Third Part · LVII. The Convalescent

What Zarathustra would say when dying

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And if thou wouldst now die, O Zarathustra, behold, we know also how thou wouldst then speak to thyself:—but thine animals beseech thee not to die yet!

Thou wouldst speak, and without trembling, buoyant rather with bliss, for a great weight and worry would be taken from thee, thou patientest one!—

‘Now do I die and disappear,’ wouldst thou say, ‘and in a moment I am nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies.

But the plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined,—it will again create me! I myself pertain to the causes of the eternal return.

I come again with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent—NOT to a new life, or a better life, or a similar life:

—I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things,—

—To speak again the word of the great noontide of earth and man, to announce again to man the Superman.

I have spoken my word. I break down by my word: so willeth mine eternal fate—as announcer do I succumb!

The hour hath now come for the down-goer to bless himself. Thus—ENDETH Zarathustra’s down-going.’”—

The animals say how Zarathustra would speak if he died: souls are mortal, but the plexus of causes returns and creates him again. He comes again to the same life to teach recurrence and announce the Superman.

Eternal recurrenceHe would return to this identical life, not a new or better one, to teach recurrence again.
Going-under (descent)The animals end with 'Thus endeth Zarathustra's down-going'.
The great noontideHe would again speak the word of the great noontide and announce the Superman.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Georg Brandes, Aristocratic Radicalism (1889)

Eternal recurrence as shallow mysticismGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889judgement

Brandes calls Zarathustra's eternal recurrence a somewhat shallow mysticism derived from the Pythagorean cycle and Ecclesiastes, the direct antithesis of Hartmann's world process ending in destruction, and notes that Blanqui and Le Bon advanced the same idea about the same time.

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

The thought nearly drives Zarathustra madH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908exposition

Mencken says that in Zarathustra Nietzsche treats recurrence as a philosophical speculation that well-nigh drives the prophet mad, quoting the passage in which Zarathustra will return with this sun, earth, eagle and serpent to the same life, to teach again the eternal recurrence of all things.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

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

Why recurrence disgusted NietzscheAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that Zarathustra's cry of 'Disgust!' at his abysmal thought shows how far Nietzsche fell short of his own ideal of the man who cries da capo to all existence: his life of illness, disappointment and snubs made it impossible for him to think of eternal recurrence without loathing.

Struggle for power, not existenceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici sets out Nietzsche's relation to Darwin and Spencer: Nietzsche accepts evolution but makes the organism's formative will primary over environment, treats adaptation as mere reactivity, and replaces the passive struggle for existence with an active struggle for power, of which self-preservation is only an indirect result.

The noble wickedness of higher menAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that depriving a higher man of his so-called wickedness may do violence to the greatest in him, and that the noblest wickedness, that of courage and determination, is vanishing under slave-moralities, which is why Nietzsche cried that man's baddest is so small and that to be brave is good.