Zarathustra’s Prologue
1
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude and for ten years did not tire of it. But at last his heart changed,—and one morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and spoke to it thus:
“You great star! What would your happiness be if you did not have those for whom you shine!
For ten years you have come up here to my cave: you would have grown weary of your light and of this road, without me, my eagle, and my serpent.
But we waited for you every morning, took your overflow from you, and blessed you for it.
Behold! I am sick of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands that reach out.
I want to give away and hand out until the wise among human beings have once again become glad of their folly, and the poor for once glad of their riches.
For that I must descend into the depths: as you do in the evening, when you go behind the sea and bring light even to the underworld, you overrich star!
Like you, I must go under,1 as human beings call it, those to whom I want to go down.
So bless me, then, you calm eye that can look without envy even on an all-too-great happiness!
Bless the cup that wants to overflow, so that the water may flow golden from it and carry the reflection of your delight everywhere!
Behold! This cup wants to become empty again, and Zarathustra wants to become human again.”
—Thus began Zarathustra’s going under.
2
Zarathustra climbed down the mountains alone, and no one met him. But when he came into the forests, there suddenly stood before him an old man who had left his holy hut to look for roots in the forest. And thus the old man spoke to Zarathustra:
This wanderer is no stranger to me: many years ago he passed by here. Zarathustra he was called; but he has changed. Back then you carried your ashes to the mountains: will you now carry your fire into the valleys? Do you not fear the punishments meted out to arsonists?
Yes, I recognize Zarathustra. His eye is pure, and no disgust lurks about his mouth. Does he not walk like a dancer?
Zarathustra has changed, Zarathustra has become a child, Zarathustra is one who has awakened: what do you want now among the sleepers?
You lived in solitude as in the sea, and the sea carried you. Woe, you want to climb onto the land? Woe, you want to drag your body yourself again?
Zarathustra answered: “I love human beings.”
Why, said the saint, did I go into the forest and the wilderness at all? Was it not because I loved human beings all too much?
Now I love God: human beings I do not love. The human being is too imperfect a thing for me. Love of the human being would kill me.
Zarathustra answered: “What did I say about love! I am bringing human beings a gift.”
Give them nothing, said the saint. Rather take part of their load off them and carry it with them—that will do them the most good: if only it does you good!
And if you want to give to them, give no more than alms, and let them beg for that too!
“No,” answered Zarathustra, “I give no alms. I am not poor enough for that.”
The saint laughed at Zarathustra and spoke thus: Then see to it that they accept your treasures! They are suspicious of hermits and do not believe that we come to give.
Our footsteps ring too lonely for them through the streets. And as when at night, in their beds, they hear a man walking long before the sun rises, they probably ask themselves: where is the thief going?
Do not go to human beings, stay in the forest! Go to the animals rather! Why will you not be as I am,—a bear among bears, a bird among birds?
“And what does the saint do in the forest?” asked Zarathustra.
The saint answered: I make songs and sing them, and when I make songs I laugh, weep, and hum: thus I praise God.
With singing, weeping, laughing, and humming I praise the god who is my god. But what do you bring us as a gift?
When Zarathustra had heard these words, he took leave of the saint and said: “What would I have to give you! But let me go quickly, so that I take nothing from you!”—And so they parted from each other, the old man and the man, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it be possible! This old saint in his forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!”—
3
When Zarathustra came into the nearest town, which lies by the forests, he found many people gathered there in the marketplace: for it had been announced that a tightrope walker would be seen. And Zarathustra spoke thus to the people:
I teach you the Übermensch.2 The human being is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
“All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and would rather go back to the animal than overcome the human being?”
What is the ape to the human being? A laughingstock or a painful shame. And just that is what the human being shall be to the Übermensch: a laughingstock or a painful shame.
You have made your way from worm to human being, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now the human being is more ape than any ape.
But even the wisest among you is only a discord and a hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?
Behold, I teach you the Übermensch!
The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth!
I implore you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.
They are despisers of life, dying off and poisoned themselves, and the earth is weary of them: so let them go!
Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy, but God died, and with him these blasphemers died too. To blaspheme against the earth is now the most terrible thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unfathomable higher than the meaning of the earth!
Once the soul looked with contempt upon the body: and back then this contempt was the highest thing:—it wanted the body lean, hideous, starved. Thus it thought to slip away from the body and from the earth.
Oh, this soul was itself still lean, hideous, and starved: and cruelty was the lust of this soul!
But you too, my brothers, tell me: what does your body proclaim of your soul? Is your soul not poverty and filth and a wretched contentment?
Truly, the human being is a filthy stream. One must be a sea to take in a filthy stream without becoming unclean.
Behold, I teach you the Übermensch: he is this sea; in him your great contempt can go under.
What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness turns to disgust for you, and your reason likewise, and your virtue.
The hour when you say: “What does my happiness matter! It is poverty and filth and a wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself!”
The hour when you say: “What does my reason matter! Does it crave knowledge as the lion craves its food? It is poverty and filth and a wretched contentment!”
The hour when you say: “What does my virtue matter! It has not yet made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and a wretched contentment!”
The hour when you say: “What does my justice matter! I do not see that I am fire and coal. But the just man is fire and coal!”
The hour when you say: “What does my pity matter! Is pity not the cross on which he is nailed who loves human beings? But my pity is no crucifixion.”
Have you ever spoken thus? Have you ever cried out thus? Ah, if only I had heard you cry out thus!
Not your sin—your moderation cries out to heaven, your very stinginess in your sin cries out to heaven!
Where, then, is the lightning that would lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you would have to be inoculated?
Behold, I teach you the Übermensch: he is this lightning, he is this madness!—
When Zarathustra had spoken thus, one of the people cried out: “We have heard enough now about the tightrope walker; now let us see him too!” And all the people laughed at Zarathustra. But the tightrope walker, who thought the words were meant for him, set to work.
4
But Zarathustra looked at the people and was amazed. Then he spoke thus:
The human being is a rope, tied between animal and Übermensch,—a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous going-across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.
What is great in the human being is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what can be loved in the human being is that he is a crossing and a going under.
I love those who do not know how to live except as those who go under, for they are the ones who cross over.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great reverers and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason behind the stars to go under and to be sacrifices: but who sacrifice themselves to the earth, so that the earth may one day become the Übermensch’s.
I love him who lives in order to know, and who wants to know so that one day the Übermensch may live. And so he wills his going under.
I love him who works and invents so that he may build the house for the Übermensch and prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for so he wills his going under.
I love him who loves his virtue: for virtue is will to go under and an arrow of longing.
I love him who keeps back not one drop of spirit for himself, but wants to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: so he strides as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who makes of his virtue his inclination and his fate: so for the sake of his virtue he wants to live on and to live no longer.
I love him who does not want to have too many virtues. One virtue is more virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for fate to hang on.
I love him whose soul squanders itself, who wants no thanks and gives nothing back: for he always gives and does not want to preserve himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favor, and who then asks: am I a cheat, then?—for he wants to perish.
I love him who throws golden words ahead of his deeds and always does still more than he promises: for he wills his going under.
I love him who justifies those to come and redeems those who are past: for he wants to perish of those who are present.
I love him who chastens his god because he loves his god: for he must perish of the wrath of his god.
I love him whose soul is deep even in its wounding, and who can perish of a small experience: so he goes gladly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is overfull, so that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: so all things become his going under.
I love him who is of free spirit and free heart: so his head is only the entrails of his heart, but his heart drives him to his going under.
I love all those who are heavy drops falling one by one from the dark cloud that hangs over human beings: they proclaim that the lightning is coming, and they perish as proclaimers.
Behold, I am a proclaimer of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Übermensch.—
5
When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he looked at the people again and fell silent. “There they stand,” he said to his heart, “there they laugh: they do not understand me, I am not the mouth for these ears.
Must one first smash their ears so that they learn to hear with their eyes? Must one rattle like kettledrums and preachers of repentance? Or do they believe only the stammerer?
They have something they are proud of. What is it they call it, the thing that makes them proud? Culture, they call it; it sets them apart from the goatherds.
That is why they do not like to hear the word ‘contempt’ applied to themselves. So I will speak to their pride.
So I will speak to them of the most contemptible thing: and that is the last human being.”
And thus Zarathustra spoke to the people:
It is time for the human being to set himself his goal. It is time for the human being to plant the seed of his highest hope.
His soil is still rich enough for it. But one day this soil will be poor and tame, and no tall tree will be able to grow from it anymore.
Woe! The time is coming when the human being will no longer shoot the arrow of his longing beyond the human being, and the string of his bow will have forgotten how to whir!
I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you still have chaos in you.
Woe! The time is coming when the human being will give birth to no more stars. Woe! The time of the most contemptible human being is coming, the one who can no longer despise himself.
Behold! I show you the last human being.
“What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?”—so asks the last human being, and he blinks.
The earth has then become small, and on it hops the last human being, who makes everything small. His kind is as ineradicable as the flea beetle; the last human being lives longest.
“We have invented happiness,” say the last human beings, and they blink.
They have left the regions where it was hard to live: for one needs warmth. One still loves one’s neighbor and rubs against him: for one needs warmth.
Falling ill and being mistrustful count as sinful to them: one walks with care. A fool, whoever still stumbles over stones or human beings!
A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end, for a pleasant death.
One still works, for work is a pastime. But one takes care that the pastime does not wear one out.
No one becomes poor or rich anymore: both are too much bother. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too much bother.
No shepherd and one herd! Everyone wants the same, everyone is the same: whoever feels otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse.
“Formerly all the world was mad”—say the most refined, and they blink.
One is clever and knows everything that has happened: so there is no end to mockery. People still quarrel, but they soon make up—otherwise it upsets the stomach.
One has one’s little pleasure for the day and one’s little pleasure for the night: but one honors health.
“We have invented happiness,” say the last human beings, and they blink—
And here ended Zarathustra’s first speech, which is also called “the Prologue”: for at this point the shouting and delight of the crowd interrupted him. “Give us this last human being, O Zarathustra,” so they cried, “make us into these last human beings! Then we will make you a present of the Übermensch!” And all the people cheered and clicked their tongues. But Zarathustra grew sad and said to his heart:
They do not understand me: I am not the mouth for these ears.
I have lived too long in the mountains, it seems; I listened too much to brooks and trees: now I speak to them as to goatherds.
My soul is unmoved and bright as the mountains in the morning. But they think I am cold, a mocker who makes terrible jokes.
And now they look at me and laugh: and while they laugh, they hate me too. There is ice in their laughter.
6
But then something happened that struck every mouth dumb and made every eye stare. For meanwhile the tightrope walker had begun his work: he had stepped out of a small door and was walking along the rope, which was stretched between two towers so that it hung over the marketplace and the people. Just as he was in the middle of his way, the small door opened once more, and a fellow in motley, like a buffoon, sprang out and went after the first one with quick steps. “Forward, lamefoot,” cried his terrible voice, “forward, sluggard, smuggler, paleface! Or I will tickle you with my heel! What are you doing here between towers? The tower is where you belong; you ought to be locked up; you are blocking the free path for one better than you!”—And with every word he came nearer and nearer to him: but when he was only one step behind him, the terrible thing happened that struck every mouth dumb and made every eye stare:—he let out a cry like a devil and leaped over the one who was in his way. But the other, when he saw his rival win in this way, lost his head and the rope; he threw away his pole and shot down into the depths faster than it, like a whirl of arms and legs. The marketplace and the people were like the sea when the storm drives into it: everyone fled apart and over one another, most of all where the body was bound to come down.
But Zarathustra stood still, and the body fell right beside him, badly mangled and broken, but not yet dead. After a while consciousness returned to the shattered man, and he saw Zarathustra kneeling beside him. “What are you doing there?” he said at last. “I knew long ago that the devil would trip me up. Now he is dragging me to hell: will you stop him?”
“On my honor, friend,” answered Zarathustra, “all that you speak of does not exist: there is no devil and no hell. Your soul will be dead even sooner than your body: so fear nothing anymore!”
The man looked up mistrustfully. “If you speak the truth,” he then said, “I lose nothing when I lose my life. I am not much more than an animal that has been taught to dance with blows and scant morsels.”
“Not at all,” said Zarathustra. “You have made danger your calling, and there is nothing contemptible in that. Now you perish of your calling: for that I will bury you with my own hands.”
When Zarathustra had said this, the dying man answered no more; but he moved his hand, as if he were seeking Zarathustra’s hand to thank him.—
7
Meanwhile evening came, and the marketplace hid itself in darkness: then the people dispersed, for even curiosity and terror grow tired. But Zarathustra sat on the ground beside the dead man and was sunk in thought: so he forgot the time. But at last it became night, and a cold wind blew over the solitary one. Then Zarathustra rose and said to his heart:
Truly, a fine catch Zarathustra made today! No human being did he catch, but a corpse.
Uncanny is human existence and still without meaning: a buffoon can become its fate.
I want to teach human beings the meaning of their being: which is the Übermensch, the lightning from the dark cloud human being.
But I am still far from them, and my meaning does not speak to their senses. To human beings I am still a midpoint between a fool and a corpse.
Dark is the night, dark are Zarathustra’s ways. Come, you cold and stiff companion! I will carry you to the place where I will bury you with my hands.
8
When Zarathustra had said this to his heart, he loaded the corpse onto his back and set out on his way. And he had not yet gone a hundred paces when a man crept up to him and whispered in his ear—and behold! The one who spoke was the buffoon from the tower. “Go away from this town, O Zarathustra,” he said. “Too many hate you here. The good and the just hate you, and they call you their enemy and despiser; the faithful of the true faith hate you, and they call you the danger to the crowd. It was your good fortune that they laughed at you: and truly, you spoke like a buffoon. It was your good fortune that you joined yourself to the dead dog; by lowering yourself so, you saved yourself for today. But go away from this town—or tomorrow I will leap over you, one living over one dead.” And when he had said this, the man vanished; but Zarathustra walked on through the dark streets.
At the town gate the gravediggers met him: they shone the torch in his face, recognized Zarathustra, and mocked him greatly. “Zarathustra is carrying off the dead dog: good for Zarathustra, that he has become a gravedigger! For our hands are too clean for this roast. Does Zarathustra mean to steal the devil’s morsel from him? Well then! And good luck with the meal! If only the devil is not a better thief than Zarathustra!—he will steal them both, he will eat them both!” And they laughed together and put their heads together.
Zarathustra said not a word to this and went on his way. When he had walked for two hours, past forests and swamps, he had heard too much of the hungry howling of the wolves, and he himself grew hungry. So he stopped at a lonely house in which a light was burning.
Hunger falls upon me, said Zarathustra, like a robber. In forests and swamps my hunger falls upon me, and in deep night.
My hunger has strange moods. Often it comes to me only after a meal, and today it did not come all day: where can it have been?
And with that Zarathustra knocked at the door of the house. An old man appeared; he carried the light and asked: “Who comes to me and to my bad sleep?”
“One living and one dead,” said Zarathustra. “Give me something to eat and drink; I forgot to during the day. He who feeds the hungry refreshes his own soul: so speaks wisdom.”
The old man went away, but came back at once and offered Zarathustra bread and wine. “This is a bad region for the hungry,” he said; “that is why I live here. Animal and human being come to me, the hermit. But bid your companion eat and drink too; he is wearier than you.” Zarathustra answered: “My companion is dead; I will hardly persuade him to it.” “That is no concern of mine,” said the old man sullenly; “whoever knocks at my house must also take what I offer him. Eat, and fare well!”—
Then Zarathustra walked another two hours and trusted to the road and the light of the stars: for he was used to walking at night and loved to look into the face of all that sleeps. But when the morning grew gray, Zarathustra found himself in a deep forest, and no path showed itself to him anymore. Then he laid the dead man in a hollow tree at his head—for he wanted to protect him from the wolves—and himself on the ground and the moss. And at once he fell asleep, weary in body but with an unmoved soul.
9
Long did Zarathustra sleep, and not only the dawn passed over his face but the morning as well. But at last his eye opened: in wonder Zarathustra looked into the forest and the stillness, in wonder he looked into himself. Then he rose quickly, like a seafarer who all at once sees land, and shouted for joy: for he saw a new truth. And then he spoke thus to his heart:
A light has dawned on me: I need companions, and living ones,—not dead companions and corpses that I carry with me wherever I want.
But I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves—and to the place where I want to go.
A light has dawned on me: let Zarathustra speak not to the people but to companions! Zarathustra shall not become the shepherd and dog of a herd!
To lure many away from the herd—for that I came. The people and the herd shall be angry with me: Zarathustra wants to call the shepherds robbers.
Shepherds, I say, but they call themselves the good and the just. Shepherds, I say: but they call themselves the faithful of the true faith.
Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? The one who breaks their tablets of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:—but he is the creator.
Behold the faithful of all faiths! Whom do they hate most? The one who breaks their tablets of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:—but he is the creator.
Companions the creator seeks, and not corpses, and not herds and believers either. Fellow creators the creator seeks, those who write new values on new tablets.
Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters: for with him everything stands ripe for the harvest. But he lacks the hundred sickles: so he plucks ears of grain and is vexed.
Companions the creator seeks, and such as know how to whet their sickles. They will be called destroyers and despisers of good and evil. But they are the harvesters and those who celebrate.
Fellow creators Zarathustra seeks, fellow harvesters and fellow celebrants Zarathustra seeks: what has he to do with herds and shepherds and corpses!
And you, my first companion, fare well! I buried you well in your hollow tree, I hid you well from the wolves.
But I am leaving you; the time is up. Between dawn and dawn a new truth came to me.
I shall be no shepherd, no gravedigger. Never again will I so much as speak with the people; for the last time I have spoken to a dead man.
I will join the creators, the harvesters, the celebrants: I will show them the rainbow and all the stairs of the Übermensch.
I will sing my song to the hermits and to those who are solitary in twos; and whoever still has ears for things unheard of, I will make his heart heavy with my happiness.
I want to reach my goal, I go my way; over the hesitant and the dawdlers I will leap. Thus let my going be their going under!
10
This Zarathustra had said to his heart when the sun stood at noon: then he looked up inquiringly—for above him he heard the sharp cry of a bird. And behold! An eagle was sweeping through the air in wide circles, and from it hung a serpent, not like prey but like a friend: for she kept herself coiled around his neck.
“They are my animals!” said Zarathustra, and his heart rejoiced.
“The proudest animal under the sun and the cleverest animal under the sun—they have gone out scouting.
They want to find out whether Zarathustra is still alive. Truly, am I still alive?
I found it more dangerous among human beings than among animals; dangerous are the ways Zarathustra walks. May my animals lead me!”
When Zarathustra had said this, he remembered the words of the saint in the forest, sighed, and spoke thus to his heart:
If only I were cleverer! If only I were clever to the core, like my serpent!
But I am asking for the impossible: so I ask my pride instead always to go with my cleverness!
And if one day my cleverness leaves me:—ah, it loves to fly away!—may my pride then still fly with my folly!
—Thus began Zarathustra’s going under.