‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain. ‘Tis night: now only do all songs of the loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one. Something…
At night Zarathustra compares his soul to a gushing fountain and to the song of a lover. He feels an unappeasable craving for love that speaks in the language of love.
Read in the book →Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with light! Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of light! And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets…
Zarathustra says he is light and wishes he were dark, so that he could suck at the breasts of light. He lives in his own light and knows only giving, and he calls this the misery of all bestowers.
Read in the book →They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a gap ‘twixt giving and receiving; and the smallest gap hath finally to be bridged over. A hunger ariseth out of my beauty: I should like to injure those I…
Zarathustra feels a gap between giving and receiving and a hunger to injure and rob those he has gifted. His happiness in bestowing has died in the act, and his hand has grown hard.
Read in the book →Whence have gone the tears of mine eye, and the down of my heart? Oh, the lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones! Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with…
Zarathustra laments the loneliness and silence of all shining ones. The many suns circle in desert space and travel on pitilessly, each following its own will.
Read in the book →Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly ones, that extract warmth from the shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and refreshment from the light’s udders! Ah, there is ice around me; my hand burneth with the iciness! Ah,…
Zarathustra envies the dark ones who drink milk from the light's udders and says there is ice around him and thirst within him. The opening refrain returns, and the narrator says Zarathustra sang it.
Read in the book →Förster-Nietzsche records that Part One was written in about ten days at Rapallo in February 1883, finished in the hour of Wagner's death, that it was met with incomprehension, that the 'Night-Song' was composed in a gloomy, lonely spring in Rome, and that Part Two was written in ten days at Sils Maria in summer 1883.
This is an experiment in interactive reading, and in using AI to help you grow. Thus Spake Zarathustra is notoriously difficult for a modern reader; yet taken as a set of mental exercises, it is guaranteed to transform your thinking by the time you reach the end. Along the way you will have help from the companion, who is always beside the book.
Do you accept the challenge?
Nietzsche elsewhere
Nietzsche says that 'The Night-Song' was composed in Rome above the Piazza Barberini, the second part in ten days at Sils, the third at Nice, with 'Old and New Tables' composed on the climb from the station to Eza, each part taking no more than ten days; his creative energy coincided with great bodily vigour, dancing, walking and laughter.
Nietzsche says that Zarathustra speaks to his soul in the dithyramb, of which he is the inventor, citing 'Before Sunrise', and presents 'The Night-Song' as the immortal plaint of one condemned by his superabundance of light and power never to love.