The higher men (as a company)

It was late in the afternoon only when Zarathustra, after long useless searching and strolling about, again came home to his cave. When, however, he stood over against it, not more than twenty paces therefrom, the thing…

Returning home, Zarathustra hears the cry of distress again, this time from his own cave. He finds all the men he met that day sitting there, and greets them with courteous curiosity.

“Ye despairing ones! Ye strange ones! So it was YOUR cry of distress that I heard? And now do I know also where he is to be sought, whom I have sought for in vain to-day: THE HIGHER MAN—: —In mine own cave sitteth he,…

Zarathustra says he allured the higher man with his happiness. He offers his cave, his animals and security, then his little finger and the whole hand.

“O Zarathustra, by the way in which thou hast given us thy hand and thy greeting, we recognise thee as Zarathustra. Thou hast humbled thyself before us; almost hast thou hurt our reverence—: —Who however could have…

The king on the right says Zarathustra's humility uplifts them, compares him to a tall pine, and says many are asking who he is. He asks for the great hope they need to live.

Ye are only bridges: may higher ones pass over upon you!

Zarathustra says the guests are not his right arm: they are too tender, too burdened and crooked, and no smith could hammer them straight. They are only bridges and steps.

LAUGHING LIONS must come!

He says the guests are only a presage, and denies they are the men of great longing or the remnant of God. He waits for others, asks to hear of his children and Happy Isles, and says what he would surrender for them.

Thus spake Zarathustra, and stopped suddenly in his discourse: for his longing came over him, and he closed his eyes and his mouth, because of the agitation of his heart. And all his guests also were silent, and stood…

Zarathustra stops mid-speech, overcome by longing, and closes his eyes and mouth. The guests fall silent, and only the old soothsayer makes signs.

For at this point the soothsayer interrupted the greeting of Zarathustra and his guests: he pressed forward as one who had no time to lose, seized Zarathustra’s hand and exclaimed: “But Zarathustra! One thing is more…

The soothsayer interrupts the greeting, reminds Zarathustra he was invited to table, and complains of hunger, thirst and the lack of wine. Zarathustra's animals flee in terror at his appetite.

On this occasion, when the soothsayer was longing for wine, it happened that the king on the left, the silent one, also found expression for once. “WE took care,” said he, “about wine, I, along with my brother the king…

The silent king says they have wine but no bread. Zarathustra answers that anchorites have none, offers two lambs, roots, fruits and nuts, and says everyone, kings included, must help.

Thus spake Zarathustra; the king on the right however answered and said: “Strange! Did one ever hear such sensible things out of the mouth of a wise man? And verily, it is the strangest thing in a wise man, if over and…

The king on the right marvels that a wise man can be sensible and not an ass. The ass answers 'Ye-a' with ill-will, and the long supper begins, with talk only of the higher man.

When I came unto men for the first time, then did I commit the anchorite folly, the great folly: I appeared on the market-place. And when I spake unto all, I spake unto none. In the evening, however, rope-dancers were…

Zarathustra recalls his first coming to men, when speaking to all meant speaking to none. He tells the higher men that the populace blinks 'we are all equal', and that they must go away from the market-place.

God hath died: now do WE desire—the Superman to live.

Zarathustra tells the higher men that God was their greatest danger and that only since his burial have they risen again. He asks whether they are frightened by the abyss, then bids them take heart.

The most careful ask to-day: “How is man to be maintained?” Zarathustra however asketh, as the first and only one: “How is man to be SURPASSED?” The Superman, I have at heart; THAT is the first and only thing to me—and…

Zarathustra says he cares about the Superman, not man, and loves man as an over-going and a down-going. He loves the higher men for despising and despairing, and calls on them to surpass the petty virtues of the present masters.

He hath heart who knoweth fear, but VANQUISHETH it; who seeth the abyss, but with PRIDE.

Zarathustra asks the higher men whether they have anchorite and eagle courage, not courage before witnesses. He says that courage means grasping the abyss with an eagle's talons.

Ye higher men, think ye that I am here to put right what ye have put wrong? Or that I wished henceforth to make snugger couches for you sufferers? Or show you restless, miswandering, misclimbing ones, new and easier…

Zarathustra denies he is here to put right what they put wrong or to offer easier footpaths. He says they suffer from themselves, not from man, and that his wisdom, gathered like a cloud, will bear lightning that blinds the men of today.

Do not will anything beyond your power: there is a bad falseness in those who will beyond their power. Especially when they will great things! For they awaken distrust in great things, these subtle false-coiners and…

Zarathustra tells the higher men not to will beyond their power, and prizes honesty above all. He advises distrust of the populace and its truths, and of the learned who boast they cannot lie.

If ye would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves CARRIED aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people’s backs and heads! Thou hast mounted, however, on horseback? Thou now ridest briskly up to thy…

Zarathustra warns against being carried aloft or riding on others' backs. The rider's lame foot goes with him, and he will stumble at his height.

Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one’s own child. Do not let yourselves be imposed upon or put upon! Who then is YOUR neighbour? Even if ye act “for your neighbour”—ye still do not create for…

Zarathustra tells the creating ones to drop the 'for' of neighbour-virtue, since their love belongs to their own child. He adds that whoever gives birth is sick and unclean, and must wash his soul.

Be not virtuous beyond your powers! And seek nothing from yourselves opposed to probability! Walk in the footsteps in which your fathers’ virtue hath already walked! How would ye rise high, if your fathers’ will should…

Zarathustra advises the higher men to walk where their fathers' virtue walked and not to set up as saints where their fathers had vices. He mocks monasteries and says solitude is unsuitable for many.

Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!

Zarathustra compares the higher men to a tiger whose spring has failed, and to dice-players whose cast failed. He says the higher the type the seldomer it succeeds, and urges them to laugh and to set small perfect things around them.

He, however, who cometh nigh to his goal, danceth.

Zarathustra says good things come to their goal tortuously and laugh. He loves fast racing, says light feet run across mud, and bids his hearers lift up their hearts and legs.

Better, however, to be foolish with happiness than foolish with misfortune, better to dance awkwardly than walk lamely.

Zarathustra repeats his call to lift up hearts and legs, noting that even heavy animals can be happy, like an elephant trying to stand on its head. He urges the higher men to unlearn sorrow-sighing.

Do like unto the wind when it rusheth forth from its mountain-caves: unto its own piping will it dance; the seas tremble and leap under its footsteps. That which giveth wings to asses, that which milketh the lionesses:—…

Zarathustra praises the wild spirit of the storm that dances upon fens and blows dust into the eyes of the melancholic. He ends by casting the crown of laughter to the higher men and bidding them learn to laugh.

Hardly, however, had Zarathustra left the cave when the old magician got up, looked cunningly about him, and said: “He is gone! And already, ye higher men—let me tickle you with this complimentary and flattering name,…

As soon as Zarathustra is gone, the old magician says his melancholy devil is attacking him. He mocks Zarathustra as a saint's mask, then seizes his harp as evening falls.

Thus sang the magician; and all who were present went like birds unawares into the net of his artful and melancholy voluptuousness. Only the spiritually conscientious one had not been caught: he at once snatched the…

After the magician's song, the conscientious one snatches the harp and calls for fresh air and for Zarathustra. He accuses the magician of tempting free spirits back into prison. The magician answers that the man has understood little of the song.

“Thou praisest me,” replied the conscientious one, “in that thou separatest me from thyself; very well! But, ye others, what do I see? Ye still sit there, all of you, with lusting eyes—: Ye free spirits, whither hath…

He says the free spirits' souls dance like those of men watching naked dancers. He seeks security, while they seem to crave horror, danger and the life of wild beasts. He judges that longing actually impossible.

“ZARATHUSTRA!” cried all of them there assembled, as if with one voice, and burst out at the same time into a great laughter; there arose, however, from them as it were a heavy cloud. Even the magician laughed, and said…

The company cries out 'Zarathustra!' and laughs, and the magician says his evil spirit is gone. He teases that Zarathustra loves his enemies but takes revenge on his friends. Zarathustra goes round shaking hands, then longs for the good air and his animals and wishes to steal out.

“Go not away!” said then the wanderer who called himself Zarathustra’s shadow, “abide with us—otherwise the old gloomy affliction might again fall upon us. Now hath that old magician given us of his worst for our good,…

The shadow asks Zarathustra not to go. He says the magician's song, the pope's tears and the kings' pretended composure show the old melancholy still lurking. He recalls an after-dinner song he once made among Oriental maidens, then takes the magician's harp and begins to sing.

After the song of the wanderer and shadow, the cave became all at once full of noise and laughter: and since the assembled guests all spake simultaneously, and even the ass, encouraged thereby, no longer remained…

Zarathustra slips out of the noisy cave and speaks to his animals. He is mildly scornful of the guests but pleased, and takes their growing thankfulness as the best sign.

All on a sudden however, Zarathustra’s ear was frightened: for the cave which had hitherto been full of noise and laughter, became all at once still as death;—his nose, however, smelt a sweet-scented vapour and…

The cave falls silent and fills with incense. Zarathustra looks in and finds all the higher men kneeling and praying to the ass, and the ugliest man begins a litany.

Amen! And glory and honour and wisdom and thanks and praise and strength be to our God, from everlasting to everlasting! —The ass, however, here brayed YE-A. He carrieth our burdens, he hath taken upon him the form of a…

The ugliest man chants a litany praising the ass as a patient, silent, burden-bearing God beyond good and evil. After each verse the ass brays 'YE-A'.

At this place in the litany, however, Zarathustra could no longer control himself; he himself cried out YE-A, louder even than the ass, and sprang into the midst of his maddened guests. “Whatever are you about, ye…

Zarathustra breaks into the litany with his own YE-A and pulls his guests up from the ground. The old pope and the shadow excuse their idolatry and blame the ugliest man for reawakening God.

—“And thou,” said Zarathustra, “thou bad old magician, what didst thou do! Who ought to believe any longer in thee in this free age, when THOU believest in such divine donkeyism? It was a stupid thing that thou didst;…

Zarathustra scolds the magician, who concedes it was stupid and repugnant to him. The spiritually conscientious one says the spectacle does his conscience good and warns that Zarathustra himself could become an ass through superabundance of wisdom.

Then, however, did it come to pass that Zarathustra, astonished at such merely roguish answers, jumped back to the door of his cave, and turning towards all his guests, cried out with a strong voice: “O ye wags, all of…

Astonished at the roguish answers, Zarathustra jumps back to his cave door and calls his guests wags and buffoons who delight in praying like children. He sends them out of the nursery and says: we have become men, so we want the kingdom of earth.

And once more began Zarathustra to speak. “O my new friends,” said he,— “ye strange ones, ye higher men, how well do ye now please me,— —Since ye have again become joyful! Ye have, verily, all blossomed forth: it…

Zarathustra tells his new friends that such flowers need new festivals. He takes the ass-festival as a good omen and asks them to repeat it out of love for themselves and in remembrance of him.

Meanwhile one after another had gone out into the open air, and into the cool, thoughtful night; Zarathustra himself, however, led the ugliest man by the hand, that he might show him his night-world, and the great round…

Outside in the night, the ugliest man asks whether they too would say 'Once more' to death for Zarathustra's sake. The higher men rush to honour Zarathustra, and the soothsayer dances.

When, however, this took place with the ugliest man, Zarathustra stood there like one drunken: his glance dulled, his tongue faltered and his feet staggered. And who could divine what thoughts then passed through…

Zarathustra stands as if drunken, then hears something and three times bids all be still and listen. A clock-bell sounds and he says: let us wander into the night.

Ye higher men, it is getting on to midnight: then will I say something into your ears, as that old clock-bell saith it into mine ear,— —As mysteriously, as frightfully, and as cordially as that midnight clock-bell…

In a mysterious, dreamlike speech Zarathustra echoes the bell: the world sleeps, the hour asks who will master the world, and the sepulchres mutter. He declares 'the world is deep'.

Said ye ever Yea to one joy? O my friends, then said ye Yea also unto ALL woe.

Zarathustra says midnight is also midday, pain also joy, curse also blessing. He argues that whoever wanted one moment to return wanted everything to return.

All joy wanteth the eternity of all things, it wanteth honey, it wanteth lees, it wanteth drunken midnight, it wanteth graves, it wanteth grave-tears’ consolation, it wanteth gilded evening-red— —WHAT doth not joy want!…

Joy is richer and more frightful than woe. It wants everything, even grief and this world, and the higher men must learn that joys want deep, profound eternity.

Have ye now learned my song? Have ye divined what it would say? Well! Cheer up! Ye higher men, sing now my roundelay! Sing now yourselves the song, the name of which is “Once more,” the signification of which is “Unto…

Zarathustra asks the higher men to sing his roundelay, then gives the verse: the world is deep, joy is deeper than grief, and joys all want eternity.

In the morning, however, after this night, Zarathustra jumped up from his couch, and, having girded his loins, he came out of his cave glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains. “Thou great…

Zarathustra rises glowing like a morning sun and greets the star as he once did. He says the higher men still sleep and are not his companions, and he praises his eagle as a proper animal while lacking proper men.

All this went on for a long time, or a short time: for properly speaking, there is NO time on earth for such things—. Meanwhile, however, the higher men had awakened in Zarathustra’s cave, and marshalled themselves for…

The higher men wake and go to greet him; the lion springs roaring toward the cave and they cry out and vanish. Zarathustra is left alone, stunned.