And as for our future, one will hardly find us again on the paths of those Egyptian youths who endanger temples by night, embrace statues, and want by all means to unveil, uncover, and put into a bright light whatever is kept concealed for good reasons.62 No, this bad taste, this will to truth, to “truth at any price,” this youthful madness in the love of truth, have lost their charm for us: for that we are too experienced, too serious, too gay, too burned, too deep. We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawn—we have lived enough not to believe this. Today we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and “know” everything. Tout comprendre—c’est tout mépriser.63
“Is it true that God is present everywhere?” a little girl asked her mother; “I think that’s indecent”—a hint for philosophers! One should have more respect for the bashfulness with which nature has hidden behind riddles and iridescent uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not letting us see her reasons? Perhaps her name is—to speak Greek—Baubo?
Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial—out of profundity. And is not this precisely what we are again coming back to, we daredevils of the spirit who have climbed the highest and most dangerous peak of present thought and looked around from up there—we who have looked down from there? Are we not, precisely in this respect, Greeks? Adorers of forms, of tones, of words? And therefore —artists?
LETTERS (1889)
EDITOR’S NOTE
Early in January 1889 Nietzsche, then in Turin, saw a coachman flog a horse, rushed toward the horse, and collapsed with his arms around it. He was carried home, and, after recovering consciousness, wrote and mailed a number of letters which mirror the sudden outbreak of his madness. They are the last meaningful things he wrote.
The men referred to in the letter to Burckhardt had been in the news recently. Prado and Chambige had been tried for murder in November 1888, in Paris and Algeria, respectively; and in a letter to Strindberg, Nietzsche had written on December 7: “Prado was superior to his judges and even to his lawyers in his self-control, esprit, and prankishness.” Lesseps, of course, is the man who had built the Suez Canal. Alphonse Daudet had recently published L’Immortel, a satirical attack on Les Quarante (that is, the French Academy). The hero of this work is called Astier, and this may help to account for the word “Astu” in the letter. In a letter to Overbeck, on November 13, Nietzsche had mentioned the funeral of Conte Robilant, “the most venerable type of the Piedmontese nobility and incidentally, as is known, a son of King Carlo Alberto.” Antonelli, finally, was papal Secretary of State under Pius IX.64
Burckhardt took this letter to Overbeck, who went to Turin to bring his friend home. After a short spell in an asylum he was released in care of his mother; and after her death, his sister moved him to Weimar—the city of Goethe and Schiller—as part of her attempt to start a Nietzsche cult. He died on August 25, 1900.
TO GAST
Turin, January 4, 1889
To my maestro Pietro.
Sing me a new song: the world is transfigured and all the heavens are full of joy.
The Crucified
TO JACOB BURCKHARDT
January 6, 1889 65
Dear Professor,
In the end I would much rather be a Basel professor than God; but I have not dared push my private egoism so far as to desist for its sake from the creation of the world. You see, one must make sacrifices however and wherever one lives.
But I have reserved myself a small student’s room, situated opposite the Palazzo Carignano (in which I was born as Vittorio Emanuele), which also permits me to hear from the desk the magnificent music below, in the Galleria Subalpina. I pay twenty-five francs, including service, buy my tea, and do all my shopping myself, suffer from torn shoes, and thank heaven every moment for the old world for which men have not been simple and quiet enough.
Since I am sentenced to while away the next eternity with bad jokes, I have my writing here, which really does not leave anything to be desired—very nice and not at all exhausting. The post office is five steps from here, so I mail my letters myself to play the great feuilletonist of the grande monde. Of course, I maintain close relations with Figaro; and in order to get an idea how harmless I can be, listen to my first two bad jokes.
Do not take the Prado case too hard. I am Prado; I am also father Prado; I dare say that I am Lesseps too. I wanted to give my Parisians, whom I love, a new notion: that of a decent criminal. I am also Chambige—also a decent criminal. Second joke: I salute the immortal one; Monsieur Daudet belongs to the quarante. Astu.
What is disagreeable and offends my modesty is .that at bottom I am every name in history. With the children I have put into the world too, I consider with some mistrust whether it is not the case that all who come into the kingdom of God also come out of God. This fall I was blinded as little as possible when I twice witnessed my funeral, first as Conte Robilant (no, that is my son, insofar as I am Carlo Alberto, unfaithful to my nature); but Antonelli I was myself. Dear Professor, this edifice you should see: since I am utterly inexperienced in the things which I create, you are entitled to any criticism; I am grateful without being able to promise that I shall profit. We artists are incorrigible.
Today I saw an operetta, Quirinal-Moorish, and on this occasion also noted with delight that Moscow as well as Rome are now grandiose affairs. You see, I am not denied considerable talent for landscapes too.
Consider, now we have beautiful, beautiful chats; Turin is not far; very serious professional obligations are lacking just now; a glass of Veltliner could be obtained. Négligé of dress, a condition of being decent.
With affectionate love, your
Nietzsche
[On the margins of this letter are four postscripts.]
You may make any use of this letter which will not degrade me in the eyes of those at Basel.
I have had Caiphas put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawnout manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck, and all anti-Semites abolished.
I go everywhere in my student’s coat, and here and there slap somebody on the shoulder and say, Siamo contenti? Son dio ho fatto questa caricatura.66
Tomorrow my son Umberto will come with the lovely Margharita, whom, however, I shall also receive here only in shirtsleeves. The rest for Frau Cosima—Ariadne —from time to time there is magic.
TO OVERBECK
January 6, 1889
To friend Overbeck and wife. Although you have so far demonstrated little faith in my ability to pay, I yet hope to demonstrate that I am somebody who pays his debts —for example, to you. I am just having all anti-Semites shot.
Dionysus
Editions of Nietzsche
For a much more comprehensive bibliography, see the 3rd rev. ed. of Kaufmann’s Nistzsche (Princeton: Princeton University Press, and New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1968). The International Nietzsche Bibliography, described on p. 24, above, does not include writings by Nietzsche.
A. German Editions of His Works
There are a great many collected editions. For scholars, the two most important are:1.Werke, Grossoktavausgabe, and ed. 20 vols. Leipzig: Kröner, 1901–1913 and 1926 (vol. XX, containing indices for vols. I—XVI). Vols. I—VIII, works; vols. IX—XVI, Nachlass (i.e., notes, fragments, and other manuscript material not published by Nietzsche himself and for the most part not intended for publication); vols. XVII—XIX, Philologica (i.e., lecture notes and related materials belonging to the period when Nietzsche was a classical philologist).
2.Gesammelte Werke, Musarionausgabe. 23 vols. Munich: Musarion Verlag, 1920–1929. Books, Nachlass, and Philologica are arranged in a single chronological sequence; vol. I contains previously unpublished
juvenilia; half of vol. XXI contains an index of names, which, like the index of subjects (all of vols. XXII-XXIII ), covers the Philologica too. In most ways this edition is obviously preferable to the Grossoktacausgabe; but the earlier edition contains an appendix of interesting editorial notes on The Will to Power (vol. XVI ) which is not to be found anywhere else.
Four other editions deserve mention here:3. Werke und Briefe: Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 9 vols. Munich: Beck, 1933–1942. Discontinued after 5 vols. of Werke and 4 vols. of Briefe had appeared. The arrangement is chronological, and the “works” do not include any of Nietzsche’s books but cover only the period from 1854, when Nietzsche was ten, to 1869. But H. J. Mette’s discussion of the MSS in Werke, I, xxxi—cxxvi, includes the MSS of Nietzsche’s later works.
4. Werke in drei Bänden. Ed. Karl Schlechta. 3 vols. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1954–1956. Vols. I-II contain all Nietzsche’s books as well as some of his late poems; vol. III contains a selection from the Nachlass, 278 letters, a chronology (pp. 1359—82), and a long Philological Postscript (pp. 1383–1432). In 1965 a 4th vol. was added: Nietzsche-Index. Some minor errors mar vols. I-II; vol. III is most open to objections. On the positive side, it contains a few previously unpublished letters, and the Philological Postscript details the forgeries perpetrated by Nietzsche’s sister, but these forgeries concern letters only and are of no philosophical interest. On the negative side, the selections from the Nachlass of the 1880s are confined exclusively to the notes previously known as The Will to Power; these notes have been edited very badly, and all late notes that the editors of the more comprehensive editions had not included in The Will to Power have been omitted, though in entries 1 and 2 above they fill many volumes. The editorial arrangement is neither systematic nor, as claimed by the editor, faithful to the manuscripts; the text departs from the manuscripts wherever entries 1 and 2 do and disregards the interesting notes in vol. XVI of 1 which indicate departures from the manuscripts. For more detailed discussion, see the Kaufmann translations (C. II below).
5. Kröners Taschenausgabe. Vols. 70–77 contain Nietzsche’s books as well as selections from the Nachlass of his Basel period; 78 contains The Will to Power; 82–83 a selection from the late Nachlass material; 170 an index for all these volumes. These handy volumes can be bought separately. The postscripts by Alfred Bäumler, who was a Nazi, are objectionable, and volumes 82–83 are inadequate; but vols. 70–78 are adequate for most purposes.
6. Werke: Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Schriften und nachgelassenen Fragmente. Ed. Giorgio Colli. 30 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967ff. Instead of continuing edition 3, above, plans have been made for yet another monumental collected edition.
B. German Editions of His Letters
1. Friedrich Nietzsches Cesammelte Briefe. 5 vols. Berlin und Leipzig: Schuster & Loeffler (later, Insel-Verlag), 1900ff. Some of Nietzsche’s letters to his sister in vol. V (actually two volumes with consecutive pagination) are not authentic (see A.4, above). Still, this edition has never been replaced, though it has been importantly supplemented by the following collections.
2. Nietzsches Briefwechsel mit Franz Overbeck. Leipzig: Insel, 1916. Overbeck was Nietzsche’s colleague at Basel and remained a loyal friend to the end. These important letters are not included in B.1.
3. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Wagner und Nietzsche zur Zeit ihrer Freundschaft. Munich: Müller, 1915; tr. by C. V. Kerr, introduction by H. L. Mencken, as The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence. London: Duckworth, 1922.
4. Werke und Briefe (A.3, above) includes 4 vols. of letters (Munich: Beck, 1938—1942), which span the period from 1850 to 1877. Briefe, vol. I, pp. xii-lviii, offer a detailed and valuable survey of the whereabouts of all Nietzsche letters of which the Nietzsche Archive had any knowledge at that time. This survey also lists letters published in periodicals and in biographical works. Many letters are privately owned and as yet unpublished.
5. See A.4, above.
C. Nietzsche in English
I. The Oscar Levy Translations
1. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. 18 vols. Ed. Oscar Levy. New York: Macmillan, 1909–1911, reissue, New York: Russell & Russell, 1964.
2. Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche. Ed. Oscar Levy. Tr. A. M. Ludovici. New York and Toronto: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1921.These translations, none of them by Dr. Levy himself, represent an immense labor of love but are thoroughly unreliable. In his preface to the collected edition, Dr. Levy called Ludovici “the most gifted and conscientious of my collaborators.” But in the latest edition Ludovici still has “cosmopolitan” where Nietzsche has “cosmological”; and where Nietzsche says, “Ibsen has become very clear to me,” Ludovici still says, “Ibsen has become very German.” Similar mistakes abound.
II. The Walter Kaufmann Translations
Nietzsche’s most important writings are available in three volumes. The translations of On the Genealogy of Morals and The Will to Power are by Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale jointly; all the others, as well as all the introductions and commentaries, are by Kaufmann alone.
1. The Portable Nietzsche. New York: The Viking Press, 1954· Contains complete new translations of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, and Nietzsche contra Wagner, and of more than 100 pages of additional selections.
2. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. New York: Random House, Modern Library Ciant, 1968. Contains complete new translations, with footnote commentaries, of The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, and Ecce Homo, as well as 75 aphorisms from Human, All-too-Human; Dawn; and The Gay Science.
3. The Will to Power, with commentary and facsimiles of the original manuscript. New York: Random House, 1967.
4. Twenty German Poets: A Bilingual Collection. New York: Random House, 1962; reprinted in the Modern Library, 1963. Includes eleven poems by and three about Nietzsche.
Many of these translations are also available separately, in paperback editions, as follows:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra. New York: The Viking Press, Compass Viking Edition, 1966.
Beyond Good and Evil, 1966; The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, 1967; On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, with 75 aphorisms, 1967; The Will to Power, 1968: all New York: Random House, Vintage Books.
III. Other Translations
There are other translations of single works, but no one else has translated more than two or three, and none of the major works has been rendered into English by another philosopher. In Francis Golffing’s versions of The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), the accent is on freedom, and there are striking omissions.
The works not included in the Kaufmann translations need redoing. Of the Untimely Meditations; Human, All-too-Human; The Dawn; and The Gay Science, only the third Meditation has been done in recent years: Schopenhauer as Educator, tr. J. W. Hillesheim and Malcolm R. Simpson (Chicago: Henry Regnery, Gateway Editions, 1965).
Different selections from the three aphoristic books are included in II.1 and II.2, above.
Nietzsche: Unpublished Letters. Tr. and ed. by Kurt F. Leidecker. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959. Offers a selection of 75 items from Schlechta’s selection of 278 letters. The translations and the preface contain many errors; the title of the book is grossly misleading, and some of these letters were actually included in the present volume in 1954.
IV. Forgery
My Sister and I, published over Nietzsche’s name in 1951, in English only, is an insipid forgery. See Kaufmann’s exposes, listed on p. 26, above.
THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY
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