Second Part · XXIV. In the Happy Isles

The hammer and the image in the stone

Away from God and Gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were—Gods!

But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone.

Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth an image for me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber in the hardest, ugliest stone!

Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone fly the fragments: what’s that to me?

I will complete it: for a shadow came unto me—the stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me!

The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Ah, my brethren! Of what account now are—the Gods to me!—

His will leads him away from gods and to man, where an image slumbers in the hardest stone. He hammers at it without regard for the fragments, since the Superman's beauty has come to him as a shadow.

The Superman (Übermensch)The beauty of the Superman comes to him as a shadow and makes the gods irrelevant.
Creation and the creatorThe creative will drives him to man as a hammer to stone, to free the image sleeping in it.

Commentary on this passage

Nietzsche elsewhere

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'.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

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

Zarathustra is not the place to beginAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that Zarathustra, though Nietzsche's opus magnum, should not be read first: many chapters are nearly meaningless without knowledge of Nietzsche's life and friendships, and its philosophical views are best clarified by his other works, which he himself regarded as preparation for it.

Creating as salvation from godless pessimismAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici says that in 'In the Happy Isles' Nietzsche overcomes the pessimism that godlessness brings by pointing to creating as salvation from suffering, the Superman supplying the cheerfulness to face a world without God.