Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra 01: The Greater Poverty

Author’s Note: This is a study of the great masterpiece of Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, by a very young, very inexperienced person, who claims to know no more of Nietzsche than the three other books of his she has read. Keeping in mind my tendency to disagree with myself on other great works I have dared to offer my thoughts on, I am unsure as to whether, even I will agree to whatever I have to say at this moment about this great piece of literature after a second reading of the same. Nevertheless, I feel it is better to take aim than not, all things considered. Having said that, I will begin by picking out some of the best lines in each part of the book, and try to do justice through my very naive interpretations that may as well come crashing down by the time I finish the book.

Part I: Zarathustra’s Prologue

“I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches.
Therefore must I descend into the deep: as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea, and givest light also to the nether-world, thou exuberant star!
Like thee must I GO DOWN, as men say, to whom I shall descend.”

Zarathustra utters these words after having taken the decision to leave his hermit life in his mountain abode and live again amidst civilisation. At this juncture, he wishes to distribute his wisdom to mankind, until the wise learn to play about with their wisdom and take it less seriously and the poor consider themselves fortunate for the lessons learned through privation. Zarathustra’s understanding of rich and poor has to do with more than just the superficiality of material wealth. Poverty of soul, is the real poverty that can afflict a man. And man might have learnt many a valuable lesson, but he must not become tyrannical in his wisdom. He must not consider himself as the “knower” and “wielder” of this wisdom; rather, he must subject himself to it humbly but playfully, for the possession of wisdom accords one much power, and any corruption on man’s part can be his undoing.

In his unsurpassed work, Symbols of Transformation, Jung talks of the sun-devouring myths. The Sun is a symbol for the hero-archetype. It is birthed by the great Ocean Mother every morning and makes its journey across the horizon only to be devoured once again by her. The hero likewise is birthed by the Mother with much labour, and ventures into the unknown, the chaos to make order out of it and to give shape to Culture. Throughout his lifetime, the hero descends into Chaos, either voluntarily, by responding to the call of the ever-embracing unconscious, or involuntarily, when his world of order collapses into the Chaos and he is required to generate a new world because the older one became too tyrannical or irrelevant. 

Coming back to Nietzsche, it can be said that in a world where “God is dead”, the need for the creation of new hierarchies of value (with an ultimate value at the summit) is in order. Zarathustra understands this, and it is time for him to shoulder the responsibility of Man (or of what Jung would call the hero archetype). He must “go under”; he must delve into the depths of the abyss where the Gods descended once they depopulated the cosmos, he must emerge, transformed and ready to erect new “tables of value” to justify the tragedy that is existence. 

“Zarathustra answered: “What spake I of love! I am bringing gifts unto men.
Give them nothing,” said the saint. “Take rather part of their load, and carry it along with them—that will be most agreeable unto them: if only it be agreeable unto thee!”

The dialogue between Zarathustra and the saint he encounters on his journey downwards to civilised society highlights an important point worth reflecting on. When Zarathustra tells the saint that he is going back to live amidst men so that he can impart much of his wisdom unto them, the saint asks him to give nothing to men. The saint believes that one can better service mankind by sharing their load of existence, of responsibility, and of nobility. These lines of the saint bring to mind Kahlil Gibran’s words from his work, The Prophet:

“You often say, ‘I would give, but only to the deserving.’
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life—while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.”

To deem oneself worthy of giving, or even, of “gifting”, one presumes that one has more than one’s neighbour to whom he “gives”. One assumes the superior position as the holder of something valuable that one deigns to bequeath into the hands of another, while in reality, we are but an instrument through which life redistributes that which Nature assigned unequally in the first place. It is therefore more desirable to help shoulder the burden of existence and follow the call to erect pillars in a sea of Chaos that has engulfed the structures that gave our forefathers meaning. To do anything for Man which he can do for himself, would be to deny him the opportunity to take up a responsibility to deliver, to do all which makes the eventual pain and death in man’s life worth it. Perhaps there is no greater theft. Perhaps there is no greater poverty.

Explore more:
1. Thus Spake Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche.
2. Symbols of Transformation - Carl Jung.
3. The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran.