads ready here for the unclean! To their bodies and to their minds our happiness would seem a cave of ice! And like strong winds we want to live above them, neighbors to eagles, neighbors to snow, neighbors to the sun: thus live strong winds. And some day I want to blow among them like a wind and steal their breath away with my spirit: thus my future wills it. Indeed, Zarathustra is a strong wind to all lowlands; and this counsel he gives to his enemies and to everything that spits and spews: 'Beware of spitting against the wind!' Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Lookhere,thisis the hole of the tarantula! Do you want to see the tarantula itself? Its web hangs here; touch it, make it tremble. Here it comes, willingly - welcome, tarantula! On your back your triangle and mark sits in black; and I know too what sits in your soul. Revenge sits in your soul: wherever you bite, there black scabs grow; your poison makes the soul whirl with revenge! So I speak to you in parables, you who cause the souls to whirl, you preachers of equality ! Tarantulas you are to me and hidden avengers! But I want to expose your hiding places to the light; therefore I laugh into your face my laughter of the heights.


They speak in favor of life, these poisonous spiders, even though they are sitting in their holes and have turned against life, because they want to do harm. They want to harm those who hold power today, for among them the sermon on death is still most at home. If it were otherwise, then the tarantulas would teach otherwise; and they after all were formerly the best world slanderers and burners of heretics. I do not want to be mixed in with and mistaken for these preachers of equality. For thus justice speaks to me : 'humans are not equal.' And they shouldn't become so either! What would my love for the overman be if I spoke otherwise? On a thousand bridges and paths they shall throng to the future, and ever more war and inequality shall be set between them: thus my great love commands me to speak! Inventors of images and ghosts shall they become in their hostility, and with their images and ghosts they shall yet fight the highest fight against each other! Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and trifling, and all the names of values: they shall be weapons and clanging signs that life must overcome itself again and again! Life itself wants to build itself into the heights with pillars and steps; it wants to gaze into vast distances and out upon halcyon beauties therefore it needs height! And because it needs height, it needs steps and contradiction between steps and climbers! Life wants to climb and to overcome itself by climbing. Andlookhere, my friends! Here, where the tarantula's hole is, the ruins of an ancient temple are rising - look here now with enlightened eyes! Indeed, the one who once heaped his thoughts skyward here in stone - he knew the secret of all life like the most wise! That struggle and inequality and war for power and supremacy are found even in beauty: he teaches us that here in the clearest parable. How divinely the vault and the arch bend and break each other as they wrestle; how they struggle against each other with light and shadow, these divinely struggling ones - In this manner sure and beautiful let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely let us struggle against each other! Alas! Then the tarantula bit me, my old enemy! Divinely sure and beautiful it bit me on the finger! Thus Spoke Zarathustra


Oh, before I would learn to believe in your 'truthfulness' you would first have to break your revering will. Truthful - thus I call the one who goes into godless deserts and has broken his revering heart. In the yellow sand and burned by the sun he may squint thirstily at islands rich with springs, where living things rest beneath dark trees. But his thirst does not persuade him to become the same as these comfortable ones; for where there are oases, there are idols as well. Hungry, violent, lonely, godless; thus the lion-will wants itself. Free from the happiness of the servant, redeemed of gods and adorations, fearless and fearsome, great and lonely; thus is the will of the truthful. In the desert the truthful have always dwelled, the free spirits, as the rulers of the desert; but in the cities dwell the well-fed, famous wise men - the draft animals. For they, as asses, always pull - the people's cart! Not that I am angry with them for it; but to me they remain servants and harnessed, even if they gleam in golden harnesses. Andoften they were good servants and praiseworthy. For virtue speaks thus: 'If you must serve, then seek the one who benefits most from your service! The spirit and virtue of your master shall grow from your being his servant; thus you yourself grow with his spirit and his virtue!' And truly, you famous wise men, you servants of the people! You yourselves grew with the people's spirit and virtue - and the people through you! I say this in your honor! But to me you remain the people even in your virtues, the people with stupid eyes - the people who don't know what spirit is! Spirit is life that itself cuts into life; by its own agony it increases its own knowledge - did you know that? And the happiness of spirit is this: to be anointed and consecrated by tears to serve as a sacrificial animal - did you know that? And the blindness of the blind, and his seeking and probing shall yet testify to the power of the sun into which he gazed - did you know that? And the seeker of knowledge shall learn to build with mountains! It means little that the spirit moves mountains - did you know that?


You know only the spark of the spirit, but you do not see the anvil that it is, nor the cruelty of its hammer! Thus Spoke Zarathustra But I live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break out of me. Idonot the know the happiness of receiving; and often I dreamed that stealing must be more blessed than receiving. This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from bestowing; this is my envy, that I see waiting eyes and the illuminated nights of longing. Oh misery of all bestowers! Oh darkening of my sun! Oh craving to crave! Oh ravenous hunger in satiety! They receive from me, but do I still touch their souls? There is a cleft between giving and receiving; and the closest cleft is the last to be bridged. A hunger grows out of my beauty; I wish to harm those for whom I shine, I wish to rob those on whom I have bestowed: - thus I hunger for malice. Withdrawing my hand when a hand already reaches for it; hesitating like the waterfall that hesitates even while plunging - thus I hunger for malice. Myfullness plots such vengeance; such trickery gushes from my loneliness. My happiness in bestowing died in bestowing, my virtue wearied of itself in its superabundance! For one who always bestows, the danger is loss of shame; whoever dispenses always has calloused hands and heart from sheer dispensing. My eye no longer wells up at the shame of those who beg; my hand became too hard for the trembling of filled hands. Where have the tears of my eye and the down of my heart gone? Oh loneliness of all bestowers! Oh muteness of all who shine! Many suns revolve in desolate space. To everything that is dark they speak with their light - to me they are mute. Oh this is the enmity of light toward that which shines; mercilessly it goes its orbit. Unjust in its deepest heart toward that which shines: cold toward suns - thus every sun goes. Like a storm the suns fly their orbit, that is their motion. They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness.


Ohitis you only, you dark ones, you nocturnal ones, who create warmth out of that which shines! Oh it is you only who drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light!


Alas, ice surrounds me, my hand burns itself on iciness! Alas, there is, Second Part = . thirst in me that yearns for your thirst!, Second Part = . It is night: alas that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal! And, Second Part = . It is night: now my longing breaks out of me like a well - I long to, Second Part = . speak., Second Part = . It is night: now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a, Second Part = . fountain., Second Part = . too is the song of a lover., Second Part = . The Dance Song, Second Part = . and as he searched for a well, behold, he then came upon a green meadow, Second Part = . that was silently bordered by trees and shrubs; upon it girls danced with, Second Part = . each other. As soon as the girls recognized Zarathustra, they stopped, Second Part = . dancing; but Zarathustra approached them with a friendly gesture and, Second Part = . spoke these words: 'Do not stop dancing, you lovely girls! No spoil sport has come to you, Second Part = . with his evil eye, no enemy of girls., Second Part = . God'sadvocatebeforethedevil am I; but the devil is the spirit of gravity. Howcould I be hostile toward godlike dancing, you light ones? Or toward, Second Part = . girls' feet with pretty ankles?, Second Part = . I may well be a wood and a night of dark trees, yet whoever does, Second Part = . not shrink from my darkness will also find rose slopes under my, Second Part = . cypresses., Second Part = . he lies next to the well, still, with closed eyes., Second Part = . Indeed, he fell asleep in broad daylight, the loafer! Did he chase too, Second Part = . little god a bit! He will probably yell and weep - but he is comical even, Second Part = . when weeping!, Second Part = . And with tears in his eyes he shall ask you for a dance, and I myself will, Second Part = . sing a song to his dance:, Second Part = Thus Spoke Zarathustra


Adanceandamockingsongtothespiritofgravity,mysupremehighest and most powerful devil, of whom it is said that he is 'the ruler of the world.' ' - Andthisis the song that Zarathustra sang as Cupid and the girls danced together. Into your eye I gazed recently, oh life! And then into the unfathomable I seemed to sink. But you pulled me out with your golden fishing rod; you laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable. 'Thus sounds the speech of all fish,' you said. 'What they do not fathom, is unfathomable. But I am merely fickle and wild and in all things a woman, and no virtuous one: Whether to you men I am called 'profundity' or 'fidelity,' 'eternity' or 'secrecy.' But you men always bestow on us your own virtues - oh, you virtuous men!' Thus she laughed, the incredible one, but I never believe her and her laughing when she speaks ill of herself. And when I spoke in confidence with my wild wisdom, she said to me angrily: 'You will, you covet, you love, and only therefore do you praise life!' Then I almost answered maliciously and told the angry woman the truth; and one can not answer more maliciously than when one 'tells the truth' to one's wisdom. Thus matters stand between the three of us. At bottom I love only life - and verily, most when I hate it! But that I am fond of wisdom and often too fond; that is because she reminds me so much of life! She has her eyes, her laugh and even her little golden fishing rod - is it my fault that the two look so much alike? And when life once asked me: 'Who is this wisdom anyway?'- I hastened to reply: 'Oh yes! Wisdom! Onethirsts for her and does not become sated, one peeks through veils, one snatches through nets. Is she beautiful? What do I know! But even the oldest carps are baited by her.


She is fickle and stubborn; often I saw her bite her lip and comb her, Second Part = . hair against the grain., Second Part = . Perhaps she is evil and false, and in all things a female; but when she, Second Part = . speaks ill of herself, precisely then she seduces the most.', Second Part = . When I had said this to life she laughed sarcastically and closed her, Second Part = . And even if you are right - does one say that to my face? But now speak, Second Part = . too of your own wisdom!', Second Part = . Oh, and now you opened your eyes again, oh beloved life! And again I, Second Part = . seemed to sink into the unfathomable. -, Second Part = . Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the dance had ended and the girls, Second Part = . departed, he became sad. 'The sun set long ago,' he remarked at last. 'The meadow is moist,, Second Part = . coolness emanates from the woods., Second Part = . Something unknown is around me and it gazes pensively. What - you, Second Part = . are still alive, Zarathustra?, Second Part = . Why? Wherefore? Whereby? Whither? Where? How? Is it not folly to, Second Part = . continue living? -, Second Part = . Alas, my friends, it is the evening whose questions emerge from me., Second Part = . Forgive me my sadness!, Second Part = . Evening came: forgive me that evening came!', Second Part = . Thus spoke Zarathustra., Second Part = . The Grave Song, Second Part = . 'There is the island of graves, the silent one; there too are the graves of, Second Part = . my youth. There I shall carry an evergreen wreath of life.', Second Part = . Ohyouvisions and apparitions of my youth! Oh all you glances of love,, Second Part = . today like my dead., Second Part = . Fromyou,frommydearestdeparted,comesasweetfragrance,releasing, Second Part = . my tears and my heart. Indeed, it shakes and releases the heart of this, Second Part = . lonely seafarer., Second Part = . For I had youonce, and you have me


still: tell me, for whom did such rosy, Second Part = . apples fall from the tree as for me?, Second Part = Thus Spoke Zarathustra I am still the heir and earth of your love, blossoming in remembrance of you with colorful, wild-growing virtues, oh you most beloved! Indeed, we were made to stay close to each other, you noble, strange wonders; and not like skittish birds did you come to me and to my desire - no, as trusting ones to a trusting one! Yes, made for loyalty, like me, and for tender eternities; I must now refer to you by your disloyalty, you godlike glances and glancing moments, for I've learned no other name yet. Indeed, you died too soon for me, you fugitives. Yet you did not flee me, nor did I flee you: we are mutually innocent in our disloyalty. To kill me they strangled you, you songbirds of my hopes! Yes, at you, my dearest ones, malice always shot its arrows - to strike my heart! And it struck! For you were always closest to my heart, my possession and what possessed me: for that you had to die young and all too early! The arrow was shot at the most vulnerable thing that I possessed; that was you, whose skin is like down and even more like a smile that dies of a glance! But these words I shall speak to my enemies: what is all murder of human beings compared to what you did to me! More evil you did to me than all murder of human beings. You took from me what was irretrievable - thus I speak to you, my enemies! For you murdered my youth's visions and dearest wonders! You took my playmates from me, the blessed spirits! In remembrance of them I lay down this wreath and this curse. This curse against you, my enemies! For you cut my eternity short, like a sound breaks off in cold night! It barely reached me as the flash of godlike eyes - as a glancing moment! Thus at a good hour my purity once spoke to me: 'Godlike shall all beings be to me.' Then you fell upon me with filthy ghosts; alas, where now has that good hour fled? 'All days shall be holy to me' - so spoke the wisdom of my youth, once; truly, the speech of a gay wisdom!


But then you enemies stole my nights and sold them into sleepless agony; alas, where now has my gay wisdom fled? Once I yearned for happy signs from birds; then you led an owl abomination across my path, a repulsive one. Alas, where then did my tender yearning flee?


Once I pledged to renounce all nausea; then you transformed those near and nearest me into boils of pus. Alas, where then did my noblest pledge flee? As a blind man I once walked blessed paths; then you tossed filth onto the path of the blind man, and now he is repulsed by the old blind man's footpath. And when I did what was hardest for me and celebrated the victory of my overcomings; then you made those who loved me cry out that I hurt them most. Indeed, that was always your doing; you turned to gall my best honey and the hard work of my best bees. You always dispatched the most impudent beggars to my charity; you always crowded the incurably shameless around my pity. Thus you wounded my virtue in its faith. And when I laid down even what was holiest to me as a sacrifice; instantly your 'piety' placed its fatter gifts on top, such that what was holiest to me choked in the smoke of your fat. And once I wanted to dance as I had never danced before; over and beyond all heavens I wanted to dance. Then you swayed my favorite singer. And then he struck up a horrid, dreadful tune; indeed, he tooted in my ears like a mournful horn! Murderous singer, tool of malice, most innocent one! Already I stood poised for my best dance; then you murdered my enchantment with your tones! Only in dance do I know how to speak the parables of the highest things - and now my highest parable remained unspoken in my limbs! My highest hope remained unspoken and unredeemed! And all the visions and comforts of my youth died. How did I bear it? How did I overturn and overcome such wounds? How did my soul rise again from these graves? Yes, there is something invulnerable, unburiable in me, something that explodes boulders: it is called my will . Silently and unchanged it strides through the years. It wants to walk its course on my feet, my old will; its mind is hearthardened and invulnerable. Invulnerable am I only in the heel. You still live and are the same, most patient one! You have always broken through all graves!


In you what is unredeemed of my youth lives on; and as life and youth you sit here hoping upon greying ruins of graves. Yes, to me you are still the shatterer of all graves: Hail to you, my will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections. - Thus sang Zarathustra. -


'Will to truth' you call that which drives you and makes you lustful, you wisest ones? Will to thinkability of all being, that's what I call your will! You first want to make all being thinkable, because you doubt, with proper suspicion, whether it is even thinkable. But for you it shall behave and bend! Thus your will wants it. It shall become smooth and subservient to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection. That is your entire will, you wisest ones, as a will to power; and even when you speak of good and evil and of valuations. You still want to create the world before which you could kneel: this is your ultimate hope and intoxication. The unwise, to be sure, the people - they are like a river on which a skiff floats; valuations are seated in the skiff, solemn and cloaked. Your will and your values you set upon the river of becoming; what the people believe to be good and evil reveals to me an ancient will to power. It was you, you wisest ones, who placed such guests into the skiff and gave them pomp and proud names - you and your dominating will! Now the river carries your skiff along: it has to carry it. It matters little whether the breaking wave foams and angrily opposes the keel! Theriver is not your danger and the end of your good and evil, you wisest ones; but this will itself, the will to power - the unexhausted begetting will of life. But in order that you understand my words on good and evil, I also want to tell you my words on life and on the nature of all that lives. I pursued the living, I walked the greatest and the smallest paths in order to know its nature. With a hundredfold mirror I captured even its glance, when its mouth was closed, so that its eyes could speak to me. And its eyes spoke to me. However, wherever I found the living, there too I heard the speech on obedience. All living is an obeying.


And this is the second thing that I heard: the one who cannot obey himself is commanded. Such is the nature of the living. This however is the third thing that I heard: that commanding is harder than obeying. And not only that the commander bears the burden of all obeyers, and that this burden easily crushes him: - In all commanding it seemed to me there is an experiment and a risk; and always when it commands, the living risks itself in doing so. Indeed, even when it commands itself, even then it must pay for its commanding. It must become the judge and avenger and victim of its own law. How does this happen? I asked myself. What persuades the living to obey and command, and to still practice obedience while commanding? Hear my words, you wisest ones! Check seriously to see whether I crept into the very heart of life and into the roots of its heart! Wherever I found the living, there I found the will to power; and even in the will of the serving I found the will to be master. The weaker is persuaded by its own will to serve the stronger, because it wants to be master over what is still weaker: this is the only pleasure it is incapable of renouncing. And as the smaller gives way to the greater, in order for it to have its pleasure and power over the smallest, so too the greatest gives way, and for the sake of power it risks - life itself. That is the giving-way of the greatest, that it is a risk and a danger and a tossing of dice unto death. And where there are sacrificing and favors and love-looks, there too is the will to be master. Along secret passages the weaker sneaks into the fortress and straight to the heart of the more powerful - and there it steals power. And this secret life itself spoke to me: 'Behold,' it said, 'I am that which must always overcome itself . To be sure, you call it will to beget or drive to a purpose, to something higher, more distant, more manifold: but all this is one, and one secret. I would rather perish than renounce this one thing; and truly, wherever there is decline and the falling of leaves, behold, there life sacrifices itself - for power! That I must be struggle and becoming and purpose and the contradiction of purposes - alas, whoever guesses my will guesses also on what crooked paths it must walk!


Whatever I may create and however I may love it - soon I must oppose it and my love, thus my will wants it. And even you, seeker of knowledge, are only a path and footstep of my will; indeed, my will to power follows also on the heels of your will to truth! Indeed, the one who shot at truth with the words 'will to existence' did not hit it: this will - does not exist! For, what is not can not will; but what is in existence, how could this still will to exist! Only where life is, is there also will; but not will to life, instead - thus I teach you - will to power! Muchis esteemed more highly by life than life itself; yet out of esteeming itself speaks - the will to power!' - Thus life once taught me, and from this I shall yet solve the riddle of your heart, you wisest ones. Truly, I say to you: good and evil that would be everlasting - there is no such thing! They must overcome themselves out of themselves again and again. You do violence with your values and words of good and evil, you valuators; and this is your hidden love and the gleaming, trembling and flowing-over of your souls. But a stronger force grows out of your values and a new overcoming; upon it egg and eggshell break. And whoever must be a creator in good and evil - truly, he must first be an annihilator and break values. Thus the highest evil belongs to the highest goodness, but this is the creative one. - Let us speak of this, you wisest ones, even if it is bad to do so. Keeping silent is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous. And may everything break that can possibly be broken by our truths! Many a house has yet to be built! Thus spoke Zarathustra.


The bottom of my sea is calm - who would guess that it conceals playful monsters?


He must also unlearn his hero's will; he shall be elevated, not merely sublime - the ether itself shall elevate him, the will-less one! He subdued monsters, he solved riddles, but he should also solve his own monsters and riddles; he should transform them into heavenly children. As of yet his knowledge has not learned to smile and to be without jealousy; his torrential passion has not yet become calm in its beauty. Indeed, not in satiety shall his yearning keep silent and submerge, but in beauty! Grace belongs to the graciousness of the great-minded. With his arm laid across his head - thus the hero should rest, thus too he should overcome even his resting. But precisely for the hero beauty is the most difficult of all things. Beauty is not be wrested by any violent willing. A little more, a little less: right here this means much, here this means the most. To stand with muscles relaxed and with an unharnessed will: this is most difficult for all of you sublime ones! When power becomes gracious and descends into view: beauty I call such descending. And from no one do I want beauty as I do from just you, you powerful one: let your kindness be your ultimate self-conquest. I know you capable of all evil - therefore from you I want the good. Indeed, I often laughed at the weaklings who believe themselves good because their paws are lame! You shall strive to emulate the virtue of a column; ever more beautiful and delicate it becomes, the higher it rises, but inwardly harder and more resistant. Yes, you sublime one, one day you shall be beautiful and shall hold the mirror up to your own beauty. Then your soul will shudder with divine desires, and even in your vanity there will be adoration! For this is the secret of the soul: only when the hero abandons her, she is approached in dream by - the over-hero. This allusion to the myth of Ariadne and Theseus foreshadows the 'magician's song' in Part , which became one of the Dionysus Dithyrambs . Nietzsche was preparing the manuscript of the Dithyrambs for publication when he became incapacitated after a series of nervous breakdowns in late and early . According to the myth, Ariadne is abandoned by her lover Theseus, Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Too far into the future did I fly; dread fell upon me. And when I looked around, behold! Then time was my only contemporary. Then I fled backward, homeward - with ever greater haste. Thus I came to you, you of the present, and into the land of education. For the first time I brought along eyes for you, and a strong desire; indeed, I came with longing in my heart. But what happened to me? As frightened as I was - I had to laugh! Never had my eyes seen anything so splattered with colors! I laughed and laughed, while my foot still trembled and my heart as well: 'This must be the home of all paint pots!' I said. With fifty blotches painted on your face and limbs, thus you sat there to my amazement, you people of the present! And with fifty mirrors around you, flattering and echoing your play of colors! Indeed, you couldn't wear a better mask, you people of today, than that of your own face! Who could recognize you! Written full with the characters of the past, and even these characters painted over with new characters: thus you have hidden yourselves well from all interpreters of characters! And even if one were to give you a physical examination, who would even believe you have a body? You seem to be baked from colors and paper slips glued together. Motley, all ages and peoples peek from your veils; motley, all customs and beliefs speak from your gestures. and only Dionysus, the demi-god, comes to her ultimate rescue. Nietzsche elevated Ariadne to the symbol of the human soul, Theseus to the symbol of male vanity and all too human (limited) conceptions of the hero, and Dionysus to the role of super-hero ( Uber-Held ). See Adrian Del Caro, 'Symbolizing Philosophy: Ariadne and the Labyrinth,' in Nietzsche: Critical Assessments ( vols.), ed. Daniel W. Conway (London: Routledge, ), vol. , pp. - ; and 'Nietzschean self-transformation and the transformation of the Dionysian,' in Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts , ed. Salim Kemal, Ivan Gaskell, and Daniel Conway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. - .


Thus Spoke Zarathustra If one were to pull away veil and wrap and color and gesture from you, there would be just enough left over to scare away the crows. Indeed, I myself am the scared crow who once saw you naked and without color; and I flew away when the skeleton beckoned amorously. Iwouldrather be a day laborer in the underworld and among the shades of yore! - Even the underworldly are fatter and fuller than you! This, oh this is bitterness for my bowels, that I can stand you neither naked nor clothed, you people of the present! All uncanniness of the future, and whatever caused flown birds to shudder, is truly homelier and more familiar than your 'reality.' For you speak thus: 'We are real entirely, and without beliefs and superstition.' Thus you stick out your chests - alas, even without chests! Indeed, how should you be capable of believing, you color-splattered ones - you who are paintings of everything that has ever been believed! Rambling refutations of belief itself are you, and the limb-fracturing of every thought. Unbelievable is what I call you, you so-called real ones! All ages prattle against each other in your minds; and the dreams and prattling of all ages were more real than even your waking is! You are sterile: therefore you lack beliefs. But whoever had to create also always had his prophetic dreams and astrological signs - and believed in believing! - You are half-open gates, at which the gravediggers wait. And this is your reality: 'Everything deserves to perish.' Oh how you stand there, you sterile ones, how skinny in the ribs! And some one of you probably realized this on his own. And he spoke: 'Surely some god secretly removed something from me while I slept? Indeed, enough to form himself a little woman from it! Wondrous is the poverty of my ribs!' Thus spoke many a person of the present. Indeed, you make me laugh, you people of the present! And especially when you are amazed at yourselves! Andwoeto me if I couldn't laugh at your amazement, and had to drink down all the repugnant contents of your bowls! So I shall take you more lightly, as I have a heavy burden; and what does it matter to me if beetles and winged worms still land on my bundle?


Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'For me what is highest' - thus speaks your lying spirit to itself 'would be to look upon life without desire and not like a dog with its tongue hanging out: To be content in viewing, with dead will, without the grasp and greed of selfishness - cold and ashen grey in my whole body, but with drunken mooning eyes! To me the dearest thing would be' - thus the seducer seduces himself - 'to love the earth as the moon loves it, and to touch its beauty only with the eyes. And to me the immaculate perception of all things would be that I desire nothing from things, except that I might lie there before them like a mirror with a hundred eyes.' - Oh you sentimental hypocrites, you lechers! Your desire lacks innocence, and now therefore you slander all desiring! Indeed, you do not love the earth as creators, begetters, and enjoyers of becoming! Where is innocence? Where there is will to beget. And whoever wants to create over and beyond himself, he has the purest will. Where is beauty? Where I must will with my entire will; where I want to love and perish so that an image does not remain merely an image. Loving and perishing: these have gone together since the beginning of time. Will to love: that means being willing also for death. Thus I speak to you cowards! But now your emasculated leering wants to be called 'contemplation!' And whatever allows itself to be touched by cowardly eyes is supposed to be christened 'beautiful!' Oh you besmirchers of noble names! Butthatshall be your curse, you immaculate, you pure-perceiving ones, that you shall never give birth; and even if you lie broad and pregnant on the horizon! Indeed, you take a mouthful of noble words, and we are supposed to believe that your heart is overflowing, you liars? But my words are meager, despised, crooked words; gladly do I pick up what falls beneath the table during your meal. For with them I can still - tell hypocrites the truth! Yes, my fish bones, mussel shells and thorny leaves shall tickle the noses of hypocrites! There is always foul air around you and your meals; after all, your lecherous thoughts, your lies and secrets are in the air!


Dare for once to believe yourselves - yourselves and your entrails!, Second Part = . Whoever cannot believe himself always lies. Agod's mask you don before yourselves, you 'pure ones.' Into a god's, Second Part = . mask your horrid worm has crawled., Second Part = . Indeed, you deceive, you 'contemplative ones!' Zarathustra too was, Second Part = . once the fool of your godlike skins; he had not discovered the coils of, Second Part = . snakes with which they were stuffed., Second Part = . I once imagined seeing a god's soul playing in your play, you pure, Second Part = . perceivers! Once I imagined no better art than your arts!, Second Part = . The distance concealed snake-filth and foul odor from me, and that the, Second Part = . guile of a lizard lecherously crawled around here., Second Part = . But I came near you: then daylight came to me - and now it comes to, Second Part = . you - the moon's fling is at an end!, Second Part = . Look there! Chagrined and pale he stands there - before the dawn!, Second Part = . coming! Innocence and the creator's desire is all solar love!, Second Part = . Look there, how she glides impatiently across the sea! Do you not feel, Second Part = . her thirst and the hot breath of her love?, Second Part = . Shewouldsuckattheseaanddrinkitsdepthsintoherselfintheheights;, Second Part = . now the sea's desire rises with a thousand breasts., Second Part = . It wants to be kissed and sucked by the thirst of the sun; it wants to, Second Part = . Indeed, like the sun I love life and all deep seas., Second Part = . And this I call perception: all that is deep shall rise - to my height!, Second Part = . Thus spoke Zarathustra., Second Part = . On Scholars, Second Part = . AsIlaysleepingasheepmunchedattheivywreathonmyhead-munched and spoke: 'Zarathustra is no longer a scholar.', Second Part = . Spoke it and walked away, reproving and proud. A child told it to me., Second Part