ZARATHUSTRA'S THREE METAMORPHOSES

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is a symbol, an allegory through and through, but this allegory receives a particular human dimension via its incarnation in the person of Zarathustra. Aside from a vast variety of meanings and implications of the main order, Nietzsche’s fictional hero is rich in offshoots that are no less meaningful and no less profound, and here is one of such offshoots, which I am calling, after Nietzsche, “Zarathustra’s Three Metamorphoses.” It appears early on, in the first book of Zarathustra:

Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becomes a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion, at last, a child. (Zarathustra, I-1.)

I guess, the door is open to a multitude of objective interpretations, and here is the master interpretation of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra himself:

Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing spirit, in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength. What is heavy? asks the load-bearing spirit; then kneels it down like the camel, and wants to be well laden. What is the heaviest thing, you heroes? asks the bearing spirit, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength. Is it not this: To humiliate oneself, in order to mortify one’s pride? To exhibit one’s folly, in order to mock at one’s wisdom? To desert our cause when it celebrates its triumph? To ascend high mountains to tempt the tempter? Or is it to feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of the soul? Or is it to be sick and to dismiss comforters and make friends of the deaf who never hear your requests? Or is it to go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads? Or is it this: To love those who despise us, and give one’s hand to the phantom when it is going to frighten us? All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: and, like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness.

But in the loneliest wilderness happens the second metamorphosis: the spirit becomes a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness. Its last Lord it here seeks: hostile will it be to him, and to its last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon. What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God? “You-shalt” is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion says I will. “You-shalt,” lies in its path, sparkling with gold--- a scale-covered beast; and on every scale glitters golden “You shalt!” The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: “All the values of things glitter on me. All values have already been created, and all created values do I represent. Verily, there shall be no ‘I will’ anymore.” Thus speaks the dragon.

My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why suffices not the beast of burden, which renounces and is reverent?

To create new values--- that, even the lion cannot accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating, that can the might of the lion do. To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion.

To assume the ride to new values-- that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey. As its holiest, it once loved you-shalt: now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things so that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture.

But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion cannot do? Why has the preying lion still to become a child? Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy yea. Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, needed is a holy yea unto life: its own will, wills now the spirit; his own world wins the world’s outcast.

…Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion, at last, a child.

To be continued…