doctrine Pity as Zarathustra's last temptation and the sin of God; the pitiful man shames the sufferer.
The sick and perishing—it was they who despised the body and the earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming blood-drops; but even those sweet and sad poisons they borrowed from the body and the earth!…
Zarathustra is gentle and not indignant toward the sick and their consolations, hoping they become convalescents.
Read in the book →Ye do not mean to slay, ye judges and sacrificers, until the animal hath bowed its head? Lo! the pale criminal hath bowed his head: out of his eye speaketh the great contempt. “Mine ego is something which is to be…
Zarathustra tells the judges that their killing must be pity, not revenge.
Read in the book →“Lust is sin,”—so say some who preach death—“let us go apart and beget no children!” “Giving birth is troublesome,”—say others—“why still give birth? One beareth only the unfortunate!” And they also are preachers of…
Pity is exposed as a way of loosening one's own bond to life while binding others to it with gifts.
Read in the book →Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice. These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust looketh enviously out of all that they do. Even into the heights of their…
Fellow-suffering is suspected of being lust in disguise.
Read in the book →In divining and keeping silence shall the friend be a master: not everything must thou wish to see. Thy dream shall disclose unto thee what thy friend doeth when awake. Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy…
Pity for a friend should be a divining of whether he wants it, and be hidden under a hard shell.
Read in the book →My friends, there hath arisen a satire on your friend: “Behold Zarathustra! Walketh he not amongst us as if amongst animals?” But it is better said in this wise: “The discerning one walketh amongst men AS amongst…
Zarathustra distrusts the merciful because their pity shows no bashfulness before the sufferer's shame.
Read in the book →Verily, I have done this and that for the afflicted: but something better did I always seem to do when I had learned to enjoy myself better. Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that…
Helping the sufferer shames him and wounds his pride, so Zarathustra washes his hand and soul.
Read in the book →Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin!
Learning to enjoy ourselves is set against giving and contriving pain.
Read in the book →Thus speaketh all great love: it surpasseth even forgiveness and pity.
Great love surpasses forgiveness and pity.
Read in the book →One should hold fast one’s heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one’s head run away! Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more…
Pity causes the greatest follies and suffering, and is God's hell.
Read in the book →And when they had passed, a pain attacked Zarathustra; but not long had he struggled with the pain, when he began to speak thus: It moveth my heart for those priests. They also go against my taste; but that is the…
Zarathustra feels pain and suffers with the priests as with prisoners.
Read in the book →Better songs would they have to sing, for me to believe in their Saviour: more like saved ones would his disciples have to appear unto me! Naked, would I like to see them: for beauty alone should preach penitence. But…
The Saviours' spirit drowned in pity, and a great folly always floated to the surface.
Read in the book →When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto him: “Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith in thy…
He declines to heal the cripples and treats the outward defect as the smallest evil among men.
Read in the book →Thus spake Zarathustra on the ridge of the mountain where it was cold: when, however, he came into the vicinity of the sea, and at last stood alone amongst the cliffs, then had he become weary on his way, and eagerer…
His love and sympathy for the dreaming sea shows the danger of love that besets the lonesomest one.
Read in the book →But there is something in me which I call courage: it hath hitherto slain for me every dejection. This courage at last bade me stand still and say: “Dwarf! Thou! Or I!”— For courage is the best slayer,—courage which…
Fellow-suffering is named the deepest abyss, and courage slays it too.
Read in the book →Thus did I speak, and always more softly: for I was afraid of mine own thoughts, and arrear-thoughts. Then, suddenly did I hear a dog HOWL near me. Had I ever heard a dog howl thus? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When I was…
The howling dog excites his commiseration, as it did in childhood.
Read in the book →And verily, what I saw, the like had I never seen. A young shepherd did I see, writhing, choking, quivering, with distorted countenance, and with a heavy black serpent hanging out of his mouth. Had I ever seen so much…
Zarathustra's pity, horror and hatred cry out of him together as he fails to pull the serpent out.
Read in the book →Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness! And MUST I not conceal myself like one who hath swallowed gold—lest my soul should be…
He lets himself be swathed in their pity and secretly commiserates it, to keep their envy from his happiness.
Read in the book →To one man, lonesomeness is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight FROM the sick ones.
He ends by mocking all pity while singing in the sunny corner of his mountain.
Read in the book →In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated.
Names indulgence and pity as the danger he lived in among men.
Read in the book →With suppressed truths, with fool’s hand and befooled heart, and rich in petty lies of pity:—thus have I ever lived among men. Disguised did I sit amongst them, ready to misjudge MYSELF that I might endure THEM, and…
Pity made him conceal himself and his riches, and taught him to lie and suppress truths.
Read in the book →—O ye wags and barrel-organs! answered Zarathustra, and smiled once more, how well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days:— —And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me! But I bit off its head and…
The little man's 'pity' is a lust to watch the great man's pain.
Read in the book →“O Zarathustra, I have come that I may seduce thee to thy last sin!”
The soothsayer states plainly that the temptation of this chapter is pity.
Read in the book →“He who most loved and possessed him hath now also lost him most—: —Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who could rejoice at that!”— —“Thou servedst him to the last?” asked Zarathustra…
The pope says God, grown old and soft, suffocated on his all-too-great pity.
Read in the book →“Amen! So shall it be!” said Zarathustra, with great astonishment; “up thither leadeth the way, there lieth the cave of Zarathustra. Gladly, forsooth, would I conduct thee thither myself, thou venerable one; for I love…
Zarathustra offers a haven to the sorrowful but admits he cannot lift this man's melancholy.
Read in the book →“Zarathustra! Zarathustra! Read my riddle! Say, say! WHAT IS THE REVENGE ON THE WITNESS? I entice thee back; here is smooth ice! See to it, see to it, that thy pride doth not here break its legs! Thou thinkest thyself…
Pity overcomes Zarathustra and makes him fall like an oak, before he recovers his sternness.
Read in the book →Thus spake Zarathustra and was about to go; but the nondescript grasped at a corner of his garment and began anew to gurgle and seek for words. “Stay,” said he at last— —“Stay! Do not pass by! I have divined what axe it…
The ugliest man flees human pity and honours Zarathustra's shame as reverence for great misfortune, calling pity offensive to modesty.
Read in the book →Beyond all these do I look, as a dog looketh over the backs of thronging flocks of sheep. They are petty, good-wooled, good-willed, grey people. As the heron looketh contemptuously at shallow pools, with backward-bent…
He praises Zarathustra as the first to warn against pity, since all creators are hard.
Read in the book →Thou thyself, however,—warn thyself also against THY pity! For many are on their way to thee, many suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, freezing ones— I warn thee also against myself. Thou hast read my best, my…
He warns Zarathustra against his own pity, the axe that fells him.
Read in the book →Thus spake the Preacher-on-the-Mount, and turned then his own look towards Zarathustra—for hitherto it had rested lovingly on the kine—: then, however, he put on a different expression. “Who is this with whom I talk?”…
The beggar fled his riches and the rich to give to the poor, who would not receive him.
Read in the book →“FELLOW-SUFFERING! FELLOW-SUFFERING WITH THE HIGHER MEN!” he cried out, and his countenance changed into brass.
He understands that the soothsayer's 'last sin' was pity for the higher men, and he casts it off.
Read in the book →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?
What the critics said
Brandes says that war service hardened Nietzsche against softness and turned him from Schopenhauer's pity and Wagner's romanticism, and that his long illness freed him from piety and pessimism ('a sufferer has no right to pessimism'), made him a philosopher who questioned every value, and issued in a convalescent's passionate joy in life and creation.
His turn against Schopenhauer's morality of pity is tied to his own hardening.
Brandes reports that Nietzsche, following Hartmann's lead, attacks Schopenhauer's morality of pity: pity is not unselfish but mixed with fear, comparison and the joy of being the stronger, real fellow-suffering would only multiply suffering, and against 'love thy neighbour' he sets aims beyond the neighbour, holding pity captive for the sake of the goal.
Pity is self-interested and, as genuine fellow-suffering, a weakness that adds to the world's pain.
Brandes says that Zarathustra's greatest danger among men lay in forbearance and pity, which taught him to lie among the good, and that he returns to the free mountain air to sit among broken and half-written tables awaiting the hour when the lion comes with the doves.
Pity is Zarathustra's greatest danger, forcing him into the little lies of the good.
Mencken explains Nietzsche's view that Christian humility, the Golden Rule and sympathy make a man throw away his strength and his 'feeling of increasing power'; sympathy is a depressant that preserves what is ripe for extinction and, disguised as 'the other world', is hostile to life.
Sympathy is read biologically as a drain of force from the strong to the weak that multiplies misery.
Mencken summarises Nietzsche's definition of sympathy as the strong man giving up some of his strength to the weak.
A crisp mechanical definition of pity as transfer of strength.
Mencken reviews critics who defend Christian charity and humility (Bennett Hume, Fouillée, Violet Paget) and argues that scientific humanitarianism owes nothing to the church, that strength grows by use, and that Paget's humility is really intelligent egoism, which Nietzsche's higher man, knowing times for truce and guile, does not oppose.
Defends Nietzsche's critique of charity and self-sacrifice against its main objectors.
Mencken argues that self-sacrifice based frankly on expediency is compatible with Nietzsche's philosophy, but that it is almost always corrupted by sentimentality, which exalts the unfit ('Blessed are the poor') and turns charity into an agent of decay.
Distinguishes prudent aid to the weak from sentimental pity, which Mencken says Nietzsche condemned.
Mencken reports Paul Elmer More's objection that, while humanitarian sympathy has been excessive, unchecked self-seeking would lead to savagery, so that if one must choose, sympathy is preferable because it can never be fully realised.
Presents a critic's case that sympathy must balance self-interest rather than be abandoned.
Ludovici explains that for Nietzsche master-morality is active and creative, calling good whatever springs from strength and bad whatever springs from weakness, while slave-morality is passive and defensive, prizing pity, patience and humility and fearing the strong; Nietzsche advocated the former because it leads to the ascent of life and the latter to degeneration.
Pity heads the qualities slave-morality prizes for making suffering endurable.
Ludovici reads 'The Return Home' as autobiography: Nietzsche confesses that pity was his greatest danger, pitting the lawgiver's far-sighted love of posterity against a meaner sympathy for the neighbour from which he suffered, and returning to solitude to recover from his attempt to be all things to all men.
Pity is Nietzsche's own fundamental temptation, opposed to the broad altruism of the lawgiver.
Ludovici argues that Part IV avows that all of Nietzsche's philosophy was laid at the feet of higher men: he did not seek to save the world but to determine who should be its master, freeing higher men to reach their zenith, and his strongest temptation to pity is their cry for help in a dangerous modern environment.
Pity for endangered higher men is Zarathustra's last temptation.
Ludovici identifies the soothsayer of 'The Cry of Distress' with Schopenhauer, whose pessimistic ethics place pity highest, and reads the scene as Schopenhauer tempting Nietzsche to his last sin through his deepest sentiment, sympathy for higher men.
Pity is the last sin to which the soothsayer seduces Zarathustra.
Ludovici explains the last pope's story as Nietzsche's history of Judaism and Christianity: the jealous, revengeful God of a strong warlike race degenerates with his people into a soft, pitiful God of love who sacrifices his Son for us, and this process ends in his being suffocated by his own pity.
Pity is what finally destroys God.
Ludovici argues that in meeting the ugliest man Zarathustra shows the only right response to great misery, shame and reverence, against obtrusive pity, which is self-glorification; Nietzsche blushes for his race and wills a world where one need not blush for one's fellows.
Gushing pity is self-glorification; shame and reverence are the proper response.
Ludovici reads the ugliest man as the murderer of God by an atheism of the great ugly man who reveres beauty: an omniscient God's pity, lacking shame and reverence, could not be evaded and so must not exist; Zarathustra honours his self-contempt as the mark of a great despiser.
Flight from pity without reverence motivates the deed.
Ludovici reads 'The Sign' as Nietzsche's final dissociation from the higher men: the lion and doves show that he unites great power and tenderness and has mastered the terrible in nature, for which the higher men are unready, and he turns from fellow-suffering to his work and the great noonday.
Zarathustra overcomes fellow-suffering.