6 passages
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.
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—“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.
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—“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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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What the critics said
Mencken describes Zarathustra as a remote sage attended by a snake and an eagle whose discourses recall the biblical rhapsodists, and argues that toward the end Nietzsche indulges in blasphemy, with a parody of the last supper, the disciples' worship of a jackass, and Wagner and other enemies appearing thinly veiled as buffoons.
Ludovici reads the higher men's worship of the ass as a warning that thinkers who regain confidence in believing as such fall victim to the narrowest superstitions, alluding to pagan charges that Christians were ass-worshippers and to medieval asinaria festa.
Ludovici explains that Zarathustra, after rebuking the higher men, sees the ass-festival as foolish but necessary, a recreation for wise men devised by convalescents, and bids them celebrate it again out of love for themselves and him.