Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (ebook reader color screen .TXT) 📕
Description
Thus Spake Zarathustra was Friedrich Nietzsche’s favorite of the books he wrote, and has been his most popular amongst general readers. Yet some scholars dislike it because of its unphilosophical nature: it eschews jargon and the scaffolding of arguments, which engage only the intellect, in favor of an artistic approach that engages the whole mind.
After ten years of solitude in a cave high in the mountains, Zarathustra wishes to share with humanity the wisdom he has accumulated during this time. He reaches the nearest town and addresses the crowd on the marketplace. He tells them of the Overman: the next step in human evolution, a being who creates their own values, freed from the weight of tradition and morality, and who takes responsibility for their own successes and failures. But the crowd doesn’t understand him; his discourse is met only with rude ignorance. Zarathustra then decides to gather a small group of disciples and share his wisdom with them.
The bulk of the book is Zarathustra’s speeches on topics such as morality, society, individualism, religion, and how suffering and its overcoming are what give meaning to our existence. While already wiser than most, Zarathustra still learns from those he talks to, re-evaluating his thoughts as he deals with disappointment (such as when his disciples prove to be mere followers), and confronting his own doubts. His greatest challenge, though, comes when he faces the existential test of the eternal recurrence of the same: the thought that our lives could repeat indefinitely without the minutest of change.
The inspiration for Zarathustra came to Nietzsche during one of the long hikes he often indulged in despite his failing health. It was a decade of solitude: his physical condition had worsened to the point of forcing him to retire from his position at the University of Basel, and each change of season prompted him to relocate to kinder climes in Switzerland, France, or Italy. The book took two years to write. Each of its four parts was written in a ten-day period of creative effervescence followed by months of gloom, plagued by terrible, debilitating migraines.
Zarathustra was initially received with indifference at best and frustration at worst. It’s a work of philosophy as much as aesthetics: the language is modeled after the Luther Bible and contains numerous references to Homer, Heraclitus, Plato, Goethe, Emerson, and Wagner, to name a few. Later Nietzsche attempted to address the book’s lack of popularity by framing the same concepts in a more traditional, approachable manner in his following book, Beyond Good and Evil, but that book also struggled to find an audience.
With his health steadily deteriorating, Nietzsche’s mind broke down in 1889 and never recovered. His body would live on for 11 more years, and he ended up in the care of his sister, Elisabeth. A stalwart nationalist and anti-Semite, she saw in her brother’s illness the opportunity to turn him into a German hero. Despite her brother’s firm opposition to nationalism, anti-Semitism, and power politics, she perverted his work by promoting it for her own ends. Scores of commentators partook in her lie and enthusiastically used Nietzsche’s work to buttress their own contrary views. Doing so requires one to selectively ignore half the content of the book: Zarathustra’s discourses regularly touch on a priori dark and violent themes, but they also clearly state that these are to be directed towards oneself. Reaching the Overman requires us to know ourselves, and such introspection, given the darker side of human nature, leads to contempt. This contempt for ourselves, says Nietzsche, should be embraced as the first step towards awareness of what we could be. Cruelty, likewise, stems from that knowledge as a necessity to hammer ourselves into the proper shape. Such commentators also conveniently ignored Zarathustra’s many remarks about love: love for ourselves, he says, is what can prevent us from spreading resentment around us during this difficult process of change.
The first English translation of Zarathustra was by Alexander Tille, a German scholar who had emigrated to Scotland. English wasn’t his first language and his work suffered from it. Thomas Common, a Scottish scholar, used Tille’s work as the base for his own translation. Bringing Zarathustra to the English-speaking world was no easy task given Nietzsche’s stylistic idiosyncrasies. Just like Nietzsche, Common took risks: because the book is written in the style of the Luther Bible, Common decided to emulate the style of the King James Bible; he also tried to reproduce the musicality of the language and the new words coined by Nietzsche, some of which have been updated over time—e.g. Common’s “Superman” is nowadays known as “Overman.” While his choices have been controversial, he produced a landmark translation that faithfully tried to convert the unique flavor of Zarathustra into English. Published in 1909, it would take four decades until the next translation by Walter Kaufman in 1954.
But Zarathustra didn’t find its scholarly fame limited to Europe: soon after its publication, it reached Asia, where it was received with enthusiasm, particularly in China and Japan where it influenced the famous Kyoto School. Zarathustra has also received special attention from the music world. Nietzsche loved music and poetry, and it was his wish that this book be taken as music. No fewer than 87 pieces have been inspired by the book, in part or as a whole. The best known are Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, the fourth movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and Frederick Delius’ A Mass of Life.
Read free book «Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (ebook reader color screen .TXT) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Read book online «Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (ebook reader color screen .TXT) 📕». Author - Friedrich Nietzsche
Yea, much bitter dying must there be in your life, ye creators! Thus are ye advocates and justifiers of all perishableness.
For the creator himself to be the newborn child, he must also be willing to be the child-bearer, and endure the pangs of the child-bearer.
Verily, through a hundred souls went I my way, and through a hundred cradles and birth-throes. Many a farewell have I taken; I know the heartbreaking last hours.
But so willeth it my creating Will, my fate. Or, to tell you it more candidly: just such a fate—willeth my Will.
All feeling suffereth in me, and is in prison: but my willing ever cometh to me as mine emancipator and comforter.
Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipation—so teacheth you Zarathustra.
No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far from me!
And also in discerning do I feel only my will’s procreating and evolving delight; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because there is will to procreation in it.
Away from God and Gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were—Gods!
But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone.
Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth an image for me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber in the hardest, ugliest stone!
Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone fly the fragments: what’s that to me?
I will complete it: for a shadow came unto me—the stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me!
The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Ah, my brethren! Of what account now are—the Gods to me!—
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXV The PitifulMy friends, there hath arisen a satire on your friend: “Behold Zarathustra! Walketh he not amongst us as if amongst animals?”
But it is better said in this wise: “The discerning one walketh amongst men as amongst animals.”
Man himself is to the discerning one: the animal with red cheeks.
How hath that happened unto him? Is it not because he hath had to be ashamed too oft?
O my friends! Thus speaketh the discerning one: shame, shame, shame—that is the history of man!
And on that account doth the noble one enjoin upon himself not to abash: bashfulness doth he enjoin on himself in presence of all sufferers.
Verily, I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their pity: too destitute are they of bashfulness.
If I must be pitiful, I dislike to be called so; and if I be so, it is preferably at a distance.
Preferably also do I shroud my head, and flee, before being recognised: and thus do I bid you do, my friends!
May my destiny ever lead unafflicted ones like you across my path, and those with whom I may have hope and repast and honey in common!
Verily, I have done this and that for the afflicted: but something better did I always seem to do when I had learned to enjoy myself better.
Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin!
And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, and to contrive pain.
Therefore do I wash the hand that hath helped the sufferer; therefore do I wipe also my soul.
For in seeing the sufferer suffering—thereof was I ashamed on account of his shame; and in helping him, sorely did I wound his pride.
Great obligations do not make grateful, but revengeful; and when a small kindness is not forgotten, it becometh a gnawing worm.
“Be shy in accepting! Distinguish by accepting!”—thus do I advise those who have naught to bestow.
I, however, am a bestower: willingly do I bestow as friend to friends. Strangers, however, and the poor, may pluck for themselves the fruit from my tree: thus doth it cause less shame.
Beggars, however, one should entirely do away with! Verily, it annoyeth one to give unto them, and it annoyeth one not to give unto them.
And likewise sinners and bad consciences! Believe me, my friends: the sting of conscience teacheth one to sting.
The worst things, however, are the petty thoughts. Verily, better to have done evilly than to have thought pettily!
To be sure, ye say: “The delight in petty evils spareth one many a great evil deed.” But here one should not wish to be sparing.
Like a boil is the evil deed: it itcheth and irritateth and breaketh forth—it speaketh honourably.
“Behold, I am disease,” saith the evil deed: that is its honourableness.
But like infection is the petty thought: it creepeth and hideth, and wanteth to be nowhere—until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection.
To him however, who is possessed of a devil, I would whisper this word in the ear: “Better for thee to rear up thy devil! Even for thee there is still a path to greatness!”—
Ah, my brethren! One knoweth a little too much about everyone! And many a one becometh transparent to us, but still we can by no means penetrate him.
It is difficult to live among men because silence is so difficult.
And not to him who is offensive to us are we most unfair, but to him who doth not concern us at all.
If, however, thou hast a suffering friend, then be a resting-place for his suffering; like a hard bed, however, a camp-bed: thus wilt thou serve him best.
And if a friend doeth thee wrong, then say: “I forgive thee what thou hast done unto me; that thou hast done it unto thyself, however—how could I forgive that!”
Thus speaketh all great love: it surpasseth even forgiveness and pity.
One should hold fast one’s heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one’s head run away!
Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in
Comments (0)