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Posted by Thomas on 2/26/2007, 4:06 pm When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which adjoineth the Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man? I conjure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and believe [What follows looks to me like a remake of Jesus sermon on the mountain, The hour when ye say: "What good is my happiness! It is poverty The hour when ye say: "What good is my reason! Doth it long for The hour when ye say: "What good is my virtue! As yet it hath not The hour when ye say: "What good is my justice! I do not see that The hour when we say: "What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross Have ye ever spoken thus? Have ye ever cried thus? Ah! would that
90.24.136.X
[My ideas are in brackets. Thomas]
forest, he found many people assembled in the market-place; for it had
been announced that a rope-dancer would give a performance. And
Zarathustra spake thus unto the people:
I teach you the Superman.
[Ich lehre euch den Übermenschen: amazingly Stanley Rosen (The Mask of Enlightenment) got his German grammar all wrong I think:
because he translates: "I teach you about the supermen" and comments:
"The use of the plural Übermenschen shows that Zarathustra is not prophesying
the coming of a single superior being, but a new human type."
But "den Übermenschen" is a singular masculine accusative (the object of the teaching); the accusative plural would be:
Ich lehre euch die Übermenschen." So Rosen is wrong from the very start, Nietzsche is NOT calling for "a new human type".
In fact the text does not yet tell us what the Superman could be.]
All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye
want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the
beast than surpass man?
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just
the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of
shame.
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.
Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant
and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?
Lo, I teach you the Superman!
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will [Wille in German] say: The
Superman shall he the meaning of the earth!
[With the call towards a Superman, Nietzsche is invoking the voice of our Will to bring it about.]
not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are
they, whether they know it or not.
Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones
themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!
Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died,
and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now
the dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher
than the meaning of the earth!
Once the soul looked contemptuously on the body, and then that
contempt was the supreme thing:- the soul wished the body meagre,
ghastly, and famished. Thus it thought to escape from the body and the
earth.
Oh, that soul was itself meagre, ghastly, and famished; and
cruelty was the delight of that soul!
But ye, also, my brethren, tell me: What doth your body say about
your soul? Is your soul not poverty and pollution and wretched
self-complacency?
Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must be a sea, to receive a
polluted stream without becoming impure.
Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that sea; in him can your
great contempt be submerged.
What is the greatest thing ye can experience? It is the hour of
great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becometh
loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.
Nietzsche is continuously reversing values.]
and pollution and wretched self-complacency. But my happiness should
justify existence itself!"
[Happiness should be this-worldly, embracing concrete existence ("Dasein" in the text),
not seeking other-worldly happiness.]
knowledge as the lion for his food? It is poverty and pollution and
wretched self-complacency!"
[The lion as symbol for eagerness, not lukewarm wisdom.]
made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all
poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!"
[Advocating passion, rather than Aristotle's virtuous mean?]
I am fervour and fuel. The just, however, are fervour and fuel!"
[Fire as an image of passion...]
on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my pity is not a
crucifixion."
[Nietzsche seems to connect pity to suffering, and his pity is not such a pity,
just as he told the hermit that no, he didn't love men after all.]
I had heard you crying thus!
It is not your sin- it is your self-satisfaction that crieth unto
heaven; your very sparingness in sin crieth unto heaven!
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the
frenzy with which ye should be inoculated?
Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that lightning, he is that
frenzy!-
When Zarathustra had thus spoken, one of the people called out:
"We have now heard enough of the rope-dancer; it is time now for us
to. see him!" And all the people laughed at Zarathustra. But the
rope-dancer, who thought the words applied to him, began his
performance.
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