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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And this also did I learn among them: the praiser doeth as if he gave back; in truth, however, he wanteth more to be given him!
Ask my foot if their lauding and luring strains please it! Verily, to such measure and ticktack, it liketh neither to dance nor to stand still.
To small virtues would they fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.
I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open; they have become smaller, and ever become smaller:—the reason thereof is their doctrine of happiness and virtue.
For they are moderate also in virtue—because they want comfort. With comfort, however, moderate virtue only is compatible.
To be sure, they also learn in their way to stride on and stride forward: that, I call their hobbling.—Thereby they become a hindrance to all who are in haste.
And many of them go forward, and look backwards thereby, with stiffened necks: those do I like to run up against.
Foot and eye shall not lie, nor give the lie to each other. But there is much lying among small people.
Some of them will, but most of them are willed. Some of them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.
There are actors without knowing it amongst them, and actors without intending it—, the genuine ones are always rare, especially the genuine actors.
Of man there is little here: therefore do their women masculinise themselves. For only he who is man enough, will—save the woman in woman.
And this hypocrisy found I worst amongst them, that even those who command feign the virtues of those who serve.
“I serve, thou servest, we serve”—so chanteth here even the hypocrisy of the rulers—and alas! if the first lord be only the first servant!
Ah, even upon their hypocrisy did mine eyes’ curiosity alight; and well did I divine all their fly-happiness, and their buzzing around sunny windowpanes.
So much kindness, so much weakness do I see. So much justice and pity, so much weakness.
Round, fair, and considerate are they to one another, as grains of sand are round, fair, and considerate to grains of sand.
Modestly to embrace a small happiness—that do they call “submission”! and at the same time they peer modestly after a new small happiness.
In their hearts they want simply one thing most of all: that no one hurt them. Thus do they anticipate everyone’s wishes and do well unto everyone.
That, however, is cowardice, though it be called “virtue.”—
And when they chance to speak harshly, those small people, then do I hear therein only their hoarseness—every draught of air maketh them hoarse.
Shrewd indeed are they, their virtues have shrewd fingers. But they lack fists: their fingers do not know how to creep behind fists.
Virtue for them is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have they made the wolf a dog, and man himself man’s best domestic animal.
“We set our chair in the midst”—so saith their smirking unto me—“and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine.”
That, however, is—mediocrity, though it be called moderation.—
IIII pass through this people and let fall many words: but they know neither how to take nor how to retain them.
They wonder why I came not to revile venery and vice; and verily, I came not to warn against pickpockets either!
They wonder why I am not ready to abet and whet their wisdom: as if they had not yet enough of wiseacres, whose voices grate on mine ear like slate-pencils!
And when I call out: “Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that would fain whimper and fold the hands and adore”—then do they shout: “Zarathustra is godless.”
And especially do their teachers of submission shout this;—but precisely in their ears do I love to cry: “Yea! I am Zarathustra, the godless!”
Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is aught puny, or sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust preventeth me from cracking them.
Well! This is my sermon for their ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who saith: “Who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?”
I am Zarathustra the godless: where do I find mine equal? And all those are mine equals who give unto themselves their Will, and divest themselves of all submission.
I am Zarathustra the godless! I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it hath been quite cooked do I welcome it as my food.
And verily, many a chance came imperiously unto me: but still more imperiously did my Will speak unto it—then did it lie imploringly upon its knees—
—Imploring that it might find home and heart with me, and saying flatteringly: “See, O Zarathustra, how friend only cometh unto friend!”—
But why talk I, when no one hath mine ears! And so will I shout it out unto all the winds:
Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish—
—By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions!
Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become great, it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks!
Also what ye omit weaveth at the web of all the human future; even your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that liveth on the blood of the future.
And when ye take, then is it like stealing, ye small virtuous ones; but even among knaves honour saith that “one shall only steal when one cannot rob.”
“It giveth itself”—that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say unto you, ye comfortable ones, that it taketh to itself, and will ever take more and more from you!
Ah, that ye would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action!
Ah, that ye understood my word: “Do ever what ye will—but first be such as can will.
“Love ever your neighbour as yourselves—but first
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