Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche
Table of Contents
FROM THE PAGES OF THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
Title Page
Copyright Page
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
THE WORLD OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
Introduction
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
ZARATHUSTRA’S PROLOGUE
ZARATHUSTRA’S SPEECHES
FIRST PART
ON THE THREE METAMORPHOSES
ON THE TEACHERS OF VIRTUE
ON THE AFTERWORLDLY
ON THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY
ON ENJOYING AND SUFFERING THE PASSIONS
ON THE PALE CRIMINAL
ON READING AND WRITING
ON THE TREE ON THE MOUNTAIN
ON THE PREACHERS OF DEATH
ON WAR AND WARRIORS
ON THE NEW IDOL
ON THE FLIES IN THE MARKETPLACE
ON CHASTITY
ON THE FRIEND
ON THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS
ON LOVE OF THE NEIGHBOR
ON THE WAY OF THE CREATOR
ON LITTLE OLD AND YOUNG WOMEN
ON THE ADDER’S BITE
ON CHILD AND MARRIAGE
ON VOLUNTARY DEATH
ON THE GIFT-GIVING VIRTUE
1
2
3
SECOND PART
THE CHILD WITH THE MIRROR
ON THE HAPPY ISLANDS
ON THE PITYING
THE PRIESTS
ON THE VIRTUOUS
ON THE RABBLE
ON THE TARANTULAS
ON THE FAMOUS WISE MEN
THE NIGHT SONG
THE DANCE SONG
THE GRAVE SONG
ON SELF-OVERCOMING
THE SUBLIME ONES
THE LAND OF CULTURE
ON IMMACULATE PERCEPTION
SCHOLARS
ON POETS
ON GREAT EVENTS
THE SOOTHSAYER
ON REDEMPTION
ON HUMAN PRUDENCE
THE STILLEST HOUR
THIRD PART
THE WANDERER
ON THE VISION AND THE RIDDLE
1
2
ON INVOLUNTARY BLISS
BEFORE SUNRISE
ON THE VIRTUE THAT MAKES SMALL
1
2
3
ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
ON PASSING BY
ON APOSTATES
1
2
THE RETURN HOME
ON THE THREE EVILS
1
2
ON THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY
1
2
ON OLD AND NEW TABLETS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
THE CONVALESCENT
1
2
ON THE GREAT LONGING
THE OTHER DANCE SONG
1
2
3
THE SEVEN SEALS (OR : THE YES- AND AMEN-SONG)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
FOURTH AND LAST PART
THE HONEY SACRIFICE
THE CRY OF DISTRESS
CONVERSATION WITH KINGS
1
2
THE LEECH
THE MAGICIAN
1
2
RETIRED FROM SERVICE
THE UGLIEST MAN
THE VOLUNTARY BEGGAR
THE SHADOW
AT NOON
THE GREETING
THE LAST SUPPER
THE HIGHER MAN
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
THE SONG OF MELANCHOLY
1
2
3
ON SCIENCE
AMONG DAUGHTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
1
2
THE AWAKENING
1
2
THE ASS FESTIVAL
1
2
3
THE DRUNKEN SONG
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
THE SIGN
ENDNOTES
INSPIRED BY THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
FOR FURTHER READING
FROM THE PAGES OF THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it then be possible! This old saint in his forest has not yet heard of it, that God is dead!” (page 9)
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the Ubermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. (page 9)
“What good is my virtue! As yet it has not made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my evil! It is all poverty and pollution and wretched contentment!” (page 10)
I would believe only in a god who could dance. (page 38)
You may have only enemies whom you can hate, not enemies you despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the successes of your enemy are your successes too. (page 43)
Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear this, you creators! (page 53)
The true man wants two things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything. (page 58)
Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble drinks, too, all wells are poisoned. (page 85)
Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! (page 88)
Truly, I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because their claws are blunt! (page 104)
Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? But where pride is wounded, there grows up something better than pride. (page 124)
“Everything straight lies,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.” (page 136)
“In everything one thing is impossible—rationality!” (page 143)
But down there—all speech is in vain! There, forgetting and passing-by are the best wisdom: that I have learned now! (page 158)
Willing liberates: for willing is creating: thus I teach. (page 177)
I, Zarathustra, the advocate of life, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circle—I call you, my most abysmal thought! (page 185)
“Why do you conceal yourself? It is the higher man that cries for you!” (page 207)
“Because you once said, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is life that itself cuts into life,’ that led and seduced me to your teaching. And truly, with my own blood I have increased my own knowledge!” (page 214)
“Unless we are
converted and become as cows, we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. For we ought to learn one thing from them: ruminating.” (page 230)
Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And do not forget your legs! Lift up your legs too, you good dancers, and better still, stand on your heads! (page 252)
Thus spoke Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun that comes out of dark mountains. (page 281)
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Also sprach Zarathustra was first published between 1883 and 1885.
The work appears here in a new translation by Clancy Martin.
Published in 2005 by Barnes & Noble Classics in a new translation with new
Introduction, Translator’s Note, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.
Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading
Copyright © 2005 by Kathleen M. Higgins and Robert C. Solomon.
Translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Clancy Martin,
Translator’s Note, Note on Friedrich Nietzsche,
The World of Friedrich Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
Inspired by Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Comments & Questions
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Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Friedrich Nietzsche, his thinking in confusion, collapsed on the streets of Turin, Italy, in 1889. The event marked the end of a decade during which the philosopher wrote and expanded his theories while migrating seasonally among favorite locales in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy, often in search of relief from chronic ailments and pain. Nietzsche’s mental breakdown signaled the end of a period of creative brilliance that produced some of the most remarkable and influential contributions to modern philosophy.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844, in the Prussian town of Röcken. His father, the town’s Lutheran pastor, died at an early age, and Friedrich, the household’s sole male, was brought up by his mother, paternal grandmother, and two aunts. Early signs of his genius did not go unrecognized; he was awarded a full scholarship to Prussia’s leading Protestant boarding school, where he wrote sophisticated essays and plays and composed music. An excellent student of German, Latin, and Greek, he attracted the attention of his teachers, who admired his obvious intelligence and deemed him an extraordinary talent.
In 1864 Nietzsche was admitted to the University of Bonn, where he studied theology and classical philology. Under the mentorship of his philology professor, he moved to the University of Leipzig, where he wrote essays on the ancient Greeks. On the basis of his published articles and the enthusiastic recommendations of his professors, he was offered a chair in philology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1869. Nietzsche’s philosophical inclinations emerged as his writings moved beyond the interpretation of ancient texts to observations on and dissections of Western culture. In 1872 Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, which provoked the critical ire of his fellow academics. In the early 1870s his budding friendship with the composer Richard Wagner began to deepen.
Nietzsche’s next major work, written over four years, was Untimely Meditations, a set of critiques of contemporary culture. In 1878 Nietzsche’s friendship with Wagner dissolved over profound intellectual and philosophical differences. That same year Nietzsche published Human, All Too Human, which was roundly criticized by Wagner and his wife. His health failing, Nietzsche resigned his position at Basel in 1879 and began a lonely period characterized by frequent travel. During an extraordinary decade he published a book a year, including The Gay Science (1882), in which he proclaimed that “God is dead,” Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), and On the Genealogy of Morals (1887).
In the year before his breakdown Nietzsche completed Twilight of the Idols (1889), The Antichrist (1895), EcceHomo (1908), The Case of Wagner (1888), and Nietzsche Contra Wagner (1895). He finished the last book on Christmas day 1888. Then, on January 3, 1889, Nietzsche intervened in the beating of a horse, throwing his arms around the animal’s neck before collapsing in mental disarray on a street in Turin. He was returned to his mother’s house in Naumburg, Germany, in a state of near-total dementia. After the death of his mother in 1897, he came under the care of his sister, Elisabeth, who promptly positioned herself as the sole editor and executor of his works. Friedrich Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900.
Married to a radical anti-Semite, Elisabeth edited her brother’s writings through a prism of anti-Semitism. She ushered in a long and dark association of her brother’s philosophy with Aryanism, which culminated in the Nazis’ adoption of Nietzsche as a governing spirit. In the 1950s scholar and translator Walter Kaufmann revealed Elisabeth’s motivations and began the process of uncovering Nietzsche’s true philosophy
THE WORLD OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
1844 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche is born on October 15 in the Prussian town of Röcken, near Leipzig. His father, Karl Ludwig, is the town’s Lutheran pastor, an appointee of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, for whom young Friedrich is named.
1846 Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth is born; ultimately she will be the controversial executor of his estate. Søren Kierkegaard publishes Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift (The Concluding Unscientific Postscript).
1848 Revolutions in France, Italy, Germany, and the Austrian Empire rock Europe. Karl Nietzsche injures his head and damages his brain. Nietzsche’s brother Josef is born.
1849 Nietzsche’s father dies at the age of thirty-five, leaving Friedrich and his siblings in the care of their mother, Franziska.
1850 Nietzsche’s brother, Josef, dies just months after his father’s death. The family has to vacate the pastor’s house and moves to Naumburg. Friedrich will live for much of his childhood in a household of females: his mother, sister, two paternal aunts, and paternal grandmother.
1851 Friedrich starts studying the piano and soon after composes a short piece.
1853 After an unsuccessful stint at the local public school, he is enrolled at a private school to prepare him for the Domgymnasium, a preparatory school.
1854 Friedrich enters the Domgymnasium.
1855 Herbert Spencer publishes Principles of Psychology.
1858 Friedrich receives a scholarship to Schulpforta, Germany’s leading Protestant boarding school.
1859 Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is published.
1862 Otto von Bismarck becomes prime minister of Prussia.
1864 An excellent student, Nietzsche graduates from Schulpforta with a solid classical education and enters the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology (literature and language). His academic performance suffers due to enmity between two of his classics professors. He continues to write musical compositions.
1865 Following his philology professor, Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, Nietzsche transfers to the University of Leipzig, where he cements his academic reputation in articles published in Ritschl’s journal. For the first time he reads philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1819; The World as Will and Idea). Gregor Mendel presents findings to a scientific society that are to lay the groundwork for the study of genetics.
1866 Nietzsche discovers philosopher Friedrich A. Lange’s Geschichte des Materialismus (1866; History of Materialism), which will have an influence on his thinking.
1867 In October Nietzsche begins a year of mandatory military service in the cavalry of an artillery regiment. Bismarck defeats the Austrian army in the Austro-Prussian war and opens the path to the establishment of the German Empire. Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital.
1868 While serving in the military, Nietzsche is seriously injured as he mounts his horse. His wounds are slow to heal, but he returns to his studies in Leipzig in the fall. Already drawn to Richard Wagner’s operas, Nietzsche meets the composer, with whom he begins a profoundly affecting friendship that involves considerable intellectual debate. Fyodor Dostoevsky publishes The Idiot.
1869 With the strong recommendation of Ritschl, Nietzsche is offered a professorship in classical philology at the University of Basel, in Switzerland, which he accepts.
1870 At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War Nietzsche leaves Basel and volunteers as a medical orderly. He contracts dysentery and diphtheria, which will lead to lifelong health problems.
1871 France surrenders to Prussia, ending the war. The German Empire is established, with Bismarck as chancellor. Nietzsche’s interest in philosophy grows, but he is denied a chair in the university’s philosophy department. He rekindles his friendship with Wagner, now living in Triebschen, Switzerland, with his wife, Cosima, daughter of composer Franz Liszt. The serialization of Middlemarch, by English novelist George Eliot, begins.
