motif The hour when man stands midway between beast and Superman and celebrates his way to evening as his highest hope.
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…
The great noontide is when man stands midway between animal and Superman and celebrates his way to evening as his highest hope.
Read in the book →But why talk I, when no one hath MINE ears! It is still an hour too early for me here. Mine own forerunner am I among this people, mine own cockcrow in dark lanes. But THEIR hour cometh! And there cometh also mine!…
He foresees making the small people into heralds who cry that the great noontide is nigh.
Read in the book →Thus spake Zarathustra. Then did he look on the great city and sighed, and was long silent. At last he spake thus: I loathe also this great city, and not only this fool. Here and there— there is nothing to better,…
Pillars of fire consuming the city are said to precede the great noontide.
Read in the book →BEHOLD, IT COMETH, IT IS NIGH, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!
The great noontide is the day of judgment that will reveal the truth about selfishness.
Read in the book →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…
He would again speak the word of the great noontide and announce the Superman.
Read in the book →But wilt thou not weep, wilt thou not weep forth thy purple melancholy, then wilt thou have to SING, O my soul!—Behold, I smile myself, who foretell thee this: —Thou wilt have to sing with passionate song, until all…
The golden bark gliding over calm seas and the vintager with his diamond knife anticipate the fulfilment the soul longs for.
Read in the book →What must one day come and may not pass by? Our great Hazar, that is to say, our great, remote human-kingdom, the Zarathustra-kingdom of a thousand years— How remote may such “remoteness” be? What doth it concern me?…
He is certain that the remote kingdom must come, though he does not say how far off it is.
Read in the book →—And Zarathustra ran and ran, but he found no one else, and was alone and ever found himself again; he enjoyed and quaffed his solitude, and thought of good things—for hours. About the hour of noontide, however, when…
The scene is set at the hour of perfect noontide, with the sun directly overhead.
Read in the book →“Hush! Hush! Hath not the world now become perfect? What hath happened unto me? As a delicate wind danceth invisibly upon parqueted seas, light, feather-light, so—danceth sleep upon me. No eye doth it close to me, it…
Noontide stillness is presented as a moment of completeness, when the world has become perfect, round and ripe.
Read in the book →—What hath befallen me: Hark! Hath time flown away? Do I not fall? Have I not fallen—hark! into the well of eternity? —What happeneth to me? Hush! It stingeth me—alas—to the heart? To the heart! Oh, break up, break up,…
At noon time seems to vanish and Zarathustra falls into the well of eternity.
Read in the book →“Get up,” said Zarathustra, “thou little thief, thou sluggard! What! Still stretching thyself, yawning, sighing, falling into deep wells? Who art thou then, O my soul!” (and here he became frightened, for a sunbeam shot…
Zarathustra wakes to find the sun still overhead and addresses heaven as the joyous, awful noontide abyss.
Read in the book →God hath died: now do WE desire—the Superman to live.
The great noontide is said to come only now that God lies in the grave.
Read in the book →My suffering and my fellow-suffering—what matter about them! Do I then strive after HAPPINESS? I strive after my WORK! Well! The lion hath come, my children are nigh, Zarathustra hath grown ripe, mine hour hath come:—…
He calls the great noontide to rise as his morning and his day begin.
Read in the book →This is MY morning, MY day beginneth: ARISE NOW, ARISE, THOU GREAT NOONTIDE!”—
The book's closing summons to the great noontide.
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
Förster-Nietzsche says that the book came into being in August 1881 at Sils Maria, when the idea of eternal recurrence, which Nietzsche in Ecce Homo calls the fundamental idea of the work and the highest formula of Yea-saying, struck him beside a rock near Surlei, and that he then resolved to reveal it through Zarathustra; the first plan was headed 'Midday and Eternity'.
The first plan, 'Midday and Eternity', addresses 'ye midday brethren' under the sun of knowledge at midday.
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.
Glosses the noontide historically as the present age in which mankind has come of age and is responsible.
Ludovici defends the prophetic seriousness of Zarathustra's thousand-year kingdom against English readers inclined to laugh, arguing that without such earnest belief in their Hazar higher men would have become pessimists, suicides or merchants.
Nietzsche earnestly believed his thousand-year kingdom would come.
Ludovici explains that with Nietzsche man came of age at the noon of life: the gods and superstitions of our childhood withdraw, we are responsible for our actions, and having lived our morning under chance we must make our afternoon our own.
Noontide as humanity's coming of age and responsibility.
Ludovici reads 'The Sign' as Nietzsche's final dissociation from the higher men: the lion and doves show that he unites great power and tenderness and has mastered the terrible in nature, for which the higher men are unready, and he turns from fellow-suffering to his work and the great noonday.
The chapter ends in the call to the great noonday.