Third Part · XLIX. The Bedwarfing Virtue

Back among men: everything has grown smaller

When Zarathustra was again on the continent, he did not go straightway to his mountains and his cave, but made many wanderings and questionings, and ascertained this and that; so that he said of himself jestingly: “Lo, a river that floweth back unto its source in many windings!” For he wanted to learn what had taken place AMONG MEN during the interval: whether they had become greater or smaller. And once, when he saw a row of new houses, he marvelled, and said:

“What do these houses mean? Verily, no great soul put them up as its simile!

Did perhaps a silly child take them out of its toy-box? Would that another child put them again into the box!

And these rooms and chambers—can MEN go out and in there? They seem to be made for silk dolls; or for dainty-eaters, who perhaps let others eat with them.”

And Zarathustra stood still and meditated. At last he said sorrowfully: “There hath EVERYTHING become smaller!

Everywhere do I see lower doorways: he who is of MY type can still go therethrough, but—he must stoop!

Oh, when shall I arrive again at my home, where I shall no longer have to stoop—shall no longer have to stoop BEFORE THE SMALL ONES!”—And Zarathustra sighed, and gazed into the distance.—

The same day, however, he gave his discourse on the bedwarfing virtue.

Returning to the continent, Zarathustra wanders to learn whether men have become greater or smaller. He sees small houses and low doorways, sighs that he must stoop, and gives his discourse the same day.

The last manZarathustra finds the houses, doorways and rooms shrunken, a sign that men have become smaller.
SolitudeHe longs for his home, where he need no longer stoop before the small ones.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Georg Brandes, Aristocratic Radicalism (1889)

Petty virtue, apostates and the great cityGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Brandes summarises Zarathustra's disgust with the petty virtues that make men smaller, his being called godless, the apostasy of his former companions, and his loathing of the great city and of the State.

Petty virtue, apostates and the great cityGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

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

Great noontide as humanity's coming of ageAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici explains that by 'the great noontide' Nietzsche meant the present period as the noon of man's history: the childhood of mankind is over, we now know, and there is no longer any excuse for mistakes that botch the type man.

Freedom not an end in itselfAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that in 'Old and New Tables' freedom receives its death-blow as a general desideratum: Nietzsche held freedom dangerous in unworthy hands, asking 'free for what?' and requiring that one first be such as can will.