6 passages
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What the critics said
Ludovici argues that Zarathustra, though Nietzsche's opus magnum, should not be read first: many chapters are nearly meaningless without knowledge of Nietzsche's life and friendships, and its philosophical views are best clarified by his other works, which he himself regarded as preparation for it.
Ludovici reads 'The Child with the Mirror' as Nietzsche's grief at the misinterpretation of his writings, and says it hints that a creator of new values is most obstructed by language itself, whose words are stamped with the race's long-ruling values, hence the obscurity of original thinkers.