Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (ebook reader color screen .TXT) 📕
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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.
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- Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
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Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: “The Will is a creator.”
All “It was” is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance—until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus would I have it.”—
Until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus do I will it! Thus shall I will it!”
But did it ever speak thus? And when doth this take place? Hath the Will been unharnessed from its own folly?
Hath the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Hath it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?
And who hath taught it reconciliation with time, and something higher than all reconciliation?
Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is the Will to Power—: but how doth that take place? Who hath taught it also to will backwards?
—But at this point in his discourse it chanced that Zarathustra suddenly paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm. With terror in his eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances pierced as with arrows their thoughts and arrear-thoughts. But after a brief space he again laughed, and said soothedly:
“It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so difficult—especially for a babbler.”—
Thus spake Zarathustra. The hunchback, however, had listened to the conversation and had covered his face during the time; but when he heard Zarathustra laugh, he looked up with curiosity, and said slowly:
“But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise unto us than unto his disciples?”
Zarathustra answered: “What is there to be wondered at! With hunchbacks one may well speak in a hunchbacked way!”
“Very good,” said the hunchback; “and with pupils one may well tell tales out of school.
“But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise unto his pupils—than unto himself?”—
XLIII Manly PrudenceNot the height, it is the declivity that is terrible!
The declivity, where the gaze shooteth downwards, and the hand graspeth upwards. There doth the heart become giddy through its double will.
Ah, friends, do ye divine also my heart’s double will?
This, this is my declivity and my danger, that my gaze shooteth towards the summit, and my hand would fain clutch and lean—on the depth!
To man clingeth my will; with chains do I bind myself to man, because I am pulled upwards to the Superman: for thither doth mine other will tend.
And therefore do I live blindly among men, as if I knew them not: that my hand may not entirely lose belief in firmness.
I know not you men: this gloom and consolation is often spread around me.
I sit at the gateway for every rogue, and ask: Who wisheth to deceive me?
This is my first manly prudence, that I allow myself to be deceived, so as not to be on my guard against deceivers.
Ah, if I were on my guard against man, how could man be an anchor to my ball! Too easily would I be pulled upwards and away!
This providence is over my fate, that I have to be without foresight.
And he who would not languish amongst men, must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who would keep clean amongst men, must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.
And thus spake I often to myself for consolation: “Courage! Cheer up! old heart! An unhappiness hath failed to befall thee: enjoy that as thy—happiness!”
This, however, is mine other manly prudence: I am more forbearing to the vain than to the proud.
Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? Where, however, pride is wounded, there there groweth up something better than pride.
That life may be fair to behold, its game must be well played; for that purpose, however, it needeth good actors.
Good actors have I found all the vain ones: they play, and wish people to be fond of beholding them—all their spirit is in this wish.
They represent themselves, they invent themselves; in their neighbourhood I like to look upon life—it cureth of melancholy.
Therefore am I forbearing to the vain, because they are the physicians of my melancholy, and keep me attached to man as to a drama.
And further, who conceiveth the full depth of the modesty of the vain man! I am favourable to him, and sympathetic on account of his modesty.
From you would he learn his belief in himself; he feedeth upon your glances, he eateth praise out of your hands.
Your lies doth he even believe when you lie favourably about him: for in its depths sigheth his heart: “What am I?”
And if that be the true virtue which is unconscious of itself—well, the vain man is unconscious of his modesty!—
This is, however, my third manly prudence: I am not put out of conceit with the wicked by your timorousness.
I am happy to see the marvels the warm sun hatcheth: tigers and palms and rattlesnakes.
Also amongst men there is a beautiful brood of the warm sun, and much that is marvellous in the wicked.
In truth, as your wisest did not seem to me so very wise, so found I also human wickedness below the fame of it.
And oft did I ask with a shake of the head: Why still rattle, ye rattlesnakes?
Verily, there is still a future even for evil! And the warmest south is still undiscovered by man.
How many things are now called the worst wickedness, which are only twelve feet broad and three months long! Some day, however, will greater dragons come into the world.
For that the Superman may not lack his dragon, the superdragon that is worthy of him, there must still much warm sun glow on moist virgin forests!
Out of your wild cats must tigers have evolved, and out of your poison-toads, crocodiles: for the good hunter shall have a good hunt!
And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called “the devil!”
So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the Superman would be frightful in his goodness!
And ye
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