Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!—
The tarantula bites Zarathustra on the finger, thinking he should not sing of enmity for nothing. He asks his friends to bind him to the pillar, preferring to be a pillar-saint rather than a whirl of vengeance.
- Revenge and ressentimentThe tarantula bites Zarathustra in revenge for his praise of enmity, threatening to make him dizzy with vengeance too.
- Laughter, dance and lightnessHe distinguishes his own dancing from the tarantula-dance of vengeance.
What the critics said
Ludovici says that as a sociologist Nietzsche aimed at an aristocratic order of society and the rearing of an ideal race, holding that men are not equal and that every elevation of the type man has been the work of an aristocratic society with a long scale of ranks.
Ludovici identifies the tarantulas with Socialists and Democrats whose criticism of society from below is suppressed envy, and says Nietzsche refuses to be confused with them, including the 'Nietzschean Socialists' who preach his doctrine together with equality.