Zarathustra’s prologue, 9

9

Long Zarathustra slept, and not only the dawn passed over his face but the morning as well. At last, however, he opened his eyes: amazed Zarathustra looked into the woods and the silence, amazed he looked into himself. Then he stood up quickly, like a seafarer who all at once sees land, and he rejoiced, for he saw a new truth.[1] And thus he spoke to his heart:

“It dawned on me: I need companions, and living ones – not dead companions and corpses that I carry with me wherever I want.

Instead I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves – wherever I want.

It dawned on me: let Zarathustra speak not to the people, but instead to companions! Zarathustra should not become the shepherd and dog of a herd!

To lure many away from the herd – for that I came. The people and herd shall be angry with me: Zarathustra wants to be called a robber by shepherds.

Shepherds I say, but they call themselves the good and the just. Shepherds I say: but they call themselves the faithful of the true faith.

Look at the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? The one who breaks their tablets of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker[2] – but he is the creative one.

Look at the faithful of all faiths! Whom do they hate most? The one who breaks their tablets of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker – but he is the creative one.

Companions the creative one seeks and not corpses, nor herds and believers. Fellow creators the creative one seeks, who will write new values on new tablets.

Companions the creative one seeks, and fellow harvesters; for to him everything stands ready for harvest.[3] But he lacks the hundred scythes, and so he plucks out spikes and is angry.

Companions the creative one seeks, and those who know how to whet their scythes. They shall be called annihilators and despisers of good and evil. But they are the harvesters and the celebrators. Fellow creators seeks Zarathustra, fellow harvesters and fellow celebrators Zarathustra seeks: what need does he have of herds and shepherds and corpses!

And you, my first companion, take care! I buried you well in your tree, I concealed you well from the wolves.

But I am leaving you, the time is up. Between dawn and dawn a new truth came to me.

I shall not be a shepherd, nor a gravedigger. I do not want to even speak again with the people – for the last time have I spoken to a dead person.

I shall join the creators, the harvesters, the celebrators: I shall show them the rainbow and all the steps to the Overman.

I shall sing my song to lonesome and twosome hermits[4], and for him who still has ears for the unheard of, I shall make his heart heavy with my happiness.

I want to go to my goal, and I go my own way; over the hesitating and dawdling I shall leap. Thus let my going be their going under!”

 

______________________

The above German-English translation by Adrian del Caro is taken from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Cambridge University Press, 2006). This Cambridge edition lacks the more detailed notes by Andrés Sánchez-Pascual in Así Habló Zaratustra (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2014), translated below.

Notes:

[1] In the fourth part, §1, “On the Higher Man,” Zarathustra would remember this “new truth.”

[2] Pun of the German words Brecher (destroyer, breaker) and Verbrecher (offender, criminal). Moses also breaks the tablets; see Exodus 32,19: “And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.” In this work Zarathustra uses numerous times this opposition.

[3] A reminiscence of the Gospel of Matthew 9:37: “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.”

[4] Play of German words Einsiedler (hermits) and Zweisiedler (the latter term created by Nietzsche refers to marriage, that is, the “solitude of two in company”).