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Posted by Thomas on 3/18/2007, 4:06 pm I have found other analyses of these two characters: Thomas ************************ Then, however, something happened which made every mouth mute and every eye fixed. In the meantime, of course, the rope-dancer had commenced his performance: he had come out at a little door, and was going along the rope which was stretched between two towers, so that it hung above the market-place and the people. When he was just midway across, the little door opened once more, and a gaudily-dressed fellow like a buffoon sprang out, and went rapidly after the first one. "Go on, halt-foot," cried his frightful voice, "go on, lazy-bones, interloper, sallow-face!--lest I tickle thee with my heel! What dost thou here between the towers? In the tower is the place for thee, thou shouldst be locked up; to one better than thyself thou blockest the way!"--And with every word he came nearer and nearer the first one. When, however, he was but a step behind, there happened the frightful thing which made every mouth mute and every eye fixed--he uttered a yell like a devil, and jumped over the other who was in his way. The latter, however, when he thus saw his rival triumph, lost at the same time his head and his footing on the rope; he threw his pole away, and shot downwards faster than it, like an eddy of arms and legs, into the depth. The market-place and the people were like the sea when the storm cometh on: they all flew apart and in disorder, especially where the body was about to fall. Zarathustra, however, remained standing, and just beside him fell the body, badly injured and disfigured, but not yet dead. After a while consciousness returned to the shattered man, and he saw Zarathustra kneeling beside him. "What art thou doing there?" said he at last, "I knew long ago that the devil would trip me up. Now he draggeth me to hell: wilt thou prevent him?" "On mine honour, my friend," answered Zarathustra, "there is nothing of all that whereof thou speakest: there is no devil and no hell. Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body: fear, therefore, nothing any more!" The man looked up distrustfully. "If thou speakest the truth," said he, "I lose nothing when I lose my life. I am not much more than an animal which hath been taught to dance by blows and scanty fare." "Not at all," said Zarathustra, "thou hast made danger thy calling; therein there is nothing contemptible. Now thou perishest by thy calling: therefore will I bury thee with mine own hands." When Zarathustra had said this the dying one did not reply further; but he moved his hand as if he sought the hand of Zarathustra in gratitude.
90.24.244.X
The (difficult) question is: what or who do the buffoon and the rope-dancer symbolize? There is the beginning of the Prologue 4:
"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING."
Well here the rope-dancer goes down rather than over. I would be tempted to read this along the Dionysus/ Apollo line: the still predominantly Apollinian man who wants to embark on the way of the overman must confront, deal with his Dionysian side that has been repressed and unconscious. The buffoon could be Dionysus. This can be a dangerous undertaking, and indeed can result in complete failure is the over-goer lacks determination and will-power.
Stanley Rosen in "The Mask of Enlightenment" (as Berkowitz in "Nietzsche, Ethics of an Immoralist") thinks that the rope-dancer is the last man and that the buffoon is Zarathustra who destabilizes him and breaks up his old world. This view assigns an purely negative view to Zarathustra's role and I doubt it was what Nietzsche meant. Both Rosen and Berkowitz are declared anti-Nietzscheans...
Robert Gooding-Williams in "Zarathustra's Dionysian Modernism" thinks that the buffoon could be the last man (or what later will be called the higher man in Book 4), and the rope-dancer is man's hope of overcoming himself, a hope that has failed in the village for Zarathustra.
Kathleen Higgins in "Nietzsche's Zarathustra" sees the buffoon as "the voice of tradition" that destabilizes the rope-dancer who is seeking to free himself.
I find both Gooding-Williams' and Higgins' views interesting, perhaps complementary.
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