Second Part · XLII. Redemption

The creating will and the will to will backwards

Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: “The Will is a creator.”

All “It was” is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance—until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus would I have it.”—

Until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus do I will it! Thus shall I will it!”

But did it ever speak thus? And when doth this take place? Hath the Will been unharnessed from its own folly?

Hath the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Hath it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?

And who hath taught it reconciliation with time, and something higher than all reconciliation?

Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is the Will to Power—: but how doth that take place? Who hath taught it also to will backwards?

Zarathustra contrasts the fabulous song of madness with his teaching that the will is a creator. He asks whether the will has ever unlearned revenge and been taught to will backwards.

Creation and the creatorThe creating will answers every 'It was' with 'Thus would I have it; thus shall I will it'.
Will to powerThe will to power must will something higher than reconciliation with time.
Redemption of the pastHe asks who has taught the will to will backwards.

Commentary on this chapter

Nietzsche elsewhere

Yea-saying to the point of redeeming the pastFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that only Dionysus suffers as in the Night-Song, whose answer would be Ariadne, and that Zarathustra's life-task, which is also his own, is a yea-saying that justifies and redeems all that is past, quoting the passage on recasting fragments and turning every 'it was' into 'thus would I have it'.

What the critics said

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

Redemption as 'Thus would I have it'Anthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici explains that the great men in 'Redemption' are inverse cripples with one faculty overdeveloped, and that Nietzsche's redemption is the ability to say of all that is past 'Thus would I have it'; the inability to say it is the source of revenge and of punishment, its euphemism, while the man grateful even for his enemies and calamities knows neither revenge nor despair.