哲学思考 》 查拉圖斯特拉如是說 Thus Spake Zarathustra 》
Introduction by Mrs Forster-Nietzsche. Page 1
弗裏德裏希·威廉·尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
Introduction by Mrs Forster-Nietzsche. Page 1
《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》是尼采的里程碑式的作品，幾乎包括了尼采的全部思想。全書以汪洋恣肆的詩體寫成，熔酒神的狂醉與日神的清醒於一爐，通過“超人”查拉圖斯特拉之口宣講未來世界的啓示，在世界哲學史和詩歌史上均占有獨特的不朽的地位。
這本以散文詩體寫就的傑作，以振聾發聵的奇異灼見和橫空出世的警世智慧宣講“超人哲學”和“權力意志”，橫掃了基督教教條造威的精神奴性的方方面面，譜寫了一麯自由主義的人性壯歌。在本書中，“上帝死了”， “超人”誕生了，於是近代人類思想的天空有了一道光耀千年的奇異彩虹。令尼采飽受非難的言論“去女人那裏嗎？別忘了你的鞭子”，便是出自此書。衹有深入理解了尼采的精神實質，才能真正理解這樣的怪論。
面對一座萬仞高山，我們往往說不出多少話來，感到贊辭是多餘的。面對弗裏德裏希·威廉·尼采 (1844—1900)，這位德國近代大詩人、大哲學家，我們也有同樣的感覺。
這個尼采，他宣告：“上帝死了!”曾經使整個西方世界震撼。這個尼采，他的“超人哲學”衹有極少數人能夠真正理解。深受他影響的思想文化巨人有：裏爾剋、弗洛伊德、加繆、薩持、海德格爾、蕭伯納、梁啓超、魯迅，等等。
尼采一生飽受漂泊和病痛之苦，最後是在精神錯亂中了卻殘生，更為不幸的是，他的學說常常受到誤解和歪麯。德國納粹分子曾把他的學說肆意麯解為法西斯的理論支柱。希特勒曾親自去拜謁尼采之墓，並把《尼采全集》作為壽禮送給墨索裏尼。
《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》-作者簡介
弗裏德裏希·威廉·尼采（1844—1900），德國近代詩人、哲學家。他宣告：“帝死了！”徹底動搖了西方思想體係的基石，他高蹈的“超人哲學”與酒神精神産生了巨大影響。他的主要著作有《悲劇的誕生》、《查拉圖斯特拉如是說善惡之彼岸》、《論道德的譜係》、《快樂的科學》、《曙光》、《權力意志》等。尼采既有哲學家的深遂洞見，又有詩人的澎湃激情。深受他影響的思想文化巨人，有裏爾剋、蕭伯納、弗洛伊德、加繆、薩特、海德格爾，粱啓超、魯迅等。
尼采和馬剋思，牛頓、愛因斯坦、達爾文等同時榮獲“千年十大思想傢”的盛譽。
《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》-《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》中的歷史觀
尼采在他的代表作《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》中站在一元論的立場上嚮世人展示了一種發展的辯證的歷史觀，下面我想從四個方面來談談這個問題。
(一)發展的思維方式
查拉圖斯特拉在山上度過了十年節制生活之後，在人類面前發表了第一次演講，陳述了從植物到超人的過程：植物→蟲子→猴子→人類→超人。“你們經歷了從蟲子到人的道路，在你們身上多少有點像蟲子。你們以前是猴子，在現在人也比任何一隻猴子更象猴子。”1尼采認為在生物界中始終存在一種更高的發展，目前的階段絶非最終階段。人這個階段也是發展中的過渡階段，還會超過人這個階段，嚮下一個階段——超人的階段發展。查拉圖斯特拉斷言：“到目前為止，所有生物都創造了一些超過自己的東西。”2“創造”這個概念表明，查拉圖斯特拉並不將生物進化理解為一種機械的因果過程，而認為這些生物自身就是發展動力，他(它)們自身創造超出自己的事物並因此而超越自己。遺憾的是存在一種錯誤觀點，這種觀點根深蒂固地左右着人類的思維：人類自以為自己就是宇宙發展的最高階段，人類判定自己是進化結束的最終成果。由於沒有什麽可再發展了，於是乎人類停止不前甚至退回到已經超越的階段。為此查拉圖斯特拉提醒道：“你們想要成為洶涌潮水中的落潮同時寧可返回到動物也不願超越人類嗎?”3要知道人類是生物中唯一不靠本能在進化潮流中進行創造活動的，而且可以按照自己的意志對抗或順應進化潮流。但是按照查拉圖斯特拉的觀點，即便是人類為了使自己保持為人也必須在極端的對立面之間來回跑。換句話說為了當落潮必須先當漲潮，衹有體驗了落潮的失落才能享受漲潮的喜悅。假若人類停滯不前就會退到早已被超過了的階段——動物預備階段。“對於人來說，猴子是什麽?一種大笑或者是一種痛苦的羞辱。而人類對於超人來說正是如此：一種嘲笑或者是一種痛苦的羞辱。”4當人類回顧自己的歷史時，他看到了成為人之前的全部發展階段。一方面他發現自己在一定程度上已經在猴子中顯現同時猴子又頗具人性，這時他會哈哈大笑；另一方面當他想起自己的祖先曾是猴子時，又會面紅耳赤。有朝一日超人也會産生這樣兩方面的感覺。對此赫拉剋立特也有同感：“最漂亮的猴子與人相比也是醜陋的。最聰明的人在上帝身邊看起來如同一隻猴子，這涉及到智慧，美麗和其它的一切。”5
查拉圖斯特拉在愛聽聳人聽聞消息的觀衆面前做了他的第一次演講，但是他的聽衆不理解他的演說，因為這些人甚至還未達到人的階段“你們之中最聰明的人也衹是植物和魔鬼的一種矛盾的混種。但是我教你們成為魔鬼或植物了嗎?/你們看哪，我教你們什麽是超人：/超人是大地的意義。你們的意志說：超人是大地的意義!”6在尼采筆下的查拉圖斯特拉看來，由於人類還算不上一個完整出色的整體，衹是兩個相互矛盾的部分的組合，這兩部分之間密不可分的關係還未被認識到，所以在從猴子到人的過渡期間就出現了物質和精神的分離。
很顯然，尼采不想在進化論的狹隘的意義中去展示人類的生物進化史而想從生物遺傳學方面來演示植物→蟲子→猴子→從→超人的整個發展史。在此清楚地顯示了尼采的歷史觀（１）是發展的而不是停止的，（２）既不是簡單的機械的因果過程也不同於達爾文的進化論。尼采始終認為達爾文的觀點是片面的，達爾文在生存鬥爭中忽略了精神，沒有黑格爾就沒有達爾文，因此尼采強烈反對把他當作達爾主義者，“受過訓練的有角動物使我對達爾文主義産生了懷疑”。7
下面讓我們再看看尼采筆下的精神的三個發展階段。查拉圖斯特拉對衆人說：“我告訴你們精神的三種變形：精神是如何變成駱駝，駱駝是如何變成獅子，最後獅子如何變成小孩。”8這精神的歷史經歷了“物質化”的三個階段。第一個階段即駱駝的階段，刻畫了西方傳統觀念中自我悟性的特徵。在第二階段即獅子的階段，查拉圖斯特拉扮演了傳統價值的批判者的角色。在第三階段即小孩階段指明超人還沒有誕生。乍一看起來似乎精神的三種變形與黑格爾的三段論：正題、反題、綜合很相似。但這僅僅是在一定條件下。在第一階段，精神以駱駝的外形出現，扮演了屈服順從的角色，一個外在的、來世的、永遠固定的超精神強加於它。在第二階段，它認識到了駱駝是一種自鄙的形式，因而徹底否認了駱駝的行為，它自己宣告了自己的死亡，並為自己的新生做好了準備，這是一次鳳凰涅盤，於是精神發展到了第三階段：小孩階段。“小孩是天真與遺忘的”9表明精神通過産生自己的第二個起點而忘記了以前的失敗和過失。精神在超越了獅子階段以後就把自己的往事忘得一幹二淨，因為在當年它不是自覺自願，而是被外來力量強製的物化的魔鬼精神，衹有在小孩階段纔恢復了自我，纔有了創造性“一個自轉的輪”。“是的，為了創造的遊戲，我的弟兄們，一個神聖的肯定是必要的：精神現在要有它的意志力，失去世界者贏得了他的世界。”10總之，在精神發展的第三階段，衹有在這個階段，世界做為精神活動的真正産物纔誕生了。順便說一句，尼采在此對精神係列的三種變化的描繪與基督教教義中上帝從虛無中創造了世界的情形很相似。看來堅决反對基督教神學的尼采也無法擺脫時代與環境對他的潛移默化的影響。
從以上我們可以看出，尼采認為精神和物質在極端對立中相互依存，並因此形成了一個又一個超越自己又回歸自己的嚮高級發展的運動。
(二)辯證的一元論觀點
尼采用查拉圖斯特拉的名義從植物和魔鬼的情形入手來研究肉體和靈魂這個古老的問題。按照查拉圖斯特拉的觀點，儘管傳統哲學將人類視為肉體——靈魂、物質 ——精神所組成的整體，但在事實上已經將精神物化了，精神變成了可以脫離物質單獨存在的實體。因此就有了查拉圖斯特拉的反問：“我教人們成為魔鬼和植物嗎?”11唯心主義和唯物主義同樣都是人類自我悟性的片面形式，在這其中或者是人的肉體的那一面或者是人的精神的那一面被否定了。在查拉圖斯特拉一開始演講時我們就聽到了人類應該是被超越的。現在當人類被分裂成肉體與靈魂兩部分時我們再次聽到他的聲音：“你們看哪，我教人們什麽是超人!”12當我們思考超越人——這個前進中的質的飛躍時，讓我們再回憶一下人類已經超越的那些階段，以便更好地理解從猴子到人的過程中如何出現了靈魂和肉體的分離。首先要回憶的是從植物→蟲子→猴子→人的發展過程中被描繪為在兩個平面上發生的過程。其一是空間的平面：活動半徑由植物到人遞增，因而活動餘地和生活空間變大了變廣了。為了適應擴展了的生活空間帶來的多樣性，就必須在思想這第二個非空間的平面上加工出新的東西來。生活空間愈是色彩斑斕，思想活動就愈是抽象枯燥。這思想活動不得不把各種秩序、條理帶入生存所必須的繁雜的多樣性中，並以這種方式形成了與生活空間相關聯的意識。這樣一來在猴子階段就逐漸現出了猴子和世界的二元不同性的縐形，儘管還沒有達到人類所特有的反省、抽象那樣高級的程度。人類不僅在與世界的聯繫中而且在自身中也發現了我與非我的二元性。這樣一來人類將自身也作為客體對立起來，並用這種方式與自己拉開了距離，於是乎意識的我與肉體的我撕裂了，勢不兩立地對立了。人類出現的這個錯誤已被尼采在《真實的世界究竟是如何成為寓言的》這篇文章中討論過。人類的這個錯誤在於：意識到了自身卻忘記了出身，忘記了從植物一直到人類的整個發展史，所以纔使精神和物質相脫離。假如人類從生物發展史的起源階段就正確理解自身意識，那麽人類就會自然而然地在自身中找到自己超越過的每一個階段，發展成人類的這個生物進程就會被描繪成肉體和精神辯證關係的自然延續。而西方人在很長時間裏卻不是這樣。他們使靈魂和肉體相互脫節，他們為精神杜撰了一個完全不同的、更高級的起源並因此發明了一個非感官所能感覺到的、超自然的世界。物質和精神的徹底分裂在肉體和靈魂這個問題上清清楚楚地表現出來了。當人類由如此相相互對立的、老死不相往來的兩部分組成時又該如何想象作為一種自身統一的生物的人呢?靈魂和肉體之間的脫節問題在這個疑問中得到了最高體現。這些僵化的規則希望將關於兩個世界的二元論以及物質和精神的鴻溝最終地永久地固定下來，而尼采筆下的查拉圖斯特拉卻用具有大地意義的超人的理念來與之相對抗。儘管這是用一種唯心主義來對抗另一種唯心主義，但查拉圖斯特拉的對抗顯然技高一籌，這對抗産生了新事物，因為它使兩個對立面之間有了即使是瞬間統一的可能性，正如在彩虹中可以看出它是光與水等等元素共同作用的結果一樣，從物質與精神、肉體與靈魂的相對抗中就産生了超人。總而言之，尼采筆下的查拉圖斯特拉把傳統的靈魂和肉體對立分裂的二元論思想理解為人類一種自我誤解的結果，這正是尼采的高明過人之處。一旦人類消除了這種誤解，那麽靈魂和肉體相互撕裂的問題就解决了，這就意味着人類階段被超越了，那麽隨之而來的就是超人階段。無論如何對於人類來說有一點是可以肯定的，即大地的意義和生活的意義不存在於一個靜止的、物化了的精神産物中，不存在於魔鬼、上帝、理念式的理性中，而衹存在於對立面的對立統一的辯證關係之中。
從以上分析人們不難看出，尼采用一元論剋服了二元論，儘管尼采的出發點仍是唯心主義，但是他用發展的辯證的唯心主義來取代僵化的靜止的唯物主義，這無疑是一種進步。
在《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》中，尼采還擬人化地諷刺揭露了當時靈魂和肉體之間的錯誤關係：“從前靈魂蔑視肉體，這種蔑視在當時被認為是最高尚的事：——靈魂要肉體枯瘦、醜陋並且餓死。它以為這樣便可以逃避肉體，同時也逃避了大地。/啊，這靈魂自己還是枯瘦、醜陋、餓死的，殘忍就是它的淫樂!”13對於查拉圖斯特拉來說，肉體在傳統的形而上學和基督教那兒所受到的貶低是一種謬論。這種謬論認為，人應該拋棄一切感官的感受，拋棄人類的以往的動物的歷程而衹通過關註精神就能嚮更高階段發展。這種謬論衹承認精神的積極因素和肉體的消極因素。查拉圖斯特拉的看法正相反，如果靈魂能夠作為肉體的靈魂而存在，那麽它試圖從肉體中獨立出來的每一次嘗試都是胡闹；如果靈魂貶低肉體，那無異於貶低靈魂自己，靈魂和肉體永遠相輔相成不可分離。查拉圖斯特拉還認為，靈魂對肉體的評價恰恰等於肉體對靈魂的判斷：“你們的肉體是怎樣說明你們的靈魂呢?你們的靈魂難道不是貧乏、污穢與可憐的自滿嗎?”14靈魂為自己創造了一個虛幻的世界，它臆想着戰勝肉體的輝煌勝利，但這衹是可憐又可笑的精神勝利法。衹有與肉體同時存在，靈魂才能越來越豐富；衹有當精神和物質相互終結並産生於對方之中時纔會出現“貧乏、污穢與可憐的自滿”的反面。查拉圖斯特拉的結束語是：“不是你們的罪惡，而是你們的節制嚮天呼喊!/那道用舌頭舔你們的閃電何在?那個應當嚮你們註射的瘋狂何在?/現在我教你們什麽是超人：他就是這閃電，他就是這瘋狂!”15查拉圖斯特拉在這兒抨擊的正是被基督教深惡痛絶的“罪惡意識”：如果人們滿足了肉體的欲望就意味着背叛精神，就意味着有罪。查拉圖斯特拉公然與基督教教義背道而馳，他認為原罪不存在於違背精神的罪惡中而存在於違背肉體的罪惡中，當人類真的因為有罪過要受到懲罰時，肉體首當其衝在劫難逃。為了徹底摧毀基督教教義，需要電閃雷鳴，以便讓二元論人物及其觀點徹底暴露，以便讓千百年來僵化凝固的教條都活動運轉起來。
與此同時，尼采以聖者來反襯突出查拉圖斯特拉的發展、運動的一元論觀點。聖者追求盡善盡美。他將自己對人類的愛當作這個世界上最完美的事情，可惜，這個愛永遠不可能從理想變為現實。因為人類存在的有限性從原則上禁止他們去達到那位聖者所要求的完美。持有這種看法的聖者讓自己孤立於人類之外而轉嚮唯一能滿足這個要求的生物：上帝。誰要是象這位聖者一樣在對上帝的愛中找到了自己的滿足，那他就實在無法理解為什麽查拉圖斯特拉背離完美的事物而去尋找不完美的事物。
聖者的這種觀點是由他的以宗教為基礎的生活方式决定的。聖者崇尚完美，並因此而完全脫離並不完美的人類世界。他獨居在森林中每天贊美上帝。聖者所理解的完美是自身封閉的、不變的、無法超越的，因此可以說聖者為自己選擇的生活方式是靜止不變的，這一點，從尼采的筆下可以清楚地看出。查拉圖斯特拉跳舞，聖者唱歌、譜麯、作詞。他的歌聲表達了他對盡善盡美的執着的追求。通過歌唱他不斷地接近完美並與之越來越相似。前面已經談到當查拉圖斯特拉跳舞時，聖者唱歌。他伴着歌聲在原地動，可以說他始終停留在圓周的中心點上，所有的半徑從此開始，所有的直徑通過此處，聖者圍繞自身絶對旋轉。他的生活方式凝固成油畫般的靜態的完美，在其內部所有的運動都消失貽盡。
上帝之死的想法對於聖者來說是不堪設想的。因為死亡意味着一種由活轉變為死的變化過程。聖者之所以愛上帝是因為上帝是至高無尚的完美無瑕的化身的體現，是一成不變的無比至尊的代表的體現，也就是說排除了任何運動變化的可能性，上帝絶不可能變成別的什麽，也絶不可能死去，上帝必須永遠是上帝，永遠是盡善盡美、完美無瑕的化身。對於聖者來說這個永遠的存在象徵性地固定在他停留的那個中心點，使他也成為完美與永恆。對於查拉圖斯特拉來說，在現實世界中不存在永恆不變的事物，在現實世界中萬事萬物都在誕生、變化和終結，而絶不可能超時空而存在。如果在我們這個唯一的真實世界裏談論上帝，那麽上帝就必須被認為和其它的萬事萬物一樣是發展變化的，而不是凝固不變的，那麽上帝也會和其它的萬事萬物一樣存在着産生和終結，對於已經終結的上帝，人們可以如此這般地說，上帝死了!聖者是個典型的二元論者，象其他的二元論者一樣在他那裏真實的世界與想象的世界被相互顛倒，真實的世界被歪麯成了表象的世界，而想象的世界卻被稱之為真實的世界，所以尼采纔針鋒相對地寫了那篇教育戲劇《真實的世界究竟是如何變成寓言的》。我們可以舉個通俗的例子，在想象中人們總是把現實世界描繪為一汪靜止不動的清泉，這汪清泉總是被描繪成無比純、無比淨、無比透明。但事實上真實的世界是一個骯髒的池沼。柏拉圖認為真實的世界代表了昏暗的洞穴，而這昏暗的洞穴又被看作人類肉體的象徵。而對於蘇格拉底來說最艱難的就是從上面的大地回到下面的洞穴中，即從明亮的精神那裏返回污穢的肉體中。這一上一下、一個天堂一個地獄活生生地將一個完整的生物的人撕裂成兩部分。總而言之尼采通過塑造這個追求盡善盡美的二元論者——聖者，反襯了查拉圖斯特拉辯證、發展的一元論觀點。
(三)超人模式
查拉圖斯特拉說：“人類是一根係在動物和超人之間的繩索，一根懸在深𠔌上的繩索。/往彼端去是危險的，停在半途是危險的，嚮後望也是危險的，戰慄或者不前進，都是危險的。”16查拉圖斯特拉的意思是說，人類剛好處在猴子階段和超人階段的過渡中。如果他回首自己的歷史，那他就面臨遵循早已無效的規則的危險；如果他躊躇不前，他就會發現自己的腳下是萬丈深淵，這樣他就會因懼怕跌落而戰甚至墜落。與回首、前瞻和停止相聯繫的這三種危險給人的印象是，查拉圖斯特拉將人類與一個走繩者相比較，後者隨着他在繩上邁出的每一步都會陷入一種死亡的危險之中，而人類卻是繩索和走繩者的合二而一。這就是說並不存在一條現成的路 (繩索)和某個在這條路上行走的人(走繩者)，而是如果沒有走路的人，也就不存在這條路。路是由於有了那個在路上行走的人才産生的。此人知道自己曾經是誰，也知道他將會是誰，但是不肯定自己能否夠成為他將是的人。超越自己要冒很大的風險，因為人們為此必須將習慣的、久經考驗的、安全的事物拋開，以便朝着一個未知的目標前進。絶沒有現成的道路通往這個目標，人們要在奔嚮目標的過程中自己創造出路來。路途中的每次懷疑和猶豫都會産生災難性的後果，因為衹要人們一停止前進，腳下的路和遠處的目標就消失了；行者腳下若踩空同樣也就跌入了未知和虛無的深淵。人類衹有永無止境地嚮前走，纔會腳踏實地，即腳踩繩索。換句話說，人類通過行走自己創造出支撐自己走路的支架，最終目的也不再會同路脫離開，因為目的不是別的，正是走路本身。隨着每一步的邁出，就意味着不斷的離開和到達。這條直直的繩索，從固定的一端伸展到另一端，可以理解成繞圓周行走的辯證法。這行走代表了生命，代表了超越自己的強烈追求。在走這條路時，人類産生出了作為繩索的超人。人類走在這根繩索上，與此同時，人類就是這根繩索。
查拉圖斯特拉繼續說：“人類的偉大之處，在於他是一座橋梁而不是一個目的。人類的可愛之處，在於他是一個過程和一個終結。”17橋梁以及前面提到的繩索都可以理解為走過去，朝着人類還不曾是的情形前進。而人類本身也正因為是一座承前啓後的橋梁而不是一個目標纔變得偉大。如果人類是目的，那他就不能自己設定目的，他就無法將自己設計為他將要成為的情形，而會受到他的內在的目的性的限製，那麽人類所做的一切努力最終不外乎僅僅是去實現他無需去做就已經存在的目的了。被視為目的的人類顯然不能通過自我超越而嚮更高層次發展，因為他就是他自己的最高層次。但是，假如人類將自己視為一個通嚮最高層次的階段，通過一次次的自我超越，建立起連接現在的他和將來的他的橋梁，那麽人類的這個事業就比人類將自己本身當作目標的事業要偉大得多。衹有當人類走出現在的自我以後纔决定自己要成為誰和要幹什麽時，那麽在最初的意義中人類就是自由的。這時，衹有在這時，人類的目標纔不再是人類，而是超越了人類的超人。因此查拉圖斯特拉纔說，人類的偉大和可愛之處在於，他是一個過程和終結。過程表示超越作為人的自我運動；終結表示通過這個運動人類階段消失了，超人階段來臨了，如同涓涓細流匯入奔騰咆哮的無邊大海。
對於人類之後的超人階段，查拉圖斯特拉用散文詩的形式抒發了自己對其的熱愛“我愛那些衹知道為終結而生活的人。因為他們是跨過橋者。”18誰作為人類而終結，誰就跨過了橋，就邁嚮了超人。“我愛那些偉大的輕衊者，因為他們是偉大的崇拜者，是射嚮彼岸的渴望之箭。”19渴望之箭意味着渴望超越自己的努力，這種努力鄙視人間的一切目的，唯獨想要到達彼岸世界。“我愛那些人，他們不先到星星後面尋找某種理由去終結、去犧牲，他們為大地犧牲，使大地有朝一日能屬於超人。”20任何一個能正常思維的人都不會為一個虛無飄渺的來世作出犧牲。地球，我們生活的大地，有足夠的理由讓人類為它做出超越自我的犧牲。
人類嚮超人超越的過程是一個極其艱難麯折危機四伏的過程，隨時可能付出生活的代價。走繩者無疑代表人類，他想建立一座由動物通嚮超人的橋梁。走繩者是查拉圖斯特拉所喜愛的人們中的一個。這些人蔑視末人的理想社會，敢於進行危險的超越，勇敢地嚮着超人的理想前進。超人的事業是前所未有的事業，必將受到舊勢力的瘋狂攻擊，走繩者的墜落就標志着基督教教義的勝利，這教義抨擊所有違背基督教教義的事為原罪並對觸犯原罪的人處以死刑。走繩者在其過去(順從的羔羊)和未來(獨立的個體)之間被拉來扯去，最終過去獲勝了，未來被放棄了，魔鬼戰勝了超人。但是這一結局並不是最終結局，每個作為走繩者的個體都必須在從動物到超人的過渡中經受多次這樣的死亡(“原罪”)，直到有一天他成功地在自身內超越人類這個階段。我們在前面已經談到繩索和走繩者是不可分的，繩索這條路的存在正是由於人們在它上面行走，隨着邁出的每一步超越自己的行為都重新進行，這種行為的總和就是超人。換句話說超人是走繩者、繩索和目標交織在一起嚮前進的一個整體。遺憾的是走繩者沒有能夠將這個統一體堅持到底，他在行進中失去了冷靜和平衡，摔了下去。在某種程度上人們可以說走繩者掉進了肉體和靈魂的二元論中，墜進了他想超越的物質和靈魂之間的鴻溝中。這墜落使由走繩者、繩索、目標三方面組成的統一體破裂了，解體了。如果一個人讓宗教或形而上學的偏見主宰着自己，那他就會被它(們)所超越，走繩者的悲慘結局就是一個最好的例子。查拉圖斯特拉試圖讓走繩者在臨死前明白，他(走繩者)本來已經超越了基督教關於魔鬼和地獄的教義，衹是他還未來得及做出不存在靈魂不死的結論。要知道肉體和靈魂始終相依相存；肉體是經濟基礎，靈魂是上層建築，肉體終結了，靈魂也就不存在了。走繩者雖然沒有走到繩索的那一端，但他用自己寶貴的生命嚮世人展示他是一位勇敢者、創新者，是一位嚮着超人理想奮勇直前者。從這個意義上說，他是一位大無畏的先驅。
查拉圖斯特拉在其演講的結尾談到了自己所扮演的角色——超人的宣告者。“我愛所有那些人，他們象沉重的雨點，一滴一滴地從人們頭頂上的烏雲中落下；它們預告着閃電的到來，並作為預告者而終結。/看吧，我是一道閃電的預告者，一滴自云中落下的重雨點：但是這道閃電便是超人。——”21查拉圖斯特拉不是超人，也不是超人的代表，而是超人的宣告者。他要將人們的註意力吸引到預示着超人的閃電事件中。這閃電將舊世界突然間照亮，撕掉了它的全部偽裝，展露出猙獰的本來面目，並宣告了它的末日。這閃電表明了舊的思維方式和舊的歷史觀的終結，這閃電預示了新的質的飛躍的來臨。隨着這閃電的到來，作為宣告者的查拉圖斯特拉就終結了。因為閃電、雷鳴、暴風雨過後，人類就成功地過渡到了超人，作為超人的宣告者就成為多餘的人了。人類自身超越了傳統的人物形象，並把這個新形象放到恰當的位置上。一旦超人的理念直接進入到人類的意識中，查拉圖斯特拉的使命就完成了，那時他將同其他人一樣，把所有的力量集中在更新自己，全力以赴地創造一座由動物嚮超人過渡的橋梁。
非常遺憾，查拉圖斯特拉的演講超出了人類理解水平的地平綫。所以，當查拉圖斯特拉結束演講時，聽衆大聲轟笑、怪叫、咂舌頭。人們嘲笑他，就象當年蘇格拉底嚮洞穴人解釋他的理念時受到的嘲笑一樣。即便在那兒，洞穴人也嚮蘇格拉底嚎叫：讓我們看看你的理念吧!接着他們指嚮每一堵有陰影的墻，在這些洞穴人看來，這些陰影就是真理的化身。蘇格拉底無法嚮他們展示什麽是理念，並不僅僅因為他從陽光普照的世界回到昏暗的洞穴中感到頭暈目眩，還因為而且首先是因為理念表達的方式和墻上陰影表達的方式截然不同，理念是無論如何無法以陰影的形式出現的。查拉圖斯特拉和蘇格拉底的遭遇如此相似，聽衆想看見他宣揚的超人，但人們沒有搞明白，超人是無法看見的，衹能做出來。遺憾的是，按照人類的傳統悟性，人類衹能理解物化了的、客觀上觸摸得到的形體，而恰恰在這種意義上既不存在超人，也不存在理念。超人就不是人，更不是那種超級人。超人不是個體，而是個體一項活動的總稱。這項活動的特點是既超越出去又在更高的程度上回歸自己。所以，衹有當我們去做這件事時，衹有當我們去超越人類自身時纔會有超人。由於世人的不理解，查拉圖斯特拉下山後的第一次演講失敗了。人們用舊的思維方式來理解查拉圖斯特拉的超人學說，似乎他要宣佈一個新的救世主的降臨。按照傳統觀念這個新的救世主是特定的個體的人，他以說教者的身份來此地教訓人類，人們想看的就是這種人。回顧人類的思想史，人類對於超出了自己理解力的改革者通常都采取從肉體上消滅的解决辦法。到目前為止查拉圖斯特拉是第一個幸免於難的人，這也許得益於人類的誤解。在世人看來，查拉圖斯特拉是個難得的白癡，一個令人捧腹大笑的醜角，但恰恰是這個醜角嚮舊世界的尊貴無比的人物形象和至高無上的理性觀念宣戰。
(四)對立統一體的圓周運動
尼采在《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》中塑造了查拉圖斯特拉的兩個動物形象：鷹與蛇。這兩衹動物象徵着一個對立同一體。在這個統一體中對立面既相互對立又相依相存。鷹這個高傲的動物盤旋在高空，它代表了理智與精神。蛇這個聰明狡猾的動物生活在地面，它代表了肉體與物質。儘管這兩種動物嚮前運動的方式不同，但是其共同點是都做圓周運動：鷹在空中畫圈，蛇在地上圈麯前進。蛇纏繞在飛翔的雄鷹的頸上的情影直觀地表現了對立面的統一。鷹與蛇，精神與物質是如此的不同，衹有圓周運動纔將二者聯繫在一起。對於尼采來說超越自我的行為就是嚮高層次發展的原則，它既超越自己，又在超越後回歸自我，衹不過是在更高的層次上。鷹與蛇儘管相互對立，截然不同，可它們二者之間沒有敵意，它們在友好的合作中完成圓周運動。同樣的，精神和物質不是相互抵毀，而是相互依存、相互補充，精神通過物質來實現，物質通過精神來提高。蛇在與鷹的共同飛翔中離開了它在地上的居留地升躍到了它依靠自己的力量無法達到的層次，同樣的物質作為精神的實現者進入了它通過自己的努力無法涉足的領域。精神中有物質，物質中有精神，不論物質還是精神都存在嚮更高層次發展的要求。這種要求作為權力意志的原則在共同的又存在差異的圓周運動中表現出來。
人類好比鷹與蛇的統一體。因此查拉圖斯特拉乞求高傲(鷹)永遠伴隨他的智慧(蛇)，因為衹有這樣才能保證人類永遠以圓周運動的方式前進。在這圓周運動中人類存在的對立面辯證地統一在一起，相互鬥爭，相互依存，就象查拉圖斯特拉的鷹與蛇一樣。它們各是不同種的生物，但是纏繞在一起共同做圓周運動。在現實世界中精神(靈魂)既要緊跟物質(內體)，以便不與物質脫節並隨時汲取生活的活力，同時精神還要反作用於物質，發揮其獨特的能動作用。
最後，讓我們分析一下查拉圖斯特拉的終結。從表面意義上看，這首先是指查拉圖斯特拉本人。他在十年前走了自下而上之路——復活，現在走的是自上而下之路 ——終結。從一個非表面的意義上看，查拉圖斯特拉在進行這兩種相反的運動中執行的是權力意志的原則，這一點在形成過程中表現得非常直觀。傳統的二元論觀點把對立面不是看作既矛盾又統一的，而是看成極端相反、水火不相容的。恰好在這一點上尼采與傳統的二元論者分道揚鑣。西方哲學界的普遍錯誤在於他們把對立面作為誓不兩立的二元論固定、延襲下來了，其實質問題為如何看待對立面之間的關係。在真實世界(即西方傳統觀念中所說的表象的世界)中立面之間的關係是對立統一的辯證關係，二者既極端對立又相互依存，並在一定條件下相互轉化，尼采一針見血地指出了這一點。在《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》中，尼采表達了清晰明確的一元論思想。二元論的思想淵源流長，無論是在人類早期哲學的璀璨明珠希臘哲學中還是在人類宗教史上歷史最長分佈最廣影響最大的基督教教義中同樣存在着兩個世界的學說——真實的世界和表象的世界。這兩個世界之間的關係被絶對化了。形象地說，好比人們設定了圓周的直徑，卻忘記了圓周本身。這樣一來勢必給人造成一種錯誤印象：這是一對無法調節、無法統一的對立面，人們衹能或者選擇這一面或者那一面；或者嚮上到精神，踏上通往所謂的真實的、美妙的世界之路，或者是嚮下到物質，墜入所謂的表象的邪惡的世界之中，二者之間是一道無法逾越的鴻溝。尼采力圖超越二者之間的鴻溝，他用形象的比喻和散文詩的語言生動地表述了二者之間的對立統一關係以及圓周式的前進方式。超人的思想是尼采超現實的想象，超人的理論無疑應歸入唯心主義的體係。但是這裏面所包含的一元論的思想和辯證發展的歷史觀是無論如何應該肯定的。另外尼采的唯心主義體係裏所包含的異常生動的辯證法思想，此起當時在歐洲大陸廣為流行的庸俗唯物主義機械唯物主義和拜物教不知要高明多少倍。馬剋思主義以前的唯物論，由於其機械的、形而上學的性質，沒有在強調思維依賴於存在，精神依賴於物質的前提下，充分估價意識、精神、主觀的巨大能動作用，人類這方面的正確認識首先是在唯心主義哲學範疇中被體現出來了。尼采在《查拉圖斯特如是說》中所提出的超人理論和永恆輪回的思想就是出類拔萃的例證。
《查拉圖斯特拉如是說》-目錄
代總序尼采，一位應該被超越的偉人
譯者前言尼采最具轟動效應的扛鼎之作
第一捲
查拉圖斯特拉前言
查拉圖斯特拉的演說
論三種變形
論道德講壇
論信仰彼岸世界的人
論蔑視肉體者
論快樂和激情
論蒼白的罪犯
論閱讀和寫作
論山旁之樹
論死之說教者
論戰爭和戰士
論新偶像
論市場的蒼蠅
論貞潔
論朋友
論一千零一個目標
論愛鄰人
論創造者的道路
論老嫗和少婦
論毒蛇的咬嚙
論孩子和婚姻
論自由之死
論饋贈的道德
第二捲
持鏡的小孩
在幸福島上
論同情者
論牧師
論道德傢
論流氓無賴
論毒蜘蛛
論著名的智者
夜歌
舞蹈之歌
墳墓之歌
論超越自我
論高尚者
論教化的國度
論純潔的知識
論學者
論詩人
論偉大事件
預言傢
論解救
論人的智慧
最寂靜的時刻
第三捲
漫遊者
論相貌和謎
論違背意志的幸福
日出之前
論逐漸變小的道德
橄欖山上
離棄
背叛者
歸傢
論三件惡事
論沉重的思想
論新舊招牌
痊愈者
論偉大的渴望
另一支舞麯
七個印章
第四捲
蜂蜜祭品
痛苦的呼號
與兩位國王的談話
水蛭
魔術傢
遜位
最醜陋的人
自願行乞者
影子
正午
歡迎
晚餐
更高級的人
憂鬱之歌
論科學
在沙漠的女兒們中間
覺醒
驢節
沉醉之歌
徵兆
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen) is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Overman, which were first introduced in The Gay Science.
Described by Nietzsche himself as "the deepest ever written," the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized prophet descending from his recluse to mankind, Zarathustra. A central irony of the text is that Nietzsche mimics the style of the Bible in order to present ideas which fundamentally oppose Christian and Jewish morality and tradition.
Genesis
Thus Spoke Zarathustra was conceived while Nietzsche was writing The Gay Science; he made a small note, reading "6,000 feet beyond man and time," as evidence of this. More specifically, this note related to the concept of the Eternal Recurrence, which is, by Nietzsche's admission, the central idea of Zarathustra; this idea occurred to him by a "pyramidal block of stone" on the shores of Lake Silvaplana in the Upper Engadine, a high alpine region whose valley floor is at 6,000 ft. Nietzsche planned to write the book in three parts over several years. He wrote that the ideas for Zarathustra first came to him while walking on two roads surrounding Rapallo, according to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in the introduction of Thomas Common's early translation of the book.
While developing the general outlook of the book, he subsequently decided to write an additional three parts; ultimately, however, he composed only the fourth part, which is viewed to constitute an intermezzo.
Nietzsche commented in Ecce Homo that for the completion of each part: "Ten days sufficed; in no case, neither for the first nor for the third and last, did I require more" (trans. Kaufmann). The first three parts were first published separately, and were subsequently published in a single volume in 1887. The fourth part remained private after Nietzsche wrote it in 1885; a scant forty copies were all that were printed, apart from seven others that were distributed to Nietzsche's close friends. In March 1892, the four parts were finally reprinted as a single volume. Since then, the version most commonly produced has included all four parts.
The original text contains a great deal of word-play. An example of this exists in the use of the words "over" or "super" and the words "down" or "abyss/abysmal"; some examples include "superman" or "overman", "overgoing", "downgoing" and "self-overcoming".
Synopsis
The book chronicles the fictitious travels and pedagogy of Zarathustra. The name of this character is taken from the ancient prophet usually known in English as Zoroaster (Avestan: Zaraθuštra), the Persian founder of Zoroastrianism. Nietzsche is clearly portraying a "new" or "different" Zarathustra, one who turns traditional morality on its head. He goes on to characterize "what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth, the mouth of the first immoralist:"
[F]or what constitutes the tremendous historical uniqueness of that Persian is just the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. […] Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it. […] His doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the "idealist” who flees from reality […]—Am I understood?—The self-overcoming of morality, out of truthfulness; the self-overcoming of the moralist, into his opposite—into me—that is what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth.
– Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, "Why I Am a Destiny", §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann
Zarathustra has a simple characterisation and plot, narrated sporadically throughout the text. It possesses a unique experimental style, one that is, for instance, evident in newly invented "dithyrambs" narrated or sung by Zarathustra. Likewise, the separate Dithyrambs of Dionysus was written in autumn 1888, and printed with the full volume in 1892, as the corollaries of Zarathustra's "abundance".
Some speculate that Nietzsche intended to write about final acts of creation and destruction brought about by Zarathustra. However, the book lacks a finale to match that description; its actual ending focuses more on Zarathustra recognizing that his legacy is beginning to perpetuate, and consequently choosing to leave the higher men to their own devices in carrying his legacy forth.
Zarathustra also contains the famous dictum "God is dead", which had appeared earlier in The Gay Science. In his autobiographical work Ecce Homo, Nietzsche states that the book's underlying concept is discussed within "the penultimate section of the fourth book" of The Gay Science (Ecce Homo, Kaufmann). It is the Eternal recurrence of the same events.
This concept first occurred to Nietzsche while he was walking in Switzerland through the woods along the lake of Silvaplana (close to Surlei); he was inspired by the sight of a gigantic, towering, pyramidal rock. Before Zarathustra, Nietzsche had mentioned the concept in the fourth book of The Gay Science (e.g., sect. 341); this was the first public proclamation of the notion by him. Apart from its salient presence in Zarathustra, it is also echoed throughout Nietzsche's work. At any rate, it is by Zarathustra's transfiguration that he embraces eternity, that he at last ascertains "the supreme will to power". This inspiration finds its expression with Zarathustra's Roundelay, featured twice in the book, once near the story's close:
“ O man, take care!
What does the deep midnight declare?
"I was asleep—
From a deep dream I woke and swear:—
The world is deep,
Deeper than day had been aware.
Deep is its woe—
Joy—deeper yet than agony:
Woe implores: Go!
But all joy wants eternity—
Wants deep, wants deep eternity." ”
Another singular feature of Zarathustra, first presented in the prologue, is the designation of human beings as a transition between apes and the "Übermensch" (in English, either the "overman" or "superman"; or, superhuman or overhuman. English translators Thomas Common and R. J. Hollingdale use superman, while Kaufmann uses overman, and Parkes uses overhuman). The Übermensch is one of the many interconnecting, interdependent themes of the story, and is represented through several different metaphors. Examples include: the lightning that is portended by the silence and raindrops of a travelling storm cloud; or the sun's rise and culmination at its midday zenith; or a man traversing a rope stationed above an abyss, moving away from his uncultivated animality and towards the Übermensch.
The symbol of the Übermensch also alludes to Nietzsche's notions of "self-mastery", "self-cultivation", "self-direction", and "self-overcoming". Expostulating these concepts, Zarathustra declares:
"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
"All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.
"Whoever is the wisest among you is also a mere conflict and cross between plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?
"Behold, I teach you the overman! The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!"
– Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann
The book embodies a number of innovative poetical and rhetorical methods of expression. It serves as a parallel and supplement to the various philosophical ideas present in Nietzsche's body of work. He has, however, said that "among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself" (Ecce Homo, Preface, sec. 4, Kaufmann). Emphasizing its centrality and its status as his magnum opus, it is stated by Nietzsche that:
With [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] I have given mankind the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far. This book, with a voice bridging centuries, is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights—the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance—it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no pail descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness.
– Ecce Homo, Preface, §4, trans. Walter Kaufmann
Since, as stated, many of the book's ideas are also present in his other works, Zarathustra is seen to have served as a precursor to his later philosophical thought. With the book, Nietzsche embraced a distinct aesthetic assiduity. He later reformulated many of his ideas, in his book Beyond Good and Evil and various other writings that he composed thereafter. He continued to emphasize his philosophical concerns; generally, his intention was to show an alternative to repressive moral codes and to avert "nihilism" in all of its varied forms.
Other aspects of Thus Spoke Zarathustra relate to Nietzsche's proposed "Transvaluation of All Values". This incomplete project began with The Antichrist.
Themes
Nietzsche injects myriad ideas into the book, but there are a few recurring themes. The overman (Übermensch), a self-mastered individual who has achieved his full power, is an almost omnipresent idea in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Man as a race is merely a bridge between animals and the overman. Nietzsche also makes a point that the overman is not an end result for a person, but more the journey toward self-mastery.
The eternal recurrence, found elsewhere in Nietzsche's writing, is also mentioned. The eternal recurrence is the idea that all events that have happened will happen again, infinitely many times. Such a reality can serve as the litmus test for an overman. Faced with the knowledge that he would repeat every action that he has taken, an overman would be elated as he has no regrets and loves life.
The will to power is the fundamental component of human nature. Everything we do is an expression of the will to power. The will to power is a psychological analysis of all human action and is accentuated by self-overcoming and self-enhancement. Contrasted with living for procreation, pleasure, or happiness, the will to power is the summary of all man's struggle against his surrounding environment as well as his reason for living in it.
Copious criticisms of Christianity can be found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in particular Christian values of good and evil and its belief in an afterlife. Nietzsche sees the complacency of Christian values as fetters to the achievement of overman as well as on the human spirit.
Style
Harold Bloom calls Thus Spoke Zarathustra a "gorgeous disaster", adding that its rhapsodic fiction is "now unreadable".
Noteworthy for its format, the book comprises a philosophical work of fiction whose style often lightheartedly imitates that of the New Testament and of the Platonic dialogues, at times resembling pre-Socratic works in tone and in its use of natural phenomena as rhetorical and explanatory devices. It also features frequent references to the Western literary and philosophical traditions, implicitly offering an interpretation of these traditions and of their problems. Nietzsche achieves all of this through the character of Zarathustra (referring to the traditional prophet of Zoroastrianism), who makes speeches on philosophic topics as he moves along a loose plotline marking his development and the reception of his ideas. One can view this characteristic (following the genre of the bildungsroman) as an inline commentary on Zarathustra's (and Nietzsche's) philosophy. All this, along with the book's ambiguity and paradoxical nature, has helped its eventual enthusiastic reception by the reading public, but has frustrated academic attempts at analysis (as Nietzsche may have intended). Thus Spoke Zarathustra remained unpopular as a topic for scholars (especially those in the Anglo-American analytic tradition) until the second half of the twentieth century brought widespread interest in Nietzsche and his unconventional style that does not distinguish between philosophy and literature. It offers formulations of eternal recurrence, and Nietzsche for the first time speaks of the Übermensch: themes that would dominate his books from this point onwards.
A vulnerability of Nietzsche's style is that his nuances and shades of meaning are very easily lost — and all too easily gained — in translation. The Übermensch is particularly problematic: the equivalent "Superman" found in dictionaries and in the translations by Thomas Common and R.J. Hollingdale may create an unfortunate association with the heroic comic-character "Superman", while simultaneously detracting from Nietzsche's repeated play on "über" as well as losing the gender-neutrality of the German.
The "Übermensch" is the being that overcomes the "great nausea" associated with nihilism; that overcomes that most "abysmal" realization of the eternal return. He is the being that "sails over morality", and that dances over gravity (the "spirit of gravity" is Zarathustra's devil and archenemy). He is a "harvester" and a "celebrant" who endlessly affirms his existence, thereby becoming the transfigurer of his consciousness and life, aesthetically. He is initially a destructive force, excising and annihilating the insidious "truths" of the herd, and consequently reclaiming the chaos from which pure creativity is born. It is this creative force exemplified by the Übermensch that justifies suffering without displacing it in some "afterworld".
Translations
The English translations of Zarathustra differ according to the sentiments of the translators. The Thomas Common translation favors a classic English approach, in the style of Shakespeare or the King James Version of the Bible. Common's poetic interpretation of the text, which renders the title Thus Spake Zarathustra, received wide acclaim for its lambent portrayal. Common reasoned that because the original German was written in a pseudo-Luther-Biblical style, a pseudo-King-James-Biblical style would be fitting in the English translation.
The Common translation, which improved on Alexander Tille's earlier attempt, remained widely accepted until the more critical translations, titled Thus Spoke Zarathustra, separately by R.J. Hollingdale and Walter Kaufmann, which are considered to convey more accurately the German text than the Common version. Kaufmann's introduction to his own translation included a blistering critique of Common's version; he notes that in one instance, Common has taken the German "most evil" and rendered it "baddest", a particularly unfortunate error not merely for his having coined the term "baddest", but also because Nietzsche dedicated a third of The Genealogy of Morals to the difference between "bad" and "evil". This and other errors led Kaufmann to wondering if Common "had little German and less English". The translations of Kaufmann and Hollingdale render the text in a far more familiar, less archaic, style of language, than that of Common.
Clancy Martin's 2005 translation opens with criticism and praise for these three seminal translators, Common, Hollingdale, and Kaufmann. He notes that the German text available to Common was considerably flawed, and that the German text from which Hollingdale and Kaufmann worked was itself untrue to Nietzsche's own work in some ways. Martin criticizes Kaufmann for changing punctuation, altering literal and philosophical meanings, and dampening some of Nietzsche's more controversial metaphors. Kaufmann's version, which has become the most widely available, features a translator's note suggesting that Nietzsche's text would have benefited from an editor; Martin suggests that Kaufmann "took it upon himself to become his editor".
Graham Parkes describes his own 2005 translation as trying "above all to convey the musicality of the text (which was not a priority for Walter Kaufmann or R.J. Hollingdale, authors of the best English translations so far)."
Musical adaptation
The book inspired Richard Strauss to compose the tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, which he designated "freely based on Friedrich Nietzsche." Zarathustra's Roundelay is set as part of Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony (1895-6), originally under the title What Man Tells Me, or alternatively What the Night tells me (of Man). Frederick Delius based his major choral-orchestral work A Mass of Life (1904-5) on texts from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The work ends with a setting of Zarathustra's Roundelay which Delius had composed earlier, in 1898, as a separate work. Carl Orff also composed a three-movement setting of part of Nietzsche's text as a teenager, but this work remains unpublished.
Editions of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
* 1st - 1909 - (limited to 2,000)
* 2nd - 1911 - (limited to 1,500)
* 3rd - 1914 - (limited to 2,000)
* 4th - 1916 - (limited to 2,000) of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None translated by Thomas Common, published by the MacMillan Company in 1916, printed in Great Britain by The Darwien Press of Edinburgh.
* Also sprach Zarathustra, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (study edition of the standard German Nietzsche edition)
* Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Random House; reprinted in The Portable Nietzsche, New York: The Viking Press, 1954 and Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976
* Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961
* Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by Graham Parkes, Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2005
* Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by Adrian del Caro and edited by Robert Pippin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006
Commentaries on Thus Spoke Zarathustra
* Gustav Naumann 1899-1901 Zarathustra-Commentar, 4 volumes. Leipzig : Haessel
* Higgins, Kathleen. 1990. Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
* Lampert, Laurence. 1989. Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. New Haven: Yale University Press.
* Rosen, Stanley. 2004. The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathustra. New Haven: Yale University Press.
* Seung, T. K. 2005. Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Introduction to Thus Spoke Zarathustra
* Rüdiger Schmidt Nietzsche für Anfänger: Also sprach Zarathustra - Eine Lese-Einführung (introduction in German to the work)
Essay collections on Thus Spoke Zarathustra
* Essays on Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise, edited by James Luchte, London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. ISBN 1847062210
Introduction by Mrs Forster-Nietzsche. Page 1
HOW ZARATHUSTRA CAME INTO BEING.
"Zarathustra" is my brother's most personal work; it is the history of his most individual experiences, of his friendships, ideals, raptures, bitterest disappointments and sorrows. Above it all, however, there soars, transfiguring it, the image of his greatest hopes and remotest aims. My brother had the figure of Zarathustra in his mind from his very earliest youth: he once told me that even as a child he had dreamt of him. At different periods in his life, he would call this haunter of his dreams by different names; "but in the end," he declares in a note on the subject, "I had to do a PERSIAN the honour of identifying him with this creature of my fancy. Persians were the first to take a broad and comprehensive view of history. Every series of evolutions, according to them, was presided over by a prophet; and every prophet had his 'Hazar,'--his dynasty of a thousand years."
All Zarathustra's views, as also his personality, were early conceptions of my brother's mind. Whoever reads his posthumously published writings for the years 1869-82 with care, will constantly meet with passages suggestive of Zarathustra's thoughts and doctrines. For instance, the ideal of the Superman is put forth quite clearly in all his writings during the years 1873-75; and in "We Philologists", the following remarkable observations occur:--
"How can one praise and glorify a nation as a whole?--Even among the Greeks, it was the INDIVIDUALS that counted."
"The Greeks are interesting and extremely important because they reared such a vast number of great individuals. How was this possible? The question is one which ought to be studied.
"I am interested only in the relations of a people to the rearing of the individual man, and among the Greeks the conditions were unusually favourable for the development of the individual; not by any means owing to the goodness of the people, but because of the struggles of their evil instincts.
"WITH THE HELP OF FAVOURABLE MEASURES GREAT INDIVIDUALS MIGHT BE REARED WHO WOULD BE BOTH DIFFERENT FROM AND HIGHER THAN THOSE WHO HERETOFORE HAVE OWED THEIR EXISTENCE TO MERE CHANCE. Here we may still be hopeful: in the rearing of exceptional men."
The notion of rearing the Superman is only a new form of an ideal Nietzsche already had in his youth, that "THE OBJECT OF MANKIND SHOULD LIE IN ITS HIGHEST INDIVIDUALS" (or, as he writes in "Schopenhauer as Educator": "Mankind ought constantly to be striving to produce great men--this and nothing else is its duty.") But the ideals he most revered in those days are no longer held to be the highest types of men. No, around this future ideal of a coming humanity--the Superman--the poet spread the veil of becoming. Who can tell to what glorious heights man can still ascend? That is why, after having tested the worth of our noblest ideal--that of the Saviour, in the light of the new valuations, the poet cries with passionate emphasis in "Zarathustra":
"Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest and the smallest man:--
All-too-similar are they still to each other. Verily even the greatest found I--all-too-human!"--
The phrase "the rearing of the Superman," has very often been misunderstood. By the word "rearing," in this case, is meant the act of modifying by means of new and higher values--values which, as laws and guides of conduct and opinion, are now to rule over mankind. In general the doctrine of the Superman can only be understood correctly in conjunction with other ideas of the author's, such as:--the Order of Rank, the Will to Power, and the Transvaluation of all Values. He assumes that Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the botched and the weak, has put in ban all that is beautiful, strong, proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from strength, and that, in consequence, all forces which tend to promote or elevate life have been seriously undermined. Now, however, a new table of valuations must be placed over mankind--namely, that of the strong, mighty, and magnificent man, overflowing with life and elevated to his zenith--the Superman, who is now put before us with overpowering passion as the aim of our life, hope, and will. And just as the old system of valuing, which only extolled the qualities favourable to the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed, has succeeded in producing a weak, suffering, and "modern" race, so this new and reversed system of valuing ought to rear a healthy, strong, lively, and courageous type, which would be a glory to life itself. Stated briefly, the leading principle of this new system of valuing would be: "All that proceeds from power is good, all that springs from weakness is bad."
This type must not be regarded as a fanciful figure: it is not a nebulous hope which is to be realised at some indefinitely remote period, thousands of years hence; nor is it a new species (in the Darwinian sense) of which we can know nothing, and which it would therefore be somewhat absurd to strive after. But it is meant to be a possibility which men of the present could realise with all their spiritual and physical energies, provided they adopted the new values.
The author of "Zarathustra" never lost sight of that egregious example of a transvaluation of all values through Christianity, whereby the whole of the deified mode of life and thought of the Greeks, as well as strong Romedom, was almost annihilated or transvalued in a comparatively short time. Could not a rejuvenated Graeco-Roman system of valuing (once it had been refined and made more profound by the schooling which two thousand years of Christianity had provided) effect another such revolution within a calculable period of time, until that glorious type of manhood shall finally appear which is to be our new faith and hope, and in the creation of which Zarathustra exhorts us to participate?
In his private notes on the subject the author uses the expression "Superman" (always in the singular, by-the-bye), as signifying "the most thoroughly well-constituted type," as opposed to "modern man"; above all, however, he designates Zarathustra himself as an example of the Superman. In "Ecco Homo" he is careful to enlighten us concerning the precursors and prerequisites to the advent of this highest type, in referring to a certain passage in the "Gay Science":--
"In order to understand this type, we must first be quite clear in regard to the leading physiological condition on which it depends: this condition is what I call GREAT HEALTHINESS. I know not how to express my meaning more plainly or more personally than I have done already in one of the last chapters (Aphorism 382) of the fifth book of the 'Gaya Scienza'."
"We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand,"--it says there,--"we firstlings of a yet untried future--we require for a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than all healthiness hitherto. He whose soul longeth to experience the whole range of hitherto recognised values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of this ideal 'Mediterranean Sea', who, from the adventures of his most personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror, and discoverer of the ideal--as likewise how it is with the artist, the saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the prophet, and the godly non-conformist of the old style:--requires one thing above all for that purpose, GREAT HEALTHINESS--such healthiness as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because one unceasingly sacrifices it again, and must sacrifice it!--And now, after having been long on the way in this fashion, we Argonauts of the ideal, more courageous perhaps than prudent, and often enough shipwrecked and brought to grief, nevertheless dangerously healthy, always healthy again,--it would seem as if, in recompense for it all, that we have a still undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand--alas! that nothing will now any longer satisfy us!--
"How could we still be content with THE MAN OF THE PRESENT DAY after such outlooks, and with such a craving in our conscience and consciousness? Sad enough; but it is unavoidable that we should look on the worthiest aims and hopes of the man of the present day with ill-concealed amusement, and perhaps should no longer look at them. Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal full of danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we do not so readily acknowledge any one's RIGHT THERETO: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been called holy, good, intangible, or divine; to whom the loftiest conception which the people have reasonably made their measure of value, would already practically imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation, blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the ideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which will often enough appear INHUMAN, for example, when put alongside of all past seriousness on earth, and alongside of all past solemnities in bearing, word, tone, look, morality, and pursuit, as their truest involuntary parody--and WITH which, nevertheless, perhaps THE GREAT SERIOUSNESS only commences, when the proper interrogative mark is set up, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy begins..."
Although the figure of Zarathustra and a large number of the leading thoughts in this work had appeared much earlier in the dreams and writings of the author, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" did not actually come into being until the month of August 1881 in Sils Maria; and it was the idea of the Eternal Recurrence of all things which finally induced my brother to set forth his new views in poetic language. In regard to his first conception of this idea, his autobiographical sketch, "Ecce Homo", written in the autumn of 1888, contains the following passage:--
"The fundamental idea of my work--namely, the Eternal Recurrence of all things--this highest of all possible formulae of a Yea-saying philosophy, first occurred to me in August 1881. I made a note of the thought on a sheet of paper, with the postscript: 6,000 feet beyond men and time! That day I happened to be wandering through the woods alongside of the lake of Silvaplana, and I halted beside a huge, pyramidal and towering rock not far from Surlei. It was then that the thought struck me. Looking back now, I find that exactly two months previous to this inspiration, I had had an omen of its coming in the form of a sudden and decisive alteration in my tastes--more particularly in music. It would even be possible to consider all 'Zarathustra' as a musical composition. At all events, a very necessary condition in its production was a renaissance in myself of the art of hearing. In a small mountain resort (Recoaro) near Vicenza, where I spent the spring of 1881, I and my friend and Maestro, Peter Gast--also one who had been born again--discovered that the phoenix music that hovered over us, wore lighter and brighter plumes than it had done theretofore."
During the month of August 1881 my brother resolved to reveal the teaching of the Eternal Recurrence, in dithyrambic and psalmodic form, through the mouth of Zarathustra. Among the notes of this period, we found a page on which is written the first definite plan of "Thus Spake Zarathustra":--
"MIDDAY AND ETERNITY."
"GUIDE-POSTS TO A NEW WAY OF LIVING."
Beneath this is written:--
"Zarathustra born on lake Urmi; left his home in his thirtieth year, went into the province of Aria, and, during ten years of solitude in the mountains, composed the Zend-Avesta."
"The sun of knowledge stands once more at midday; and the serpent of eternity lies coiled in its light--: It is YOUR time, ye midday brethren."
In that summer of 1881, my brother, after many years of steadily declining health, began at last to rally, and it is to this first gush of the recovery of his once splendid bodily condition that we owe not only "The Gay Science", which in its mood may be regarded as a prelude to "Zarathustra", but also "Zarathustra" itself. Just as he was beginning to recuperate his health, however, an unkind destiny brought him a number of most painful personal experiences. His friends caused him many disappointments, which were the more bitter to him, inasmuch as he regarded friendship as such a sacred institution; and for the first time in his life he realised the whole horror of that loneliness to which, perhaps, all greatness is condemned. But to be forsaken is something very different from deliberately choosing blessed loneliness. How he longed, in those days, for the ideal friend who would thoroughly understand him, to whom he would be able to say all, and whom he imagined he had found at various periods in his life from his earliest youth onwards. Now, however, that the way he had chosen grew ever more perilous and steep, he found nobody who could follow him: he therefore created a perfect friend for himself in the ideal form of a majestic philosopher, and made this creation the preacher of his gospel to the world.
Whether my brother would ever have written "Thus Spake Zarathustra" according to the first plan sketched in the summer of 1881, if he had not had the disappointments already referred to, is now an idle question; but perhaps where "Zarathustra" is concerned, we may also say with Master Eckhardt: "The fleetest beast to bear you to perfection is suffering."
My brother writes as follows about the origin of the first part of "Zarathustra":--"In the winter of 1882-83, I was living on the charming little Gulf of Rapallo, not far from Genoa, and between Chiavari and Cape Porto Fino. My health was not very good; the winter was cold and exceptionally rainy; and the small inn in which I lived was so close to the water that at night my sleep would be disturbed if the sea were high. These circumstances were surely the very reverse of favourable; and yet in spite of it all, and as if in demonstration of my belief that everything decisive comes to life in spite of every obstacle, it was precisely during this winter and in the midst of these unfavourable circumstances that my 'Zarathustra' originated. In the morning I used to start out in a southerly direction up the glorious road to Zoagli, which rises aloft through a forest of pines and gives one a view far out into the sea. In the afternoon, as often as my health permitted, I walked round the whole bay from Santa Margherita to beyond Porto Fino. This spot was all the more interesting to me, inasmuch as it was so dearly loved by the Emperor Frederick III. In the autumn of 1886 I chanced to be there again when he was revisiting this small, forgotten world of happiness for the last time. It was on these two roads that all 'Zarathustra' came to me, above all Zarathustra himself as a type;--I ought rather to say that it was on these walks that these ideas waylaid me."
The first part of "Zarathustra" was written in about ten days--that is to say, from the beginning to about the middle of February 1883. "The last lines were written precisely in the hallowed hour when Richard Wagner gave up the ghost in Venice."
With the exception of the ten days occupied in composing the first part of this book, my brother often referred to this winter as the hardest and sickliest he had ever experienced. He did not, however, mean thereby that his former disorders were troubling him, but that he was suffering from a severe attack of influenza which he had caught in Santa Margherita, and which tormented him for several weeks after his arrival in Genoa. As a matter of fact, however, what he complained of most was his spiritual condition--that indescribable forsakenness--to which he gives such heartrending expression in "Zarathustra". Even the reception which the first part met with at the hands of friends and acquaintances was extremely disheartening: for almost all those to whom he presented copies of the work misunderstood it. "I found no one ripe for many of my thoughts; the case of 'Zarathustra' proves that one can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by any one." My brother was very much discouraged by the feebleness of the response he was given, and as he was striving just then to give up the practice of taking hydrate of chloral--a drug he had begun to take while ill with influenza,--the following spring, spent in Rome, was a somewhat gloomy one for him. He writes about it as follows:-- "I spent a melancholy spring in Rome, where I only just managed to live,-- and this was no easy matter. This city, which is absolutely unsuited to the poet-author of 'Zarathustra', and for the choice of which I was not responsible, made me inordinately miserable. I tried to leave it. I wanted to go to Aquila--the opposite of Rome in every respect, and actually founded in a spirit of enmity towards that city (just as I also shall found a city some day), as a memento of an atheist and genuine enemy of the Church--a person very closely related to me,--the great Hohenstaufen, the Emperor Frederick II. But Fate lay behind it all: I had to return again to Rome. In the end I was obliged to be satisfied with the Piazza Barberini, after I had exerted myself in vain to find an anti-Christian quarter. I fear that on one occasion, to avoid bad smells as much as possible, I actually inquired at the Palazzo del Quirinale whether they could not provide a quiet room for a philosopher. In a chamber high above the Piazza just mentioned, from which one obtained a general view of Rome and could hear the fountains plashing far below, the loneliest of all songs was composed--'The Night-Song'. About this time I was obsessed by an unspeakably sad melody, the refrain of which I recognised in the words, 'dead through immortality.'"
We remained somewhat too long in Rome that spring, and what with the effect of the increasing heat and the discouraging circumstances already described, my brother resolved not to write any more, or in any case, not to proceed with "Zarathustra", although I offered to relieve him of all trouble in connection with the proofs and the publisher. When, however, we returned to Switzerland towards the end of June, and he found himself once more in the familiar and exhilarating air of the mountains, all his joyous creative powers revived, and in a note to me announcing the dispatch of some manuscript, he wrote as follows: "I have engaged a place here for three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to be sapped from me by the climate of Italy. Now and again I am troubled by the thought: WHAT NEXT? My 'future' is the darkest thing in the world to me, but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and leave the rest to THEE and the gods."
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