Zarathustra

When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart…

At thirty Zarathustra goes into the mountains, and ten years later he speaks to the rising sun. He asks it to bless his overflowing cup and begins his down-going.

Zarathustra went down the mountain alone, no one meeting him. When he entered the forest, however, there suddenly stood before him an old man, who had left his holy cot to seek roots. And thus spake the old man to…

The saint recognises Zarathustra as changed and tells him to stay in the forest. He says he now loves God, not men, and Zarathustra answers that he brings gifts. They part laughing.

“Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that GOD IS DEAD!”

Alone again, Zarathustra says to his heart that the saint has not heard of God's death.

When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which adjoineth the forest, he found many people assembled in the market-place; for it had been announced that a rope-dancer would give a performance. And Zarathustra spake…

In the market-place Zarathustra teaches that man is to be surpassed, as the ape is to man. He describes the hour of great contempt and calls the Superman the lightning and the frenzy. The crowd laughs and asks to see the rope-dancer.

I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed.

Zarathustra opens his speech with the Superman and the demand that man be surpassed.

I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes!

Zarathustra calls those who preach superearthly hopes poisoners.

Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus: Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous…

Zarathustra says man is a bridge and not a goal. He lists those he loves, all of them willing to perish for the sake of what is to come.

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.

Zarathustra describes man's dangerous crossing.

When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he again looked at the people, and was silent. “There they stand,” said he to his heart; “there they laugh: they understand me not; I am not the mouth for these ears. Must one…

Zarathustra decides to appeal to their pride and speaks of the last man. The crowd cheers and asks him to make them last men. He is saddened and says he is not the mouth for these ears.

“What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?”—so asketh the last man and blinketh.

The first description of the last man's blinking indifference.

Then, however, something happened which made every mouth mute and every eye fixed. In the meantime, of course, the rope-dancer had commenced his performance: he had come out at a little door, and was going along the…

A buffoon leaps over the rope-dancer, who falls beside Zarathustra. The dying man fears the devil and hell. Zarathustra says there is neither and promises to bury him.

Meanwhile the evening came on, and the market-place veiled itself in gloom. Then the people dispersed, for even curiosity and terror become fatigued. Zarathustra, however, still sat beside the dead man on the ground,…

Zarathustra reflects that he has caught a corpse and not a man. The buffoon warns him to leave town. He is mocked by grave-diggers, fed by a hermit, and lays the dead man in a hollow tree.

Long slept Zarathustra; and not only the rosy dawn passed over his head, but also the morning. At last, however, his eyes opened, and amazedly he gazed into the forest and the stillness, amazedly he gazed into himself.…

Waking, Zarathustra sees a new truth: he needs living companions who follow themselves. He will no longer be the herd's herdsman and leaves to find fellow-creators.

Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses—and not herds or believers either.

Zarathustra names those he seeks: fellow-creators who grave new values on new tables.

This had Zarathustra said to his heart when the sun stood at noontide. Then he looked inquiringly aloft,—for he heard above him the sharp call of a bird. And behold! An eagle swept through the air in wide circles, and…

At noon an eagle appears with a serpent coiled round its neck like a friend. Zarathustra calls them his animals, the proudest and the wisest. He asks that his pride go with his wisdom, or with his folly.

Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.

Zarathustra announces the three stages through which the spirit passes.

Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing spirit in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength. What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then…

The strong, reverent spirit kneels like a camel and asks for the heaviest load. A list of self-denying burdens follows, and it hastens with them into the wilderness.

But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness. Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him,…

In the wilderness the spirit becomes a lion and seeks to master its last Lord and God. The great dragon, 'Thou shalt', is covered in golden scales of old values and declares that there shall be no 'I will'.

Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.— Thus spake Zarathustra. And at that time he abode in the town which is called…

The three metamorphoses are repeated. The narrator adds that Zarathustra then abode in the town called The Pied Cow.

People commended unto Zarathustra a wise man, as one who could discourse well about sleep and virtue: greatly was he honoured and rewarded for it, and all the youths sat before his chair. To him went Zarathustra, and…

A wise man is praised for discoursing on sleep and virtue, and the youths sit before his chair. Zarathustra goes and sits among them.

When Zarathustra heard the wise man thus speak, he laughed in his heart: for thereby had a light dawned upon him. And thus spake he to his heart: A fool seemeth this wise man with his forty thoughts: but I believe he…

Zarathustra laughs in his heart and judges the man a fool who yet knows how to sleep. He concludes that people formerly sought teachers of virtue only for good sleep.

Even at present, to be sure, there are some like this preacher of virtue, and not always so honourable: but their time is past.

Zarathustra says such teachers still exist but will soon nod off for good, and he blesses their drowsiness.

Once on a time, Zarathustra also cast his fancy beyond man, like all backworldsmen. The work of a suffering and tortured God, did the world then seem to me. The dream—and diction—of a God, did the world then seem to me;…

Zarathustra tells how he once cast his fancy beyond man and saw the world as the intoxicated vision of a tortured God. He then realised the God was his own human phantom, which left him when he made a brighter flame for himself.

Suffering was it, and impotence—that created all backworlds; and the short madness of happiness, which only the greatest sufferer experienceth. Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap, with a…

Zarathustra explains that suffering, impotence and a weary unwillingness to will made the other worlds. The body, despairing of itself, reached for the ultimate walls and found only nothing.

A new pride taught me mine ego, and that teach I unto men: no longer to thrust one’s head into the sand of celestial things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, which giveth meaning to the earth!

The ego, with all its perplexity, speaks most honestly of its being and honours the body and the earth. Zarathustra teaches a new pride and a new will: carry a terrestrial head and approve man's path.

A new pride taught me mine ego, and that teach I unto men: no longer to thrust one’s head into the sand of celestial things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, which giveth meaning to the earth!

Zarathustra names the new pride he teaches: a head that gives meaning to the earth.

The sick and perishing—it was they who despised the body and the earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming blood-drops; but even those sweet and sad poisons they borrowed from the body and the earth!…

The sick sought escape from misery by contriving heavenly paths. Zarathustra is gentle with them and hopes they will recover and create higher bodies, though sickness stays in a convalescent's tears at his God's grave.

Many sickly ones have there always been among those who muse, and languish for God; violently they hate the discerning ones, and the latest of virtues, which is uprightness. Backward they always gaze toward dark ages:…

Zarathustra says the God-longing hate doubt and uprightness, yet their real belief is in the body, which they find sickly. He tells his brethren to hear the healthy body, which speaks of the meaning of the earth.

“Body am I, and soul”—so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children? But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the…

Zarathustra contrasts the child's 'body and soul' with the awakened one's 'body entirely.' He calls the body a plurality with one sense, and spirit its little instrument. The body does not say 'ego' but acts.

The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.

The body is described as a many-sided unity of opposites.

What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things: so vain are they. Instruments and playthings are sense…

Sense and spirit are mere playthings, and behind them stands the Self, 'an unknown sage' that is the body. The Self laughs at the ego and sets it to think by commanding pain and pleasure.

To the despisers of the body will I speak a word. That they despise is caused by their esteem. What is it that created esteeming and despising and worth and will? The creating Self created for itself esteeming and…

Zarathustra asks what created esteeming, despising, worth and will. His answer is that the creating Self and body did so, and made spirit as an instrument.

Even in your folly and despising ye each serve your Self, ye despisers of the body. I tell you, your very Self wanteth to die, and turneth away from life. No longer can your Self do that which it desireth most:—create…

Even the despisers serve their Self, which wants to die because it can no longer create beyond itself. Their contempt for life and the earth hides unconscious envy.

I go not your way, ye despisers of the body! Ye are no bridges for me to the Superman!—

Zarathustra rejects the despisers' way and denies they can be bridges.

My brother, when thou hast a virtue, and it is thine own virtue, thou hast it in common with no one. To be sure, thou wouldst call it by name and caress it; thou wouldst pull its ears and amuse thyself with it. And lo!…

Zarathustra tells his brother to leave his virtue unnamed and to stammer of it as 'my good', loved as an earthly thing and not as a law of God or men.

Once hadst thou passions and calledst them evil. But now hast thou only thy virtues: they grew out of thy passions. Thou implantedst thy highest aim into the heart of those passions: then became they thy virtues and…

Once the passions were called evil; now they have grown into virtues. Wild dogs have become songbirds, poison has become balsam, and the only evil left comes from the conflict of the virtues.

My brother, if thou be fortunate, then wilt thou have one virtue and no more: thus goest thou easier over the bridge. Illustrious is it to have many virtues, but a hard lot; and many a one hath gone into the wilderness…

One virtue is easier to carry than many. Many virtues fight for supremacy, and jealousy can turn the man, like a scorpion, against himself.

Man is something that hath to be surpassed: and therefore shalt thou love thy virtues,—for thou wilt succumb by them.—

The chapter closes by linking the love of one's virtues to man's being surpassed, since the virtues will bring about his downfall.

Ye do not mean to slay, ye judges and sacrificers, until the animal hath bowed its head? Lo! the pale criminal hath bowed his head: out of his eye speaketh the great contempt. “Mine ego is something which is to be…

Zarathustra addresses the judges as the criminal bows his head. In his eye he reads great contempt for his own ego. He says the criminal's self-judgment was his supreme moment, and that only a speedy death can help him.

“Enemy” shall ye say but not “villain,” “invalid” shall ye say but not “wretch,” “fool” shall ye say but not “sinner.”

Zarathustra tells the judges which words to use for the criminal, and which words to drop.

And thou, red judge, if thou would say audibly all thou hast done in thought, then would every one cry: “Away with the nastiness and the virulent reptile!” But one thing is the thought, another thing is the deed, and…

Thought, deed and the idea of the deed are three separate things, with no wheel of causality between them. The man was equal to his deed but could not bear the idea of it afterwards. Zarathustra calls this madness after the deed. The madness before it was a thirst for blood, which his weak reason disguised as a wish to rob.

What is this man? A mass of diseases that reach out into the world through the spirit; there they want to get their prey. What is this man? A coil of wild serpents that are seldom at peace among themselves—so they go…

The man is described as a mass of diseases and a coil of serpents seeking prey in the world. The sick man tries to cause pain with what pains him. Zarathustra notes that other ages had another good and evil, when the invalid became a heretic or sorcerer.

But this will not enter your ears; it hurteth your good people, ye tell me. But what doth it matter to me about your good people! Many things in your good people cause me disgust, and verily, not their evil. I would…

Zarathustra says the good disgust him more than the evil do, and he wishes they had a madness to succumb to. He calls himself a railing beside the torrent, not a crutch.

I am a railing alongside the torrent; whoever is able to grasp me may grasp me! Your crutch, however, I am not.—

Zarathustra describes the kind of support he offers.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood.

Zarathustra declares that he values only writing done with one's own blood.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers. He…

Zarathustra says he loves only what is written with blood. He hates the reading idlers, warns that universal literacy ruins writing and thinking, and says the one who writes in blood and proverbs wants to be learnt by heart.

In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that route thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those spoken to should be big and tall. The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and…

Proverbs are peaks that need long legs and tall listeners. On the heights Zarathustra feels courage and a joyful wickedness, and he laughs at the black cloud that others take for their thunder-cloud. He asks who can laugh and be exalted at once.

Ye tell me, “Life is hard to bear.” But for what purpose should ye have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening? Life is hard to bear: but do not affect to be so delicate! We are all of us fine…

Zarathustra answers those who say life is hard to bear: we are all sumpter asses and should not pose as delicate. We love life from habit of loving, and the butterflies and soap-bubbles move him to tears and songs.

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.

Zarathustra says he would believe only in a God who could dance.

And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity! I…

Zarathustra names his devil as the spirit of gravity and calls for it to be killed with laughter. He ends by saying he has learned to walk, run and fly, and that a God now dances in him.

Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay.

Zarathustra says we slay by laughter, not wrath, and calls on his hearers to slay the spirit of gravity.

Zarathustra’s eye had perceived that a certain youth avoided him. And as he walked alone one evening over the hills surrounding the town called “The Pied Cow,” behold, there found he the youth sitting leaning against a…

Zarathustra finds the youth who has been avoiding him, sitting against a tree above the town. He says the wind bends the tree as unseen hands bend us, and that the higher man climbs, the more his roots strive toward the evil.

“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that thou hast discovered my soul?” Zarathustra smiled, and said: “Many a soul one will never discover, unless one first invent it.” “Yea, into the evil!” cried…

The youth says Zarathustra has found his soul. He trusts himself no longer, changes too quickly, finds himself alone aloft, and despises those who climb as he does.

Many a soul one will never discover, unless one first invent it.

Zarathustra answers the youth's amazement with a smile and this remark.

Here the youth was silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood, and spake thus: “This tree standeth lonely here on the hills; it hath grown up high above man and beast. And if it wanted to…

Zarathustra says the tree waits perhaps for the first lightning. The youth cries out that Zarathustra is that lightning and weeps. Zarathustra puts his arm around him and leads him away.

And when they had walked a while together, Zarathustra began to speak thus: It rendeth my heart. Better than thy words express it, thine eyes tell me all thy danger. As yet thou art not free; thou still SEEKEST freedom.…

Zarathustra says the youth's eyes show his danger. He is still a prisoner devising liberty, with his wild dogs barking in their cellar. Zarathustra begs him not to cast away his love and hope.

Noble thou feelest thyself still, and noble others also feel thee still, though they bear thee a grudge and cast evil looks. Know this, that to everybody a noble one standeth in the way. Also to the good, a noble one…

Everyone finds the noble one in the way, and the good call him good only to put him aside. His real danger is becoming a blusterer, scoffer or destroyer. Zarathustra has known noble men who lost their highest hope, disparaged all hopes and became sensualists.

But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not away the hero in thy soul! Maintain holy thy highest hope!

Zarathustra ends with a second plea to the youth: keep the hero and the highest hope holy.

There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom desistance from life must be preached. Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life…

Zarathustra says the earth is full of preachers of death and of the superfluous. He then describes the 'terrible ones', who carry a beast of prey within them and have only lusts or self-laceration.

There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when they begin to die, and long for doctrines of lassitude and renunciation. They would fain be dead, and we should approve of their wish! Let us beware…

The consumptive ones begin to die as soon as they are born. Seeing an invalid or a corpse, they say life is refuted, but Zarathustra says it is their own eye that is refuted. They wait gloomily for death or cling to life while mocking themselves for clinging.

“Life is only suffering”: so say others, and lie not.

Zarathustra grants that these others do not lie, then tells them to see that they cease, and to make 'Thou shalt slay thyself' the teaching of their virtue.

“Lust is sin,”—so say some who preach death—“let us go apart and beget no children!” “Giving birth is troublesome,”—say others—“why still give birth? One beareth only the unfortunate!” And they also are preachers of…

Zarathustra lists those who condemn lust and childbearing and those who preach pity. If the pitiful were consistent they would make their neighbours sick of life; their true goodness would be to be wicked.

And ye also, to whom life is rough labour and disquiet, are ye not very tired of life? Are ye not very ripe for the sermon of death? All ye to whom rough labour is dear, and the rapid, new, and strange—ye put up with…

Zarathustra turns on his hearers who love rough labour and the new and strange. He calls their diligence flight and the will to self-forgetfulness. He ends by saying he does not mind whether it is death or 'life eternal', so long as they pass away quickly.

By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth! My brethren in war! I love you from the very heart. I am, and was ever, your…

Zarathustra declares himself both counterpart and best enemy to his hearers and will not spare them. He bids them own their hatred and envy, seek their own enemy, and wage war for their thoughts.

Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more than the long. You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a…

He advises fighting over working and victory over peace. War and courage, not sympathy, have done the great things, and bravery is what is good.

They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your good-will. Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed of their ebb. Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime…

Zarathustra reads his hearers as bashful in good-will and wicked in their sublimity. They are to have only enemies worth hating and to be proud of them.

Resistance—that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying! To the good warrior soundeth “thou shalt” pleasanter than “I will.” And all that is dear unto…

Resistance marks the slave; the warrior's mark is obedience. All that is dear to them they shall first have commanded to them.

Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life! Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man is something…

Love of life is tied to the highest hope, and the highest thought is given as a command. He closes by refusing to spare his brethren in war.

Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man is something that is to be surpassed.

Zarathustra gives his hearers their highest thought: man is to be surpassed.

Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brethren: here there are states. A state? What is that? Well! open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of…

Zarathustra contrasts living peoples, made by creators who served life, with the state, made by destroyers who snare many. The state lies in every tongue of good and evil and has stolen all it owns.

A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters.

The state is named a cold monster that lies.

Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised! See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them! “On earth there is nothing greater than…

The state draws in the superfluous and tempts even great souls and heroes into worshipping it. It glorifies a dying for many as 'life', a slow suicide of all.

Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft—and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them! Just see these superfluous…

Repeating 'Just see these superfluous ones', Zarathustra shows them stealing the works of the wise, getting poorer as they grow rich, and scrambling toward a throne that may sit on filth.

My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of their maws and appetites! Better break the windows and jump into the open air! Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the idolatry of the superfluous! Do go…

Zarathustra urges his brethren to break the windows, leave the fumes, and take the open earth. Moderate poverty frees one from being possessed.

There, where the state ceaseth—there only commenceth the man who is not superfluous: there commenceth the song of the necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody. There, where the state CEASETH—pray look…

Zarathustra says that where the state ceases, the song of the necessary, irreplaceable ones begins, and he points to the rainbow and bridges of the Superman.

Flee, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung all over with the stings of the little ones. Admirably do forest and rock know how to be silent with thee. Resemble…

Zarathustra urges his friend to flee the noise of the great and the stings of the small. He points to the silent tree over the sea and says the market-place begins where solitude ends.

In the world even the best things are worthless without those who represent them: those representers, the people call great men. Little do the people understand what is great—that is to say, the creating agency. But…

Zarathustra contrasts the actors, who are changeable and care for noise and effect, with the creators of values. The actor proves by upsetting, convinces by driving mad, and believes only in loud gods.

Away from the market-place and from fame taketh place all that is great: away from the market-place and from fame have ever dwelt the devisers of new values.

The crowd presses the friend for an instant Yea or Nay, but truth never clings to the arm of an absolute one. He should return to his security and let experience come slowly, as it does to deep fountains.

Flee, my friend, into thy solitude: I see thee stung all over by the poisonous flies. Flee thither, where a rough, strong breeze bloweth! Flee into thy solitude! Thou hast lived too closely to the small and the…

Zarathustra warns that the friend is bleeding from countless small stings and will be hollowed out by drops. He should not raise his arm against them, because it is not his lot to be a fly-flap.

Yea, my friend, the bad conscience art thou of thy neighbours; for they are unworthy of thee.

The flies flatter, whimper and feign amiability, but suspect the great one and punish his virtues. Even his gentleness makes them feel despised, and his greatness makes them more fly-like.

Flee, my friend, into thy solitude—and thither, where a rough strong breeze bloweth. It is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.— Thus spake Zarathustra.

Zarathustra repeats his command to flee into solitude and not to be a fly-flap.

I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, there are too many of the lustful. Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman? And just look at these men: their…

Zarathustra says he loves the forest and finds cities full of the lustful. He counsels innocence in the instincts, not their slaughter.

Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel you to innocence in your instincts.

Zarathustra answers his own question: he does not ask for the instincts to be killed.

Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice. These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust looketh enviously out of all that they do. Even into the heights of their…

The continent are still followed by doggish lust, which begs for a piece of spirit when denied flesh. It disguises itself as love of tragedy and fellow-suffering. Those for whom chastity is hard should be dissuaded from it, lest it lead to filth of soul.

And also this parable give I unto you: Not a few who meant to cast out their devil, went thereby into the swine themselves.

Zarathustra gives a parable of men who try to cast out their devil and end up entering the swine themselves.

Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for me to do. Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters. Verily, there are chaste ones from…

Zarathustra says that speaking of filth is not the worst thing; shallow truth is worse. He ends with those chaste by nature, who laugh and call chastity a folly that came to them as a guest.

“One, is always too many about me”—thinketh the anchorite. “Always once one—that maketh two in the long run!” I and me are always too earnestly in conversation: how could it be endured, if there were not a friend? The…

The anchorite finds one always too many, since I and me soon make two. The friend is the cork that keeps their talk afloat, and our longing for a friend betrays our lack of faith in ourselves.

And often with our love we want merely to overleap envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable. “Be at least mine enemy!”—thus speaketh the true reverence, which doth not…

Love can be a way of overleaping envy, and attack a way of hiding vulnerability. Reverence that dares not ask for friendship says 'Be at least mine enemy!' One should honour the enemy in one's friend.

Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend; for thou shalt be unto him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.

Showing oneself naked to a friend shocks him. The sleeping friend's face is one's own in a coarse mirror, which prompts the reminder that man must be surpassed.

In divining and keeping silence shall the friend be a master: not everything must thou wish to see. Thy dream shall disclose unto thee what thy friend doeth when awake. Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy…

Not everything must be seen; one's dream shows what the friend does awake. Pity should be delicate and hard-shelled, and the friend should be air, solitude, bread and medicine. A slave cannot be a friend, nor a tyrant have friends.

Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. On that account woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knoweth only love. In woman’s love there is injustice and blindness to all she doth not…

A slave and a tyrant have long been hidden in woman, so she knows only love, which has injustice, blindness and lightning-and-night in it. Women are still cats, birds or at best cows, and Zarathustra asks which men are capable of friendship.

There is comradeship: may there be friendship!

Zarathustra rebukes men's poverty and sordidness of soul, and closes by wishing that comradeship might become friendship.

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: thus he discovered the good and bad of many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than good and bad. No people could live without first valuing; if a…

Zarathustra reports that on his travels he found no greater power than good and bad. Each people values differently in order to maintain itself, and its table of values expresses what it finds hard and what lets it rule.

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones—“good” and “bad” are they called. Verily, a prodigy is this power of praising and…

Zarathustra repeats his finding about the creations of the loving ones and asks who will fetter the thousand necks of this animal. There have been a thousand goals for a thousand peoples but no one goal, and without a goal humanity itself may be lacking.

But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking, is there not also still lacking—humanity itself?—

The chapter ends on a question: without a goal, is humanity itself missing?

Ye crowd around your neighbour, and have fine words for it. But I say unto you: your neighbour-love is your bad love of yourselves. Ye flee unto your neighbour from yourselves, and would fain make a virtue thereof: but…

Zarathustra tells his hearers that their neighbour-love is bad love of themselves and a flight from themselves dressed up as virtue. He advises neighbour-flight and furthest love instead.

Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest and future ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things and phantoms.

Love is ranked upward from the neighbour to the furthest and future ones, and higher still to things and phantoms.

The phantom that runneth on before thee, my brother, is fairer than thou; why dost thou not give unto it thy flesh and thy bones? But thou fearest, and runnest unto thy neighbour. Ye cannot endure it with yourselves,…

Zarathustra says people cannot endure themselves, so they seduce their neighbour into loving them and call in witnesses to flatter their self-image. Such love lies, makes solitude a prison, and makes the furthest ones pay for it.

I love not your festivals either: too many actors found I there, and even the spectators often behaved like actors.

Zarathustra says he does not love their festivals either, since he found too many actors there and even the spectators acted.

Not the neighbour do I teach you, but the friend. Let the friend be the festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of the Superman. I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one must know how to be a…

Zarathustra teaches the friend instead of the neighbour: a festival of the earth and a foretaste of the Superman, with an overflowing heart and a complete world to bestow. One must be a sponge to be loved by such hearts, and in the friend one loves the Superman.

My brethren, I advise you not to neighbour-love—I advise you to furthest love!—

Zarathustra restates his advice in brief: not neighbour-love but furthest love.

Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto me. “He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong”: so say the herd. And long…

Zarathustra addresses a brother who wants to go into isolation and asks him to tarry. He says the herd's conscience will keep echoing in him, and demands proof of his strength and authority.

Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A self-rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee? Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many convulsions of the…

Zarathustra tests the claim to freedom: ambition and inflated thoughts are not strength. Escaping a yoke counts for nothing unless one can give oneself a law and bear being alone with it.

Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?

Zarathustra asks not what one is free from but what one is free for.

To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes. But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail.…

Zarathustra predicts the lonesome one's coming weariness, doubt and anguish. He foretells the disdain, envy and injustice of others and bids him accept it and still shine like a star.

And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue—they hate the lonesome ones. Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that is not…

Zarathustra warns against the good and just, who would crucify inventors of their own virtue, against holy simplicity, and against his own too-ready love. He says to give a paw with claws.

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way! A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a soothsayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and…

The worst enemy is oneself. The way leads past one's seven devils, through being heretic and villain to oneself, to burning and renewal. Love and self-contempt together drive creation.

Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!

The creator must be ready to burn himself to ashes in order to become new.

With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with thy creating; and late only will justice limp after thee. With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who seeketh to create beyond himself,…

Zarathustra sends his brother into isolation with love, creating and his own tears. He says he loves whoever seeks to create beyond himself and so goes under.

“Why stealest thou along so furtively in the twilight, Zarathustra? And what hidest thou so carefully under thy mantle? Is it a treasure that hath been given thee? Or a child that hath been born thee? Or goest thou…

Asked what he hides under his mantle, Zarathustra says it is a naughty little truth. He tells how an old woman asked him to speak of woman, and he agreed.

Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution—it is called pregnancy.

Zarathustra gives pregnancy as the one solution to the riddle of woman.

Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution—it is called pregnancy. Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man? Two different things wanteth the…

He says woman's riddle is solved by pregnancy. The true man wants danger and play, so he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything, and the child hidden in man is to be discovered.

A plaything let woman be, pure and fine like the precious stone, illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come. Let the beam of a star shine in your love! Let your hope say: “May I bear the Superman!” In your love…

Woman is to be a pure plaything with a star's beam in her love. She should be valiant and honourable in love, and man should fear her when she loves or hates.

Let your hope say: “May I bear the Superman!”

Zarathustra bids women hope to bear the Superman.

Whom hateth woman most?—Thus spake the iron to the loadstone: “I hate thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee.” The happiness of man is, “I will.” The happiness of woman is, “He will.”…

Woman hates most the one she cannot draw to herself. Man's happiness is 'I will' and woman's is 'He will'. Her soul is a shallow film and his a deep current she cannot grasp.

Then answered me the old woman: “Many fine things hath Zarathustra said, especially for those who are young enough for them. Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right about them! Doth this…

The old woman says he is right though he knows little of women. As thanks she gives him her little truth, to be swaddled and silenced: 'Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!'

One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arms over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm…

An adder bites the sleeping Zarathustra in the neck. He thanks it for waking him, says no dragon dies of a serpent's poison, and tells it to take the poison back. The adder licks the wound.

When Zarathustra once told this to his disciples they asked him: “And what, O Zarathustra, is the moral of thy story?” And Zarathustra answered them thus: The destroyer of morality, the good and just call me: my story…

The disciples ask what the moral of the story is. Zarathustra answers that the good and just call him a destroyer of morality, and that his story is immoral.

When, however, ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you. And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it…

Zarathustra tells his disciples not to shame an enemy with good but to show that the enemy did them a good turn. He says to share out injustice, to prefer a small revenge to none, and to take the blame oneself when one is rich enough to.

I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel. Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes? Devise me, then, the love which…

He dislikes the cold justice of judges with the executioner in their eyes. He asks for a love that bears all guilt and a justice that acquits all but the judge. He says he cannot be just from the heart and gives each one his own.

Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes?

Zarathustra asks where one can find justice that is love with seeing eyes.

Finally, my brethren, guard against doing wrong to any anchorite. How could an anchorite forget! How could he requite! Like a deep well is an anchorite. Easy is it to throw in a stone: if it should sink to the bottom,…

Zarathustra warns his brethren not to wrong an anchorite, who cannot forget or requite. He compares him to a deep well into which a stone is easily thrown but cannot be retrieved, and says that if one has wronged him, one should kill him too.

I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth. Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man ENTITLED…

Zarathustra casts a question like a sounding-lead into a young brother's soul. He asks whether the wish for a child comes from victory or from need, and says one must build upward, not only onward.

Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it.

Zarathustra gives his own meaning of marriage: the will of two to create one who surpasses them, and their reverence for each other as those who will this.

Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage. But that which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, what shall I call it? Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in…

Zarathustra scorns common marriage as poverty, filth and self-complacency of soul. He mocks the idea of heavenly matches and gives sharp portraits of men who ended in a small lie or one long stupidity. He adds that children weep over such parents.

Your love to woman, and woman’s love to man—ah, would that it were sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals alight on one another. But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a…

Zarathustra says most love is two animals alighting on each other. Even the best love is a simile and a torch to loftier paths. He asks whether the young man's will to marriage is this arrow of longing for the Superman, and calls such a will holy.

Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: “Die at the right time!” Die at the right time: so teacheth Zarathustra. To be sure, he who never liveth at the right time, how could he ever…

Zarathustra opens with his precept and says those who never live at the right time cannot die at the right time. He says death is not yet a festival.

The consummating death I show unto you, which becometh a stimulus and promise to the living. His death, dieth the consummating one triumphantly, surrounded by hoping and promising ones. Thus should one learn to die; and…

The ideal death is triumphant, surrounded by hoping ones; next best is death in battle. Both are contrasted with the grinning death that steals in like a thief. He who has a goal and an heir wants death at the right time.

My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me because _I_ want it.

Zarathustra praises the death that comes because he wants it.

Verily, not the rope-makers will I resemble: they lengthen out their cord, and thereby go ever backward. Many a one, also, waxeth too old for his truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth hath no longer the right to every…

Zarathustra says many grow too old for their truths and should leave while they taste best. Others hang on the branch too long, held by cowardice, and he wishes a storm would shake them down.

Would that there came preachers of SPEEDY death! Those would be the appropriate storms and agitators of the trees of life! But I hear only slow death preached, and patience with all that is “earthly.” Ah! ye preach…

He wishes for preachers of speedy death and mocks those who preach slow death. The Hebrew Jesus, immature and seized by longing for death, might have disavowed his doctrine had he lived longer. He who is mature is free for death and free in death.

That your dying may not be a reproach to man and the earth, my friends: that do I solicit from the honey of your soul. In your dying shall your spirit and your virtue still shine like an evening after-glow around the…

Zarathustra asks that his friends' dying be no reproach to man and the earth, but shine like an evening after-glow. He will become earth again, and throws the golden ball of his goal to his friends.

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.

After this Zarathustra returned again into the mountains to the solitude of his cave, and withdrew himself from men, waiting like a sower who hath scattered his seed. His soul, however, became impatient and full of…

After leaving his disciples, Zarathustra waits like a sower who has scattered his seed. His soul grows impatient for those he loves, and one morning before dawn he speaks to his heart.

Why did I startle in my dream, so that I awoke? Did not a child come to me, carrying a mirror? “O Zarathustra”—said the child unto me—“look at thyself in the mirror!” But when I looked into the mirror, I shrieked, and…

A child holds up a mirror, and Zarathustra sees a devil's grimace instead of himself. He reads this as a warning that his doctrine is in danger, with tares passing for wheat, and resolves to seek his lost ones.

With these words Zarathustra started up, not however like a person in anguish seeking relief, but rather like a seer and a singer whom the spirit inspireth. With amazement did his eagle and serpent gaze upon him: for a…

He rises like an inspired seer, not like one in anguish. His astonished animals see a coming bliss on his face, and he says he is wounded by his happiness and can speak and bestow again.

My impatient love overfloweth in streams,—down towards sunrise and sunset. Out of silent mountains and storms of affliction, rusheth my soul into the valleys. Too long have I longed and looked into the distance. Too…

Too long in solitude, he has unlearned silence and becomes pure utterance, a brook hurling itself into the valleys. He leaps into the storm's chariot to find the Happy Isles, loving even his enemies as part of his bliss.

And when I want to mount my wildest horse, then doth my spear always help me up best: it is my foot’s ever ready servant:— The spear which I hurl at mine enemies! How grateful am I to mine enemies that I may at last…

His spear helps him mount his wildest horse and he is grateful for enemies to hurl it at. His happiness will come like a storm, and enemies will take him for the Evil One while friends may flee his wild wisdom.

Ah, that my lioness wisdom would learn to roar softly!

He hopes to lure his friends back with shepherds' flutes. His wild wisdom, born on the lonely mountains, now wanders the wilderness seeking the soft ground of his friends' hearts.

The figs fall from the trees, they are good and sweet; and in falling the red skins of them break. A north wind am I to ripe figs. Thus, like figs, do these doctrines fall for you, my friends: imbibe now their juice and…

In an autumn setting Zarathustra compares his teachings to falling figs. He says the word Superman now replaces the word God.

God is a conjecture: but I do not wish your conjecturing to reach beyond your creating will. Could ye CREATE a God?—Then, I pray you, be silent about all Gods! But ye could well create the Superman. Not perhaps ye…

Zarathustra asks whether they could create or conceive a God and restricts their guessing to what is conceivable. He argues that if gods existed he could not bear not being one, therefore there are none.

IF there were gods, how could I endure it to be no God! THEREFORE there are no Gods.

Zarathustra reveals his heart and states his conclusion that there are no gods.

God is a conjecture: but who could drink all the bitterness of this conjecture without dying? Shall his faith be taken from the creating one, and from the eagle his flights into eagle-heights? God is a thought—it maketh…

Zarathustra asks who could drink the bitterness of the God-conjecture without dying. He calls the thought of God a reeling sickness that makes time a lie, and wants similes that justify perishing.

Creating—that is the great salvation from suffering, and life’s alleviation.

Zarathustra says the creator needs suffering and much dying, and must bear the pangs of birth. He recalls his own many farewells and says his fate is what his Will wills.

Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipation—so teacheth you Zarathustra.

Zarathustra says all feeling suffers in him but his willing frees him. He prays to be spared the weakness of no longer willing, valuing or creating.

Away from God and Gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were—Gods! But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone. Ah, ye men,…

His will leads him away from gods and to man, where an image slumbers in the hardest stone. He hammers at it without regard for the fragments, since the Superman's beauty has come to him as a shadow.

My friends, there hath arisen a satire on your friend: “Behold Zarathustra! Walketh he not amongst us as if amongst animals?” But it is better said in this wise: “The discerning one walketh amongst men AS amongst…

Zarathustra answers a satire on himself: the discerning one walks among men as among animals, since man has had to be ashamed so often. The noble man spares sufferers shame, dislikes the merciful, and prefers pity at a distance, hooded and unrecognised.

Verily, I have done this and that for the afflicted: but something better did I always seem to do when I had learned to enjoy myself better. Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that…

Zarathustra explains why his help to the afflicted shamed them, and how great obligations breed revenge and small kindnesses become gnawing worms. He advises receiving with reserve, gives to friends, lets others pluck from his tree, and would abolish beggars.

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin!

Zarathustra names humanity's original sin as too little joy; by enjoying ourselves more we unlearn inflicting pain.

better to have done evilly than to have thought pettily!

The evil deed is like a boil that breaks out and speaks honourably, while the petty thought is a hidden infection that decays the whole body. To the man possessed by a devil he says to rear up the devil and so find a path to greatness.

Thus speaketh all great love: it surpasseth even forgiveness and pity.

Living among men is hard because silence is hard. For a suffering friend be a hard camp-bed, and to a friend who wrongs you say you cannot forgive the wrong he did to himself.

One should hold fast one’s heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one’s head run away! Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more…

Nothing has caused more suffering than the follies of the pitiful, and loving ones need an elevation above their pity. The devil's saying that God is dead of pity for man is a warning of a heavy cloud.

All great love is above all its pity: for it seeketh—to create what is loved!

Zarathustra ends by placing creative love above pity; the creator offers himself and his neighbour alike, and so is hard.

And one day Zarathustra made a sign to his disciples, and spake these words unto them: “Here are priests: but although they are mine enemies, pass them quietly and with sleeping swords! Even among them there are heroes;…

Zarathustra signals to his disciples to pass the priests quietly. He calls them enemies who have suffered too much and so make others suffer, yet says his blood is related to theirs.

And when they had passed, a pain attacked Zarathustra; but not long had he struggled with the pain, when he began to speak thus: It moveth my heart for those priests. They also go against my taste; but that is the…

After they pass, Zarathustra is struck by pain and speaks of the priests as prisoners fettered by their Saviour. He compares false values to a slumbering monster mistaken for an isle, which will wake and devour whatever is built on it.

Oh, just look at those tabernacles which those priests have built themselves! Churches, they call their sweet-smelling caves! Oh, that falsified light, that mustified air! Where the soul—may not fly aloft to its height!…

Zarathustra attacks the churches as stale, dim caves that demand kneeling and penitence. He says the priests called God whatever opposed them, loved him by nailing men to the cross, and live like corpses.

Better songs would they have to sing, for me to believe in their Saviour: more like saved ones would his disciples have to appear unto me! Naked, would I like to see them: for beauty alone should preach penitence. But…

Zarathustra says the redeemed should look more redeemed, and that beauty alone should preach penitence. The Saviours never knew freedom or knowledge and filled their defects with the illusion called God.

Eagerly and with shouts drove they their flock over their foot-bridge; as if there were but one foot-bridge to the future! Verily, those shepherds also were still of the flock! Small spirits and spacious souls had those…

The shepherds drive their flock over one bridge to the future and write in blood, teaching that blood proves truth. Zarathustra answers that blood taints a teaching into delusion and hatred.

Sultry heart and cold head; where these meet, there ariseth the blusterer, the “Saviour.” Greater ones, verily, have there been, and higher-born ones, than those whom the people call Saviours, those rapturous…

Zarathustra calls the Saviour a blusterer where a sultry heart meets a cold head. He says greater ones have been, and that his brethren must be saved by still greater ones. He has seen the greatest and the smallest man naked and found them alike.

Never yet hath there been a Superman.

Zarathustra states flatly that no Superman has yet existed.

With thunder and heavenly fireworks must one speak to indolent and somnolent senses. But beauty’s voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened souls. Gently vibrated and laughed unto me to-day my…

Zarathustra says beauty speaks gently, and that it laughed at the virtuous: they want to be paid besides. He denies any paymaster, even that virtue is its own reward, and says his word will grub up their souls like a boar's snout or ploughshare.

For this is your truth: ye are TOO PURE for the filth of the words: vengeance, punishment, recompense, retribution.

Zarathustra says that the truth of the virtuous is their purity from these words.

Ye love your virtue as a mother loveth her child; but when did one hear of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?

The virtuous are called too pure for the words vengeance, punishment and recompense. Their virtue is their own Self, like a ring reaching back to itself, and its light travels on like a dead star's.

But sure enough there are those to whom virtue meaneth writhing under the lash: and ye have hearkened too much unto their crying! And others are there who call virtue the slothfulness of their vices; and when once their…

Zarathustra lists those who call virtue a writhing under the lash, a slothful vice, a heavy drag, a ticking clock, a pose, a swamp or an evil eye. Almost everyone claims to be an authority on good and evil.

And when they say: “I am just,” it always soundeth like: “I am just—revenged!”

Zarathustra says this of those who are proud of their modicum of righteousness.

But Zarathustra came not to say unto all those liars and fools: “What do YE know of virtue! What COULD ye know of virtue!”— But that ye, my friends, might become weary of the old words which ye have learned from the…

Zarathustra says he does not come to tell them they know nothing of virtue, but that they may tire of the old words of reward and punishment. He compares the loss of their formulae to children's toys swept off by a wave, which will bring new shells.

Ah! my friends! That YOUR very Self be in your action, as the mother is in the child: let that be YOUR formula of virtue!

Zarathustra gives his friends a formula of virtue to replace the old ones.

Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned. To everything cleanly am I well disposed; but I hate to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of the unclean. They cast…

Zarathustra says life is a well of delight, but the rabble poison it by drinking there. He lists those who fled life, or came as destroyers, only because of the rabble.

But I asked once, and suffocated almost with my question: What? is the rabble also NECESSARY for life?

Zarathustra confesses that enmity and torture-crosses did not choke him as much as the question whether the rabble are needed. He describes living deaf and blind, holding his nose, to avoid the power-, scribe- and pleasure-rabble.

What hath happened unto me? How have I freed myself from loathing? Who hath rejuvenated mine eye? How have I flown to the height where no rabble any longer sit at the wells? Did my loathing itself create for me wings…

He asks how he freed himself from loathing and answers that it gave him wings to fly to a well no rabble can reach. He rejoices in his summer on the height and calls his friends to share its stillness.

For this is OUR height and our home: too high and steep do we here dwell for all uncleanly ones and their thirst. Cast but your pure eyes into the well of my delight, my friends! How could it become turbid thereby! It…

Zarathustra invites his friends to look into the well and to live like strong winds beside eagles, snow and sun. He says he will one day blow among the low and warns his enemies not to spit against the wind.

Verily, a strong wind is Zarathustra to all low places; and this counsel counselleth he to his enemies, and to whatever spitteth and speweth: “Take care not to spit AGAINST the wind!”—

Zarathustra calls himself a strong wind to all low places and warns those who spit to take care.

Lo, this is the tarantula’s den! Wouldst thou see the tarantula itself? Here hangeth its web: touch this, so that it may tremble. There cometh the tarantula willingly: Welcome, tarantula! Black on thy back is thy…

Zarathustra points to the tarantula's web and addresses the spider in parable. He names the preachers of equality as secretly revengeful and says he will tear their web so that their revenge leaps out from behind the word 'justice'.

Because, FOR MAN TO BE REDEEMED FROM REVENGE—that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.

Zarathustra states the aim opposed to the tarantulas: that man be redeemed from revenge.

Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. “Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance”—thus do they talk to one another. “Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all…

The tarantulas' own pledge of vengeance and 'Will to Equality' is quoted, then unmasked as envy and conceit passed from father to son. Zarathustra tells his friends to distrust those with a strong impulse to punish and those who talk much of justice; the 'good and just' lack only power to be Pharisees.

My friends, I will not be mixed up and confounded with others. There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas. That they speak in favour of life, though…

Zarathustra refuses to be mixed up with tarantulas who preach his doctrine of life from their dens. He says they do so only to do injury to the powerful, and that they were once world-maligners and heretic-burners.

Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again and again surpass itself!

Zarathustra wants men to throng to the future with ever more war and inequality among them. Their values are to be weapons in the supreme fight, for life builds itself aloft with columns and stairs and strives to rise.

And just behold, my friends! Here where the tarantula’s den is, riseth aloft an ancient temple’s ruins—just behold it with enlightened eyes! Verily, he who here towered aloft his thoughts in stone, knew as well as the…

Beside the den stand the ruins of an ancient temple, whose vault and arch strive against each other in light and shade. Zarathustra reads this as a parable of struggle and inequality in beauty, and asks his friends to be enemies in the same way.

Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!—

The tarantula bites Zarathustra on the finger, thinking he should not sing of enmity for nothing. He asks his friends to bind him to the pillar, preferring to be a pillar-saint rather than a whirl of vengeance.

The people have ye served and the people’s superstition—NOT the truth!—all ye famous wise ones! And just on that account did they pay you reverence. And on that account also did they tolerate your unbelief, because it…

Zarathustra tells the famous wise ones they have served the people, who tolerated their unbelief as a harmless pleasantry while hunting the free spirit like a wolf. He calls them stiff-necked asses, advocates of the people.

And now, ye famous wise ones, I would have you finally throw off entirely the skin of the lion! The skin of the beast of prey, the speckled skin, and the dishevelled locks of the investigator, the searcher, and the…

He bids them throw off the lion's skin and defines the conscientious as one who goes into the God-forsaken wilderness. The wise ones in the cities, by contrast, pull the people's carts like asses.

And often have they been good servants and worthy of their hire. For thus saith virtue: “If thou must be a servant, seek him unto whom thy service is most useful! The spirit and virtue of thy master shall advance by…

Zarathustra grants that they have been worthy servants and have advanced together with the people. They nevertheless remain the people to him, with blind eyes.

Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life: by its own torture doth it increase its own knowledge,—did ye know that before?

Zarathustra defines spirit as life that cuts into life and increases its knowledge by its own torture.

And the spirit’s happiness is this: to be anointed and consecrated with tears as a sacrificial victim,—did ye know that before? And the blindness of the blind one, and his seeking and groping, shall yet testify to the…

In a series of 'did ye know that before?' questions, Zarathustra describes spirit as sacrifice, anvil, pride and icy depth. He says the scholars know only its sparks, are not eagles, and have made wisdom an almshouse for bad poets.

Respectable do ye there stand, and stiff, and with straight backs, ye famous wise ones!—no strong wind or will impelleth you. Have ye ne’er seen a sail crossing the sea, rounded and inflated, and trembling with the…

The wise ones stand respectable and stiff, moved by no strong wind. Zarathustra's 'wild wisdom' crosses the sea like a sail trembling with the wind, and he asks how they could go with him.

‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain. ‘Tis night: now only do all songs of the loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one. Something…

At night Zarathustra compares his soul to a gushing fountain and to the song of a lover. He feels an unappeasable craving for love that speaks in the language of love.

Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with light! Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of light! And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets…

Zarathustra says he is light and wishes he were dark, so that he could suck at the breasts of light. He lives in his own light and knows only giving, and he calls this the misery of all bestowers.

They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a gap ‘twixt giving and receiving; and the smallest gap hath finally to be bridged over. A hunger ariseth out of my beauty: I should like to injure those I…

Zarathustra feels a gap between giving and receiving and a hunger to injure and rob those he has gifted. His happiness in bestowing has died in the act, and his hand has grown hard.

Whence have gone the tears of mine eye, and the down of my heart? Oh, the lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones! Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with…

Zarathustra laments the loneliness and silence of all shining ones. The many suns circle in desert space and travel on pitilessly, each following its own will.

Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly ones, that extract warmth from the shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and refreshment from the light’s udders! Ah, there is ice around me; my hand burneth with the iciness! Ah,…

Zarathustra envies the dark ones who drink milk from the light's udders and says there is ice around him and thirst within him. The opening refrain returns, and the narrator says Zarathustra sang it.

One evening went Zarathustra and his disciples through the forest; and when he sought for a well, lo, he lighted upon a green meadow peacefully surrounded with trees and bushes, where maidens were dancing together. As…

Zarathustra and his disciples find maidens dancing in a meadow. He tells them to keep dancing, since he is no enemy of maidens, and says he will sing a satire on the spirit of gravity.

God’s advocate am I with the devil: he, however, is the spirit of gravity.

Zarathustra says he pleads for God against the devil, and the devil is the spirit of gravity.

And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the maidens danced together: Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O Life! And into the unfathomable did I there seem to sink. But thou pulledst me out with a…

Zarathustra sings of looking into Life's eye and being pulled out by her golden angle. Life denies being profound, and Wisdom accuses him of praising Life only from desire. He admits he loves Wisdom because she resembles Life. Life laughs when he describes Wisdom, and he sinks into her unfathomable eyes again.

In my heart do I love only Life—and verily, most when I hate her!

Zarathustra says he loves only Life, and loves her most when he hates her.

Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the dance was over and the maidens had departed, he became sad. “The sun hath been long set,” said he at last, “the meadow is damp, and from the forest cometh coolness. An unknown…

When the dance ends and the maidens leave, Zarathustra grows sad as evening falls. He asks whether it is folly still to live and asks his friends to forgive his sadness.

“Yonder is the grave-island, the silent isle; yonder also are the graves of my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life.” Resolving thus in my heart, did I sail o’er the sea.— Oh, ye sights and scenes of…

Zarathustra sails to the grave-island to lay a wreath for the visions and loves of his youth, whom he now calls his dead ones. He says he still possesses them and cannot name them except by their faithlessness.

To kill ME, did they strangle you, ye singing birds of my hopes! Yea, at you, ye dearest ones, did malice ever shoot its arrows—to hit my heart! And they hit it! Because ye were always my dearest, my possession and my…

He says his enemies killed his dearest ones to wound him and calls this worse than manslaughter. He lays down the wreath together with a curse, for they made his eternity brief as a dying tone.

Thus spake once in a happy hour my purity: “Divine shall everything be unto me.” Then did ye haunt me with foul phantoms; ah, whither hath that happy hour now fled! “All days shall be holy unto me”—so spake once the…

He recalls each youthful vow of purity, joyous wisdom and charity, and how his enemies soured it. They sent phantoms, an owl-monster, beggars and fatter offerings, and finally seduced his minstrel, so his greatest dance stayed unspoken in his limbs.

How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and surmount such wounds? How did my soul rise again out of those sepulchres? Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would rend rocks asunder: it is…

Asking how he survived such wounds, he answers that his Will, silent, unchanged and hard of heart, is vulnerable only in the heel. He hails it as the demolisher of graves.

Yea, thou art still for me the demolisher of all graves: Hail to thee, my Will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections.

Zarathustra hails his Will and says resurrection requires graves.

“Will to Truth” do ye call it, ye wisest ones, that which impelleth you and maketh you ardent? Will for the thinkableness of all being: thus do _I_ call your will! All being would ye MAKE thinkable: for ye doubt with…

Zarathustra addresses the wisest ones and redefines their will to truth. He pictures their values as guests in a boat on the river of becoming, and names the unexhausted life-will as the real danger to their good and evil.

But that ye may understand my gospel of good and evil, for that purpose will I tell you my gospel of life, and of the nature of all living things. The living thing did I follow; I walked in the broadest and narrowest…

Zarathustra sets out his gospel of life in three things heard from living creatures: all obey, what cannot obey itself is commanded, and commanding is harder than obeying. He then says that even sacrifice, service and love-glances serve the will to be master, and that the greatest stakes life for power.

“Behold,” said she, “I am that WHICH MUST EVER SURPASS ITSELF.

Life tells Zarathustra her secret. She is struggle, becoming and purpose, she turns against whatever she creates, and the knower is only a footstep of her will.

Verily, I say unto you: good and evil which would be everlasting—it doth not exist! Of its own accord must it ever surpass itself anew. With your values and formulae of good and evil, ye exercise power, ye valuing ones:…

Zarathustra applies the lesson of Life to morality. Valuing is a way of exercising power, and a stronger power grows from every set of values and breaks it, so the creator must be a destroyer.

all suppressed truths become poisonous.

Zarathustra urges speaking even bad truths, because silence is worse, and bids everything break that can be broken by them.

Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters! Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters. A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit:…

Zarathustra describes a solemn, tense hunter of knowledge who returns from the forest hung with thorns and ugly truths. A wild beast still looks out of his seriousness, and Zarathustra dislikes such strained souls.

But all life is a dispute about taste and tasting!

Against friends who say taste admits no dispute, Zarathustra says that taste is itself weight, scales and weigher, and that living means disputing over it.

Should he become weary of his sublimeness, this sublime one, then only will his beauty begin—and then only will I taste him and find him savoury. And only when he turneth away from himself will he o’erleap his own…

Only when he tires of sublimity and turns from himself will the sublime one become beautiful. He has sat too long in shade with contempt in his eye, and should be a white ox that lows in praise of all things earthly.

To be sure, I love in him the shoulders of the ox: but now do I want to see also the eye of the angel. Also his hero-will hath he still to unlearn: an exalted one shall he be, and not only a sublime one:—the ether…

Zarathustra loves the ox's shoulders but wants the eye of an angel. The hero must unlearn his hero-will, redeem his monsters, and let longing end in beauty rather than satiety.

When power becometh gracious and descendeth into the visible—I call such condescension, beauty.

Beauty is hardest for the hero, and Zarathustra defines it as power descending into the visible. He asks the powerful one to make goodness his last self-conquest.

Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have crippled paws! The virtue of the pillar shalt thou strive after: more beautiful doth it ever become, and more graceful—but…

Zarathustra laughs at weaklings who call themselves good because their paws are crippled. He sets the pillar as the model, more graceful and harder within as it rises, and promises the sublime one that he will one day be beautiful and mirror his own beauty.

Too far did I fly into the future: a horror seized upon me. And when I looked around me, lo! there time was my sole contemporary. Then did I fly backwards, homewards—and always faster. Thus did I come unto you, ye…

Zarathustra says he flew too far into the future and was seized with horror. He flew back to the land of culture, came with longing, and found himself laughing at the motley colours he saw.

With fifty patches painted on faces and limbs—so sat ye there to mine astonishment, ye present-day men! And with fifty mirrors around you, which flattered your play of colours, and repeated it! Verily, ye could wear no…

He describes present-day men as painted with fifty patches and surrounded by flattering mirrors. Their faces are their masks and all times and peoples show through their gestures. Without the paint there would be only a scarecrow, and he fled when he saw the skeleton naked.

This, yea this, is bitterness to my bowels, that I can neither endure you naked nor clothed, ye present-day men! All that is unhomelike in the future, and whatever maketh strayed birds shiver, is verily more homelike…

He can bear them neither naked nor clothed, and says the unsettling future is more homelike than their 'reality'. They claim to be real and free of faith, yet they are pictures of everything ever believed and so refute belief. Being unfruitful, they lack belief, and they are half-open doors where grave-diggers wait.

Perambulating refutations are ye, of belief itself, and a dislocation of all thought.

Zarathustra calls the 'real' men untrustworthy because they contradict belief itself.

Alas, how ye stand there before me, ye unfruitful ones; how lean your ribs! And many of you surely have had knowledge thereof. Many a one hath said: “There hath surely a God filched something from me secretly whilst I…

He mocks their lean ribs and their complaint that a God has filched something from them, as in the story of Eve's creation. He laughs at their self-wonder and says the beetles that alight on his load will not make it heavier.

Ah, whither shall I now ascend with my longing! From all mountains do I look out for fatherlands and motherlands. But a home have I found nowhere: unsettled am I in all cities, and decamping at all gates. Alien to me,…

Zarathustra looks from every mountain for a home but finds none, and says present-day men are alien to him. He loves only the children's land in the remotest sea. He will make amends to his children for being the child of his fathers.

When yester-eve the moon arose, then did I fancy it about to bear a sun: so broad and teeming did it lie on the horizon. But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and sooner will I believe in the man in the moon than in the…

Zarathustra mistook the rising moon for a pregnant sun, but it was a liar. He compares it to a sneaking tom-cat and a covetous monk, then turns the parable on the 'sentimental dissemblers'.

Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble words: and we are to believe that your heart overfloweth, ye cozeners? But MY words are poor, contemptible, stammering words: gladly do I pick up what falleth from the table at your…

Zarathustra calls his own words poor next to their noble speech, yet says they can tell the truth. He says the pure ones hide serpents behind a God's mask and that he once took them for godlike.

But I came NIGH unto you: then came to me the day,—and now cometh it to you,—at an end is the moon’s love affair! See there! Surprised and pale doth it stand—before the rosy dawn! For already she cometh, the glowing…

Dawn comes and the moon stands pale. The sun thirsts for the sea and draws it up into light, and Zarathustra says he loves life like the sun and that knowledge means all that is deep ascending to his height.

When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the ivy-wreath on my head,—it ate, and said thereby: “Zarathustra is no longer a scholar.” It said this, and went away clumsily and proudly. A child told it to me. I like to…

A sheep eats the ivy-wreath from his sleeping head and declares he is no longer a scholar. Zarathustra accepts this gladly. To the children and the thistles he is still a scholar, and he has left the scholars' house for good.

Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table: not like them have I got the knack of investigating, as the knack of nut-cracking. Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil; rather would I sleep on ox-skins than on…

He contrasts his hunger, his love of freedom and his burning thought with the scholars sitting cool in the shade. They watch passers-by and only handle the thoughts of others. When seized they raise dust like flour-sacks.

When they give themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak in it! Clever…

Their wisdom smells of the swamp. They are clever knitters of the spirit's hose, good clockworks and millstones, spiders waiting for the lame, and careful poisoners who play with false dice. Their virtues repel him more than their falsehoods.

And when I lived with them, then did I live above them. Therefore did they take a dislike to me. They want to hear nothing of any one walking above their heads; and so they put wood and earth and rubbish betwixt me and…

When he lived among them he lived above them, so they disliked him. They put wood, earth and rubbish between his steps and their heads. He still walks above them, even on his own errors.

For men are NOT equal: so speaketh justice.

The chapter ends on the claim of unequal rank: what he wills, they may not will.

“Since I have known the body better”—said Zarathustra to one of his disciples—“the spirit hath only been to me symbolically spirit; and all the ‘imperishable’—that is also but a simile.” “So have I heard thee say once…

Zarathustra says the spirit and the 'imperishable' are only similes. A disciple asks why he said poets lie too much. Zarathustra refuses to give reasons, admits he is a poet himself, and rejects the disciple's belief in him.

But granting that some one did say in all seriousness that the poets lie too much: he was right—WE do lie too much. We also know too little, and are bad learners: so we are obliged to lie. And which of us poets hath not…

Zarathustra includes himself among the poets who adulterate their wine and delight in old wives' tales. He mocks their conceit that nature confides in them.

And especially ABOVE the heavens: for all Gods are poet-symbolisations, poet-sophistications!

Poets set gaudy puppets on the clouds and call them Gods and Supermen. Zarathustra is weary of the inadequate passed off as actual.

When Zarathustra so spake, his disciple resented it, but was silent. And Zarathustra also was silent; and his eye directed itself inwardly, as if it gazed into the far distance. At last he sighed and drew breath.— I am…

After a silence, Zarathustra says something in him belongs to the morrow. He finds the poets superficial, given to voluptuousness and tedium, and impure mixers.

Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God. Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from…

Zarathustra's net catches the head of an ancient God, and he finds salt slime where a soul should be. He compares the vain sea to a peacock spreading its tail before a disdainful buffalo, a parable for the poets.

Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing; they grew out of the poets.

Zarathustra says he is weary of the poet's spirit and expects it to weary of itself. He has seen poets change and turn their gaze on themselves.

And this is the account of Zarathustra’s interview with the fire-dog: The earth, said he, hath a skin; and this skin hath diseases. One of these diseases, for example, is called “man.” And another of these diseases is…

Zarathustra calls the fire-dog a ventriloquist of the earth, embittered, mendacious and shallow, and denies that roaring revolutions are great events. He warns the statue-toppling subverters, and advises kings and churches to let themselves be overthrown so they may revive.

The greatest events—are not our noisiest, but our stillest hours.

Zarathustra says the world revolves inaudibly around the inventors of new values.

Thus spake I before the fire-dog: then did he interrupt me sullenly, and asked: “Church? What is that?” “Church?” answered I, “that is a kind of state, and indeed the most mendacious. But remain quiet, thou dissembling…

Asked what a church is, Zarathustra calls it the most mendacious kind of state. The fire-dog rages with envy at hearing that the state is thought the most important creature.

THE HEART OF THE EARTH IS OF GOLD.

Zarathustra tells of another fire-dog who speaks from the earth's heart and exhales gold and laughter. The first fire-dog, cowed, creeps back into his cave.

“—And I saw a great sadness come over mankind. The best turned weary of their works. A doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it: ‘All is empty, all is alike, all hath been!’ And from all hills there re-echoed: ‘All is…

The soothsayer describes a great sadness over mankind: rotten fruit, dried fountains, and men living on in sepulchres. Zarathustra hears it, is touched by the foreboding, and becomes sad and weary like those described.

Verily, said he unto his disciples, a little while, and there cometh the long twilight. Alas, how shall I preserve my light through it! That it may not smother in this sorrowfulness! To remoter worlds shall it be a…

Zarathustra fears the long twilight will smother his light. For three days he neither eats, drinks nor speaks, then sleeps while his disciples keep watch. He wakes and speaks as if from afar.

Hear, I pray you, the dream that I dreamed, my friends, and help me to divine its meaning! A riddle is it still unto me, this dream; the meaning is hidden in it and encaged, and doth not yet fly above it on free…

Zarathustra tells his dream: as night-watchman of Death's mountain-fortress he opens the creaking gate with rusty keys. A roaring wind throws him a black coffin that bursts open with laughing caricatures, and his own cry wakes him.

Thus did Zarathustra relate his dream, and then was silent: for as yet he knew not the interpretation thereof. But the disciple whom he loved most arose quickly, seized Zarathustra’s hand, and said: “Thy life itself…

The disciple says Zarathustra is himself the wind and the coffin, an advocate of life whose laughter will break the sepulchres. The enemies were only dreamed by him and will awaken and come to him.

Thus spake the disciple; and all the others then thronged around Zarathustra, grasped him by the hands, and tried to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness, and return unto them. Zarathustra, however, sat upright…

The disciples raise Zarathustra; he recovers and calls for a good meal to make amends for bad dreams. He says the soothsayer shall eat at his side and he will show him a sea to drown in, then looks long at the interpreter and shakes his head.

When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto him: “Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith in thy…

On the great bridge a hunchback asks Zarathustra to heal the cripples so that the people will believe him. Zarathustra answers that he sees worse: 'reversed cripples' who are one huge organ, like the ear as big as a man.

When Zarathustra had spoken thus unto the hunchback, and unto those of whom the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then did he turn to his disciples in profound dejection, and said: Verily, my friends, I walk…

Turning to his disciples, Zarathustra says he walks among men as among the limbs of a battlefield. He lives only as a seer of the future who composes fragments into unity and redeems chance.

To redeem what is past, and to transform every “It was” into “Thus would I have it!”—that only do I call redemption!

Zarathustra defines redemption.

Will—so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a prisoner. Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth…

The will is the emancipator but is chained by the 'It was', the stone it cannot roll back. Out of rage it torments whatever can suffer, and this is revenge itself.

THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: my friends, that hath hitherto been man’s best contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was always penalty. “Penalty,” so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it…

The spirit of revenge turns suffering into punishment and all life into penalty. Madness then preaches that everything must perish and that the only escape is for willing to become non-willing.

Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: “The Will is a creator.” All “It was” is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance—until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus would I have it.”— Until…

Zarathustra contrasts the fabulous song of madness with his teaching that the will is a creator. He asks whether the will has ever unlearned revenge and been taught to will backwards.

—But at this point in his discourse it chanced that Zarathustra suddenly paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm. With terror in his eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances pierced as with arrows…

Zarathustra breaks off in alarm, then laughs and says silence is hard for a babbler. The hunchback asks why he speaks differently to his disciples, and Zarathustra says one may speak in a hunchbacked way with hunchbacks.

Not the height, it is the declivity that is terrible! The declivity, where the gaze shooteth DOWNWARDS, and the hand graspeth UPWARDS. There doth the heart become giddy through its double will. Ah, friends, do ye divine…

Zarathustra says the declivity, not the height, is terrible, because his gaze goes up while his hand clutches the depth. He chains himself to man and lets himself be deceived, so that his hand keeps its belief in firmness.

This, this is MY declivity and my danger, that my gaze shooteth towards the summit, and my hand would fain clutch and lean—on the depth!

Zarathustra names his own danger: the summit draws his gaze, while his hand holds to the depth.

This, however, is mine other manly prudence: I am more forbearing to the VAIN than to the proud. Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? Where, however, pride is wounded, there groweth up something better…

He is more forbearing to the vain than to the proud, because they are good actors who cure his melancholy. Beneath their vanity he sees a modesty that asks 'What am I?'

This is, however, my third manly prudence: I am not put out of conceit with the WICKED by your timorousness. I am happy to see the marvels the warm sun hatcheth: tigers and palms and rattle-snakes. Also amongst men…

He is not put out of conceit with the wicked by others' timorousness, and delights in the warm sun's brood of tigers and rattle-snakes. He foresees greater dragons so that the Superman may have a good hunt.

And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called “the devil!” So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the Superman would…

Zarathustra laughs at the good and just and suspects that even the highest men would call his Superman a devil. Tired of the 'best', he grows wings toward more distant futures.

But disguised do I want to see YOU, ye neighbours and fellowmen, and well-attired and vain and estimable, as “the good and just;”— And disguised will I myself sit amongst you—that I may MISTAKE you and myself: for that…

He wants to see his neighbours disguised as the good and just, and to sit disguised among them. In this way he may mistake them and himself.

What hath happened unto me, my friends? Ye see me troubled, driven forth, unwillingly obedient, ready to go—alas, to go away from YOU! Yea, once more must Zarathustra retire to his solitude: but unjoyously this time…

Zarathustra tells his friends he is driven away against his will by an angry mistress, his stillest hour, and promises to tell them everything.

Do ye know the terror of him who falleth asleep?— To the very toes he is terrified, because the ground giveth way under him, and the dream beginneth. This do I speak unto you in parable. Yesterday at the stillest hour…

In a dream-like terror, as the ground gives way, a voice without sound asks 'Thou knowest it, Zarathustra?' He admits he knows but says he will not speak it and pleads that it is beyond his power.

Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: “What matter about their mockery! Thou art one who hast unlearned to obey: now shalt thou command! Knowest thou not who is most needed by all? He who commandeth great…

The voice calls his refusal to rule his most unpardonable obstinacy. He says he lacks the lion's voice; it replies that the stillest words bring the storm.

And I answered: “I am ashamed.” Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: “Thou must yet become a child, and be without shame. The pride of youth is still upon thee; late hast thou become young: but he who…

Ashamed, Zarathustra again says 'I will not.' Laughter lacerates him, and the voice sends him back to solitude to grow mellow. He lies drenched in sweat.

—Now have ye heard all, and why I have to return into my solitude. Nothing have I kept hidden from you, my friends. But even this have ye heard from me, WHO is still the most reserved of men—and will be so! Ah, my…

Zarathustra says he has hidden nothing and calls himself the most reserved of men. He weeps aloud, no one can console him, and he leaves alone that night.

Then, when it was about midnight, Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the isle, that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast; because there he meant to embark. For there was a good roadstead…

At midnight Zarathustra crosses the ridge to reach the far coast and a ship. He reflects that in the end one experiences only oneself, and that he now faces his last summit and hardest path.

He, however, who is of my nature doth not avoid such an hour: the hour that saith unto him: Now only dost thou go the way to thy greatness! Summit and abyss—these are now comprised together! Thou goest the way to thy…

Zarathustra speaks to himself in a series of hard commands: the path behind is effaced, the gentlest in him must become hardest, and he must learn to look away from himself to see many things.

Upon thine own head, and beyond thine own heart! Now must the gentlest in thee become the hardest.

He commands himself to climb beyond his own heart and harden what is gentlest in him.

Thus spake Zarathustra to himself while ascending, comforting his heart with harsh maxims: for he was sore at heart as he had never been before. And when he had reached the top of the mountain-ridge, behold, there lay…

On the ridge, with the other sea spread before him, he accepts his fate and says he must descend into the darkest flood. The highest mountains, he recalls, come out of the sea.

Out of the deepest must the highest come to its height.

Zarathustra says the origin of the highest mountains in the sea is written on their stones.

Thus spake Zarathustra on the ridge of the mountain where it was cold: when, however, he came into the vicinity of the sea, and at last stood alone amongst the cliffs, then had he become weary on his way, and eagerer…

At the shore Zarathustra feels the sleeping sea groan with evil dreams and wants to console it, then mocks himself as a too-confiding fool. Thinking of his friends he weeps with anger and longing.

When it got abroad among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board the ship—for a man who came from the Happy Isles had gone on board along with him,—there was great curiosity and expectation. But Zarathustra kept…

On the ship Zarathustra stays silent for two days, then is moved by the sailors' tales of distant voyages and begins to speak. He addresses the daring adventurers and begins to tell of a gloomy climb up a lonesome mountain path.

Upwards:—in spite of the spirit that drew it downwards, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy. Upwards:—although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralysed, paralysing; dripping lead in…

Climbing upward, Zarathustra is weighed down by the dwarf, who whispers that the stone he threw so high must fall back upon himself. The silence between them is more oppressive than being alone.

But there is something in me which I call courage: it hath hitherto slain for me every dejection. This courage at last bade me stand still and say: “Dwarf! Thou! Or I!”— For courage is the best slayer,—courage which…

Zarathustra's courage bids him stand and challenge the dwarf: 'Dwarf! Thou! Or I!' He praises courage as the best slayer, overcoming pain, abysses, pity and death.

Courage, however, is the best slayer, courage which attacketh: it slayeth even death itself; for it saith: “WAS THAT life? Well! Once more!”

Courage conquers death by answering it with a demand to live it all again.

“Halt, dwarf!” said I. “Either I—or thou! I, however, am the stronger of the two:—thou knowest not mine abysmal thought! IT—couldst thou not endure!” Then happened that which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from…

Zarathustra throws down the dwarf and shows him a gateway called 'This Moment', where two eternal lanes meet. He reasons that all things, including the spider, the moonlight, and the two of them, must eternally return.

The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘This Moment.’

Zarathustra names the gateway where the two opposite lanes of eternity abut.

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…

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.

And verily, what I saw, the like had I never seen. A young shepherd did I see, writhing, choking, quivering, with distorted countenance, and with a heavy black serpent hanging out of his mouth. Had I ever seen so much…

Zarathustra finds a young shepherd choking with a heavy black serpent fastened in his throat. Unable to pull it out, he cries 'Bite! Bite! Its head off!'

Ye daring ones around me! Ye venturers and adventurers, and whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! Ye enigma-enjoyers! Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret unto me the…

Zarathustra asks the sailors to interpret the vision: who is the shepherd, and who must come some day? The shepherd bites as bidden and spits the serpent's head far away.

No longer shepherd, no longer man—a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, that LAUGHED! Never on earth laughed a man as HE laughed! O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,—and now gnaweth…

The shepherd springs up, light-surrounded, laughing as no man has ever laughed. Zarathustra is left with an unquenchable longing for that laughter.

With such enigmas and bitterness in his heart did Zarathustra sail o’er the sea. When, however, he was four day-journeys from the Happy Isles and from his friends, then had he surmounted all his pain—: triumphantly and…

Four day-journeys from the Happy Isles, Zarathustra speaks to his conscience. He recalls finding his friends in the afternoon and what he gave up for his thoughts and his highest hope.

Companions did the creating one once seek, and children of HIS hope: and lo, it turned out that he could not find them, except he himself should first create them. Thus am I in the midst of my work, to my children…

His children are trees in his garden; one day he will set each alone by the sea to learn lonesomeness and defiance. He therefore avoids his happiness and presents himself to misfortune for his own final testing.

And verily, it were time that I went away; and the wanderer’s shadow and the longest tedium and the stillest hour—have all said unto me: “It is the highest time!” The word blew to me through the keyhole and said “Come!”…

The shadow, the tedium and the stillest hour tell him it is the highest time. He lies enchained by desire for love, stewed in the sun of his own love. He longs for frost, and old pains wake until his thought bites him.

Ah, abysmal thought, which art MY thought! When shall I find strength to hear thee burrowing, and no longer tremble? To my very throat throbbeth my heart when I hear thee burrowing! Thy muteness even is like to strangle…

He trembles to hear his abysmal thought burrowing and has not yet had the strength for his final lion-wantonness. He hopes one day to find the lion's voice to call it up.

Meanwhile do I sail along on uncertain seas; chance flattereth me, smooth-tongued chance; forward and backward do I gaze—, still see I no end. As yet hath the hour of my final struggle not come to me—or doth it come to…

Peace and the beauty of sea and life seem insidious to him. Like a jealous lover he pushes the hour away, calls his bliss involuntary and ill-timed, and bids it go bless his children before eventide.

Happiness runneth after me. That is because I do not run after women. Happiness, however, is a woman.

He waits all night for misfortune in vain, and happiness comes nearer. Toward morning he laughs and jokes that happiness follows him because he does not chase women.

O heaven above me, thou pure, thou deep heaven! Thou abyss of light! Gazing on thee, I tremble with divine desires. Up to thy height to toss myself—that is MY depth! In thy purity to hide myself—that is MINE innocence!…

Before dawn Zarathustra speaks to the heaven as to a friend. Both keep silent because they know too much, and all his wandering was only a seeking of it.

And what have I hated more than passing clouds, and whatever tainteth thee? And mine own hatred have I even hated, because it tainted thee! The passing clouds I detest—those stealthy cats of prey: they take from thee…

He hates the clouds as mediators and mixers who can neither bless nor curse. He longs to drum on their bellies with lightning.

A blesser have I become and a Yea-sayer: and therefore strove I long and was a striver, that I might one day get my hands free for blessing.

He who cannot bless shall learn to curse. Zarathustra calls himself a blesser who carries his Yea into all abysses.

For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds. Verily, it is a blessing and not a…

Above all things stands the heaven of chance, hazard and wantonness. Hazard is the oldest nobility, and rationality is impossible in everything.

That thou art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that thou art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players!

The heaven is pure because no eternal reason-cobweb hangs in it. It is a dancing-floor for divine chances.

The world is deep:—and deeper than e’er the day could read.

The heaven blushes and Zarathustra asks if he has said unspeakable things. Day comes, so they must part.

When Zarathustra was again on the continent, he did not go straightway to his mountains and his cave, but made many wanderings and questionings, and ascertained this and that; so that he said of himself jestingly: “Lo,…

Returning to the continent, Zarathustra wanders to learn whether men have become greater or smaller. He sees small houses and low doorways, sighs that he must stoop, and gives his discourse the same day.

I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they do not forgive me for not envying their virtues. They bite at me, because I say unto them that for small people, small virtues are necessary—and because it is…

Zarathustra describes how the small people bite at him, gossip about him, shield their children from his eyes and offer him a prickly praise. He stays courteous to them as to small annoyances.

I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open; they have become SMALLER, and ever become smaller:—THE REASON THEREOF IS THEIR DOCTRINE OF HAPPINESS AND VIRTUE.

Zarathustra gives the cause of the shrinking: the small people's own doctrine of happiness and virtue.

For they are moderate also in virtue,—because they want comfort. With comfort, however, moderate virtue only is compatible. To be sure, they also learn in their way to stride on and stride forward: that, I call their…

Zarathustra lists their faults: hobbling progress, acting, hypocritical rulers who claim to serve, and a modest pursuit of small happiness. He calls their so-called virtue cowardice and their moderation mediocrity.

And when I call out: “Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that would fain whimper and fold the hands and adore”—then do they shout: “Zarathustra is godless.” And especially do their teachers of submission shout…

When he curses the cowardly devils that whimper and adore, the teachers of submission cry that he is godless. He answers 'I am Zarathustra the godless', and says that chance must bow to his will.

Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish— —By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions! Too tender, too yielding:…

He cries to the winds that the small ones crumble away. A great tree needs hard roots around hard rocks, and even their omissions weave the future.

Ah, that ye understood my word: “Do ever what ye will—but first be such as CAN WILL.

Zarathustra's maxim: do what you will, but first become able to will.

Love ever your neighbour as yourselves—but first be such as LOVE THEMSELVES— —Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!” Thus speaketh Zarathustra the godless.—

He bids them love their neighbour as themselves, but first to be such as love themselves, with great love and great contempt.

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 says it is still an hour too early for him. He foretells that they will stand weary like dry grass, panting for fire, and he will turn them into heralds of the great noontide.

Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly hand-shaking. I honour him, that bad guest, but gladly leave him alone. Gladly do I run away from him; and when one runneth WELL, then…

Zarathustra speaks of winter as a bad guest he honours but runs from, to the sunny corner of his olive-mount. He prefers hardness and poverty to idol-worshipping warmth, and laughs even in his cold bed.

With a wickedness do I begin every day: I mock at the winter with a cold bath: on that account grumbleth my stern house-mate. Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally let the heavens emerge…

He mocks winter each morning and waits for the silent, snow-bearded winter-sky, which stifles even its sun. From it he has learned a silence that does not betray itself, so that no one sees his ultimate will.

Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness! And MUST I not conceal myself like one who hath swallowed gold—lest my soul should be…

Like one who has swallowed gold, he hides himself and wears stilts against enviers. He puts accidents and winter-privations around his happiness so that it is not envied.

To one man, lonesomeness is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight FROM the sick ones.

Zarathustra lets the poor squinting knaves hear his chattering and lament that he will freeze at the ice of knowledge. Meanwhile he runs with warm feet on his olive-mount and sings, mocking all pity.

O Zarathustra, here is the great city: here hast thou nothing to seek and everything to lose. Why wouldst thou wade through this mire? Have pity upon thy foot! Spit rather on the gate of the city, and—turn back! Here is…

The fool urges Zarathustra to spit on the city and turn back. He says great thoughts are boiled small there, and he attacks its newspapers, its lusts, its servile virtue and piety, and its rule by shopmen's gold.

Here, however, did Zarathustra interrupt the foaming fool, and shut his mouth.— Stop this at once! called out Zarathustra, long have thy speech and thy species disgusted me! Why didst thou live so long by the swamp,…

Zarathustra shuts the fool's mouth and says he despises his contempt. He calls him a grunting-pig, not an ape, and says the fool misuses his word even when he is right.

Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; but not out of the swamp!—

Zarathustra distinguishes his own contempt, born of love, from the fool's, born of the swamp.

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,…

After a long silence Zarathustra admits he loathes the city too. He wishes to see the pillar of fire that will consume it.

Where one can no longer love, there should one—PASS BY!

Zarathustra gives the fool his parting precept and walks past both the fool and the great city.

Ah, lieth everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow! And how much honey of hope did I carry hence into my beehives! Those young hearts have already all become old—and…

Zarathustra sees his once green and hopeful young followers grown weary and pious again. He concludes that most men are cowardly, that his first companions are corpses and buffoons, and that he should let the withered leaves go.

Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on the way: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons. His second companions, however—they will call themselves his BELIEVERS,—will be a…

One of Zarathustra's type first meets corpses and buffoons, then a host of believers full of love and folly. He is warned not to bind his heart to them.

It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, and whoever hath his conscience in his head.

Zarathustra tells the apostates to their faces that they pray again. He says that for those with an intellectual conscience, prayer is shameful, urged on by a faint-hearted devil within.

And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnal birds again fly abroad. The hour hath come for all light-dreading people, the vesper hour and leisure hour, when they do not—“take leisure.” I hear…

Zarathustra describes the dusk-hour revival: small hidden communities, cross-spiders, swamp-anglers, a hymn-poet, a spiritualist and a howl-piper. Some have become night-watchmen who wake old things.

Five words about old things did I hear yester-night at the garden-wall: they came from such old, sorrowful, arid night-watchmen. “For a father he careth not sufficiently for his children: human fathers do this better!”—…

Zarathustra overhears two old night-watchmen at a garden-wall complain that God neglects his children and demands belief instead of proving himself. He almost chokes with laughter at such doubts.

They did not “begloom” themselves to death—that do people fabricate! On the contrary, they—LAUGHED themselves to death once on a time!

When a jealous old God declared there was only one God, the other gods laughed and said that divinity is precisely that there are gods but no God.

Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed “The Pied Cow.” For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once more his cave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly on account…

Zarathustra spoke this in the city called The Pied Cow, two days from his cave and his animals, glad of his coming return.

O lonesomeness! My HOME, lonesomeness! Too long have I lived wildly in wild remoteness, to return to thee without tears! Now threaten me with the finger as mothers threaten; now smile upon me as mothers smile; now say…

Zarathustra weeps on returning to lonesomeness, which answers in a mother's voice. It says he was more forsaken among the many than he ever was with it, and that here he can speak to all things directly.

One thing is forsakenness, another matter is lonesomeness: THAT hast thou now learned!

Lonesomeness distinguishes forsakenness, felt among men, from lonesomeness itself.

Another matter, however, is forsakenness. For, dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy bird screamed overhead, when thou stoodest in the forest, irresolute, ignorant where to go, beside a corpse:— —When thou…

Lonesomeness recalls the corpse in the forest, the isle where he gave wine to the thirsty and was left thirsty himself, and the stillest hour that drove him out with 'Speak and succumb!'

O lonesomeness! My home, lonesomeness! How blessedly and tenderly speaketh thy voice unto me! We do not question each other, we do not complain to each other; we go together openly through open doors. For all is open…

With lonesomeness there are no questions or complaints. Here all being wants to be spoken, while among men talking is vain and he dislikes even their breath.

But down there—there speaketh everything, there is everything misheard. If one announce one’s wisdom with bells, the shopmen in the market-place will out-jingle it with pennies! Everything among them talketh; no one…

Down among men everything talks, is misheard, out-talked and betrayed, and nothing hatches or reaches the deep wells. He says his greatest danger now lies behind him.

In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated.

He states that pity and indulgence were his greatest danger among men.

With suppressed truths, with fool’s hand and befooled heart, and rich in petty lies of pity:—thus have I ever lived among men. Disguised did I sit amongst them, ready to misjudge MYSELF that I might endure THEM, and…

Among men he sat disguised, misjudged himself to endure them, and was stung by petty wickedness. He found the good unjust and stupid, and pity made him hide what he knew.

The grave-diggers dig for themselves diseases. Under old rubbish rest bad vapours. One should not stir up the marsh. One should live on mountains. With blessed nostrils do I again breathe mountain-freedom. Freed at last…

One should not stir the marsh but live on mountains. Breathing mountain freedom again, his soul sneezes and cheers itself.

In my dream, in my last morning-dream, I stood to-day on a promontory— beyond the world; I held a pair of scales, and WEIGHED the world. Alas, that the rosy dawn came too early to me: she glowed me awake, the jealous…

Zarathustra recounts a dream in which he stood on a promontory with scales and weighed the world. It appeared to him as a golden apple, a tree and an open casket, and he thanks the dream for it.

And that I may do the like by day, and imitate and copy its best, now will I put the three worst things on the scales, and weigh them humanly well.— He who taught to bless taught also to curse: what are the three best…

He resolves to weigh the three worst-reputed things by day as the dream weighed the world. He sets up the scales over the sea, with the tree as witness.

Voluptuousness: unto all hair-shirted despisers of the body, a sting and stake; and, cursed as “the world,” by all backworldsmen: for it mocketh and befooleth all erring, misinferring teachers. Voluptuousness: to the…

Voluptuousness means different things to different people: torment to the hair-shirted and the rabble, innocent garden-happiness to the free. He guards his words from swine and libertines.

Passion for power: the glowing scourge of the hardest of the heart-hard; the cruel torture reserved for the cruellest themselves; the gloomy flame of living pyres. Passion for power: the wicked gadfly which is mounted…

Passion for power breaks what is rotten, teaches man contempt for himself, and in the lonely height becomes a longing to give itself to the valleys.

And then it happened also,—and verily, it happened for the first time!—that his word blessed SELFISHNESS, the wholesome, healthy selfishness, that springeth from the powerful soul:— —From the powerful soul, to which the…

Zarathustra blesses selfishness springing from a powerful soul and body, which calls cowardly, servile and submissive things bad. The priests and the world-weary abused selfishness and made 'selfless' a virtue.

BEHOLD, IT COMETH, IT IS NIGH, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

Zarathustra proclaims that the day of the sword of judgment is near, and that he who declares the ego holy foretells the great noontide.

My mouthpiece—is of the people: too coarsely and cordially do I talk for Angora rabbits. And still stranger soundeth my word unto all ink-fish and pen-foxes. My hand—is a fool’s hand: woe unto all tables and walls, and…

Zarathustra describes his coarse mouth, fool's hand, horse-foot and eagle's stomach. He says he is made for flying and hostile to gravity, and that he will sing of this even to himself.

He who one day teacheth men to fly will have shifted all landmarks; to him will all landmarks themselves fly into the air; the earth will he christen anew—as “the light body.” The ostrich runneth faster than the fastest…

Whoever teaches men to fly will shift all landmarks and rename the earth. The man who cannot yet fly, like the ostrich, thrusts his head into the heavy earth; to become light one must love oneself.

One must learn to love oneself—thus do I teach—with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about. Such roving about christeneth itself “brotherly love”; with these words…

Self-love must be healthy, not sick, so that one can bear one's own company. It is the finest and last of arts. Children are taught early to burden themselves with 'good' and 'evil', and man like a camel loads himself with extraneous weights until life seems a desert.

He, however, hath discovered himself who saith: This is MY good and evil: therewith hath he silenced the mole and the dwarf, who say: “Good for all, evil for all.”

He who says 'This is my good and evil' has found himself and silenced the voice of a universal morality.

Verily, neither do I like those who call everything good, and this world the best of all. Those do I call the all-satisfied. All-satisfiedness, which knoweth how to taste everything,—that is not the best taste! I honour…

Zarathustra lists what suits and offends his taste. He dislikes those who call everything good, the swine-like who chew everything, and the ass who only says Ye-a. He also dislikes mummy- and phantom-lovers, lickspittles, parasites and those who must always wait.

Ever to say YE-A—that hath only the ass learnt, and those like it!

Chewing and digesting everything is swine-nature; constant assent is the ass's.

Verily, I learned waiting also, and thoroughly so,—but only waiting for MYSELF. And above all did I learn standing and walking and running and leaping and climbing and dancing. This however is my teaching: he who…

Zarathustra says he learned only to wait for himself, and then to stand, walk, run, leap, climb and dance. Whoever wants to fly must learn these first.

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss;— —To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light,…

Zarathustra recalls climbing masts and reaching his truth by many windings, questioning the ways rather than asking directions. To those who ask 'the way' he answers: this is my way, where is yours? For the way does not exist.

“This—is now MY way,—where is yours?” Thus did I answer those who asked me “the way.” For THE way—it doth not exist!

Zarathustra's reply to those who ask the way, and the chapter's closing line.

Here do I sit and wait, old broken tables around me and also new half-written tables. When cometh mine hour? —The hour of my descent, of my down-going: for once more will I go unto men. For that hour do I now wait: for…

Zarathustra sits among old broken tables and new half-written ones, waiting for the sign of his hour. Meanwhile he tells himself his own story.

When I came unto men, then found I them resting on an old infatuation: all of them thought they had long known what was good and bad for men. An old wearisome business seemed to them all discourse about virtue; and he…

Zarathustra recalls how he disturbed men's sleepy certainty about good and bad and bade them laugh at their moralists. He recounts his longing flight to a future of dancing gods, where the heavy things are danced over.

It is he, however, who createth man’s goal, and giveth to the earth its meaning and its future: he only EFFECTETH it THAT aught is good or bad.

Zarathustra says that only the creating one knows good and bad.

There was it also where I picked up from the path the word “Superman,” and that man is something that must be surpassed. —That man is a bridge and not a goal—rejoicing over his noontides and evenings, as advances to new…

Zarathustra summarises his teaching of the Superman and the great noontide, and calls redemption the creating of the future out of what hath been. He awaits his own redemption and compares his coming down-going to the sunset.

The past of man to redeem, and every “It was” to transform, until the Will saith: “But so did I will it! So shall I will it—”

Zarathustra defines redemption as transforming the past until the Will affirms it.

Behold, here is a new table; but where are my brethren who will carry it with me to the valley and into hearts of flesh?— Thus demandeth my great love to the remotest ones: BE NOT CONSIDERATE OF THY NEIGHBOUR! Man is…

A new table calls on his brethren to surpass themselves, even in their neighbour. The noble keep their promises to life and seek guilt and pain more than enjoyment.

O my brethren, he who is a firstling is ever sacrificed. Now, however, are we firstlings! We all bleed on secret sacrificial altars, we all burn and broil in honour of ancient idols. Our best is still young: this…

He calls his brethren firstlings who bleed on the altars of ancient idols, and he loves the down-going.

To be true—that CAN few be! And he who can, will not! Least of all, however, can the good be true. Oh, those good ones! GOOD MEN NEVER SPEAK THE TRUTH. For the spirit, thus to be good, is a malady. They yield, those…

The good obey and so do not listen to themselves, and cannot be true. Truth is born of daring, distrust, cruel Nay and cutting-into-the-quick.

When the water hath planks, when gangways and railings o’erspan the stream, verily, he is not believed who then saith: “All is in flux.” But even the simpletons contradict him. “What?” say the simpletons, “all in flux?…

In a parable, planks over a stream make people deny that all is in flux, until the thawing wind breaks the ice and the gangways. Zarathustra tells his brethren to preach this through all the streets.

There is an old illusion—it is called good and evil. Around soothsayers and astrologers hath hitherto revolved the orbit of this illusion. Once did one BELIEVE in soothsayers and astrologers; and THEREFORE did one…

The belief in fate and then in freedom both rested on illusion about the stars and the future. The holy 'Thou shalt not rob, slay' is itself called a robber and slayer of truth.

It is my sympathy with all the past that I see it is abandoned,— —Abandoned to the favour, the spirit and the madness of every generation that cometh, and reinterpreteth all that hath been as its bridge! A great…

Zarathustra pities the past that each generation reinterprets as its bridge, and calls for many noble ones. He consecrates his brethren as a nobility that looks outward to the children's land, not back to ancestors or courts.

“Why should one live? All is vain! To live—that is to thrash straw; to live—that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.”— Such ancient babbling still passeth for “wisdom”; because it is old, however, and smelleth…

Zarathustra mocks the old wisdom that says life is vain. He says that to eat and drink well is no vain art.

“To the clean are all things clean”—thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): “The world…

Zarathustra says that to the swine all things become swinish. He rejects the pious backworldsmen's advice to leave the world as it is and to stifle one's reason.

“He who learneth much unlearneth all violent cravings”—that do people now whisper to one another in all the dark lanes. “Wisdom wearieth, nothing is worth while; thou shalt not crave!”—this new table found I hanging…

Zarathustra attacks the table that says wisdom wearies and craving should cease, and blames a ruined stomach for it. He offers his fresh wind to the way-weary: willing frees, and creating is its purpose.

There standeth the boat—thither goeth it over, perhaps into vast nothingness—but who willeth to enter into this “Perhaps”? None of you want to enter into the death-boat! How should ye then be WORLD-WEARY ones!…

Those who call themselves world-weary will not enter the death-boat and still cling to earthly bliss. Zarathustra says they should be beaten into sprightliness or pass away.

O my brethren, there are tables which weariness framed, and tables which slothfulness framed, corrupt slothfulness: although they speak similarly, they want to be heard differently.— See this languishing one! Only a…

Zarathustra distinguishes tables made by weariness from those made by sloth. He says to let the exhausted hero lie and sleep, but to drive off the vermin of the 'cultured' that feast on his sweat.

I form circles around me and holy boundaries; ever fewer ascend with me ever higher mountains: I build a mountain-range out of ever holier mountains.— But wherever ye would ascend with me, O my brethren, take care lest…

Zarathustra warns that a parasite will nest in the sore places of the climbing and the great. He describes the loftiest soul at length.

And him whom ye do not teach to fly, teach I pray you—TO FALL FASTER!—

Zarathustra admits he is cruel and wishes to push what falls. He calls himself a prelude to better players.

I love the brave: but it is not enough to be a swordsman,—one must also know WHEREON to use swordsmanship! And often is it greater bravery to keep quiet and pass by, that THEREBY one may reserve oneself for a worthier…

Zarathustra tells the brave to pass over the rabble and keep their swords for worthier opponents. He mocks the peoples who now behave like traders, and says man is the best beast of prey.

And false be every truth which hath not had laughter along with it!

Man and woman should be fit for war and for maternity, and both for dancing.

Your marriage-arranging: see that it be not a bad ARRANGING! Ye have arranged too hastily: so there FOLLOWETH therefrom—marriage-breaking! And better marriage-breaking than marriage-bending, marriage-lying!—Thus spake a…

Zarathustra criticises hasty marriage-arranging and the revenge of the badly paired. He counsels honest ones to test their love with a term, so as to propagate upwards.

He who hath grown wise concerning old origins, lo, he will at last seek after the fountains of the future and new origins.— O my brethren, not long will it be until NEW PEOPLES shall arise and new fountains shall rush…

Zarathustra foretells new peoples and calls human society an attempt in who commands and who obeys. He bids his brethren destroy the word 'contract'.

O my brethren! With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just?— —As those who say and feel in their hearts: “We already know what is good and just, we possess it also;…

Zarathustra says the greatest danger to the human future lies with the good and just, the Pharisees. He bids his brethren break them up.

The good MUST crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That IS the truth!

Zarathustra states that the good must crucify the one who devises his own virtue.

Ye flee from me? Ye are frightened? Ye tremble at this word? O my brethren, when I enjoined you to break up the good, and the tables of the good, then only did I embark man on his high seas. And now only cometh unto him…

The brethren flee at his word, but Zarathustra says that only now has man been embarked on his high seas. He calls them to be brave sailors who steer for the children's land.

One morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying with a frightful voice, and acting as if some one still lay on the couch who did not wish to rise.…

Zarathustra leaps from his couch and shouts at the thought as at a sleeper who will not rise. He hails it, then recoils in disgust.

Hardly, however, had Zarathustra spoken these words, when he fell down as one dead, and remained long as one dead. When however he again came to himself, then was he pale and trembling, and remained lying; and for long…

Zarathustra falls as if dead. The eagle brings food and the animals watch over him. When he smells an apple, they speak and urge him out into the world.

—O mine animals, answered Zarathustra, talk on thus and let me listen! It refresheth me so to hear your talk: where there is talk, there is the world as a garden unto me. How charming it is that there are words and…

Zarathustra delights in hearing his animals talk. He calls words and tones rainbow bridges between souls and speaking a beautiful folly.

—O ye wags and barrel-organs! answered Zarathustra, and smiled once more, how well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days:— —And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me! But I bit off its head and…

Zarathustra says he bit off the head of the monster that choked him. He reproaches the animals for watching his pain and says man is the cruellest animal, in tragedy, in hell and in 'pity'. His cry was not that man is bad, but that his baddest and his best are so small.

The great disgust at man—IT strangled me and had crept into my throat: and what the soothsayer had presaged: “All is alike, nothing is worth while, knowledge strangleth.” A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally…

Zarathustra tells how the disgust strangled him: the sadness yawned that the small man returns eternally. He saw the greatest and the smallest man naked and all too alike.

“Do not speak further, thou convalescent!”—so answered his animals, “but go out where the world waiteth for thee like a garden. Go out unto the roses, the bees, and the flocks of doves! Especially, however, unto the…

The animals send him out to the garden to learn singing from the birds. Zarathustra says his consolation was to sing once more, and they tell him to prepare a new lyre.

For thine animals know it well, O Zarathustra, who thou art and must become: behold, THOU ART THE TEACHER OF THE ETERNAL RETURN,—that is now THY fate!

The animals say this is his fate and his greatest danger. They set out the doctrine: all things and we ourselves return, in a great year that turns like a sand-glass.

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…

The animals say how Zarathustra would speak if he died: souls are mortal, but the plexus of causes returns and creates him again. He comes again to the same life to teach recurrence and announce the Superman.

When the animals had spoken these words they were silent and waited, so that Zarathustra might say something to them: but Zarathustra did not hear that they were silent. On the contrary, he lay quietly with closed eyes…

The animals fall silent and wait. Zarathustra lies with closed eyes, not asleep, and they withdraw respectfully.

O my soul, I have taught thee to say “to-day” as “once on a time” and “formerly,” and to dance thy measure over every Here and There and Yonder. O my soul, I delivered thee from all by-places, I brushed down from thee…

Zarathustra addresses his soul and lists what he has done for it: he taught it to dance over every Here and There, stripped away shame and sin, and gave it its freedom and new names.

O my soul, I gave thee the right to say Nay like the storm, and to say Yea as the open heaven saith Yea: calm as the light remainest thou, and now walkest through denying storms.

The soul may deny like a storm and affirm like open heaven, and it remains calm as light while it passes through denying storms.

O my soul, to thy domain gave I all wisdom to drink, all new wines, and also all immemorially old strong wines of wisdom. O my soul, every sun shed I upon thee, and every night and every silence and every longing:—then…

The soul has grown into a vine heavy with grapes, waiting from superabundance and ashamed of waiting. Zarathustra's hands are empty from giving, and the soul asks smilingly who owes thanks.

O my soul, I understand the smiling of thy melancholy: thine over-abundance itself now stretcheth out longing hands! Thy fulness looketh forth over raging seas, and seeketh and waiteth: the longing of over-fulness…

Zarathustra reads the smile of melancholy as the longing of over-fulness. The soul will not weep, because all weeping seems to it complaint and accusation.

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…

If the soul will not weep it must sing, until the seas grow calm and the golden bark comes with its master, the vintager with the diamond knife. The soul already breathes the fragrance of future songs.

That I bade thee sing,—say now, say: WHICH of us now—oweth thanks?— Better still, however: sing unto me, sing, O my soul! And let me thank thee!—

Zarathustra says he has given everything, down to his last possession, which is the bidding to sing. He asks who now owes thanks, and asks the soul to sing so that he may thank it.

“Into thine eyes gazed I lately, O Life: gold saw I gleam in thy night-eyes,—my heart stood still with delight: —A golden bark saw I gleam on darkened waters, a sinking, drinking, reblinking, golden swing-bark! At my…

Zarathustra tells how he gazed into Life's eyes and danced after her. She flees and beckons, he loves her from afar and fears her near, he falls, grows weary of being her shepherd, and raises his whip.

Then did Life answer me thus, and kept thereby her fine ears closed: “O Zarathustra! Crack not so terribly with thy whip! Thou knowest surely that noise killeth thought,—and just now there came to me such delicate…

Life replies with her ears closed against the whip. She asks for friendliness, admits she is envious of his Wisdom, and says her love would leave him if his Wisdom did.

Thereupon did Life look thoughtfully behind and around, and said softly: “O Zarathustra, thou art not faithful enough to me! Thou lovest me not nearly so much as thou sayest; I know thou thinkest of soon leaving me.…

Life says Zarathustra is not faithful enough and thinks of leaving her when the midnight clock booms. He whispers something into her ear, she is amazed that he knows it, and they weep together on the meadow.

Then, however, was Life dearer unto me than all my Wisdom had ever been.

After weeping together, Zarathustra says Life has become dearer to him than his Wisdom.

If I be a diviner and full of the divining spirit which wandereth on high mountain-ridges, ‘twixt two seas,— Wandereth ‘twixt the past and the future as a heavy cloud—hostile to sultry plains, and to all that is weary…

Zarathustra pictures himself as a heavy cloud between past and future, ready to flash. He ends with the refrain that he loves Eternity, the only woman by whom he would have children.

Oh, how could I not be ardent for Eternity and for the marriage-ring of rings—the ring of the return?

The first appearance of the refrain that closes every seal.

If ever my wrath hath burst graves, shifted landmarks, or rolled old shattered tables into precipitous depths: If ever my scorn hath scattered mouldered words to the winds, and if I have come like a besom to…

Zarathustra recalls his destroying wrath and scorn, yet claims to be world-blessing beside the monuments of old world-maligners. The refrain follows.

If ever a breath hath come to me of the creative breath, and of the heavenly necessity which compelleth even chances to dance star-dances: If ever I have laughed with the laughter of the creative lightning, to which the…

He speaks of heavenly necessity compelling even chance to dance star-dances, and of playing dice with the Gods until the earth quakes.

If ever I have drunk a full draught of the foaming spice- and confection-bowl in which all things are well mixed: If ever my hand hath mingled the furthest with the nearest, fire with spirit, joy with sorrow, and the…

Zarathustra describes a bowl in which furthest and nearest, joy and sorrow, harshest and kindest are well mixed, and himself as a grain of its saving salt.

If I be fond of the sea, and all that is sealike, and fondest of it when it angrily contradicteth me: If the exploring delight be in me, which impelleth sails to the undiscovered, if the seafarer’s delight be in my…

He loves the sea and the exploring delight that drives sails to the undiscovered. He cries that the shore has vanished and the last chain has fallen.

If my virtue be a dancer’s virtue, and if I have often sprung with both feet into golden-emerald rapture: If my wickedness be a laughing wickedness, at home among rose-banks and hedges of lilies: —For in laughter is all…

Zarathustra calls his virtue a dancer's, and says that in laughter all evil is present but absolved. He names his Alpha and Omega: every body a dancer, every spirit a bird.

And if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, every body a dancer, and every spirit a bird: and verily, that is my Alpha and Omega!—

He declares his first and last principle.

If ever I have spread out a tranquil heaven above me, and have flown into mine own heaven with mine own pinions: If I have swum playfully in profound luminous distances, and if my freedom’s avian wisdom hath come to…

Flying in his own heaven, he hears the wisdom of birds: there is no above or below, so sing and speak no more. The last refrain closes the song.

—And again passed moons and years over Zarathustra’s soul, and he heeded it not; his hair, however, became white. One day when he sat on a stone in front of his cave, and gazed calmly into the distance—one there gazeth…

The animals ask whether he looks out for happiness. He says he strives for his work, and that his happiness is heavy like pitch. He then takes it back: he is ripening like a fruit, with honey in his veins. He decides to climb a high mountain and make a honey sacrifice.

When Zarathustra, however, was aloft on the summit, he sent his animals home that had accompanied him, and found that he was now alone:—then he laughed from the bottom of his heart, looked around him, and spake thus:…

Alone, he laughs and admits that the 'honey sacrifice' was only a ruse. The honey is really bait, and the world is a rich sea full of wonders.

Especially the human world, the human sea:—towards IT do I now throw out my golden angle-rod and say: Open up, thou human abyss! Open up, and throw unto me thy fish and shining crabs! With my best bait shall I allure to…

He casts his golden angle-rod into the human sea. He wants to lure the strangest, motleyest men up to his height with hidden hooks. He describes himself as a drawer and trainer.

“Become what thou art!”

He recalls the counsel he once gave himself.

Thus may men now come UP to me; for as yet do I await the signs that it is time for my down-going; as yet do I not myself go down, as I must do, amongst men. Therefore do I here wait, crafty and scornful upon high…

He awaits the sign for his going down. He is not impatient and has unlearnt patience, because he no longer suffers. He is glad his fate gives him time and is not like the wrath-snorting preachers who shout down into the valleys.

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?…

What must come is the great Hazar, the Zarathustra-kingdom of a thousand years. He stands secure on the hard primary rock, where all the winds ask Where, Whence and Whither.

Here laugh, laugh, my hearty, healthy wickedness! From high mountains cast down thy glittering scorn-laughter! Allure for me with thy glittering the finest human fish! And whatever belongeth unto ME in all seas, my…

He urges his laughter, his hook and his honey to bring up what is his from the seas. He looks out over many seas and dawning human futures, under a rosy stillness.

The next day sat Zarathustra again on the stone in front of his cave, whilst his animals roved about in the world outside to bring home new food,—also new honey: for Zarathustra had spent and wasted the old honey to the…

Zarathustra, tracing his shadow outside his cave, is startled by a second shadow: the soothsayer. They greet each other, and the soothsayer warns that waves of distress are rising round the mountain.

“O Zarathustra, I have come that I may seduce thee to thy last sin!”

The soothsayer answers 'Pity!' with an overflowing heart and announces his aim.

Zarathustra was silent thereupon, confused and staggered; at last he asked, like one who hesitateth in himself: “And who is it that there calleth me?” “But thou knowest it, certainly,” answered the soothsayer warmly,…

The soothsayer reveals that the cry comes from the higher man. Zarathustra is horror-struck and breaks into a sweat.

“O Zarathustra,” he began, with sorrowful voice, “thou dost not stand there like one whose happiness maketh him giddy: thou wilt have to dance lest thou tumble down! But although thou shouldst dance before me, and leap…

The soothsayer says Zarathustra must dance lest he fall, and that no joyous man or happiness is to be found among the hidden, buried-alive ones.

“Nay! Nay! Three times Nay!” exclaimed he with a strong voice, and stroked his beard—“THAT do I know better! There are still Happy Isles!

Zarathustra recovers his serenity, tells the soothsayer to stop splashing him with misery, and decides to go at once to the forest where the cry came from.

With those words Zarathustra turned around to depart. Then said the soothsayer: “O Zarathustra, thou art a rogue! I know it well: thou wouldst fain be rid of me! Rather wouldst thou run into the forest and lay snares…

The soothsayer accuses Zarathustra of running away and says he will wait in the cave. Zarathustra offers him his honey and says that he too is a soothsayer.

Ere Zarathustra had been an hour on his way in the mountains and forests, he saw all at once a strange procession. Right on the path which he was about to descend came two kings walking, bedecked with crowns and purple…

Zarathustra, an hour down the mountain, hides in a thicket as two crowned kings pass driving a laden ass. He remarks that he sees two kings and only one ass; the kings overhear and answer that they think the same thing but do not say it.

Immediately thereupon, Zarathustra, who had opened ears and eyes to this talk, rose from his hiding-place, advanced towards the kings, and thus began: “He who hearkeneth unto you, he who gladly hearkeneth unto you, is…

Zarathustra steps out, names himself, and says he too is seeking the higher man. The kings say they are recognised. They say the worst misfortune is when the mighty are not also the first men, because then everything becomes false and monstrous.

What have I just heard? answered Zarathustra. What wisdom in kings! I am enchanted, and verily, I have already promptings to make a rhyme thereon:— —Even if it should happen to be a rhyme not suited for every one’s…

Zarathustra, delighted by the kings' wisdom, says he will answer in rhyme and that he has long since stopped considering long ears. The ass brays 'Y-E-A', and Zarathustra recites a rhyme in which a Sybil laments that the world has sunk low, Rome has become a harlot and God has turned Jew.

With those rhymes of Zarathustra the kings were delighted; the king on the right, however, said: “O Zarathustra, how well it was that we set out to see thee! For thine enemies showed us thy likeness in their mirror:…

The king on the right says Zarathustra's enemies had shown him as a devil, but his words pricked the kings anyway. They quote his warlike sayings, which stirred their fathers' blood, and they praise the fathers who thirsted for war and were ashamed of long peace.

—When the kings thus discoursed and talked eagerly of the happiness of their fathers, there came upon Zarathustra no little desire to mock at their eagerness: for evidently they were very peaceable kings whom he saw…

Zarathustra wants to mock the kings' warlike eagerness, since they are evidently peaceable, but he restrains himself. He points them to his cave and says a cry of distress is calling him away. He adds that kings, whose chief remaining virtue is the ability to wait, will learn waiting well.

And Zarathustra went thoughtfully on, further and lower down, through forests and past moory bottoms; as it happeneth, however, to every one who meditateth upon hard matters, he trod thereby unawares upon a man. And lo,…

Lost in thought, Zarathustra steps on a man lying hidden in a swamp and strikes him in his fright. He laughs at his own folly, offers a parable of the startled dog and wanderer, and invites the bleeding man to his cave to tend his wounds.

When however the trodden one had heard the name of Zarathustra he was transformed. “What happeneth unto me!” he exclaimed, “WHO preoccupieth me so much in this life as this one man, namely Zarathustra, and that one…

Hearing the name Zarathustra, the man is transformed. He had lain in the swamp as bait for leeches, and now praises Zarathustra as the finest leech, the 'great conscience-leech'. Zarathustra is pleased and asks who he is.

Better know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on one’s own account, than a sage on other people’s approbation!

He calls himself the spiritually conscientious one and says he learned his rigour from Zarathustra. He wants only firm basis, however small, and sees nothing great or small in true knowing.

Because THOU once saidest, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life’;—that led and allured me to thy doctrine.

He claims mastery of one small world, the brain of the leech, and is proud of it. He casts everything else aside, hates the hazy and visionary, and wants to be severe and honest where he knows and blind where he does not.

—“As the evidence indicateth,” broke in Zarathustra; for still was the blood flowing down on the naked arm of the conscientious one. For there had ten leeches bitten into it. “O thou strange fellow, how much doth this…

Ten leeches are seen on his bleeding arm, which Zarathustra takes as evidence of the man's devotion. He invites him to the cave as a guest and promises amends for the trampling. A cry of distress calls Zarathustra away.

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.

—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.

“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.

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.

—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.

Not long, however, after Zarathustra had freed himself from the magician, he again saw a person sitting beside the path which he followed, namely a tall, black man, with a haggard, pale countenance: THIS MAN grieved him…

Having just escaped the magician, Zarathustra sees a tall, black, pale man by the path and curses priests and sorcerers. He tries to slip past, but the man springs up and comes straight toward him.

“Whoever thou art, thou traveller,” said he, “help a strayed one, a seeker, an old man, who may here easily come to grief! The world here is strange to me, and remote; wild beasts also did I hear howling; and he who…

The old man asks for help and says he sought the saint in the forest, who has since died. He names himself the last pope, out of service and without a master. His heart sent him to seek Zarathustra.

Thus spake the hoary man, and gazed with keen eyes at him who stood before him. Zarathustra however seized the hand of the old pope and regarded it a long while with admiration. “Lo! thou venerable one,” said he then,…

Zarathustra admires the old man's long, blessing hand, which now holds the ungodly Zarathustra. He quotes his own saying and searches the pope's thoughts.

“He who most loved and possessed him hath now also lost him most—: —Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who could rejoice at that!”— —“Thou servedst him to the last?” asked Zarathustra…

Zarathustra asks whether sympathy choked God when he saw man on the cross, and the pope looks away. Then the pope says his God was hidden, once harsh and revengeful, then old and pitiful, and finally suffocated.

“Thou old pope,” said here Zarathustra interposing, “hast thou seen THAT with thine eyes? It could well have happened in that way: in that way, AND also otherwise. When Gods die they always die many kinds of death.…

Zarathustra says gods die many kinds of death. He charges this one with indistinctness and with revenge on his own botched creations, which he calls a sin against good taste.

—“What do I hear!” said then the old pope, with intent ears; “O Zarathustra, thou art more pious than thou believest, with such an unbelief! Some God in thee hath converted thee to thine ungodliness. Is it not thy piety…

The pope says some God converted Zarathustra to his ungodliness and that his honesty will lead him beyond good and evil. He senses blessing in Zarathustra's hands and asks to be his guest for a night.

“Amen! So shall it be!” said Zarathustra, with great astonishment; “up thither leadeth the way, there lieth the cave of Zarathustra. Gladly, forsooth, would I conduct thee thither myself, thou venerable one; for I love…

Zarathustra agrees and points the way to his cave, but the cry of distress calls him away. He says he cannot take the pope's melancholy from him, since the old God is dead.

For that old God liveth no more: he is indeed dead.”—

Zarathustra ends the exchange by saying the old God is dead.

“Zarathustra! Zarathustra! Read my riddle! Say, say! WHAT IS THE REVENGE ON THE WITNESS? I entice thee back; here is smooth ice! See to it, see to it, that thy pride doth not here break its legs! Thou thinkest thyself…

The voice challenges Zarathustra to read its riddle. Pity fells him, but he rises and says the man is the murderer of God, who took revenge on the witness who beheld him.

“I know thee well,” said he, with a brazen voice, “THOU ART THE MURDERER OF GOD! Let me go.

Zarathustra identifies the creature and tries to leave.

Thus spake Zarathustra and was about to go; but the nondescript grasped at a corner of his garment and began anew to gurgle and seek for words. “Stay,” said he at last— —“Stay! Do not pass by! I have divined what axe it…

He holds Zarathustra back and begs to be his refuge from persecution by pity. He says Zarathustra's silent blush showed that he knew him. He is too rich in ugliness to be a beggar for alms.

Beyond all these do I look, as a dog looketh over the backs of thronging flocks of sheep. They are petty, good-wooled, good-willed, grey people. As the heron looketh contemptuously at shallow pools, with backward-bent…

He looks over the petty people as a dog looks over sheep. He blames their pity-preaching saint, who said 'I am the truth', and credits Zarathustra with answering him with a threefold Nay.

Thou thyself, however,—warn thyself also against THY pity! For many are on their way to thee, many suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, freezing ones— I warn thee also against myself. Thou hast read my best, my…

He warns Zarathustra against his own pity for the many who are coming to him. He explains that the prying, pitying God who saw everything, man included, had to die.

Thus spake the ugliest man. Zarathustra however got up, and prepared to go on: for he felt frozen to the very bowels. “Thou nondescript,” said he, “thou warnedst me against thy path. As thanks for it I praise mine to…

Frozen to the bowels, Zarathustra thanks the man by praising his own path. He sends him to the cave and to the proudest and wisest animals, then walks on thoughtful and slow.

“How poor indeed is man,” thought he in his heart, “how ugly, how wheezy, how full of hidden shame! They tell me that man loveth himself. Ah, how great must that self-love be! How much contempt is opposed to it! Even…

Alone, Zarathustra reflects that great self-love is matched by great contempt. He loves the great despisers and repeats that man must be surpassed.

I love the great despisers. Man is something that hath to be surpassed.”—

Zarathustra's concluding thought.

When Zarathustra had left the ugliest man, he was chilled and felt lonesome: for much coldness and lonesomeness came over his spirit, so that even his limbs became colder thereby. When, however, he wandered on and on,…

Zarathustra wanders on, grows warm again, and finds kine gathered around a man who is preaching to them. He drives the animals aside, fearing someone is hurt, and finds a peaceable Preacher-on-the-Mount.

“What do I here seek?” answered he: “the same that thou seekest, thou mischief-maker; that is to say, happiness upon earth. To that end, however, I would fain learn of these kine. For I tell thee that I have already…

The beggar says he seeks happiness on earth and wants to learn ruminating from the kine. He says that without it a man cannot be rid of his great affliction, disgust.

Thus spake the Preacher-on-the-Mount, and turned then his own look towards Zarathustra—for hitherto it had rested lovingly on the kine—: then, however, he put on a different expression. “Who is this with whom I talk?”…

The beggar recognises Zarathustra as the surmounter of disgust and kisses his hands. Zarathustra recalls that the beggar once threw away his riches, was refused by the poor, and learned how hard it is to give well.

“Especially nowadays,” answered the voluntary beggar: “at present, that is to say, when everything low hath become rebellious and exclusive and haughty in its manner—in the manner of the populace. For the hour hath…

The beggar describes a coming mob-and-slave insurrection. He says the poor are no longer blessed and the rich are a gilded rabble. Disgusted with both, he fled to the kine.

Thus spake the peaceful one, and puffed himself and perspired with his words: so that the kine wondered anew. Zarathustra, however, kept looking into his face with a smile, all the time the man talked so severely—and…

Zarathustra smiles and tells the beggar that such rage does not suit his mouth, eye or stomach. The beggar admits he loves honey and grinding corn, and praises the cows for ruminating, lying in the sun and avoiding heavy thoughts.

—“Well!” said Zarathustra, “thou shouldst also see MINE animals, mine eagle and my serpent,—their like do not at present exist on earth. Behold, thither leadeth the way to my cave: be to-night its guest. And talk to…

Zarathustra invites the beggar to his cave to talk to the eagle and serpent about animal happiness, since a cry of distress calls him away. When the beggar calls him better than a cow, Zarathustra mockingly drives him off with his stick.

Scarcely however was the voluntary beggar gone in haste, and Zarathustra again alone, when he heard behind him a new voice which called out: “Stay! Zarathustra! Do wait! It is myself, forsooth, O Zarathustra, myself,…

Hearing a voice call him its shadow, Zarathustra runs away in irritation, so that three runners follow one another: the beggar, Zarathustra, the shadow.

“What!” said he, “have not the most ludicrous things always happened to us old anchorites and saints? Verily, my folly hath grown big in the mountains! Now do I hear six old fools’ legs rattling behind one another! But…

Zarathustra laughs at himself, stops and turns, and is startled by how slender, swarthy and worn-out his follower looks.

“Forgive me,” answered the shadow, “that it is I; and if I please thee not—well, O Zarathustra! therein do I admire thee and thy good taste. A wanderer am I, who have walked long at thy heels; always on the way, but…

The shadow says he has wandered after Zarathustra without goal or home, broken every reverence, and found that he too lost his innocence and the truth kicked him in the face.

Thus spake the shadow, and Zarathustra’s countenance lengthened at his words. “Thou art my shadow!” said he at last sadly. “Thy danger is not small, thou free spirit and wanderer! Thou hast had a bad day: see that a…

Zarathustra warns the shadow that a narrow faith may seduce him like a prisoner's security, bids him come to the cave, and runs off promising dancing in the evening.

—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…

Running alone, Zarathustra finds an old tree wrapped in a vine heavy with grapes. He wants grapes but prefers to lie down and sleep, with his eyes still open on the tree.

“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…

Falling asleep, Zarathustra speaks to his heart of sleep that dances lightly over him and leaves his soul awake. He compares himself to a ship in a calm cove and bids his soul keep silent as noontide drinks a drop of golden happiness.

LITTLE maketh up the BEST happiness.

Zarathustra takes back his old saying that little suffices for happiness, calling it blasphemy. He now sees that the gentlest and lightest things make up the best happiness.

—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,…

Time seems to fly away and Zarathustra feels he has fallen into eternity, stung to the heart. He chases the vanishing golden ring, then bids his legs and heart rise, while his soul defends itself and sinks back into sleep.

“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 rouses himself, frightened by a sunbeam on his face. He asks heaven when it will drink his strange soul back into itself, then rises as if from drunkenness and sees that he has slept only briefly.

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.

Thus spake the king on the right, and seized the hand of Zarathustra in order to kiss it; but Zarathustra checked his veneration, and stepped back frightened, fleeing as it were, silently and suddenly into the far…

Zarathustra steps back when the king tries to kiss his hand, then returns and promises plain language. The king on the left aside takes this to mean bluntness.

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.

I am a law only for mine own; I am not a law for all.

The voluntary beggar objects to the flesh, wine and spices. Zarathustra tells him to keep his own customs and describes those who belong to him, who take the best food, sky, thoughts and women.

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.

“Man is evil”—so said to me for consolation, all the wisest ones. Ah, if only it be still true to-day! For the evil is man’s best force. “Man must become better and eviler”—so do _I_ teach. The evilest is necessary for…

Zarathustra reverses the wise ones' consolation that man is evil, teaching that man must become better and eviler. He takes great sin as his consolation and warns that such words are not for long ears.

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.

What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the word of him who said: “Woe unto them that laugh now!” Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought badly. A child even…

Zarathustra calls the word 'Woe unto them that laugh now!' the greatest sin on earth and says its speaker loved too little and sprang from the populace. He bids the higher men avoid such absolute ones, who cannot dance.

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.

This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown: I myself have put on this crown, I myself have consecrated my laughter. No one else have I found to-day potent enough for this. Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra…

Zarathustra says he has put on the rose-garland crown of laughter and consecrated his own laughter. He calls himself the dancer, ready for flight, no impatient or absolute one.

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.

When Zarathustra spake these sayings, he stood nigh to the entrance of his cave; with the last words, however, he slipped away from his guests, and fled for a little while into the open air. “O pure odours around me,”…

Zarathustra leaves the cave, calls his eagle and serpent, and says he loves them. He remarks that the higher men do not smell well. The three stand silent and breathe the good air.

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.

Courage, however, and adventure, and delight in the uncertain, in the unattempted—COURAGE seemeth to me the entire primitive history of man.

Zarathustra returns, laughs, throws roses and calls the conscientious one's truth a folly. He says fear is the exception and courage the whole primitive history of man. That courage, grown spiritual, with eagle's pinions and serpent's wisdom, is what is now called Zarathustra.

“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.

This day is a victory: he already yieldeth, he fleeth, THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY, mine old arch-enemy! How well this day is about to end, which began so badly and gloomily!

Zarathustra rejoices that the day's heaviness is lifting.

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.

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.

—“And thou thyself, finally,” said Zarathustra, and turned towards the ugliest man, who still lay on the ground stretching up his arm to the ass (for he gave it wine to drink). “Say, thou nondescript, what hast thou…

Zarathustra asks the transformed ugliest man why he awakened God. The ugliest man calls Zarathustra a rogue and a dangerous saint, and recalls that he learned from him that the thorough killer laughs.

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.

“But we do not at all want to enter into the kingdom of heaven: we have become men,—SO WE WANT THE KINGDOM OF EARTH.”

Zarathustra answers the saying about the kingdom of heaven by choosing the 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'.

Sweet lyre! Sweet lyre! I love thy tone, thy drunken, ranunculine tone!—how long, how far hath come unto me thy tone, from the distance, from the ponds of love! Thou old clock-bell, thou sweet lyre! Every pain hath torn…

The old bell and lyre speak of past pain ripened like autumn grapes. The world's drunken midnight happiness is deeper than the day could read.

Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I am too pure for thee. Touch me not! Hath not my world just now become perfect? My skin is too pure for thy hands. Leave me alone, thou dull, doltish, stupid day! Is not the midnight…

Zarathustra turns away the coarse day and world, saying the purest, midnight-souls shall master the world. He calls himself a midnight-lyre that none understands, and says joy is deeper than grief.

For joy, although woe be deep, JOY IS DEEPER STILL THAN GRIEF CAN BE.

Zarathustra states that joy is deeper than woe.

Joy, however, doth not want heirs, it doth not want children,—joy wanteth itself, it wanteth eternity, it wanteth recurrence, it wanteth everything eternally-like-itself.

Speaking to the vine, Zarathustra contrasts suffering, which wants to pass on to heirs and be gone, with joy, which wants itself and recurrence.

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.

Thus spake Zarathustra; then, however, it happened that all on a sudden he became aware that he was flocked around and fluttered around, as if by innumerable birds,—the whizzing of so many wings, however, and the…

A cloud of doves envelops him, and he feels a lion's shaggy mane and hears its soft roar. He recognises the sign, says his children are nigh, weeps, and the lion licks his tears.

“MY CHILDREN ARE NIGH, MY CHILDREN”—, then he became quite mute.

Zarathustra's only words on seeing the lion and doves.

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.

“FELLOW-SUFFERING! FELLOW-SUFFERING WITH THE HIGHER MEN!” he cried out, and his countenance changed into brass.

Recollecting the previous day, Zarathustra recalls the soothsayer's promise of a last sin. After brooding he springs up and names it as fellow-suffering with the higher men, declaring that its time is past.

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 says he strives after his work and not happiness, declares himself ripe and his hour come, and leaves the cave glowing and strong, as in the opening.

This is MY morning, MY day beginneth: ARISE NOW, ARISE, THOU GREAT NOONTIDE!”—

Zarathustra's final cry before leaving the cave.