Third Part · XLIX. The Bedwarfing Virtue

His own forerunner: the hour of lightning

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! Hourly do they become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller,—poor herbs! poor earth!

And SOON shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie, and verily, weary of themselves—and panting for FIRE, more than for water!

O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide!—Running fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues:—

—Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: It cometh, it is nigh, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

Thus spake Zarathustra.

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.

The great noontideHe foresees making the small people into heralds who cry that the great noontide is nigh.
Teacher and disciplesNo one has his ears yet, so he is his own forerunner and cockcrow.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Great noontide as humanity's coming of ageAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici explains that by 'the great noontide' Nietzsche meant the present period as the noon of man's history: the childhood of mankind is over, we now know, and there is no longer any excuse for mistakes that botch the type man.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Georg Brandes, Aristocratic Radicalism (1889)

Petty virtue, apostates and the great cityGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Brandes summarises Zarathustra's disgust with the petty virtues that make men smaller, his being called godless, the apostasy of his former companions, and his loathing of the great city and of the State.

Petty virtue, apostates and the great cityGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Freedom not an end in itselfAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that in 'Old and New Tables' freedom receives its death-blow as a general desideratum: Nietzsche held freedom dangerous in unworthy hands, asking 'free for what?' and requiring that one first be such as can will.