laugh and weep and mumble: thus do I praise God.
With singing, weeping, laughing, and mumbling do I praise the God who is my God. But what do you bring us as a gift?”
When Zarathustra had heard these words, he bowed to the saint and said: “What should I have to give you! Let me rather hurry hence lest I take aught away from you!” And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing like schoolboys.
When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: “Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest has not yet heard of it, that GOD IS DEAD!”
3.
When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which adjoins the 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 spoke thus unto the people:
I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass man?
All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and you 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.
You have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were you 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 say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!
I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe 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 most dreadful 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 you, also, my brethren, tell me: What does your body say about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and pollution and wretched self‐complacency?
Truly, 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 you can experience? It is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.
The hour when you say: “What good is my happiness! It is poverty and pollution and wretched self‐complacency. But my happiness should justify existence itself!”
The hour when you say: “What good is my reason! Does it long for knowledge as the lion for his food? It is poverty and pollution and wretched self‐complacency!”
The hour when you say: “What good is my virtue! As yet it has not made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all poverty and pollution and wretched self‐complacency!”
The hour when you say: “What good is my justice! I do not see that I am fervor and fuel. The just, however, are fervor and fuel!”
The hour when you say: “What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loves man? But my pity is not a crucifixion.”
Have you ever spoken thus? Have you ever cried thus? Ah! would that I had heard you crying thus!
It is not your sin – it is your self‐satisfaction that cries unto heaven; your very sparingness in sin cries unto heaven!
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the frenzy with which you 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.
4.
Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spoke thus:
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.
I love those that know not how to live except as down‐goers, for they are the over‐goers.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Superman may hereafter arrive.
I love him who lives in order to know, and seeks to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live. Thus seeks he his own down‐going.
I love him who labors and invents, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeks he his own down‐going.
I love him who loves his virtue: for virtue is the will to down‐going, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who reserves no share of spirit for himself, but wants to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who makes his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who desires not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.
I love him whose soul is lavish, who wants no thanks and does not give back: for he always bestows, and desires not to keep for himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favor, and who then asks: “Am I a dishonest player?” – for he is willing to succumb.
I love him who scatters golden words in advance of his deeds, and always does more than he promises: for he seeks his own down‐going.
I love him who justifies the future ones, and redeems the past ones: for he is willing to succumb through the present ones.
I love him who chastens his God, because he loves his God: for he must succumb through the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goes he willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down‐going.
I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus