Thus Spoke Zarathustra

by Friedrich Nietzsche

  “And you, my first companion, farewell! I have buried you well in your hollow tree; I have hidden you well from the wolves.

  “But I part from you; the time has arrived. Between dawn and dawn a new truth has come to me.

  “I am not to be a shepherd, I am not to be a gravedigger. Never again shall I speak to the people; for the last time have I spoken to the dead.

  “I shall join the creators, the reapers, and the rejoicers: I shall show them the rainbow and all the steps to the Übermensch.

  “To the hermits I will sing my song, to the lonesome and the twosome; and to him who still has ears for the unheard—I will make his heart heavy with my happiness.

  “To my goal will I go—on my own way; over those who hesitate and loiter I shall leap. Thus let my going be their going under.”

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  This is what Zarathustra had said to his heart when the sun stood high at noon. Then he looked inquiringly aloft,—for he heard above him the sharp call of a bird. And behold! An eagle swept through the air in wide circles, and on him there hung a serpent, not as prey but as a friend: for she kept herself coiled round the eagle’s neck.

  “They are my animals,” said Zarathustra, and rejoiced in his heart.

  “The proudest animal under the sun, and the wisest animal under the sun,-they have come out to search.

  “They want to know whether Zarathustra still lives. Truly, do I still live?

  “I have found life to be more dangerous among men than among animals; on dangerous paths walks Zarathustra. Let my animals lead me!”

  When Zarathustra had said this he remembered the words of the saint in the forest. Then he sighed and spoke thus to his heart:

  “Would that I were wiser! Would that I were wise from the very ground, like my serpent!

  “But I am asking the impossible. Therefore I ask my pride to go always with my wisdom!

  “And if my wisdom should some day forsake me:-ah! it loves to fly away!-may my pride then fly with my folly!”

  Thus Zarathustra began to go under.

  ZARATHUSTRA’S SPEECHES

  FIRST PART

  [1883]

  ON THE THREE METAMORPHOSES

  I TELL YOU OF three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit becomes a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.

  There is much that is difficult for the spirit, the strong reverent spirit that would bear much: but its strength demands the difficult and the most difficult.

  What is difficult? so asks the spirit that would bear much; then it kneels down like a camel wanting to be well laden.

  What is the most difficult, you heroes? so asks the spirit that would bear much, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.

  Is it not this: to humiliate oneself in order to mortify one’s pride? To exhibit one’s folly in order to mock at one’s wisdom?

  Or is it this: to abandon our cause when it celebrates its triumph? To climb high mountains to tempt the tempter?

  Or is it this: to feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge, and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of soul?

  Or is it this: to be sick and dismiss comforters, and make friends of the deaf, who never hear your requests?

  Or is it this: to go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and not repulse cold frogs and hot toads?

  Or is it this: to love those who despise us, and give one’s hand to the ghost when it is going to frighten us?

  All these most difficult things the spirit that would bear much takes upon itself: and like the camel, which, when laden, hastens into the desert, so hastens the spirit into its desert.

  But in the loneliest wilderness the second metamorphosis occurs: here the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert.

  Here he seeks his last master: he wants to fight him and his last god; for final victory he wants to fight with the great dragon.

  Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and god? “Thou shalt,” is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, “I will.”

  “Thou shalt,” lies in his path, sparkling with gold—a beast covered with scales; and on every scale glitters a golden, “Thou shalt!”

  The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: “All the value of all things glitters on me.

  “All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Truly, there shall be no more ‘I will’.” Thus speaks the dragon.

  My brothers, why is there a need of the lion in the spirit? Why is not the beast of burden, which renounces and is reverent, enough?

  To create new values-that, even the lion cannot accomplish: but to create freedom for oneself for new creating-that the might of the lion can do.

  To create freedom for oneself, and give a sacred “No” even to duty: for that, my brothers, the lion is needed.

  To assume the right to new values-that is the most terrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much. Truly, to him it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey.

  He once loved “thou shalt” as most sacred: now he must find illusion and arbitrariness even in the most sacred things, that he may steal his freedom from his love: the lion is needed for such prey.

  But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child?

  The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes-saying.

  Yes, for the game of creating, my brothers, a sacred Yes-saying is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been the world’s outcast now conquers his own world.

  I have told you of three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.—

  Thus spoke Zarathustra. And at that time he lived in the town that is called: The Motley Cow.1

  ON THE TEACHERS OF VIRTUE2

  A WISE MAN WAS praised to Zarathustra, as one who could speak well about sleep and virtue: he was said to be honored and rewarded highly for it, and all the youths were said to be sitting at his feet. Zarathustra went to him, and sat among the youths at his feet. And thus spoke the wise man:

  Respect sleep and be modest in its presence! That is the first thing! And avoid all who sleep badly and keep awake at night!

  Even the thief is modest in the presence of sleep: he always steals softly through the night. Shameless, however, is the night watchman ; shamelessly he carries his horn.

  It is no small art to sleep: for that purpose you must keep awake all day.

  Ten times a day you must overcome yourself: that makes you good and tired and is opium for the soul.

  Ten times you must reconcile again with yourself; for overcoming is bitterness, and the unreconciled sleep badly.

  Ten truths you must find during the day; otherwise you will seek truth during the night, and your soul will remain hungry.

  Ten times you must laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of gloom, will disturb you in the night.

  Few people know it, but one must have all the virtues in order to sleep well. Shall I bear false witness? Shall I commit adultery?

  Shall I covet my neighbor’s maid? All that would go ill with good sleep.

  And even if one has all the virtues, there is still one thing one must know: to send the virtues themselves to sleep at the right time.

  That they may not quarrel with one another, the fair little women, about you, child of misfortune!

  Peace with God and your neighbor: so good sleep demands. And peace also with your neighbor’s devil! Otherwise it will haunt you in the night.

  Honor the magistrates and obey them, and also the crooked magistrates! Good sleep demands it. Is it my fault that power likes to walk on crooked legs?

  He who leads his sheep to the greenest pasture, shall always be for me the
best shepherd: that goes well with good sleep.

  I do not want many honors, nor great treasures: they inflame the spleen. But one sleeps badly without a good name and a little treasure.

  A little company is more welcome to me than evil company: but they must come and go at the right time. That goes well with good sleep.

  Well, also, do the poor in spirit please me: they promote sleep. Blessed are they, especially if one always tells them they are right.

  Thus the virtuous pass the day. And when night comes, then I take good care not to summon sleep. It dislikes to be summoned—sleep, the master of the virtues!

  But I think of what I have done and thought during the day. Chewing the cud, I ask myself, patient as a cow: Well, what were your ten overcomings?

  And what were the ten reconciliations, and the ten truths, and the ten laughters with which my heart edified itself?

  Weighing such matters and rocked by forty thoughts, it overtakes me suddenly, sleep, the unsummoned, the lord of the virtues.

  Sleep taps on my eyes: they turn heavy. Sleep touches my mouth: it stays open.

  Truly, on soft soles he comes to me, the dearest of thieves, and steals from me my thoughts: I stand stupid like this chair here.

  But not for long do I stand like this: I already lie—

  When Zarathustra heard the wise man thus speak he laughed in his heart: for an insight had come to him. And he spoke thus to his heart:

  This wise man with his forty thoughts is a fool: but I believe he knows well how to sleep.

  Happy is he that even lives near this wise man! Such sleep is contagious—contagious even through a thick wall.

  There is magic even in his teaching chair. And it is not in vain that the youths sit before this preacher of virtue.

  His wisdom is: to keep awake in order to sleep well. And truly, if life had no sense and had I to choose nonsense, then I too would consider this the most sensible nonsense.

  Now I understand clearly what was once sought above all else when teachers of virtue were sought. Good sleep was sought, and opiate virtues to promote it!

  For all these much praised sages who were teachers of virtue, wisdom was the sleep without dreams: they knew no better meaning of life.

  Even today, to be sure, there may still be a few like this preacher of virtue, and not all so honest: but their time is up. And not much longer do they stand: there they already lie.

  Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon fall off.—

  Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  ON THE AFTERWORLDLY3

  AT ONE TIME ZARATHUSTRA also cast his fancy beyond man, like all the afterworldly. The work of a suffering and tortured god, the world then seemed to me.

  A dream and a fiction of a god the world then seemed to me; colored smoke before the eyes of a dissatisfied deity.

  Good and evil and joy and pain and I and you—colored smoke they seemed to me before creative eyes. The creator wanted to look away from himself, so he created the world.

  It is drunken joy for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and lose himself. Drunken joy and loss of self, did the world once seem to me.

  This world, eternally imperfect, the image of an eternal contradiction, an imperfect image—a drunken joy to its imperfect creator: thus did the world once seem to me.

  Thus, at one time, I also cast my fancy beyond man, like all afterworldly. Beyond man indeed?

  Ah, you brothers, that god whom I created was humanly made madness, like all gods!

  Man he was, and only a poor fragment of a man and his “I”:4 out of my own ashes and glow it came to me, that ghost, and truly! It did not come to me from beyond!

  What happened, my brothers? I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself. And behold! At that the ghost fled from me!

  Now it would be suffering for me and agony for the convalescent to believe in such ghosts: now it would be suffering for me, and humiliation. Thus I speak to the afterworldly.

  It was suffering and impotence-that created all afterworlds; and that brief madness of bliss which is experienced only by those who suffer most deeply.

  Weariness, which seeks to get to the ultimate with one leap, with one death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer: that created all gods and afterworlds.

  Believe me, my brothers! It was the body that despaired of the body—it groped with the fingers of a deluded spirit at the ultimate walls.

  Believe me, my brothers! It was the body that despaired of the earth-it heard the belly of being speaking to it.

  And then it sought to get through these ultimate walls with its head-and not only with its head-over there to “that world.”

  But “that world” is well concealed from humans, that dehumanizing inhuman world, which is a heavenly nothing; and the belly of being does not speak to man except as man.

  Truly, it is hard to prove all being, and hard to make it speak. Tell me, you brothers, is not the strangest of all things best proved?

  Yes, this “I”, with its contradiction and perplexity, speaks most honestly of its being-this creating, willing, valuing “I”, which is the measure and value of all things.

  And this most honest being, the “I”—it speaks of the body, and still implies the body, even when it muses and raves and flutters with broken wings.

  Ever more honestly it learns to speak, the “I”; and the more it learns, the more words and honors it finds for the body and the earth.

  A new pride my “I” taught to me, and I teach that to men: no longer to thrust one’s head into the sand of heavenly things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, which creates a meaning to the earth!

  A new will I teach men: to will this way which man has walked blindly, and to affirm it-and no longer to slink aside from it, like the sick and decaying!

  The sick and decaying—it was they who despised the body and the earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming drops of blood; but even those sweet and dark poisons they borrowed from the body and the earth!

  From their misery they sought escape, and the stars were too remote for them. Then they sighed: “0 that there were heavenly paths by which to steal into another existence and into happiness!” Then they contrived for themselves their sneaky ruses and bloody potions!

  Beyond the sphere of their body and this earth they now fancied themselves transported, these ungrateful ones. But to what did they owe the convulsion and rapture of their transport? To their body and this earth.

  Zarathustra is gentle with the sick. Truly, he is not indignant at their kind of consolation and ingratitude. May they become convalescents and overcomers, and create higher bodies for themselves !

  Neither is Zarathustra indignant at a convalescent who looks tenderly on his delusions, and at midnight steals round the grave of his god; but even so his tears still betray a sickness and a sick body to me.

  Many sick ones have there always been among those who muse, and languish for God; violently they hate the lover of knowledge and that youngest among the virtues, which is called “honesty.”

  They always gaze backwards toward dark ages: then, indeed, delusion and faith were something different. The rage of reason was godlikeness, and doubt was sin.

  All too well do I know those godlike ones: they insist on being believed in, and that doubt is sin. All too well, also, do I know what they themselves most believe in.

  Truly, not in afterworlds and redeeming drops of blood: but in the body they also believe most; and their own body is for them their thing-in-itself.

  But it is a sickly thing to them, and gladly would they get out of their skin. Therefore they listen to the preachers of death, and themselves preach afterworlds.

  Listen rather, my brothers, to the voice of the healthy body; it is a more honest and purer voice.

  More honestly and purely speaks the healthy body that is perfect and perpendicular; and it speaks of the mea
ning of the earth.

  Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  ON THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY

  I WANT TO SPEAK to the despisers of the body. I would not have them learn and teach differently, but merely say farewell to their own bodies-and thus become silent.

  “Body am I, and soul”—so says the child. And why should one not speak like children?

  But the awakened one, the knowing one, says: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something about the body.”5

  The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and also a shepherd.

  An instrument of your body is also your little reason, my brother, which you call “spirit”—a little instrument and toy of your great reason.

  “I,” you say, and are proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which you are unwilling to believe-is your body with its great reason; it says not “I,” but does it.

  What the sense feels, what the spirit discerns, never has its end in itself. But sense and spirit would like to persuade you that they are the end of all things: that is how vain they are.

  Instruments and toys are sense and spirit: behind them still lies the self. The self also seeks with the eyes of the senses, it also listens with the ears of the spirit.

  Always the self listens and seeks; it compares, masters, conquers, and destroys. It rules, and is in control of the “I” too.

  Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage-his name is self; he dwells in your body, he is your body.

  There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. And who knows why your body requires precisely your best wisdom ?

  Your self laughs at your “I” and its bold leaps. “What are these leaps and flights of thought to me?” it says to itself. “A detour to my end. I am the leading strings of the ‘I’, and the prompter of its concepts.”

  The self says to the “I”: “Feel pain!” And at that it suffers, and thinks how it may put an end to it—and for that very purpose it is made to think.