“Over” words, some of them coinages, are common in this work, and Übermensch has to be understood in its context. Mensch means human being as opposed to animal, and what is called for is not a super-brute but a human being who has created for himself that unique position in the cosmos which the Bible considered his divine birthright. The meaning of life is thus found on earth, in this life, not as the inevitable outcome of evolution, which might well give us the “last man” instead, but in the few human beings who raise themselves above the all-too-human mass. In the first edition the Prologue had the title “On the Overman and the Last Man.” The latter invites comparison with Huxley’s Brave New World and with Heidegger’s famous discussion of Das Man in Sein und Zeit.
1. On the Three Metamorphoses: To become more than an all-too-human animal man must become a creator. But this involves a break with previous norms. Beethoven, for example, creates new norms with his works. Yet this break is constructive only when accomplished not by one who wants to make things easy for himself, but by one who has previously subjected himself to the discipline of tradition. First comes the beast of burden, then the defiant lion, then creation. “Parting from our cause when it triumphs”—as Nietzsche did when Wagner triumphed in Bayreuth.
2. On the Teachers of Virtue: Sunny sarcasm. Our traditional virtues consecrate stereotyped mediocrity and make for sound sleep. But where sleep is the goal, life lacks meaning. To bring out the full meaning of the blasphemous final sentence, it may be well to quote from Stefan Zweig’s essay, “Friedrich Nietzsche,” which is unsurpassed in its brief sketch of Nietzsche’s way of life: “No devilish torture is lacking in this dreadful pandemonium of sickness: headaches, deafening, hammering headaches, which knock out the reeling Nietzsche for days and prostrate him on sofa and bed, stomach cramps with bloody vomiting, migraines, fevers, lack of appetite, weariness, hemorrhoids, constipation, chills, night sweat—a gruesome circle. In addition, there are his ‘three-quarters blind eyes,’ which, at the least exertion, begin immediately to swell and fill with tears and grant the intellectual worker only ‘an hour and a half of vision a day.’ But Nietzsche despises this hygiene of his body and works at his desk for ten hours, and for this excess his overheated brain takes revenge with raging headaches and a nervous overcharge; at night, when the body has long become weary, it does not permit itself to be turned off suddenly, but continues to burrow in visions and ideas until it is forcibly knocked out by opiates. But ever greater quantities are needed (in two months Nietzsche uses up fifty grams of chloral hydrate to purchase this handful of sleep); then the stomach refuses to pay so high a price and rebels. And now—vicious circle—spasmodic vomiting, new headaches which require new medicines, an inexorable, insatiable, passionate conflict of the infuriated organs, which throw the thorny ball of suffering to each other as in a mad game. Never a point of rest in this up and down, never an even stretch of contentment or a short month full of comfort and self-forgetfulness.” For Nietzsche, sleep was clearly not the end of life. Yet he could well say, “Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon drop off.”
3. On the Afterworldly: A literal translation of “metaphysicians”; but Zarathustra takes issue with all who deprecate this world for the greater glory of another world. The passage about the “leap” may seem to be aimed at Kierkegaard—of whom Nietzsche, however, heard only in 1888, too late to acquaint himself with the ideas of the Dane.
4. On the Despisers of the Body: The psychological analysis begun in the previous chapter is here carried further. The use of the term “ego” influenced Freud, via Georg Croddeck.
5. On Enjoying and Suffering the Passions (Von den Freuden- und Leidenschaften): The passions, called evil because they are potentially destructive, can also be creatively employed and enjoyed. Unlike Kant, who had taught that “a collision of duties is unthinkable,” Nietzsche knows that a passion for justice or honesty may frequently conflict with other virtues. But even if Rembrandt was torn between his dedication to his art and his devotion to his family, who would wish that he had been less passionate a painter or poorer in compassion?
6. On the Pale Criminal: Too abstract to make sense to Nietzsche’s first readers, including even his once close friend Rohde, much of this chapter now seems like reflections on Dostoevski’s Raskolnikov. But Nietzsche had not yet discovered Dostoevski. And some of the psychological insights offered here go beyond Dostoevski.
7. On Reading and Writing: Compulsory education for all has lowered cultural standards; thinkers and writers have come to think and write for the masses. References to novelists and artists who end up in Hollywood are lacking because Nietzsche died in 1900. The dance is to Nietzsche a symbol of joy and levity, and the antithesis of gravity. He associates it with Dionysus; but the Hindus too have a dancing god, Shiva Nataraja—no less a contrast to the three great monotheistic religions.
8. On the Tree on the Mountainside: Advice for adolescents.
9. On the Preachers of Death: An encounter with a sick man, an old man, and a corpse is said to have prompted the Buddha’s departure from his father’s palace. But relentless work, too, can be sought as a narcotic and a living death.
10. On War and Warriors: The “saints of knowledge” are above “hatred and envy”; but those still seeking knowledge must fight, must wage war, for their thoughts. Vanquished in this contest, they may yet find cause for triumph in the victory of truth. They must be like warriors: brave and without consideration for the feelings of others. In this context, “You should love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more than the long,” is surely far from fascism; but the epigram invites quotation out of context. The same applies to “the good war that hallows any cause”; we revere Plato’s Republic not for its cause (which many of us believe to have been, at least in part, totalitarianism), but because few men, if any, have ever waged a more brilliant war for any cause.
Being able to coin better slogans for positions he detested than the men believing in them—and then using such phrases in an entirely different sense—seems to have given Nietzsche uncommon satisfaction. He felt that he was hitting right and left, and he was horrified when he found that the rightist parties began brazenly to use him. (For a more detailed discussion of this chapter, see my Nietzsche, Chapter 12, section VII.)
11. On the New Idol: A vehement denunciation of the state and of war in the literal sense. Straight anti-fascism, but not in the name of any rival political creed. In Nietzsche’s own phrase: anti-political.
12. On the Flies of the Market Place: Against the mass and its idols. Inspired by the contrast of Bayreuth and Sils Maria, Wagner and Nietzsche. But today we are more apt to think of Hitler than of Wagner.
13. On Chastity: One man’s virtue is another man’s poison.
14. On the Friend: Nietzsche’s extreme individualism is tempered by his development of the Greek conception of friendship.
15. On the Thousand and One Goals: Except for private notes, published much later, this chapter contains the first mention of the will to power. What is meant in this context is clearly power over self, and the phrase is taken up again in the chapter “On Self-Overcoming” in Part Two. The four historical examples are: Greeks, Persians, Jews, Germans. (For an analysis, see my Nietzsche, 6, III; for a discussion of “The Discovery of the Will to Power,” the whole of Chapter 6.)
16. On Love of the Neighbor: Jesus said: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you: Love your enemies.” He took issue not with the old Mosaic commandment to love thy neighbor—that had never been coupled with any commandment to hate the enemy but had even been pointedly extended to include him—but with that comfortable state of mind which makes things easy for itself while aiding behind a façade of virtue. In this respect Nietzsche’s polemic is profoundly similar to Jesus’. But, in the words of Zarathustra, he remains “faithful to the earth” and deprecates the shortcomings of mutual indulgence, while celebrating friendsh
ip between those who spur each other on toward man’s perfection. (See my Nietzsche, 12, IV.)
17. On the Way of the Creator: Zarathustra does not preach universal anarchy: only the creator must break with ancient norms.
18. On Little Old and Young Women: The affectionate diminutive in the title (Weiblein) suggests at once what is the main difference between this chapter and its vitriolic prototype, Schopenhauer’s essay Von den Weibern: a touch of humor. In Part Three, moreover, in “The Other Dancing Song,” Nietzsche makes fun of the little old woman’s dictum that concludes the present chapter. A photograph taken less than a year before he wrote Part One also supplies an amusing perspective. It shows Nietzsche and his friend Paul Rée (author of Der Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen) pretending to pull a little cart on which Lou Salomé, then their mutual friend, is enthroned with a tiny whip. We have it on her authority that the picture was posed under Nietzsche’s direction, and that he decorated the whip with flowers. But although Nietzsche should be defended against witless admirers and detractors, his remarks about women are surely, more often than not, second-hand and third-rate.
19. On the Adder’s Bite: One might wish that the following lines were better known than the preceding chapter: “But if you have an enemy, do not requite him evil with good, for that would put him to shame. Rather prove that he did you some good. And rather be angry than put to shame. And if you are cursed, I do not like it that you want to bless. Rather join a little in the cursing.” This should be compared with Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. 12:14 ff.: “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. . . . Avenge not yourselves, but give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coalš of fire on his head.” Nietzsche’s whole chapter is an attack on what he later called ressentiment. (See my Nietzsche, 12, V.)
20. On Child and Marriage: It may require careful reading to see that Nietzsche repudiates only certain kinds of pity and love of the neighbor, but in this chapter he makes a clear distinction indeed between the kind of marriage he opposes and the kind he would applaud.
21. On Free Death: A celebration of Socrates’ way of dying as opposed to Jesus’. Nietzsche’s own creeping death was to take eleven years to destroy his body after it had destroyed his mind.
22. On the Gift-Giving Virtue: The egoism of the powerful, whose happiness consists in giving, is contrasted with that of the weak. The core of the last section is quoted again in the Preface to Ecce Homo, late in 1888: Nietzsche wants no believers but, like Socrates, aims to help others to find themselves and surpass him.
Zarathustra’s Prologue
1
When Zarathustra was thirty years old he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not tire of it. But at last a change came over his heart, and one morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and spoke to it thus:
“You great star, what would your happiness be had you not those for whom you shine?
“For ten years you have climbed to my cave: you would have tired of your light and of the journey had it not been for me and my eagle and my serpent.
“But we waited for you every morning, took your overflow from you, and blessed you for it.
“Behold, I am weary of my wisdom, like a bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to receive it.
“I would give away and distribute, until the wise among men find joy once again in their folly, and the poor in their riches.
“For that I must descend to the depths, as you do in the evening when you go behind the sea and still bring light to the underworld, you overrich star.
“Like you, I must go under—go down, as is said by man, to whom I want to descend.
“So bless me then, you quiet eye that can look even upon an all-too-great happiness without envy!
“Bless the cup that wants to overflow, that the water may flow from it golden and carry everywhere the reflection of your delight.
“Behold, this cup wants to become empty again, and Zarathustra wants to become man again:”
Thus Zarathustra began to go under.
2
Zarathustra descended alone from the mountains, encountering no one. But when he came into the forest, all at once there stood before him an old man who had left his holy cottage to look for roots in the woods. And thus spoke the old man to Zarathustra:
“No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago he passed this way. Zarathustra he was called, but he has changed. At that time you carried your ashes to the mountains; would you now carry your fire into the valleys? Do you not fear to be punished as an arsonist?
“Yes, I recognize Zarathustra. His eyes are pure, and around his mouth there hides no disgust. Does he not walk like a dancer?
“Zarathustra has changed, Zarathustra has become a child, Zarathustra is an awakened one; what do you now want among the sleepers? You lived in your solitude as in the sea, and the sea carried you. Alas, would you now climb ashore? Alas, would you again drag your own body?”
Zarathustra answered: “I love man.”
“Why,” asked the saint, “did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved man all-too-much? Now I love God; man I love not. Man is for me too imperfect a thing. Love of man would kill me.”
Zarathustra answered: “Did I speak of love? I bring men a gift.”
“Give them nothing!” said the saint. “Rather, take part of their load and help them to bear it—that will be best for them, if only it does you good! And if you want to give them something, give no more than alms, and let them beg for that!”
“No,” answered Zarathustra. “I give no alms. For that I am not poor enough.”
The saint laughed at Zarathustra and spoke thus: “Then see to it that they accept your treasures. They are suspicious of hermits and do not believe that we come with gifts. Our steps sound too lonely through the streets. And what if at night, in their beds, they hear a man walk by long before the sun has risen—they probably ask themselves, Where is the thief going?
“Do not go to man. Stay in the forest! Go rather even to the animals! Why do you not want to be as I am—a bear among bears, a bird among birds?”
“And what is the saint doing in the forest?” asked Zarathustra.
The saint answered: “I make songs and sing them; and when I make songs, I laugh, cry, and hum: thus I praise God. With singing, crying, laughing, and humming, I praise the god who is my god. But what do you bring us as a gift?”
When Zarathustra had heard these words he bade the saint farewell and said: “What could I have to give you? But let me go quickly lest I take something from you!” And thus they separated, the old one and the man, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it be possible? This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!”
3
When Zarathustra came into the next town, which lies on the edge of the forest, he found many people gathered together in the market place; for it had been promised that there would be a tightrope walker. And Zarathustra spoke thus to the people:
“I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
“All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.
“Whoever is the wisest among you is also a mere conflict and cross between plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?
“Behold, I teach you the overman. The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.
“Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth.
“Once the soul looked contemptuously upon the body, and then this contempt was the highest: she wanted the body meager, ghastly, and starved. Thus she hoped to escape it and the earth. Oh, this soul herself was still meager, ghastly, and starved: and cruelty was the lust of this soul. But you, too, my brothers, tell me: what does your body proclaim of your soul? Is not your soul poverty and filth and wretched contentment?
“Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must be a sea to be able to receive a polluted stream without becoming unclean. Behold, I teach you the overman: he is this sea; in him your great contempt can go under.
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