Summary of “So Spoke Zarathustra” by Nietzsche
Part one
Zarathustra returns to people after ten years of loneliness in the mountains to bring the message of the Superman.
Descending from the mountains, he meets a hermit who speaks of love for God. Continuing the path, Zarathustra is perplexed: “Is this possible?” This holy elder in his forest has not yet heard that God is dead! “
In the city, the sage sees a crowd, who gathered to gaze at the Cable Plyasun. Zarathustra tells people about the Superman: he calls people to be “faithful to the earth” and do not believe in “unearthly hopes” because “God is dead.” The crowd laughs at Zarathustra and watches the performance of the Cable Plyasun. As a result of the machinations of Paiats, the rope-walker falls and dies. Picking up the body of the deceased, the sage leaves the city. He is accompanied by the Eagle and the Serpent.
In his “Speeches,” consisting of twenty-two parables, Zarathustra laughs
The sage begins with a story about the “three transformations of the spirit”: first the spirit is the Camel, which turns into a Leo, and the Lion becomes a Child. The spirit is loaded, but he wants to be free and, like a lion, become a lord. But the Lion can not become the Creator Spirit without the Child – the “holy affirmation” of the spirit.
Many paradoxical life aspirations and different types of people discuss Zarathustra:
He condemns the godlike – they want “doubt to be a sin.” They despise “a healthy body – strong and perfect.” The philosopher curses the priests – these preachers of death who must disappear “from the face of the earth.”
Zarathustra teaches respecting the soldiers – they “overcome the person in themselves,” not wanting a long life.
He says “about a thousand and one goals”, when the good of one people from another people is considered evil, because “humanity has no goal”.
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He advises to avoid fame, clowns and actors, since far from it “the inventors of new values always lived.”
Zarathustra calls stupidity, when they respond well to Evil – this is humiliation for the enemy, and “little revenge is more human than absence of revenge.”
Marriage he calls “the will of two to create one, greater than those who created it,” but truly chaste calls condescending and gay.
Says the sage and the love of “creating in solitude” – they are able to “create beyond themselves.”
The youth of Zarathustra narrates about the evil nature of a man who is like a tree and “the more aggressively he aspires to the light, the more forcefully his roots go deep into the earth, down, into darkness – into evil.”
The sage mentions the nature of a woman – her solution is the pregnancy, and the rule of dealing with her is one: “Do you go to women? Do not forget the whip!”
Zarathustra condemns people who are “in a pitiful complacency,” mired in these “virtues.” A man on his way to the Superman must keep the “hero in his soul,” be faithful to the earth, find himself and “desire with one will,” denying any other faith.
Ends with the “Speech” prophecy about the approach of the “Great Halfday”, when on the way from the animal to the Superman the person “celebrates the beginning of his sunset.”
“All gods died: now we want to live Superman” – so, according to Zarathustra, the motto of humanity should sound.
Part two
Zarathustra retires to his cave. Years later, the sage again decides to go to people with new parables.
He again speaks of the denial of religion, because “this is a thought that makes everything straight straight.” The existence of the gods kills any creation and creation. Get away from the gods and from the priests who perish in the fire for false ideas.
The true virtue for man is the Self, which “manifests itself in every action.” It is necessary to love the creation of more compassion, since compassion can not create anything.
Zarathustra reveals the lie of the concept of “equality” – this myth is used to revenge and punish the strong, despite the fact that people are not equal and “they should not be equal!”
All “glorified sages”, like donkeys, served “the people and the people’s superstition, and not the truth.” But the real sages live in the desert, and not in the cities. Therefore, a real sage avoids crowds and does not drink from her “poisoned springs”.
Zarathustra teaches about the “will to power”, which he saw “wherever there was a living” and which encourages the weak to submit to the strong: “Only where there is life, there is also the will: but not the will to live – the will to power! I love you. ” It is the “will to power” that makes a person strong and sublime, like a column – “the higher it is, the more tender and beautiful, while the inside is harder and more enduring.”
He speaks of a “culture” that is dead and comes from an illusory reality. Scientists of this dead reality pretend to be wise, but their truths are insignificant. Zarathustra calls for “pure” and pure knowledge, “so that everything deep will rise to my heights!”
Above the poets, he laughs for their “eternal femininity” – they are too “superficial and not clean enough: they muddy the water so it looks deeper”.
All great events, says Zarathustra, should revolve “not around those who invent new noise, but around the inventors of new values.” Only “the will to power” can destroy compassion and bring to life the Great.
Zarathustra teaches his listeners three human wisdoms: letting oneself be deceived, “not to beware of deceivers,” more to spare the vainglorious and not allow “because of your cowardice the sight of evil disgusted me.”
In deep sorrow, he leaves his uncomprehending listeners.
Part Three
Zarathustra is on the way again. He tells fellow travelers about his meeting with the Spirit of Gravity – “he was sitting on me, half-closed, half-dwarf, lame, he tried to make me lame.” This Dwarf saddled the sage, trying to entice him into the abyss of doubt. Only courage saves the philosopher.
Zarathustra warns that the Spirit of Gravity is given to us from birth in the form of the words “good” and “evil.” This enemy who says “good for all, evil for all” wins only the one who says: “This is my good and my evil.” There is neither good nor bad – there is “my taste, which I do not need to be ashamed of or hide.”
There is no universal way, which can be pointed out to everyone – there is only an individual choice of each in matters of morality.
“Should it not be so: everything that can happen has already happened once in this way? Should it not be so: everything that can happen has happened once, happened and passed?” Zarathustra asks, affirming the idea of Eternal Return. He is sure: “everything that can happen and on this long road ahead must happen again!”
The sage says that all his life is determined by “the most ancient aristocracy of the world” – Randomness. A seeker of happiness never finds it, because “happiness is a woman”.
Returning to his cave through the city, Zarathustra again speaks of a moderate virtue, which is combined with comfort. People milled and revered “what makes modest and tame: so they turned a wolf into a dog, and people – into the best pet of a man.”
The sage is saddened by the deafness of people to the truth and says that “there, where you can not love more, there you need to pass by!”
He continues to mock the “old, jealous, spiteful” prophets who speak of monotheism: “Is not this the divinity that there are gods, but there is no God?”
Zarathustra praises voluptuousness, love of power and self-love. These are healthy passions, beating “with the key of a strong soul connected to a sublime body” and they will be characteristic of the “new aristocracy”. These new people will destroy the “old tables” of morality, replacing them with new ones. “Undaunted courage, long mistrust, cruel denial, satiety, incision of life” – that’s what, according to Zarathustra, characterizes the new elite and gives birth to truth.
In order to be strong, one must have a “broad soul” that is free from external circumstances and “rushes into all the Random.” This soul has a thirst for will, wisdom and love, “in which all things acquire aspiration and confrontation.”
Only those who want to overcome themselves have a “will to power” and a broad soul will be saved. Weak and Falling should be pushed and taught “to fall faster!” – Calls upon Zarathustra.
The best must strive for dominance in all spheres of life. A man must be “capable of war”, and a woman – to procreation. “You marry: look, that he does not become for you a conclusion!” – warns the philosopher.
Zarathustra denies the “social contract”, because society “is an attempt, this is a long search for the one who commands.”
He sings “all the evil in man”, because “all evil and evil is the best power and a hard stone in the hand of the highest of those who create.”
After these sermons, the animals call Zarathustra “the teacher of Eternal Return.”
Part Four and Last
Zarathustra grew old and “his hair turned gray.”
He continues to believe in the “millennial kingdom of Zarathustra” and adheres to the main slogan of the Superman – “Be who you are!”
One day he hears a cry for help and is looking for a “top man” in distress. Different characters come to meet him-a gloomy Seer, two Kings with an ass, a Conscientious spirit, an old Sorceress, the last Pope, The ugliest person, Voluntary beggar and Shadow. They all tell Zarathustra their stories and want to find a “higher man”. The sage sends them to his cave and continues his journey.
Tired, Zarathustra returns to the cave and sees there all the travelers met in a day. Among them are the Eagle and the Serpent. The sage preaches a sermon about the signs of a “higher man”, summarizing all the ideas spoken in the early sermons.
After that, he arranges an “evening”, where all drink wine, eat lamb and praise the wisdom of Zarathustra. All guests, including the donkey, pray.
The sage calls his guests “convalescent” and sings the “Great Halfday” offensive.
In the morning Zarathustra leaves his cave.
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