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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—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
He speaketh not: except that he ever saith Yea to the world which he created: thus doth he extol his world. It is his artfulness that speaketh not: thus is he rarely found wrong.
—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
Uncomely goeth he through the world. Grey is the favourite colour in which he wrappeth his virtue. Hath he spirit, then doth he conceal it; everyone, however, believeth in his long ears.
—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
What hidden wisdom it is to wear long ears, and only to say Yea and never Nay! Hath he not created the world in his own image, namely, as stupid as possible?
—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
Thou goest straight and crooked ways; it concerneth thee little what seemeth straight or crooked unto us men. Beyond good and evil is thy domain. It is thine innocence not to know what innocence is.
—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
Lo! how thou spurnest none from thee, neither beggars nor kings. Thou sufferest little children to come unto thee, and when the bad boys decoy thee, then sayest thou simply, Ye‑a.
—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
Thou lovest she-asses and fresh figs, thou art no food-despiser. A thistle tickleth thy heart when thou chancest to be hungry. There is the wisdom of a God therein.
—The ass, however, here brayed Ye‑a.
LXXVIII The Ass-Festival IAt this place in the litany, however, Zarathustra could no longer control himself; he himself cried out Ye‑a, louder even than the ass, and sprang into the midst of his maddened guests. “Whatever are you about, ye grown-up children?” he exclaimed, pulling up the praying ones from the ground. “Alas, if anyone else, except Zarathustra, had seen you:
“Everyone would think you the worst blasphemers, or the very foolishest old women, with your new belief!
“And thou thyself, thou old pope, how is it in accordance with thee, to adore an ass in such a manner as God?”—
“O Zarathustra,” answered the pope, “forgive me, but in divine matters I am more enlightened even than thou. And it is right that it should be so.
“Better to adore God so, in this form, than in no form at all! Think over this saying, mine exalted friend: thou wilt readily divine that in such a saying there is wisdom.
“He who said ‘God is a Spirit’—made the greatest stride and slide hitherto made on earth towards unbelief: such a dictum is not easily amended again on earth!
“Mine old heart leapeth and boundeth because there is still something to adore on earth. Forgive it, O Zarathustra, to an old, pious pontiff-heart!—”
—“And thou,” said Zarathustra to the wanderer and shadow, “thou callest and thinkest thyself a free spirit? And thou here practisest such idolatry and hierolatry?
“Worse verily, doest thou here than with thy bad brown girls, thou bad, new believer!”
“It is sad enough,” answered the wanderer and shadow, “thou art right: but how can I help it! The old God liveth again, O Zarathustra, thou mayst say what thou wilt.
“The ugliest man is to blame for it all: he hath reawakened him. And if he say that he once killed him, with Gods death is always just a prejudice.”
—“And thou,” said Zarathustra, “thou bad old magician, what didst thou do! Who ought to believe any longer in thee in this free age, when thou believest in such divine donkeyism?
“It was a stupid thing that thou didst; how couldst thou, a shrewd man, do such a stupid thing!”
“O Zarathustra,” answered the shrewd magician, “thou art right, it was a stupid thing—it was also repugnant to me.”
—“And thou even,” said Zarathustra to the spiritually conscientious one, “consider, and put thy finger to thy nose! Doth nothing go against thy conscience here? Is thy spirit not too cleanly for this praying and the fumes of those devotees?”
“There is something therein,” said the spiritually conscientious one, and put his finger to his nose, “there is something in this spectacle which even doeth good to my conscience.
“Perhaps I dare not believe in God: certain it is however, that God seemeth to me most worthy of belief in this form.
“God is said to be eternal, according to the testimony of the most pious: he who hath so much time taketh his time. As slow and as stupid as possible: thereby can such a one nevertheless go very far.
“And he who hath too much spirit might well become infatuated with stupidity and folly. Think of thyself, O Zarathustra!
“Thou thyself—verily! even thou couldst well become an ass through superabundance of wisdom.
“Doth not the true sage willingly walk on the crookedest paths? The evidence teacheth it, O Zarathustra—thine own evidence!”
—“And thou thyself, finally,” said Zarathustra, and turned towards the ugliest man, who still lay on the ground stretching up his arm to the ass (for he gave it wine to drink). “Say, thou nondescript, what hast thou been about!
“Thou seemest to me transformed, thine eyes glow, the mantle of the sublime covereth thine ugliness: what didst thou do?
“Is it then true what they say, that thou hast again awakened him? And why? Was he not for good reasons killed and made away with?
“Thou thyself seemest to me awakened: what didst thou do? why didst thou turn round? Why didst thou get converted? Speak, thou nondescript!”
“O Zarathustra,” answered the ugliest man, “thou art a rogue!
“Whether he yet liveth, or again liveth, or is thoroughly dead—which of us both knoweth that best? I ask thee.
“One thing however do I know—from thyself did I learn it once, O Zarathustra: he who wanteth to kill most thoroughly, laugheth.
“ ‘Not by wrath but by laughter doth one kill’—thus spakest thou once, O Zarathustra, thou hidden one, thou destroyer without wrath, thou dangerous saint—thou art a rogue!”
IIThen, however, did it come to pass that Zarathustra, astonished at such merely roguish answers, jumped back to the door of his cave, and turning towards all his guests, cried out with a strong voice:
“O ye wags, all of you, ye buffoons!
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