Third Part · XLVI. The Vision and the Enigma

The howling dog and the vanished vision

Thus did I speak, and always more softly: for I was afraid of mine own thoughts, and arrear-thoughts. Then, suddenly did I hear a dog HOWL near me.

Had I ever heard a dog howl thus? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When I was a child, in my most distant childhood:

—Then did I hear a dog howl thus. And saw it also, with hair bristling, its head upwards, trembling in the stillest midnight, when even dogs believe in ghosts:

—So that it excited my commiseration. For just then went the full moon, silent as death, over the house; just then did it stand still, a glowing globe—at rest on the flat roof, as if on some one’s property:—

Thereby had the dog been terrified: for dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. And when I again heard such howling, then did it excite my commiseration once more.

Where was now the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Had I dreamt? Had I awakened? ‘Twixt rugged rocks did I suddenly stand alone, dreary in the dreariest moonlight.

BUT THERE LAY A MAN! And there! The dog leaping, bristling, whining—now did it see me coming—then did it howl again, then did it CRY:—had I ever heard a dog cry so for help?

Afraid of his own thoughts, Zarathustra hears a dog howl and recalls a similar howl from childhood under the full moon. The dwarf and gateway vanish, and he stands alone among rocks, where the dog is crying for help over a man lying there.

Eternal recurrenceFear of his own abysmal thought breaks the vision off; the dog's howl recalls a childhood midnight.
PityThe howling dog excites his commiseration, as it did in childhood.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

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

Spirit of gravity as guilty conscienceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that the spirit of gravity, the dwarf Zarathustra carries and defies, stands for the sense of guilt and sin that Christian and Judaic values have bred into men's instincts, and that Nietzsche can affirm the recurrence of life only once he has cast this dwarf off, announcing the doctrine in defiance of him.

Spirit of gravity as guilty conscienceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Definition of the spirit of gravityAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici defines Nietzsche's 'spirit of gravity' as the oppressive, paralysing sense of guilt and sin.

Recurrence a daring conjectureAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909judgement

Ludovici grants that much can be said for the hypothesis of eternal recurrence but judges it a very daring conjecture, and doubts whether Nietzsche ever properly estimated its effect as a dogma on men's minds.

The shepherd as modern manAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici reads the shepherd as the man of today, the choking snake as the paralysing social values that threaten humanity, and 'Bite!' as Nietzsche's cry to mankind to change its values before it is too late.