motif The dancing god, laughter as the weapon against the spirit of gravity; Zarathustra the dancer and the laughing lion.
In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that route thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those spoken to should be big and tall. The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and…
The man on the highest mountain laughs at all tragic plays and realities, joining exaltation to laughter.
Read in the book →I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.
The famous formulation of the dancing god as the only divinity Zarathustra could believe in.
Read in the book →And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity! I…
Gravity is slain not by wrath but by laughter, ending in the flying, dancing lightness of the last lines.
Read in the book →Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay.
Laughter is named as the weapon against gravity.
Read in the book →Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for me to do. Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters. Verily, there are chaste ones from…
The truly chaste laugh better and oftener, even at chastity itself.
Read in the book →And when I want to mount my wildest horse, then doth my spear always help me up best: it is my foot’s ever ready servant:— The spear which I hurl at mine enemies! How grateful am I to mine enemies that I may at last…
He will cast hail between laughing lightnings, his wildness a storm of freedom.
Read in the book →Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!—
He distinguishes his own dancing from the tarantula-dance of vengeance.
Read in the book →One evening went Zarathustra and his disciples through the forest; and when he sought for a well, lo, he lighted upon a green meadow peacefully surrounded with trees and bushes, where maidens were dancing together. As…
Zarathustra welcomes the divine dance and promises a dance-song to mock gravity.
Read in the book →And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the maidens danced together: Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O Life! And into the unfathomable did I there seem to sink. But thou pulledst me out with a…
Life laughs and mocks him, and the song plays out as a teasing, dance-like exchange.
Read in the book →Thus spake once in a happy hour my purity: “Divine shall everything be unto me.” Then did ye haunt me with foul phantoms; ah, whither hath that happy hour now fled! “All days shall be holy unto me”—so spake once the…
The dance, in which he speaks the parable of the highest things, is ruined when the minstrel's mournful tune slays his rapture.
Read in the book →Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters! Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters. A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit:…
Zarathustra laughs at his ugliness and faults him for never having learned laughing.
Read in the book →Alas, how ye stand there before me, ye unfruitful ones; how lean your ribs! And many of you surely have had knowledge thereof. Many a one hath said: “There hath surely a God filched something from me secretly whilst I…
Laughter lets him make light of men who marvel at themselves, so that they do not add to his load.
Read in the book →THE HEART OF THE EARTH IS OF GOLD.
The true fire-dog breathes laughter like a coloured cloud.
Read in the book →Hear, I pray you, the dream that I dreamed, my friends, and help me to divine its meaning! A riddle is it still unto me, this dream; the meaning is hidden in it and encaged, and doth not yet fly above it on free…
The black coffin bursts into a thousand peals of laughter, a laughter that terrifies the dreamer.
Read in the book →Thus did Zarathustra relate his dream, and then was silent: for as yet he knew not the interpretation thereof. But the disciple whom he loved most arose quickly, seized Zarathustra’s hand, and said: “Thy life itself…
The disciple reads Zarathustra as the wind and the laughing coffin that frightens the grave-guardians; laughter is his power over weariness.
Read in the book →No longer shepherd, no longer man—a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, that LAUGHED! Never on earth laughed a man as HE laughed! O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,—and now gnaweth…
The shepherd rises transfigured and laughs a superhuman laughter, which Zarathustra longs for.
Read in the book →Happiness runneth after me. That is because I do not run after women. Happiness, however, is a woman.
The night passes without misfortune and he ends by laughing mockingly at himself.
Read in the book →For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds. Verily, it is a blessing and not a…
Things prefer to dance on the feet of chance, and a little wisdom is mixed in for the sake of folly.
Read in the book →That thou art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that thou art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players!
The heaven becomes a dancing-floor and dice-table, free of any eternal reason-spider.
Read in the book →Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly hand-shaking. I honour him, that bad guest, but gladly leave him alone. Gladly do I run away from him; and when one runneth WELL, then…
He meets the harsh guest with laughter, running and mockery, keeping his happiness light.
Read in the book →They did not “begloom” themselves to death—that do people fabricate! On the contrary, they—LAUGHED themselves to death once on a time!
Laughter is the means by which divinity ends, hearing 'there are Gods, but no God.'
Read in the book →Verily, I learned waiting also, and thoroughly so,—but only waiting for MYSELF. And above all did I learn standing and walking and running and leaping and climbing and dancing. This however is my teaching: he who…
Flying is reached by first learning standing, walking, running, climbing and dancing.
Read in the book →When I came unto men, then found I them resting on an old infatuation: all of them thought they had long known what was good and bad for men. An old wearisome business seemed to them all discourse about virtue; and he…
He laughs at the great moralists, and he dreams of a future where all becoming is the dancing of gods.
Read in the book →And false be every truth which hath not had laughter along with it!
A day without a dance and a truth without laughter are both rejected.
Read in the book →—O mine animals, answered Zarathustra, talk on thus and let me listen! It refresheth me so to hear your talk: where there is talk, there is the world as a garden unto me. How charming it is that there are words and…
Words and tones are the means by which man dances over all things.
Read in the book →“Into thine eyes gazed I lately, O Life: gold saw I gleam in thy night-eyes,—my heart stood still with delight: —A golden bark saw I gleam on darkened waters, a sinking, drinking, reblinking, golden swing-bark! At my…
Zarathustra dances in pursuit of Life, who lures, flees and mocks him, until he threatens her with his whip.
Read in the book →Then did Life answer me thus, and kept thereby her fine ears closed: “O Zarathustra! Crack not so terribly with thy whip! Thou knowest surely that noise killeth thought,—and just now there came to me such delicate…
Life asks him to stop cracking the whip, since noise kills thought.
Read in the book →If my virtue be a dancer’s virtue, and if I have often sprung with both feet into golden-emerald rapture: If my wickedness be a laughing wickedness, at home among rose-banks and hedges of lilies: —For in laughter is all…
His virtue is a dancer's and his wickedness a laughing one, sanctified by its own bliss.
Read in the book →And if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, every body a dancer, and every spirit a bird: and verily, that is my Alpha and Omega!—
A summary of his whole teaching of lightness, dance and flight.
Read in the book →If ever I have spread out a tranquil heaven above me, and have flown into mine own heaven with mine own pinions: If I have swum playfully in profound luminous distances, and if my freedom’s avian wisdom hath come to…
The light one is told to throw himself about and sing, since there is no above and no below.
Read in the book →Here laugh, laugh, my hearty, healthy wickedness! From high mountains cast down thy glittering scorn-laughter! Allure for me with thy glittering the finest human fish! And whatever belongeth unto ME in all seas, my…
He calls on his healthy wickedness and scorn-laughter to lure the finest fish.
Read in the book →With those words Zarathustra turned around to depart. Then said the soothsayer: “O Zarathustra, thou art a rogue! I know it well: thou wouldst fain be rid of me! Rather wouldst thou run into the forest and lay snares…
Zarathustra promises that by evening the soothsayer will dance to his lays as a dancing-bear.
Read in the book →“What!” said he, “have not the most ludicrous things always happened to us old anchorites and saints? Verily, my folly hath grown big in the mountains! Now do I hear six old fools’ legs rattling behind one another! But…
Laughter dissolves Zarathustra's irritation; he laughs at the six old fools' legs.
Read in the book →“Ye despairing ones! Ye strange ones! So it was YOUR cry of distress that I heard? And now do I know also where he is to be sought, whom I have sought for in vain to-day: THE HIGHER MAN—: —In mine own cave sitteth he,…
He wishes a jovial buffoon or dancer would come to make the despairing guests laugh.
Read in the book →I am a law only for mine own; I am not a law for all.
He demands followers who are light of foot and joyous in fight and feast, not sulkers or dreamers.
Read in the book →Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!
Failure is met by playing, mocking and laughing at oneself.
Read in the book →What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the word of him who said: “Woe unto them that laugh now!” Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought badly. A child even…
The absolute ones who curse laughter have heavy feet and cannot dance.
Read in the book →He, however, who cometh nigh to his goal, danceth.
Light feet cross the mud, and the step reveals whether one walks one's own path.
Read in the book →This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown: I myself have put on this crown, I myself have consecrated my laughter. No one else have I found to-day potent enough for this. Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra…
Zarathustra names himself the dancer, the light one and the sooth-laugher, wearing the rose-garland crown of laughter.
Read in the book →Better, however, to be foolish with happiness than foolish with misfortune, better to dance awkwardly than walk lamely.
Even the worst thing has good dancing-legs, and populace-sadness is to be unlearned.
Read in the book →Do like unto the wind when it rusheth forth from its mountain-caves: unto its own piping will it dance; the seas tremble and leap under its footsteps. That which giveth wings to asses, that which milketh the lionesses:—…
The free storm-spirit dances upon fens and afflictions; the higher men must learn to dance and laugh beyond themselves.
Read in the book →“ZARATHUSTRA!” cried all of them there assembled, as if with one voice, and burst out at the same time into a great laughter; there arose, however, from them as it were a heavy cloud. Even the magician laughed, and said…
A great laughter dispels the heavy cloud of the magician's spell.
Read in the book →—“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…
He quotes Zarathustra's own teaching that one kills not by wrath but by laughter.
Read in the book →Thus spake Zarathustra; then, however, it happened that all on a sudden he became aware that he was flocked around and fluttered around, as if by innumerable birds,—the whizzing of so many wings, however, and the…
The lion, shaking its head and laughing at the doves, appears as the laughing lion.
Read in the book →Brandes defines dance in Nietzsche's language as the lofty lightness of mind exalted above the gravity of earth and all stupid seriousness, introducing the Second Dance Song in which Zarathustra dances with Life as a woman.
A crisp gloss of dance as lightness of mind.
Ludovici says the sublime ones are a type Nietzsche did not wholly dislike but who take life too seriously and never surmount the camel stage; real greatness is to speak of lofty things without being oppressed by them, and Nietzsche breaks old things not with the anarchist's irreverence but with the fingers of an artist at ease with beauty, guided by his own taste.
Greatness lies in lightness toward the highest things.
Ludovici explains that the closing paragraphs of 'The Higher Man' protest against democratic seriousness: all that is good is cheerful, being able to joke about one's deepest feelings tests their value, and the greatest sin was the word 'Woe unto them that laugh now!'
Laughter as the test and mark of the good.
Ludovici explains that Zarathustra, after rebuking the higher men, sees the ass-festival as foolish but necessary, a recreation for wise men devised by convalescents, and bids them celebrate it again out of love for themselves and him.
Valiant nonsense as needed recreation.
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 type Zarathustra rests on 'great healthiness', a health constantly sacrificed and regained, and quotes Joyful Wisdom 382 on the ideal of a spirit who out of superabundant power plays with everything hitherto called holy and good, a humanly superhuman well-being that parodies all past solemnity and with which great earnestness and tragedy begin.
The ideal appears as an unconscious parody of all past earnestness.
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 reports dancing and laughing much while writing the book.
Nietzsche says that the psychological problem of the type is how one who says and does No to everything hitherto affirmed, bears the heaviest destiny and thinks the most abysmal thoughts, can still be a dancer who finds no objection even to the eternal recurrence of existence but becomes himself 'the tremendous and unlimited saying of Yea and Amen'; this is precisely the idea of Dionysus.
The bearer of the heaviest destiny is nevertheless a dancer.