Thus spake the shadow, and Zarathustra’s countenance lengthened at his words. “Thou art my shadow!” said he at last sadly.
“Thy danger is not small, thou free spirit and wanderer! Thou hast had a bad day: see that a still worse evening doth not overtake thee!
To such unsettled ones as thou, seemeth at last even a prisoner blessed. Didst thou ever see how captured criminals sleep? They sleep quietly, they enjoy their new security.
Beware lest in the end a narrow faith capture thee, a hard, rigorous delusion! For now everything that is narrow and fixed seduceth and tempteth thee.
Thou hast lost thy goal. Alas, how wilt thou forego and forget that loss? Thereby—hast thou also lost thy way!
Thou poor rover and rambler, thou tired butterfly! wilt thou have a rest and a home this evening? Then go up to my cave!
Thither leadeth the way to my cave. And now will I run quickly away from thee again. Already lieth as it were a shadow upon me.
I will run alone, so that it may again become bright around me. Therefore must I still be a long time merrily upon my legs. In the evening, however, there will be—dancing with me!”—
Thus spake Zarathustra.
What the critics said
Ludovici reads the shadow as the bold, wayward free spirit who follows every daring movement of his age until he loses all goal and home, cries 'Nothing is true; all is permitted', and becomes wreckage, prone to being captured by a narrow faith.