Fourth and Last Part · LXXVIII. The Ass-Festival

A new festival for the convalescents

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And once more began Zarathustra to speak. “O my new friends,” said he,— “ye strange ones, ye higher men, how well do ye now please me,—

—Since ye have again become joyful! Ye have, verily, all blossomed forth: it seemeth to me that for such flowers as you, NEW FESTIVALS are required.

—A little valiant nonsense, some divine service and ass-festival, some old joyful Zarathustra fool, some blusterer to blow your souls bright.

Forget not this night and this ass-festival, ye higher men! THAT did ye devise when with me, that do I take as a good omen,—such things only the convalescents devise!

And should ye celebrate it again, this ass-festival, do it from love to yourselves, do it also from love to me! And in remembrance of me!”

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Zarathustra tells his new friends that such flowers need new festivals. He takes the ass-festival as a good omen and asks them to repeat it out of love for themselves and in remembrance of him.

Sickness, convalescence and the great disgustZarathustra reads the guests' festival as a sign that they are convalescents, since only convalescents devise such things.
The higher menHe is pleased that the higher men have blossomed and become joyful again.
Christianity, priests and the need to worshipZarathustra recasts the ass-festival as a new divine service for convalescents, echoing the Eucharist: 'in remembrance of me'.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

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

The ass-festival as recreationAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition

Ludovici explains that Zarathustra, after rebuking the higher men, sees the ass-festival as foolish but necessary, a recreation for wise men devised by convalescents, and bids them celebrate it again out of love for themselves and him.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

Form of the book and Part IV's blasphemyH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken describes Zarathustra as a remote sage attended by a snake and an eagle whose discourses recall the biblical rhapsodists, and argues that toward the end Nietzsche indulges in blasphemy, with a parody of the last supper, the disciples' worship of a jackass, and Wagner and other enemies appearing thinly veiled as buffoons.

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

Belief in believing: the ass-worshipAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici reads the higher men's worship of the ass as a warning that thinkers who regain confidence in believing as such fall victim to the narrowest superstitions, alluding to pagan charges that Christians were ass-worshippers and to medieval asinaria festa.