When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: “Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that GOD IS DEAD!”
Alone again, Zarathustra says to his heart that the saint has not heard of God's death.
- The death of GodThe first utterance of the book's announcement that God is dead.
Commentary on this chapter
What the critics said
Zarathustra answers the critics: the supermanH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908exposition
Mencken says that critics mocked Nietzsche as an iconoclast who destroyed without rebuilding, and that Zarathustra (from April 1883) was his answer: the superman, to whom man is a bridge from the ape, the meaning of the earth to which men must stay faithful instead of seeking rewards beyond the stars.
Evolution points beyond man to SupermanAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation
Ludovici says that Nietzsche accepted the theory of evolution but denied that man is its final product: since man's spiritual development has no evident limit, his ideal should be to surpass himself and reach the Superman, as the Prologue teaches.
Herdsmen and the good and just decodedAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation
Ludovici explains that Zarathustra's nicknames stand for whole classes: the 'herdsmen' of the Prologue are today's advocates of gregariousness, who call Zarathustra a robber because he would rear a higher aristocracy, and 'the good and just' are the self-righteous moderns sure that their inherited values must rule forever.
Nietzsche elsewhere
Nietzsche says, in the version that closes the fourth book of the Joyful Wisdom, that Zarathustra after ten years of solitude addresses the sun, declares himself weary of his wisdom like a bee with too much honey, and resolves to go down to men to bestow it: 'Thus began Zarathustra's down-going.'