4
Now Zarathustra looked at the people and he was amazed. Then he spoke thus:
“Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and Overman – a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and standing still.
What is great about human beings is that they are a bridge and not a purpose: what is lovable about human beings is that they are a crossing over and a going under.[1]
I love those who do not know how to live unless by going under, for they are the ones who cross over.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great venerators and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, who instead sacrifice themselves for the earth, so that the earth may one day become the Overman’s.
I love the one who lives in order to know, and who wants to know so that one day the Overman may live. And so he wants his going under.
I love the one who works and invents in order to build a house for the Overman and to prepare earth, animals and plants for him: for thus he wants his going under.
I love the one who loves his virtue: for virtue is the will to going under and an arrow of longing.
I love the one who does not hold back a single drop of spirit for himself, but wants instead to be entirely the spirit of his virtue: thus he strides as spirit over the bridge.
I love the one who makes of his virtue his desire and his doom: thus for the sake of his virtue he wants to live on and to live no more.
I love the one who does not want to have too many virtues. One virtue is more virtue than two, because it is more of a hook on which his doom may hang.
I love the one whose soul squanders itself, who wants no thanks and gives none back: for he always gives and does not want to preserve himself.[2]
I love the one who is ashamed when the dice fall to his fortune and who then asks: am I a cheater? – For he wants to perish.
I love the one who casts golden words before his deeds and always does even more than he promises: for he wants his going under.
I love the one who justifies people of the future and redeems those of the past: for he wants to perish of those in the present.
I love the one who chastises his god, because he loves his god: for he must perish of the wrath of his god.[3]
I love the one whose soul is deep even when wounded, and who can perish of a small experience: thus he goes gladly over the bridge.
I love the one whose soul is overfull, so that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his going under.
I love the one who is free of spirit and heart: thus his head is only the entrails of his heart, but his heart drives him to his going under.
I love all those who are like heavy drops falling individually from the dark cloud that hangs over humanity: they herald the coming of the lightning, and as heralds they perish.
Behold, I am a herald of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Overman. –”
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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] See footnote 5. [Note of the Ed.: In this site’s translation: here]
[2] Paraphrase of Luke, 17, 33: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.”
[3] A direct quote inverting its sense of Hebrews 12: 6: “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” See also, in Part Four, “The Awakening.”