The ass

What have I just heard? answered Zarathustra. What wisdom in kings! I am enchanted, and verily, I have already promptings to make a rhyme thereon:— —Even if it should happen to be a rhyme not suited for every one’s…

Zarathustra, delighted by the kings' wisdom, says he will answer in rhyme and that he has long since stopped considering long ears. The ass brays 'Y-E-A', and Zarathustra recites a rhyme in which a Sybil laments that the world has sunk low, Rome has become a harlot and God has turned Jew.

It was late in the afternoon only when Zarathustra, after long useless searching and strolling about, again came home to his cave. When, however, he stood over against it, not more than twenty paces therefrom, the thing…

Returning home, Zarathustra hears the cry of distress again, this time from his own cave. He finds all the men he met that day sitting there, and greets them with courteous curiosity.

Thus spake Zarathustra; the king on the right however answered and said: “Strange! Did one ever hear such sensible things out of the mouth of a wise man? And verily, it is the strangest thing in a wise man, if over and…

The king on the right marvels that a wise man can be sensible and not an ass. The ass answers 'Ye-a' with ill-will, and the long supper begins, with talk only of the higher man.

After the song of the wanderer and shadow, the cave became all at once full of noise and laughter: and since the assembled guests all spake simultaneously, and even the ass, encouraged thereby, no longer remained…

Zarathustra slips out of the noisy cave and speaks to his animals. He is mildly scornful of the guests but pleased, and takes their growing thankfulness as the best sign.

All on a sudden however, Zarathustra’s ear was frightened: for the cave which had hitherto been full of noise and laughter, became all at once still as death;—his nose, however, smelt a sweet-scented vapour and…

The cave falls silent and fills with incense. Zarathustra looks in and finds all the higher men kneeling and praying to the ass, and the ugliest man begins a litany.

Amen! And glory and honour and wisdom and thanks and praise and strength be to our God, from everlasting to everlasting! —The ass, however, here brayed YE-A. He carrieth our burdens, he hath taken upon him the form of a…

The ugliest man chants a litany praising the ass as a patient, silent, burden-bearing God beyond good and evil. After each verse the ass brays 'YE-A'.

At this place in the litany, however, Zarathustra could no longer control himself; he himself cried out YE-A, louder even than the ass, and sprang into the midst of his maddened guests. “Whatever are you about, ye…

Zarathustra breaks into the litany with his own YE-A and pulls his guests up from the ground. The old pope and the shadow excuse their idolatry and blame the ugliest man for reawakening God.

—“And thou thyself, finally,” said Zarathustra, and turned towards the ugliest man, who still lay on the ground stretching up his arm to the ass (for he gave it wine to drink). “Say, thou nondescript, what hast thou…

Zarathustra asks the transformed ugliest man why he awakened God. The ugliest man calls Zarathustra a rogue and a dangerous saint, and recalls that he learned from him that the thorough killer laughs.

Meanwhile one after another had gone out into the open air, and into the cool, thoughtful night; Zarathustra himself, however, led the ugliest man by the hand, that he might show him his night-world, and the great round…

Outside in the night, the ugliest man asks whether they too would say 'Once more' to death for Zarathustra's sake. The higher men rush to honour Zarathustra, and the soothsayer dances.

When, however, this took place with the ugliest man, Zarathustra stood there like one drunken: his glance dulled, his tongue faltered and his feet staggered. And who could divine what thoughts then passed through…

Zarathustra stands as if drunken, then hears something and three times bids all be still and listen. A clock-bell sounds and he says: let us wander into the night.