The farewell and the golden staff

When Zarathustra had taken leave of the town to which his heart was attached, the name of which is “The Pied Cow,” there followed him many people who called themselves his disciples, and kept him company. Thus came they…

Leaving the town of the Pied Cow, Zarathustra tells his followers at a crossroad that he will go alone. They give him a staff with a golden handle showing a serpent twined round the sun.

Tell me, pray: how came gold to the highest value? Because it is uncommon, and unprofiting, and beaming, and soft in lustre; it always bestoweth itself. Only as image of the highest virtue came gold to the highest…

Zarathustra asks why gold is most valued and answers that it is uncommon, unprofiting, beaming and gives itself. His disciples thirst to become gifts themselves, so they gather riches in order to give them out again. He calls this selfishness healthy and holy.

Another selfishness is there, an all-too-poor and hungry kind, which would always steal—the selfishness of the sick, the sickly selfishness. With the eye of the thief it looketh upon all that is lustrous; with the…

Another selfishness steals, looks greedily at the abundant and prowls round the tables of bestowers. Zarathustra calls this degeneration, the sense that says 'All for myself', and says we suspect it wherever the bestowing soul is lacking.

Upward soareth our sense: thus is it a simile of our body, a simile of an elevation. Such similes of elevations are the names of the virtues. Thus goeth the body through history, a becomer and fighter. And the…

Names of good and evil are only similes that hint. Virtue begins when the body is raised and the spirit speaks in similes: the heart overflows like a river, and the will commands all things as a lover's will. Zarathustra calls this new virtue power, a golden sun with the serpent of knowledge around it.

Here paused Zarathustra awhile, and looked lovingly on his disciples. Then he continued to speak thus—and his voice had changed: Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing…

Virtue and spirit have often flown away and erred, and man is still an attempt who inherits both the rationality and the madness of the ages. Zarathustra calls his hearers to heal themselves and to value things anew. He says the earth shall become a place of healing, and the lonesome shall one day be a people from which the Superman arises.

Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue!

In a changed voice, Zarathustra begs his disciples to devote their love and knowledge to the meaning of the earth.

I now go alone, my disciples! Ye also now go away, and alone! So will I have it. Verily, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he hath…

Zarathustra says he goes alone and tells his disciples to leave and guard themselves against him. Believers are of little account because they had not yet sought themselves, and only when all have denied him will he return.

Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you.

Zarathustra makes his return conditional on his disciples' denial of him.

And once again shall ye have become friends unto me, and children of one hope: then will I be with you for the third time, to celebrate the great noontide with you. And it is the great noontide, when man is in the…

Zarathustra promises to return a third time to celebrate the great noontide with his disciples as friends and children of one hope. The chapter ends on the will 'Dead are all the gods: now do we desire the Superman to live.'

“DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE SUPERMAN TO LIVE.”—Let this be our final will at the great noontide!—

Zarathustra gives the creed for the great noontide.