When however Zarathustra had gone round a rock, then saw he on the same path, not far below him, a man who threw his limbs about like a maniac, and at last tumbled to the ground on his belly. “Halt!” said then…
Zarathustra finds a trembling old man on the ground, who laments in verse to a cruel huntsman-God who tortures him. He begs the God to come back, to be his pain and his final bliss.
Read in the book →—Here, however, Zarathustra could no longer restrain himself; he took his staff and struck the wailer with all his might. “Stop this,” cried he to him with wrathful laughter, “stop this, thou stage-player! Thou false…
Zarathustra beats the wailer with his staff and calls him a stage-player and false coiner. The old man admits it was a performance, says he played the penitent in spirit, and that Zarathustra had believed him.
Read in the book →“Thou mayest have deceived subtler ones than I,” said Zarathustra sternly. “I am not on my guard against deceivers; I HAVE TO BE without precaution: so willeth my lot. Thou, however,—MUST deceive: so far do I know thee!…
Zarathustra says the magician must deceive and has no lie left for himself. The magician claims to be the greatest man, then admits he sought greatness and failed. Zarathustra honours this one genuine moment.
Read in the book →I SEEK ZARATHUSTRA.
Asked what he sought and how he tested Zarathustra, the magician says he seeks a perfectly honest great man, and that he seeks Zarathustra.
Read in the book →—And here there arose a long silence between them: Zarathustra, however, became profoundly absorbed in thought, so that he shut his eyes. But afterwards coming back to the situation, he grasped the hand of the magician,…
Zarathustra, after a long silence, points the magician to his cave and his animals. He says he has seen no great man, only inflated frogs, and goes on laughing, comforted.
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
Ludovici argues that the magician is Wagner, recounting Nietzsche's youthful idealisation of him and the bitter break, and reads the dialogue as exposing what Nietzsche came to loathe in Wagner: his histrionics, vanity, equivocation and falseness, though Zarathustra still treats him as a higher man broken by modern values.
Ludovici argues that the magician is Wagner, recounting Nietzsche's youthful idealisation of him and the bitter break, and reads the dialogue as exposing what Nietzsche came to loathe in Wagner: his histrionics, vanity, equivocation and falseness, though Zarathustra still treats him as a higher man broken by modern values.