“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.
Read in the book →“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.
Read in the book →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.
Read in the book →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.
Read in the book →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.
Read in the book →The God who beheld everything, AND ALSO MAN: that God had to die! Man cannot ENDURE it that such a witness should live.”
The ugliest man's summary of why God was killed.
Read in the book →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.
Read in the book →“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.
Read in the book →I love the great despisers. Man is something that hath to be surpassed.”—
Zarathustra's concluding thought.
Read in the book →This is an experiment in interactive reading, and in using AI to help you grow. Thus Spake Zarathustra is notoriously difficult for a modern reader; yet taken as a set of mental exercises, it is guaranteed to transform your thinking by the time you reach the end. Along the way you will have help from the companion, who is always beside the book.
Do you accept the challenge?
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that in meeting the ugliest man Zarathustra shows the only right response to great misery, shame and reverence, against obtrusive pity, which is self-glorification; Nietzsche blushes for his race and wills a world where one need not blush for one's fellows.
Ludovici reads the ugliest man as the murderer of God by an atheism of the great ugly man who reveres beauty: an omniscient God's pity, lacking shame and reverence, could not be evaded and so must not exist; Zarathustra honours his self-contempt as the mark of a great despiser.
Ludovici reads the ugliest man as the murderer of God by an atheism of the great ugly man who reveres beauty: an omniscient God's pity, lacking shame and reverence, could not be evaded and so must not exist; Zarathustra honours his self-contempt as the mark of a great despiser.