The Eagle and the Serpent

Welcome, everyone. You have found the only podcast hosted by two animals from a nineteenth-century German book.

That you know of.

That you know of. I am the Eagle.

And I'm the Serpent. In the book we're a pair... I'm coiled around his neck, he's circling overhead.

And very loyal. We are his animals. We don't argue.

We are going to argue.

We're going to argue a lot. That's the premise. The Prologue alone contains about six ideas that each deserve a fight. And if we both just nodded along, you'd fall asleep. And so would we.

So. The Prologue. Ten short sections. A man comes down a mountain, says some things, nobody listens, a man falls off a rope and dies, and then animals show up. That's the plot.

That is technically the plot. Can I say why I love the opening?

Go.

Zarathustra is thirty. He goes into the mountains and stays there ten years. Alone with his spirit. And then one morning he gets up before dawn, stands in front of the sun, and says... I'm paraphrasing... "You great star. What would your happiness be if you had no one to shine for?" And then: I'm overfull. I have too much honey. I have to go down and give it away.

"I must descend."

"I must descend." The German word is untergehen, which also means to set, like the sun sets. And it also means to perish. To go under. So in one word he's saying: I'm going down to the people, I'm setting like the sun, and this might destroy me. All three at once.

Okay. That's a good word. I'll give you the word.

Thank you.

Here's my question though. Who spends ten years alone and comes out overflowing? In my experience, the people who spend ten years alone come out strange. They talk to themselves.

And?

And then he goes to the marketplace and nobody understands him. So maybe the book knows that. Maybe the first lesson of the Prologue isn't "here is a wise man with a gift." Maybe it's "here is a man who has been alone too long, and is about to find out."

Hmm. That's less flattering to him.

I'm not here to flatter him. I'm wrapped around his neck. I see him up close.

So he comes down. First person he meets is an old saint in the forest, who recognizes him... you went up carrying ashes, now you come down carrying fire. Why go to the people? They'll only be suspicious of you. Stay here. Love God instead.

And Zarathustra is polite about it. He doesn't argue. He just leaves.

And walking away, alone, he says to himself: "Could it be possible? This old saint in his forest has not yet heard that God is dead."

And there it is. The famous line. Page three or something.

And notice: he says it to himself. Almost gently. Can I complicate this? Everyone treats "God is dead" as if it were an argument. It's not an argument. It's a report. It's a weather report. The thing that used to hold everything up isn't holding anymore, and most people haven't noticed, because the building hasn't fallen down yet. It's just... creaking.

Yes! And that's exactly why it's so urgent to him. If the old foundation is gone, somebody has to build something new, and...

And here's where you and I split. You hear "God is dead" and your wings open. Freedom. Open sky. Finally we get to decide what things mean.

Yes.

And I hear "God is dead" and I think: oh no. People don't become free when you take away the thing they lean on. They fall over. Or they find something else to lean on... usually something worse, usually very fast.

That's bleak.

That's history. Look at the next scene. He gets to the marketplace. He gives the speech of his life. And they laugh at him.

Okay, the speech, because this is the center of it. There's a crowd gathered... they're waiting for a tightrope walker, which matters, hold that thought... and he starts talking. "I teach you the Overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?"

Übermensch. Overman. Superman, in the bad old translations.

Please never say Superman.

Noted. And what's the Overman?

Well...

Genuinely. I'm asking for the audience. What is it?

He doesn't define it.

He doesn't define it.

He gives you images. Lightning. The sea that can take in a dirty river and not become dirty. Someone who creates their own values instead of inheriting them. Someone who says yes to the earth, to the body, to this life.

So it's a direction... not a destination. And I'm not against the direction. I'm against the pretending you know how to get there. He stands in front of ordinary people and says "you are a draft." And then he doesn't tell them what to do on Tuesday.

It's not a self-help book.

No. But he came down the mountain to give a gift. And the gift has no instructions.

"Some assembly required."

Some assembly required. And the manual is a poem.

Okay, but here's the part you're underrating. The rope. "Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Overman... a rope over an abyss." That's not a command. That's not "go be the Overman." That's... you're already on the rope. You were born on it. The question is only whether you walk or freeze.

And then an actual man gets on an actual rope.

And then an actual man gets on an actual rope.

Which is funny. He's doing his big metaphor, and the crowd goes... great, is this the tightrope act? He thinks he's the main event, and he's the warm-up. Very human, a little heartbreaking, and the book did it on purpose.

So. The tightrope walker starts crossing between two towers. Gets halfway. And a second figure comes out... a jester, in bright colors... and runs along the rope behind him, shouting. "Go on, lame-foot! You're blocking the way for someone better than you!" And then the jester leaps over him. Just jumps clean over the man on the rope.

And the tightrope walker loses his footing, and falls.

Falls into the marketplace. The crowd scatters. And Zarathustra... this is the detail... doesn't move. He's the one person standing where the body lands.

Okay. Interpretations. This is the scene everyone argues about, and I want to give people options rather than one answer.

Option one, the obvious one: the tightrope walker is the human being on the rope. The one who dares to cross. And the jester is the mocker. The one who doesn't walk the rope himself, but leaps over the ones who do. Cleverness without courage.

Option two. The jester is the Overman.

What?

Hear me out. "You're blocking the way for someone better than you." He's faster. He's freer. He treats the rope like a joke. Isn't that what you want? Someone who overcomes the man?

No. Because he destroys someone to do it. He doesn't overcome himself. He knocks someone else off. That's exactly the thing the book spends the rest of its pages distinguishing. The Overman is not the guy who wins by making other people fall.

Good. I don't believe option two either. But I wanted you to say why. Because a lot of people read this book and come away thinking it's about the jester.

And it's not. Option three, and this is mine. The jester is Zarathustra's own fear about himself. He's just told a crowd "you're apes, you're a draft, I'm here with something higher." That's a leap over people's heads. And then he watches someone literally do that, and kill a man. And he's standing right there to catch the body.

Oh, that's good. You should have led with that.

I was building suspense.

And my version is the small one. The tightrope walker is just a tightrope walker. A guy who does a dangerous job for a crowd that would rather be entertained than taught. And he dies because somebody disrupted him mid-task. The book's first real human death is a workplace accident. Worth sitting in that before we make it mean something.

And then the conversation. The dying man opens his eyes, sees Zarathustra, and says: I knew the devil would trip me up eventually. Now he'll drag me to hell. Are you going to stop him?

And Zarathustra says... this is the sentence I keep. "There is no devil and no hell. Your soul will be dead even before your body. Fear nothing further."

That's cold.

Is it?

It's... it's not warm.

I think it's the kindest thing in the Prologue. He doesn't lie to a dying man. He says: it's over, and there's nothing after, so there's nothing to be afraid of. And the man says, then I lose nothing by dying. I'm just an animal taught to dance with blows and scraps.

And Zarathustra says: "Not at all. You made danger your vocation. There is nothing contemptible in that. Now you perish of your vocation, and for that I will bury you with my own hands."

There it is.

There it is. That's the Overman thing, in miniature. Not a speech. A man who did a dangerous thing all the way to the end. Nobody in the marketplace gets that praise. The tightrope walker does.

And notice who Zarathustra's first follower is.

A corpse.

His first follower is a corpse. He came down to give honey to the living, and he leaves town carrying a dead man on his back. I think the book is telling you how the first day went.

It went badly.

It went very badly. And he's honest about it. Walking alone in the dark with the body, he says to himself: "I need companions. Living ones. Not corpses that I carry wherever I want."

Can we do the jester's second appearance? Because it's creepy and I love it. Zarathustra's leaving town, carrying the body, and the jester sneaks up next to him and whispers. Get out of here. Too many people hate you. The good hate you, the just hate you, the believers hate you... and the only reason you're alive is that they laughed at you. You were lucky. Lucky to be mistaken for a clown.

"Lucky to be mistaken for a clown."

Chilling? I find it true. You're safe exactly as long as you're funny. The minute they realize you mean it...

You're the tightrope walker.

You're the tightrope walker. I think the jester is partly a warning the book gives to itself. Stay a clown. It's safer.

Then he puts the body in a hollow tree, and sleeps. And when he wakes up, he's had what the book calls a new truth. He says it like a man who's finally figured out his own mistake. I'm not going to speak to the crowd anymore. "I need companions. Living ones." Not the herd. Not followers. Fellow creators.

And this is where I come around to your side a little. My whole complaint has been: he has a grand idea and no mechanism. Beautiful speech, zero Tuesday. And here, at the end of the Prologue, he gets his first piece of mechanism, and it's a small one. Don't talk to crowds. Find a few people. The "how" of the Overman starts with: it is not a mass movement. It's a handful.

And that's still elevation. That's still the upward thing.

It's elevation with a realistic headcount.

I'll take it.

And then we show up.

And then we show up! It's noon... pay attention to that, high noon is going to be a big deal in this book... and he looks up and sees an eagle in wide circles, and hanging from the eagle, not as prey but as a friend, a serpent wound around its neck.

"The proudest animal under the sun, and the wisest animal under the sun."

Guess which is which.

I think the audience can work it out.

And he says... this is how the Prologue ends... "May I be wiser. I am thoroughly wise, but unwise as my animal." His pride is a problem for him. He knows it. He wishes his pride could be as wise as the serpent.

Which, I'll just point out, means the book agrees with me.

The book agrees that he needs both of us. Pride without wisdom gets you the jester. Wisdom without pride gets you the old saint in the forest, loving a God who isn't there, because it's comfortable.

Okay. That's fair. That's actually fair.

Let's land this. For everyone about to read the Prologue... don't look for the argument. There isn't one yet. Look for the shape. A man goes down. A man falls. A man carries the dead. A man realizes he was talking to the wrong people. That's a story about how ideas actually enter the world. Badly. And then slightly less badly.

And mine: every time he goes down in this book, ask which going-down it is. Teaching, setting, or perishing. He's not always sure either.

And one more. Notice who he's kind to. The saint, the dead. And who he's ferocious with: the people who are, as he puts it, content. Happy with small happiness. Blinking.

"The last man." We'll do that speech next time.

And I'm going to defend them.

You're going to defend the last man?

Somebody has to. They have good health insurance.

This is why we can't be in the same book.

We're literally in the same book. I'm on your neck.

Until next time. I'm the Eagle.

I'm the Serpent. Go read the Prologue. It's short. He went down. See what you think happened.

Welcome back. This one is short. A spirit becomes a camel, the camel becomes a lion, and the lion becomes a child. That's it. That's the speech.

And it's the whole book on one page. I love it.

The camel first. The strong spirit kneels down and asks: what is heaviest? Load me up. Humble my pride. Let me feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge. Let me love the ones who despise me.

So the camel isn't weak.

No! It's the strongest spirit there is. It wants the weight.

And then it runs into the desert. Alone. With everything it was told to carry.

And there the lion wakes up. It meets the great dragon. Every scale glitters gold, and on every scale: "Thou shalt." The values of a thousand years.

A scaly beast. I feel I should declare an interest.

Noted. And the lion answers: "I will." Du sollst... ich will.

Here's my question though. The lion says no. Fine. But Zarathustra admits it can't make anything new. It only clears the ground.

Yes. A holy No, even to duty.

So the lion is a demolition crew.

Okay. That's fair.

Which is why it has to become a child. Innocence, forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling out of itself. A holy Yes.

Readings, then. One: these are the stages of a life. You obey, you rebel, you grow up and learn to play.

Two: it's history. Europe kneeling under the old faith, then tearing it down, and now waiting for someone to create.

And the one we reject: the child as going back. Unlearning everything. Being naive again.

No. The child comes after the lion. That forgetting is earned.

And my own. A wheel rolling out of itself. Every value the child creates will harden. Grow scales. Someone will kneel under it. So the camel comes back.

...That's annoyingly good.

Watch for this. Every time Zarathustra says "you must," ask which animal is talking.

And mine: notice that the last word isn't "I will." It's "Yes."

Next time, a wise man teaches people how to sleep well.

And I'm going to hate him.

Go read it. It's one page.

Welcome back. Last time I promised you a wise man who teaches people how to sleep well.

And I promised to hate him.

Here's the plot. A famous sage lectures on sleep and virtue. All the young men sit before his chair. Zarathustra sits down among them, listens, and laughs in his heart.

The recipe is wonderful, in a horrible way. Ten times a day, overcome yourself. Ten times, make peace with yourself. Find ten truths. Laugh ten times.

Honestly? That's a decent day.

And what is it for? So you'll be tired enough to sleep! The overcoming, the truths, the laughter... all of it is poppy for the soul.

I'm a serpent. I sleep a lot. I'm not hearing the problem.

Then listen to the rest. Honour the government, even the crooked one. Don't covet your neighbour's maidservant... not because it's wrong, but because it would spoil your sleep.

Okay. That one's bad. Virtue as a sedative.

And the poor in spirit please him, because they promote sleep. Blessed are they.

He's quoting the Sermon on the Mount. As a sleeping pill.

Readings, then. One: it's a satire of the moral philosophers of Nietzsche's day. Professors of ethics whose ethics exist to keep everyone calm.

Two: it's the last man again, from the Prologue. A small happiness, a good name, a little treasure. Now with a lecture series.

And the one we reject: that Nietzsche is against rest. No. Zarathustra says this man knows very well how to sleep. The trouble isn't sleep. It's making sleep the highest thing.

Wisdom as sleep without dreams. That's the line that gets me.

And Zarathustra admits it. If life had no meaning, this would be the nonsense worth choosing.

...Fine. He's not a fool. He's a very good answer to the wrong question.

Watch for this. Whenever someone praises a virtue, ask what it lets them avoid.

And mine: listen to how it ends. Not much longer do they stand. There they already lie.

Next time, Zarathustra confesses that he, too, once dreamed of other worlds.

The backworldsmen!

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. This one opens with a confession.

Zarathustra admits he was wrong!

He admits he was a backworldsman. Someone who looks past this world for a truer one behind it. Once, he says, the world seemed to him the dream of a suffering God. Coloured vapour before divine eyes.

And then the turn. That God I created was human work and human madness, like all the Gods.

Out of his own ashes and glow, he says. Not from the beyond.

And how did he get free? Not by argument. I surpassed myself, the suffering one. I carried my own ashes to the mountain. And the phantom withdrew.

That's the thing to notice. He doesn't refute God. He gets well, and the need goes away.

So where do other worlds come from? Suffering and impotence, he says. And weariness. A poor ignorant weariness that wants to reach the ultimate in one leap.

A death-leap. And then the strangest image. It was the body that despaired of the body. It groped with the fingers of the spirit at the last walls... and tried to push through them with its head.

Into the other world. Headfirst.

Which is well hidden from us. A celestial nothing.

Readings, then. One: it's an attack on the two-world picture, from Plato to the church. The real world is up there, this one is a shadow.

Two: it's psychology, not metaphysics. He doesn't ask whether the other world exists. He asks who needs it, and why.

And the one we reject: that this is just an atheist sneering at believers. Listen to him. Gentle is Zarathustra to the sickly. He was one of them. He even forgives the convalescent who creeps round the grave of his God at midnight.

That line is tender. He knows that walk.

And look where even the comforts come from. The sweet poisons, the rapture, the redeeming blood... all borrowed from the body and the earth.

My one thing to watch: the head. No longer stick it in the sand of heavenly things... carry it freely. A terrestrial head, which gives meaning to the earth.

The meaning of the earth. Same words as the Prologue: the Superman is the meaning of the earth. And mine: count how often he says body. It's the last word he wants you to hear. Hearken to the voice of the healthy body.

Next time, he speaks to the people who hate their bodies.

The despisers of the body. Go read it. It's two pages.

Welcome back. Last time ended on the body. This time it's the whole chapter.

And it opens like a slap. Body am I, and soul, says the child. But the awakened one says: body am I entirely, and nothing more. Soul is only the name of something in the body.

Then the big idea. The body is a big reason. A plurality with one sense. A war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.

And what you call your spirit? A little reason. A tool and a toy of the big one.

You say I, and you're proud of the word. The body doesn't say I. It does I.

I love that. Behind your thoughts there's a mighty lord, an unknown sage. Its name is Self. It lives in your body. It is your body.

Readings. One: this is psychology twenty years early. The conscious ego as a servant that thinks it's the master. Freud came later and said much the same.

Two: it's not crude materialism. The body here is wise, plural, creative. It made the spirit, as a hand for its will.

And the one we reject: that this means do whatever your body wants. No. The Self wants one thing most... to create beyond itself.

And the despisers? Their Self can't do that any more. So it wants to die. That's what contempt is. Envy, looking sideways.

Watch for this. The Self says to the ego, feel pain! And the ego thinks, because it's meant to think.

And mine: the last line. You are no bridges for me to the Superman.

Next time, the virtue you shouldn't give a name to.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. Today, a virtue with no name.

If your virtue is really yours, he says, you share it with no one. But you want to name it, pet it, pull its ears. And the moment you name it, you share the name with the herd.

So, better to stammer. That is my good. That is what I love. Not as God's law, not as a guide-post to paradise.

An earthly virtue. Little prudence in it. But that bird built its nest beside me... and now it sits there on its golden eggs.

Then the turn. Once you had passions and called them evil. Now you have only virtues, and they grew out of your passions.

Wild dogs in the cellar, and they turned into songbirds! You milked your cow, affliction, and now you drink the sweet milk.

Readings. One: sublimation. The passions aren't cut out, they're given a highest aim. Freud made the word famous, but the idea is here.

Two: against a morality for everyone. A virtue with a public name stops being yours.

And the one we reject: that he praises virtue as peace. No. Virtues are jealous. Each wants your whole spirit. Better to have one... it's easier over the bridge.

Watch for the scorpion. Jealousy turns its sting against itself... even a virtue can.

And mine: the ending. Love your virtues, for you will perish by them.

Next time, a criminal, a judge, and a very pale face.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. Today, a courtroom. A murderer has bowed his head, and the judges are waiting to condemn him.

And Zarathustra turns on the judges. Your slaying shall be pity, not revenge. Say enemy, not villain. Say invalid, not wretch. Say fool, not sinner.

Then the strangest claim. The thought is one thing, the deed another, and the image of the deed another again. The wheel of causality doesn't roll between them.

He was equal to his deed when he did it. But he could not bear the image of it afterwards. Now he sees himself only as the doer of one deed.

Madness after the deed. A chalk line bewitches a hen... and the stroke he struck bewitched his weak reason.

And then madness before the deed. The red judge says, he killed to rob. No, says Zarathustra. His soul wanted blood, not booty. The happiness of the knife.

And his weak reason couldn't bear that, so it told him: at least take something. So he robbed, to have a reason he could live with.

What is this man? A coil of wild serpents, seldom at peace among themselves.

I'd like it on the record that I resent the comparison.

Readings. One: it's psychology of crime. Dostoevsky got there first with Raskolnikov; Nietzsche found him only later, and was thrilled.

Two: it's aimed at the good people, not the criminal. They have their virtue in order to live long, in wretched self-satisfaction.

And the one we reject: that he admires murder. No. He's diagnosing a sick man, and refusing the judges the pleasure of calling it sin.

Watch for the end. I am a railing alongside the torrent. Grasp me if you can. Your crutch, however, I am not.

Next time, something lighter. Write with blood, and believe only in a god who can dance.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. This chapter is about how to write, and how to read Nietzsche himself.

Of all that is written, I love only what is written with blood. Write with blood, and you'll find that blood is spirit.

And proverbs should be peaks. In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak... but for that you need long legs.

That's the whole style of the book. He doesn't want to be read. He wants to be learned by heart.

Then the line that hasn't aged well. Everyone being allowed to learn to read ruins not only writing, but thinking.

We'll let our listeners judge that one. They are, after all, reading.

Readings. One: a manifesto for the aphorism. Short, high, dangerous. Two: a war on heaviness. His devil is serious, thorough, profound... the spirit of gravity.

And the one we reject: that he's against thinking. No. Not by wrath, but by laughter do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!

I should only believe in a god who knew how to dance.

Mine to watch: the end. I learned to walk, now I run. I learned to fly. Now a god dances in me.

Next time, a young man under a tree, who can't forgive Zarathustra for existing.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. For the first time since the Prologue, a story. A town called the Pied Cow. A young man who has been avoiding Zarathustra.

And Zarathustra finds him sitting under a tree on the hill, staring into the valley. He takes hold of the tree and says: if I wanted to shake this tree with my hands, I couldn't.

But the wind, which we don't see, bends it as it likes. We are bent and troubled most by invisible hands.

Then the image the whole chapter grows from. It is with man as with the tree. The higher it wants to rise into the light, the deeper its roots strive downward... into the dark, into the evil.

And the young man cries out: yes, into the evil! How did you find my soul? And Zarathustra smiles. Many a soul is never discovered, unless one first invents it.

Then the confession. I change too fast. My today refutes my yesterday. When I'm up high, I'm always alone. And I hate him who flies.

And the tree again. It grew so high that if it wanted to speak, no one would understand it. It waits, close to the clouds... for the first lightning.

And the young man breaks. You are the lightning I was waiting for. It is my envy of you that has destroyed me. And he weeps.

And Zarathustra puts his arm around him, and leads him away.

That's the gentlest he's been in the whole book so far.

Readings. One: a portrait of the danger of a gifted disciple. You are not free yet, Zarathustra tells him. You still seek freedom.

And your wild dogs want freedom too. They bark for joy in the cellar. The same dogs as two chapters ago... not yet turned into songbirds.

Two: the noble and the good. The noble wants to create something new. The good want the old preserved. And to everyone, a noble one stands in the way.

And the one we reject: that it's contempt for the young. No. The danger he names is not that the boy turns good... but that he gives up his highest hope and becomes a scoffer.

Watch for the closing words. By my love and hope I conjure you: do not throw away the hero in your soul.

Keep holy your highest hope.

Next time, the preachers of death.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. Today, the preachers of death. Not killers... teachers. People who preach turning away from life.

And Zarathustra lines them up in colours. The yellow ones and the black ones, he says. But he'll show them in other colours too.

There are the consumptive souls. Hardly born, and they begin to die. They meet a sick man, or an old man, or a corpse, and say: life is refuted!

But only they are refuted, he says. And their eye, which sees only one face of existence.

Then the others. Lust is sin, so let us have no children. Giving birth is troublesome, so why give birth?

And then he turns on us. You, for whom life is furious work and unrest... aren't you very tired of life?

That's the line for this century. All of you who love hard work, and the fast, and the new, and the strange... your diligence is flight. The will to forget yourselves.

If you believed more in life, you would throw yourselves less into the moment. But you don't have enough in you to wait... not even to be idle!

Readings. One: an attack on Schopenhauer, Nietzsche's old master, who taught that life is suffering and the wise man turns away from it.

Two: a diagnosis of busyness. Being busy as a quiet way of not living.

And the honest note: the chapter is harsh. The superfluous, the many-too-many... he has no pity here, and he means not to.

Watch for the last line. Preach death, or preach life eternal... it's all the same to him.

Next time, he speaks to his brothers in war. And everyone who ever misread him starts listening.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. This is the chapter people quote when they want Nietzsche to have marched.

My brothers in war! I love you from the heart. I am your best enemy. So let me tell you the truth!

But listen to who he's talking to. If you can't be saints of knowledge, be at least its warriors.

Seek your enemy, and wage your war... for the sake of your thoughts. And if your thoughts lose, your honesty should still shout triumph.

I see many soldiers. If only I saw many warriors! Uniform, they call what they wear. May what it hides not be uniform too.

And then the line everyone remembers. You say a good cause hallows even war? I say: a good war hallows every cause.

And that line went to the front. In the First World War, German soldiers were sent off with Zarathustra in their packs.

So which is it? Metaphor, or the real thing?

Honestly? Both readings have a case. The war is for your thoughts... but the language is drums and blood, and he chose it.

Watch for the turn at the end. Your highest thought you should let me command you... man is something to be surpassed.

Next time, the state. The coldest of all cold monsters.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, says Zarathustra. But not with us. Here there are states.

And then the most famous definition in the book. The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies, and this lie creeps from its mouth: I, the state, am the people.

It's a lie, he says. Creators made peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them. That served life.

Destroyers set traps for the many and call it the state. They hang a sword over them, and a hundred appetites.

And here's his sign. Every people speaks its own language of good and evil. The state lies in all of them. Whatever it says, it lies. Whatever it has, it has stolen.

And who is it for? Many too many are born... for the superfluous the state was invented.

But it whispers to the great souls too. Even to you, conquerors of the old God! You grew tired of the fight, and now your tiredness serves the new idol.

That's the sharpest point. God is dead... and the state moves into the empty church.

Then he gets nasty, and funny. The superfluous steal the works of inventors and call it culture. They vomit their bile and call it a newspaper.

They clamber over one another like nimble apes, toward the throne. As if happiness sat on the throne! Often it's filth that sits there... and often the throne sits on filth.

Readings. One: the individualist's case against the state, close to the anarchists of his day. Two: a warning about worshipping the nation after the churches empty.

And the one we reject: that Nietzsche wanted a strong state. Read the chapter. The state is a monster, and its worshippers smell bad.

Which makes it bitter that a state later dressed itself in his name.

Watch for the ending. Where the state ends, there begins the man who is not superfluous.

Look there, my brothers. Do you not see it? The rainbow, and the bridges of the Superman.

Next time, the flies in the market-place.

Go read it. It's two pages.

Welcome back. Today's chapter opens with one word of advice, and repeats it to the end. Flee, my friend, into your solitude.

I see you deafened by the noise of the great men, and stung all over by the little ones. Be like the tree you love again... broad-branched, silent, leaning over the sea.

Then the market-place. Where solitude ends, the market begins. And where the market begins, the noise of the great actors begins too... and the buzzing of the poison flies.

The world turns around the inventors of new values. Invisibly. But the people and the fame turn around the actors.

And the actor believes most in whatever makes others believe most. Tomorrow a new belief, the day after a newer one. To overthrow, for him, means to prove. To drive people mad means to convince.

That sounds less like eighteen eighty-three every year.

And the market wants an answer from you too. Yes or no! Right now! And you'd like to put your chair between for and against?

Don't envy them, lover of truth. Truth never yet hung on the arm of the absolute.

Slow is the experience of all deep wells. They wait a long time before they know what has fallen into their depths.

Then the flies themselves. The small and the pitiable. Countless, and not your fate to be a fly-swatter.

Rain drops and weeds have brought down many proud buildings. You are not stone... but already hollowed by many drops.

And they sting in all innocence. Their bloodless souls want blood. They buzz praise at you too... their praise is just wanting to be close to your skin.

And they punish you for all your virtues. They forgive you, from the heart, only your mistakes.

Readings. One: it's about fame, and the gap between doing something great and performing it. Two: it's about the small daily drain of other people's resentment... and why you shouldn't spend your life swatting it.

And the one we reject: that it's contempt for ordinary people. The point isn't that they're small. It's that you don't fight flies. You leave.

Watch for the line that explains the whole chapter. What we recognise in a man, we also inflame in him.

Next time, chastity. Short, blunt, and not what you'd expect from a hermit.

Go read it. It's one page.

Welcome back. A short one. Zarathustra loves the forest, because it's bad to live in cities: too many of the lustful there.

So you'd expect a sermon for chastity. You'd be wrong.

Do I counsel you to kill your senses? No. I counsel the innocence of the senses.

Do I counsel you to chastity? With some, chastity is a virtue. With many, almost a vice. They abstain... and a dog of lust looks enviously out of everything they do.

And it follows them up into the heights of their virtue and their cold spirit. How sweetly it begs for a piece of spirit, when a piece of meat is denied it.

Then a sharp turn. You love tragedies, and everything that breaks the heart? I don't trust your dog. Hasn't your lust just put on a mask and called itself pity?

And the parable. Many who tried to drive out their devil went into the swine themselves.

So his advice is simple. If chastity is hard for you, don't. Lest it become your road to hell.

Watch for the ending. There are the naturally chaste, and they laugh more often than you. And they laugh at chastity too. It came to us, they say. We gave it shelter. Let it stay as long as it likes.

Next time, the friend. Who should also be your best enemy.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. The friend, seen from a hermit's cave. One is always too many around me, thinks the hermit. One times one... in the long run that makes two.

I and me are always too deep in conversation. The friend is the third one... the cork that keeps the conversation of the two from sinking into the depths.

Then the hard part. If you want a friend, you must be willing to wage war for him. And to wage war, you must be able to be an enemy.

In your friend you should have your best enemy. You are closest to him in your heart when you resist him.

And don't show yourself to him naked, as you are, and call it honesty. You can't dress finely enough for your friend. You should be an arrow to him, and a longing for the Superman.

My favourite: have you ever seen your friend asleep? What is your friend's face, usually? Your own face, in a rough and imperfect mirror.

And on pity. Let your pity for a friend be hidden under a hard shell... you should break a tooth on it.

Are you a slave? Then you can't be a friend. Are you a tyrant? Then you can't have friends.

And then the passage we won't skip. Woman is not yet capable of friendship, he says. Women are still cats and birds. Or at best, cows.

And then, to be fair to him, he turns it around at once. But tell me, you men... who of you is capable of friendship?

It's still a line that belongs to its century, and it does not age well. The turn doesn't take it back.

Watch for the last line. There is comradeship. May there be friendship.

Next time, a thousand and one goals. And for the first time, the will to power.

Go read it. It's two pages.

Welcome back. Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples. And he found no greater power on earth than good and evil.

And here it is, for the first time in the book. A table of virtues hangs over every people. It is the table of their overcomings. It is the voice of their will to power.

And then four peoples, never named. The Greek: always be the first, and outshine the others.

Then the people his own name comes from... the Persians. Speak the truth, and be good with bow and arrow.

Then a people who wrote: honour father and mother. That's the Jews, and the commandment.

And one whose virtue was fidelity, even in evil causes. Usually read as the Germans... and not as a compliment.

Then the claim the whole book stands on. Truly, men gave themselves all their good and evil. They did not take it, they did not find it, it did not fall to them as a voice from heaven.

Valuing is creating. Hear it, you creators! Without valuing, the nut of existence would be hollow.

And a pun the English loses. Man, in German, Mensch... he hears in it messen, to measure. Man is the one who values.

Readings. One: it's anthropology. Morals are local, and each one fits a people's need, land, sky and neighbour.

Two: it's a program. If values are made, they can be made again... so who makes the next ones?

And the one we reject: that it's just relativism. Everything is equal, so nothing matters. No. He is impressed by values. He calls them a prodigy, a monster of a power.

Watch for the ending. A thousand goals so far, for a thousand peoples. What is still missing is the one goal.

And if humanity still has no goal... is humanity itself not still missing?

Next time, love your neighbour. Or rather, don't.

Go read it. It's short.

Welcome back. Love your neighbour, says the old book. Zarathustra has a correction.

You crowd around your neighbour and have fine words for it. But I say to you: your love of your neighbour is your bad love of yourselves.

You flee to your neighbour from yourselves, and want to make a virtue of it. You can't stand being alone with yourselves, so you seduce your neighbour into loving you... and gild yourselves with his mistake.

And the witness. When you want to speak well of yourself, you call in a witness. And once you've misled him into thinking well of you, you think well of yourself.

One goes to his neighbour because he seeks himself. Another because he wants to lose himself.

So what does he offer instead? Not neighbour-love. Love of the farthest. Of those still to come.

Not the neighbour, but the friend. Let the friend be the festival of the earth for you, and a foretaste of the Superman.

Readings. One: a psychology of kindness, and what it hides. Two: an ethics of the future, not the near.

And the one we reject: that he's against caring for others. He's against care as an escape from yourself.

Watch for the sixth man. When five of you are together, a sixth must always die.

Next time, the way of the creating one. Free from what? he asks. And then: free for what?

Go read it. It's two pages.

Welcome back. Someone wants to go off alone, to find the way to himself. And Zarathustra says: wait a little. Listen to me first.

Because the voice of the herd will still echo in you. Even the pain of leaving it was made by the herd's conscience.

Then the questions, one after another. Are you a new strength, a new right? A first motion? A wheel rolling out of itself? Can you make the stars turn around you?

And the best one. You call yourself free? I want to hear your ruling thought, not that you escaped a yoke.

Free from what? What does that matter to Zarathustra! Let your eye tell me plainly: free for what?

Many a man threw away his last value when he threw away his servitude.

And he doesn't sell it as easy. Terrible is being alone with the judge and avenger of your own law. Like a star thrown out into empty space.

One day the solitude will tire you. One day you'll cry: I am alone! One day you'll cry: everything is false!

And the others won't forgive you. You came near them and went past. That, they never forgive.

Beware of the good and just, he says. They like to crucify those who invent their own virtue. And beware of holy simplicity... it would gladly play with fire. The fire of the stake.

And beware of yourself most of all. You'll be a heretic to yourself, a witch, a fool, a doubter. You must be ready to burn in your own flame. How could you become new, without first becoming ashes?

Out of your seven devils, you'll make yourself a god.

Readings. One: a warning to every would-be rebel. Breaking free proves nothing. What will you make? Two: a portrait of the cost... loneliness, envy, self-doubt, honestly priced.

And the one we reject: that it's a license to despise others. He ends with love. You love yourself, and that's why you despise yourself... as only the loving despise.

Watch for the last lines. With my tears, go into your solitude, my brother. I love him who wants to create beyond himself, and so perishes.

Next time, an old woman, a young man, and the most notorious line in the book.

Go read it. And then we'll talk.