—“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; how couldst thou, a shrewd man, do such a stupid thing!”
“O Zarathustra,” answered the shrewd magician, “thou art right, it was a stupid thing,—it was also repugnant to me.”
—“And thou even,” said Zarathustra to the spiritually conscientious one, “consider, and put thy finger to thy nose! Doth nothing go against thy conscience here? Is thy spirit not too cleanly for this praying and the fumes of those devotees?”
“There is something therein,” said the spiritually conscientious one, and put his finger to his nose, “there is something in this spectacle which even doeth good to my conscience.
Perhaps I dare not believe in God: certain it is however, that God seemeth to me most worthy of belief in this form.
God is said to be eternal, according to the testimony of the most pious: he who hath so much time taketh his time. As slow and as stupid as possible: THEREBY can such a one nevertheless go very far.
And he who hath too much spirit might well become infatuated with stupidity and folly. Think of thyself, O Zarathustra!
Thou thyself—verily! even thou couldst well become an ass through superabundance of wisdom.
Doth not the true sage willingly walk on the crookedest paths? The evidence teacheth it, O Zarathustra,—THINE OWN evidence!”
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.