Third Part · XLVI. The Vision and the Enigma

The shepherd and the black serpent

Nihilism (all is empty)Pity Zarathustra The young shepherd The shepherd and the black serpent

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 loathing and pale horror on one countenance? He had perhaps gone to sleep? Then had the serpent crawled into his throat—there had it bitten itself fast.

My hand pulled at the serpent, and pulled:—in vain! I failed to pull the serpent out of his throat. Then there cried out of me: “Bite! Bite!

Its head off! Bite!”—so cried it out of me; my horror, my hatred, my loathing, my pity, all my good and my bad cried with one voice out of me.—

Zarathustra finds a young shepherd choking with a heavy black serpent fastened in his throat. Unable to pull it out, he cries 'Bite! Bite! Its head off!'

Nihilism (all is empty)The black serpent in the throat is the heaviest, blackest thing choking the man, with loathing and horror.
PityZarathustra's pity, horror and hatred cry out of him together as he fails to pull the serpent out.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

The shepherd as modern manAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici reads the shepherd as the man of today, the choking snake as the paralysing social values that threaten humanity, and 'Bite!' as Nietzsche's cry to mankind to change its values before it is too late.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Spirit of gravity as guilty conscienceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that the spirit of gravity, the dwarf Zarathustra carries and defies, stands for the sense of guilt and sin that Christian and Judaic values have bred into men's instincts, and that Nietzsche can affirm the recurrence of life only once he has cast this dwarf off, announcing the doctrine in defiance of him.

Spirit of gravity as guilty conscienceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Definition of the spirit of gravityAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici defines Nietzsche's 'spirit of gravity' as the oppressive, paralysing sense of guilt and sin.

Recurrence a daring conjectureAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909judgement

Ludovici grants that much can be said for the hypothesis of eternal recurrence but judges it a very daring conjecture, and doubts whether Nietzsche ever properly estimated its effect as a dogma on men's minds.