Third Part · LVI. Old and New Tables

Surpass yourself; noble souls give in return

Behold, here is a new table; but where are my brethren who will carry it with me to the valley and into hearts of flesh?—

Thus demandeth my great love to the remotest ones: BE NOT CONSIDERATE OF THY NEIGHBOUR! Man is something that must be surpassed.

There are many divers ways and modes of surpassing: see THOU thereto! But only a buffoon thinketh: “man can also be OVERLEAPT.”

Surpass thyself even in thy neighbour: and a right which thou canst seize upon, shalt thou not allow to be given thee!

What thou doest can no one do to thee again. Lo, there is no requital.

He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one CAN command himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience!

Thus wisheth the type of noble souls: they desire to have nothing GRATUITOUSLY, least of all, life.

He who is of the populace wisheth to live gratuitously; we others, however, to whom life hath given itself—we are ever considering WHAT we can best give IN RETURN!

And verily, it is a noble dictum which saith: “What life promiseth US, that promise will WE keep—to life!”

One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not contribute to the enjoyment. And one should not WISH to enjoy!

For enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things. Neither like to be sought for. One should HAVE them,—but one should rather SEEK for guilt and pain!—

A new table calls on his brethren to surpass themselves, even in their neighbour. The noble keep their promises to life and seek guilt and pain more than enjoyment.

Self-overcomingMan is to be surpassed in many ways, but only a buffoon thinks he can be overleapt.
Friendship, neighbour-love and love of the farthestLove for the remotest ones demands that one not be considerate of the neighbour.
The bestowing virtueNoble souls want nothing gratuitously and ask what they can give back to life.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Georg Brandes, Aristocratic Radicalism (1889)

Maxims from the new tablesGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Brandes paraphrases maxims of Zarathustra's new tables: spare not thy neighbour, there is no requital, beware of the good who never speak the truth, a new nobility that loves its children's land and so redeems the past, trial marriages, push what is falling, reserve oneself for worthier foes, and the creators are hard.

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

Portrait of the supermanH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues that the superman will be perfect in body and mind, delight in combat, say yes to life's pleasures and ills, be scornful, merciless and free of fear of gods and laws, owe nothing to his neighbours and sacrifice himself only for generations unborn; he will distinguish instinct from passion and renounce from expediency, as Zarathustra's sayings to the brethren and to the higher men are taken to show.

Commentary on this chapter

Nietzsche elsewhere

Composing Parts II and IIIFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that 'The Night-Song' was composed in Rome above the Piazza Barberini, the second part in ten days at Sils, the third at Nice, with 'Old and New Tables' composed on the climb from the station to Eza, each part taking no more than ten days; his creative energy coincided with great bodily vigour, dancing, walking and laughter.

The work stands alone; the highest soulFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that Zarathustra stands alone, born of superabundant strength, his concept 'Dionysian' become the highest deed; in it man is constantly overcome, the Superman becomes the greatest reality, all contradictions are bound into a new unity in this most yea-saying spirit, and Zarathustra defines the highest of all living things as the soul with the longest ladder.

The hammer and the image in the stoneFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that for Zarathustra man is neither an object of love nor of pity but raw material, an ugly stone for the sculptor's chisel, quoting the passage where the creative will drives the hammer against the stone to free the Superman's image; a Dionysian task needs the hardness of the hammer and the joy even of destruction, 'all creators are hard'.

All creators are hardFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that the command 'Harden yourselves!' and the conviction that all creators are hard are the distinctive sign of a Dionysian nature.

The good as the most harmful menFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that as immoralist he denies both the 'good' man and Christian morality; the good exist through falsehood, refusing to see reality and treating distress as an objection, and Zarathustra therefore calls them the last men and the beginning of the end, who crucify the writer of new values and are the most detrimental of men.

The good as the most harmful menFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

What the critics said

Georg Brandes, Aristocratic Radicalism (1889)

The lies of pity and the mountain airGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Brandes says that Zarathustra's greatest danger among men lay in forbearance and pity, which taught him to lie among the good, and that he returns to the free mountain air to sit among broken and half-written tables awaiting the hour when the lion comes with the doves.

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra (1905) — Partisan source: the author shaped Nietzsche's posthumous reputation and is not a reliable interpreter.

Parts Three and Four; the private printingElisabeth Förster-Nietzsche · Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1905biography

Förster-Nietzsche records that Part Three was written in Nice in winter 1883–84, 'Old and New Tables' composed on the climb to Eza amid bodily vigour and dancing, and that Part Four, written 1884–85 with interruptions, was meant 'only for my friends', printed in forty copies of which he gave away only seven, while he still planned a fifth and sixth part.

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

Bodily efficiency and the earthly goalH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues that Nietzsche made the improvement of the body the first step of progress, that the superman's freed will to live will be refined by natural selection into an accurate instinct, summed up in Zarathustra's 'Be hard!', and that unlike Schopenhauer, Comte and the humanitarians Nietzsche held man to be of the earth, rising only after casting off transcendental morality.

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.

Values as foot-bridges over the streamAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition

Ludovici restates Nietzsche's teaching that nothing is stable, not even good and evil: values stand like foot-bridges over the stream of life, seemingly firm in winter, until the thaw-wind sweeps them away, a state Nietzsche thinks has now been reached.

Life is essentially will to powerAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition

Ludovici presents paragraph 10 of 'Old and New Tables' as a protest against reading a moral order into life, citing Nietzsche that life is essentially immoral and is will to power, appropriation and conquest, while Spencer's adaptation is only a secondary re-activity.

Rearing a select raceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909judgement

Ludovici holds that paragraphs 11–12 of 'Old and New Tables' express Nietzsche's principle of rearing a select race, and endorses it by appeal to Gobineau on the evils of promiscuous marriages and Darwin on the degeneration of cultivated types through promiscuous breeding.