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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He that hath an ear let him hear.—
Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed “The Pied Cow.” For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once more his cave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly on account of the nighness of his return home.
LIII The Return HomeO lonesomeness! My home, lonesomeness! Too long have I lived wildly in wild remoteness, to return to thee without tears!
Now threaten me with the finger as mothers threaten; now smile upon me as mothers smile; now say just: “Who was it that like a whirlwind once rushed away from me?—
“—Who when departing called out: ‘Too long have I sat with lonesomeness; there have I unlearned silence!’ That hast thou learned now—surely?
“O Zarathustra, everything do I know; and that thou wert more forsaken amongst the many, thou unique one, than thou ever wert with me!
“One thing is forsakenness, another matter is lonesomeness: that hast thou now learned! And that amongst men thou wilt ever be wild and strange:
“—Wild and strange even when they love thee: for above all they want to be treated indulgently!
“Here, however, art thou at home and house with thyself; here canst thou utter everything, and unbosom all motives; nothing is here ashamed of concealed, congealed feelings.
“Here do all things come caressingly to thy talk and flatter thee: for they want to ride upon thy back. On every simile dost thou here ride to every truth.
“Uprightly and openly mayest thou here talk to all things: and verily, it soundeth as praise in their ears, for one to talk to all things—directly!
“Another matter, however, is forsakenness. For, dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy bird screamed overhead, when thou stoodest in the forest, irresolute, ignorant where to go, beside a corpse:—
“—When thou spakest: ‘Let mine animals lead me! More dangerous have I found it among men than among animals:’—That was forsakenness!
“And dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thou sattest in thine isle, a well of wine giving and granting amongst empty buckets, bestowing and distributing amongst the thirsty:
“—Until at last thou alone sattest thirsty amongst the drunken ones, and wailedst nightly: ‘Is taking not more blessed than giving? And stealing yet more blessed than taking?’—That was forsakenness!
“And dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy stillest hour came and drove thee forth from thyself, when with wicked whispering it said: ‘Speak and succumb!’—
“—When it disgusted thee with all thy waiting and silence, and discouraged thy humble courage: That was forsakenness!”—
O lonesomeness! My home, lonesomeness! How blessedly and tenderly speaketh thy voice unto me!
We do not question each other, we do not complain to each other; we go together openly through open doors.
For all is open with thee and clear; and even the hours run here on lighter feet. For in the dark, time weigheth heavier upon one than in the light.
Here fly open unto me all being’s words and word-cabinets: here all being wanteth to become words, here all becoming wanteth to learn of me how to talk.
Down there, however—all talking is in vain! There, forgetting and passing-by are the best wisdom: that have I learned now!
He who would understand everything in man must handle everything. But for that I have too clean hands.
I do not like even to inhale their breath; alas! that I have lived so long among their noise and bad breaths!
O blessed stillness around me! O pure odours around me! How from a deep breast this stillness fetcheth pure breath! How it hearkeneth, this blessed stillness!
But down there—there speaketh everything, there is everything misheard. If one announce one’s wisdom with bells, the shopmen in the marketplace will out-jingle it with pennies!
Everything among them talketh; no one knoweth any longer how to understand. Everything falleth into the water; nothing falleth any longer into deep wells.
Everything among them talketh, nothing succeedeth any longer and accomplisheth itself. Everything cackleth, but who will still sit quietly on the nest and hatch eggs?
Everything among them talketh, everything is out-talked. And that which yesterday was still too hard for time itself and its tooth, hangeth today, outchamped and outchewed, from the mouths of the men of today.
Everything among them talketh, everything is betrayed. And what was once called the secret and secrecy of profound souls, belongeth today to the street-trumpeters and other butterflies.
O human hubbub, thou wonderful thing! Thou noise in dark streets! Now art thou again behind me:—my greatest danger lieth behind me!
In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated.
With suppressed truths, with fool’s hand and befooled heart, and rich in petty lies of pity:—thus have I ever lived among men.
Disguised did I sit amongst them, ready to misjudge myself that I might endure them, and willingly saying to myself: “Thou fool, thou dost not know men!”
One unlearneth men when one liveth amongst them: there is too much foreground in all men—what can farseeing, far-longing eyes do there!
And, fool that I was, when they misjudged me, I indulged them on that account more than myself, being habitually hard on myself, and often even taking revenge on myself for the indulgence.
Stung all over by poisonous flies, and hollowed like the stone by many drops of wickedness: thus did I sit among them, and still said to myself: “Innocent is everything petty of its pettiness!”
Especially did I find those who call themselves “the good,” the most poisonous flies; they sting in all innocence, they lie in all innocence; how could they—be just towards me!
He who liveth amongst the good—pity teacheth him to lie. Pity maketh stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable.
To conceal myself and my riches—that did I learn down there: for everyone did I still find poor in spirit. It was the lie of my pity, that I knew in everyone,
—That I saw and scented in everyone, what was enough of spirit
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