But even your best love is merely an ecstatic parable and a painful ardor. It is a torch that should light up higher paths for you. Over and beyond yourselves you shall love one day. Thus learn first to love. And for that you had to drain the bitter cup of your love. Bitterness lies in the cup of even the best love: thus it arouses longing for the overman; thus it arouses your thirst, creator. Thirst for the creator, an arrow and longing for the overman: tell me, my brother, is this your will to marriage? Holy I call such a will and such a marriage.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
ON FREE DEATH
Many die too late, and a few die too early. The doctrine still sounds strange: “Die at the right time!”
Die at the right time—thus teaches Zarathustra. Of course, how could those who never live at the right time die at the right time? Would that they had never been born! Thus I counsel the superfluous. But even the superfluous still make a fuss about their dying; and even the hollowest nut still wants to be cracked. Everybody considers dying important; but as yet death is no festival. As yet men have not learned how one hallows the most beautiful festivals.
I show you the death that consummates—a spur and a promise to the survivors. He that consummates his life dies his death victoriously, surrounded by those who hope and promise. Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festival where one dying thus does not hallow the oaths of the living.
To die thus is best; second to this, however, is to die fighting and to squander a great soul. But equally hateful to the fighter and the victor is your grinning death, which creeps up like a thief—and yet comes as the master.
My death I praise to you, the free death which comes to me because I want it. And when shall I want it? He who has a goal and an heir will want death at the right time for his goal and heir. And from reverence for his goal and heir he will hang no more dry wreaths in the sanctuary of life. Verily, I do not want to be like the ropemakers: they drag out their threads and always walk backwards.
Some become too old even for their truths and victories: a toothless mouth no longer has the right to every truth. And everybody who wants fame must take leave of honor betimes and practice the difficult art of leaving at the right time.
One must cease letting oneself be eaten when one tastes best: that is known to those who want to be loved long. There are sour apples, to be sure, whose lot requires that they wait till the last day of autumn: and they become ripe, yellow, and wrinkled all at once. In some, the heart grows old first; in others, the spirit. And some are old in their youth: but late youth preserves long youth.
For some, life turns out badly: a poisonous worm eats its way to their heart. Let them see to it that their dying turns out that much better. Some never become sweet; they rot already in the summer. It is cowardice that keeps them on their branch.
All-too-many live, and all-too-long they hang on their branches. Would that a storm came to shake all this worm-eaten rot from the tree!
Would that there came preachers of quick death! I would like them as the true storms and shakers of the trees of life. But I hear only slow death preached, and patience with everything “earthly.”
Alas, do you preach patience with the earthly? It is the earthly that has too much patience with you, blasphemers!
Verily, that Hebrew died too early whom the preachers of slow death honor; and for many it has become a calamity that he died too early. As yet he knew only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrew, and hatred of the good and the just—the Hebrew Jesus: then the longing for death overcame him. Would that he had remained in the wilderness and far from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and to love the earth—and laughter too.
Believe me, my brothers! He died too early; he himself would have recanted his teaching, had he reached my age. Noble enough was he to recant. But he was not yet mature. Immature is the love of the youth, and immature his hatred of man and earth. His mind and the wings of his spirit are still tied down and heavy.
But in the man there is more of the child than in the youth, and less melancholy: he knows better how to die and to live. Free to die and free in death, able to say a holy No when the time for Yes has passed: thus he knows how to die and to live.
That your dying be no blasphemy against man and earth, my friends, that I ask of the honey of your soul. In your dying, your spirit and virtue should still glow like a sunset around the earth: else your dying has turned out badly.
Thus I want to die myself that you, my friends, may love the earth more for my sake; and to earth I want to return that I may find rest in her who gave birth to me.
Verily, Zarathustra had a goal; he threw his ball: now you, my friends, are the heirs of my goal; to you I throw my golden ball. More than anything, I like to see you, my friends, throwing the golden ball. And so I still linger a little on the earth: forgive me for that.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
ON THE GIFT-GIVING VIRTUE
1
When Zarathustra had said farewell to the town to which his heart was attached, and which was named The Motley Cow, many who called themselves his disciples followed him and escorted him. Thus they came to a crossroads; then Zarathustra told them that he now wanted to walk alone, for he liked to walk alone. His disciples gave him as a farewell present a staff with a golden handle on which a serpent coiled around the sun. Zarathustra was delighted with the staff and leaned on it; then he spoke thus to his disciples:
Tell me: how did gold attain the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its splendor; it always gives itself. Only as the image of the highest virtue did gold attain the highest value. Goldlike gleam the eyes of the giver. Golden splendor makes peace between moon and sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless; it is gleaming and gentle in its splendor: a gift-giving virtue is the highest virtue.
Verily, I have found you out, my disciples: you strive, as I do, for the gift-giving virtue. What would you have in common with cats and wolves? This is your thirst: to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves; and that is why you thirst to pile up all the riches in your soul. Insatiably your soul strives for treasures and gems, because your virtue is insatiable in wanting to give. You force all things to and into yourself that they may flow back out of your well as the gifts of your love. Verily, such a gift-giving love must approach all values as a robber; but whole and holy I call this selfishness.
There is also another selfishness, an all-too-poor and hungry one that always wants to steal—the selfishness of the sick: sick selfishness. With the eyes of a thief it looks at everything splendid; with the greed of hunger it sizes up those who have much to eat; and always it sneaks around the table of those who give. Sickness speaks out of such craving and invisible degeneration; the thievish greed of this selfishness speaks of a diseased body.
Tell me, my brothers: what do we consider bad and worst of all? Is it not degeneration? And it is degeneration that we always infer where the gift-giving soul is lacking. Upward goes our way, from genus to overgenus. But we shudder at the degenerate sense which says, “Everything for me.” Upward flies our sense: thus it is a parable of our body, a parable of elevation. Parables of such elevations are the names of the virtues.
Thus the body goes through history, becoming and fighting. And the spirit—what is that to the body? The herald of its fights and victories, companion and echo.
All names of good and evil are parables: they do not define, they merely hint. A fool is he who wants knowledge of them!
Watch for every hour, my brothers, in which your spirit wants to speak in parables: there lies the origin of your virtue. There your body is elevated and resurrected; with its rapture it delights the spirit so that it turns creator and esteemer and lover and benefactor of all things.
When your heart flows broad and full like a river, a blessing and a danger to those living near: there is the origin of your virtue.
When you are above praise and blame, and your will want
s to command all things, like a lover’s will: there is the origin of your virtue.
When you despise the agreeable and the soft bed and cannot bed yourself far enough from the soft: there is the origin of your virtue.
When you will with a single will and you call this cessation of all need “necessity”: there is the origin of your virtue.
Verily, a new good and evil is she. Verily, a new deep murmur and the voice of a new well!
Power is she, this new virtue; a dominant thought is she, and around her a wise soul: a golden sun, and around it the serpent of knowledge.
2
Here Zarathustra fell silent for a while and looked lovingly at his disciples. Then he continued to speak thus, and the tone of his voice had changed:
Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.
In a hundred ways, thus far, have spirit as well as virtue flown away and made mistakes. Alas, all this delusion and all these mistakes still dwell in our body: they have there become body and will.
In a hundred ways, thus far, spirit as well as virtue has tried and erred. Indeed, an experiment was man. Alas, much ignorance and error have become body within us.
Not only the reason of millennia, but their madness too, breaks out in us. It is dangerous to be an heir. Still we fight step by step with the giant, accident; and over the whole of humanity there has ruled so far only nonsense—no sense.
Let your spirit and your virtue serve the sense of the earth, my brothers; and let the value of all things be posited newly by you. For that shall you be fighters! For that shall you be creators!
With knowledge, the body purifies itself; making experiments with knowledge, it elevates itself; in the lover of knowledge all instincts become holy; in the elevated, the soul becomes gay.
Physician, help yourself: thus you help your patient too. Let this be his best help that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.
There are a thousand paths that have never yet been trodden—a thousand healths and hidden isles of life. Even now, man and man’s earth are unexhausted and undiscovered.
Wake and listen, you that are lonely! From the future come winds with secret wing-beats; and good tidings are proclaimed to delicate ears. You that are lonely today, you that are withdrawing, you shall one day be the people: out of you, who have chosen yourselves, there shall grow a chosen people—and out of them, the overman. Verily, the earth shall yet become a site of recovery. And even now a new fragrance surrounds it, bringing salvation—and a new hope.
3
When Zarathustra had said these words he became silent, like one who has not yet said his last word; long he weighed his staff in his hand, doubtfully. At last he spoke thus, and the tone of his voice had changed.
Now I go alone, my disciples. You too go now, alone. Thus I want it. Verily, I counsel you: go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.
The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends.
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath?
You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you.
You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers—but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves: and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little.
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.
Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you.
And once again you shall become my friends and the children of a single hope—and then shall I be with you the third time, that I may celebrate the great noon with you.
And that is the great noon when man stands in the middle of his way between beast and overman and celebrates his way to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the way to a new morning.
Then will he who goes under bless himself for being one who goes over and beyond; and the sun of his knowledge will stand at high noon for him.
"Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live”—on that great noon, let this be our last will.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Second Part
. . . and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.
Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you. (Zarathustra, “On the Gift-Giving Virtue.” I, p. 190)
EDITOR’S NOTES
1. The Child with the Mirror: Transition to Part Two with its partly new style: “A new speech comes to me. . . . My spirit no longer wants to walk on worn soles.”
2. Upon the Blessed Isles: The creative life versus belief in God: “God is a conjecture.” The polemic against the opening lines of the final chorus in Goethe’s Faust is taken up again in the chapter “On Poets” (see comments, p. 193). But the lines immediately following in praise of impermanence and creation are thoroughly in the spirit of Goethe.
3. On the Pitying: A return to the style of Part One and a major statement of Nietzsche’s ideas on pity, ressentiment, and repression.
4. On Priests: Relatively mild, compared to the portrait of the priest in The Antichrist five years later.
5. On the Virtuous: A typology of different conceptions of virtue, with vivisectional intent. Nietzsche denounces “the filth of the words: revenge, punishment, reward, retribution,” which he associates with Christianity; but also that rigorism for which “virtue is the spasm under the scourge” and those who “call it virtue when their vices grow lazy.” The pun on “I am just” is, in German: wenn sie sagen: “ich bin gerecht,” so klingt es immer gleich wie: “ich bin gerächt!”
6. On the Rabble: The theme of Zarathustra’s nausea is developed ad nauseam in later chapters. La Nausée—to speak in Sartre’s terms—is one of his chief trials, and its eventual conquest is his greatest triumph. “I often grew weary of the spirit when I found that even the rabble had esprit” may help to account for some of Nietzsche’s remarks elsewhere. Generally he celebrates the spirit—not in opposition to the body but as mens sana in corpore sano.
7. On the Tarantulas: One of the central motifs of Nietzsche’s philosophy is stated in italics: “that man be delivered from revenge.” In this chapter, the claim of human equality is criticized as an expression of the ressentiment of the subequal.
8. On the Famous Wise Men: One cannot serve two masters: the people and the truth. The philosophers of the past have too often rationalized popular prejudices. But the service of truth is a passion and martyrdom, for “spirit is the life that itself cuts into life: with its agony it increases its own knowledge.” The song of songs on the spirit in this chapter may seem to contradict Nietzsche’s insistence, in the chapter “On the Despisers of the Body,” that the spirit is a mere instrument. Both themes are central in Nietzsche’s thought, and their apparent contradiction is partly due to the fact that both are stated metaphorically. For, in truth, Nietzsche denies any crude dualism of body and spirit as a popular prejudice. The life of the spirit and the life of the body are aspects of a single life. But up to a point the contradiction can also be resolved metaphorically: life uses the spirit against its present form to attain a higher perfection. Man’s enhancement is inseparable from the spirit; but Nietzsche denounces the occasional efforts of the spirit to destroy life instead of pruning it.
9. The Ni
ght Song: “Light am I; ah, that I were night!”
10. The Dancing Song: Life and wisdom as jealous women.
11. The Tomb Song: “Invulnerable am I only in the heel.”
12. On Self-Overcoming: The first long discussion of the will to power marks, together with the chapters “On the Pitying” and “On the Tarantulas,” one of the high points of Part Two. Philosophically, however, it raises many difficulties. (See my Nietzsche, 6, III.)
13. On Those Who Are Sublime: The doctrine of self-overcoming is here guarded against misunderstandings: far from favoring austere heroics, Nietzsche praises humor (and practices it: witness the whole of Zarathustra, especially Part Four) and, no less, gracefulness and graciousness. The three sentences near the end, beginning “And there is nobody . . . ,” represent a wonderfully concise statement of much of his philosophy.
14. On the Land of Education: Against modern eclecticism and lack of style. “Rather would I be a day laborer in Hades . . .”: in the Odyssey, the shade of Achilles would rather be a day laborer on the smallest field than king of all the dead in Hades. Zarathustra abounds in similar allusions. “Everything deserves to perish,” for example, is an abbreviation of a dictum of Goethe’s Mephistopheles.
15. On Immaculate Perception: Labored sexual imagery, already notable in “The Dancing Song,” keeps this critique of detachment from becoming incisive. Not arid but, judged by high standards, a mismatch of message and metaphor. Or put positively: something of a personal document. Therefore the German references to the sun as feminine have been retained in translation. “Loving and perishing (Lieben und Untergehn)” do not rhyme in German either.
16. On Scholars: Nietzsche’s, not Zarathustra’s, autobiography.
17. On Poets: This chapter is full of allusions to the final chorus in Goethe’s Faust, which might be translated thus:What is destructible