The Superman

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

FIRST PART. ZARATHUSTRA’S DISCOURSES.

ZARATHUSTRA’S PROLOGUE.

1. When Zarathustra was 30 years old, he left his home and went into the mountains for 10 years.

But at last his heart changed, saying :

Oh sun, for 10 years you have climbed to my cave with me, my eagle, and my serpent.

We waited for you every morning. But now I must go down out of here.

2. Zarathustra went to the forest alone. Suddenly there appeared before him an old man, who had left his holy cot to seek roots.

Saint: “I met you before. You are Zarathustra. But now you have changed. Your eye is Pure, without loathing. You have become an awakened one. What will you do in the land of the sleepers?”

Zarathustra answered: “I love mankind too much."

Saint: I love God, not men. Man is too imperfect for me. Love to man would be fatal to me.”

Zarathustra answered: “I am bringing gifts unto men.”

Saint: “Give them nothing. Instead, take a part of their load, and carry it along with them. If, however, you want to give to them, give them only alms, and let them also beg for it!”

Zarathustra: No, “I give no alms. I am not poor enough for that.”

The saint laughed at Zarathustra: “Then see to it that they accept your treasures! They are distrustful of anchorites, and do not believe that we come with gifts.

Zarathustra: “What do you do in the forest?”

saint: “I make hymns and sing them as praise to God through singing, weeping, laughing, and mumbling. But what do you bring us as a gift?”

Zarathustra bowed to the saint: “What can I give you? I should leave lest I take away from you!”

And thus they parted both of them laughing like schoolboys.

When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: “This old saint has not yet heard that GOD IS DEAD!”

3. When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which adjoineth the forest, he found many people assembled in the market-place; for it had been announced that a rope-dancer would give a performance.

Zarathustra said to the people:

I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed.

What have ye done to surpass man? All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves.

An ape is a laughing-stock, a thing of shame to a man.*

Man is the same shame to the Superman.

Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm.

Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.

The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!

I conjure you, my brethren:

• REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH
• do not believe those who speak to you of superearthly hopes!
  • They are:
    • Poisoners.
    • Despisers of life

In the past, blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy.

But God died, and along with God those blasphemers.

To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful sin.

In the past, the soul looked contemptuously on the body, and then that contempt was the supreme thing.

The soul wanted the body to be meagre, ghastly, and famished.

In this way, the soul would escape from the body and the earth.

But my brethren, what does your body say about your soul?*

Is your soul not poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency?

A polluted stream is man.

One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

The Superman is that sea.

• In him can your great contempt be submerged.

The hour of great contempt

The greatest thing ye can experience is “the hour of great contempt”. It is when your happiness, reason, and virtue, become loathsome to you.

In that hour we say:

• “What good is my happiness! It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency. But my happiness should justify existence itself!”
• “What good is my reason! Doth it long for knowledge as the lion for his food? It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!”
• “What good is my virtue! As yet it hath not made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!”
• “What good is my justice! I do not see that I am fervour and fuel. The just, however, are fervour and fuel!”
• “What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my pity is not a crucifixion.”

The Superman is that lightning, he is that frenzy!

The people laughed at Zara

The rope-dancer thought that Zara was talking about him.