Notes On Thus Spake Zarathustra 04: The Soul's Transformation

 Part I: The Three Metamorphoses, Thus Spake Zarathustra

“Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.”

Nietzsche’s perspicacity lies in the very fact that he is able to convey the most meaningful of ideas in the fewest words. Here, Zarathustra talks about the three stages of transformation of the soul, explaining the necessity of each stage that the soul must reach in the journey towards its highest end. 

“What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden.
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?
Or is it this: To desert our cause when it celebrateth its triumph? To ascend high mountains to tempt the tempter?”

It is unclear from the text what the soul is before it metamorphoses like the camel. Perhaps it is a mass of formless potential waiting to take shape and confront the world. Perhaps it is in a primitive, pre-conscious form, subject to the whims of the unconscious and is tossed about hither and thither on the vagaries of Nature and Culture. In any case, Zarathustra does not deem it to be worthy of mention because of its insignificance and harmlessness. Once, however, the soul does assume the form of the camel, it believes that bearing the load of human existence is its ultimate duty.

It almost seems that we have a debt to pay off in lieu of our existence that is both a boon given to us by our forefathers, and a crime in and of itself. A great deal of suffering, tragedy and bloodshed took place in history to produce us, to make us stand where we do today, proud and upright. It is not obvious that we are deserving of this privileged position. But it comes with heavy responsibility - we must through our own existence, justify centuries of death and tragedy borne by our ancestors. We must produce something of value to those around us - for our families, our neighbours and our compatriots. Our greatest duty is to sustain and improve upon the existing columns of culture and civilisation, for how dare we assume that we are capable of greater deeds! We carelessly underestimate the value of conventional wisdom at great peril to ourselves. 

“Or is it this: To be sick and dismiss comforters, and make friends of the deaf, who never hear thy requests?
Or is it this: To go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads?”

Even though it seems that it might be an easy task to obey that which has already issued its command, it is not. In order to lead, one must know how to obey. One must value command oneself and be disciplined enough to carry out the demands of social order. All things considered, it would not seem very prudent to stray from the trodden path, unless one has a sufficiently good reason to. Until one chances upon such a reason, one must make discomfort his enemy and see opportunity in every corner where responsibility lies shirked. One must be careful that one does not search out persons or situations that agree too much with one. This would breed complacency of the most insidious kind. 

The last line - “to go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads” - is incredibly profound. In his well-known book, Symbols of Transformation, Jung talks about how the water is the most ubiquitous symbol of the unconscious, and of chaos. Water is also the symbol for the maternal or feminine energy. The sun-devouring myths recounted by Jung describe how the great mother Ocean that births the Sun every morning, also devours it at dusk each day. Like the Sun that ventures into the underworld at dusk, the hero must descend into the depths of the underworld to extract the wisdom concealed within, and rise victorious and transformed.

“But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness.
Its last Lord it here seeketh: 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? ‘Thou-shalt,’ is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, ‘I will.’”

Perhaps after the soul has played the part of the camel, and played it well, the second metamorphosis will sneak upon it, as a nightmare sneaks upon a defenseless sleeper. Here, the soul will assume the form of a lion and seek sovereignty. This will become its ultimate value; this will become its last God. However, this grand position will not come freely for the spirit to seize. It must be won after a great battle with the dragon. Zarathustra calls this great dragon by the name “Thou shalt”. In other words, it is the incarnation of the Old Testament morality that is found in social convention. In Freudian psychology, it is the Superego. It tells us the rules to be obeyed and acts as a force upon the individual. When social and moral order assumes the form of a dragon (tyrannical and monstrous) AND when the soul assumes the form of a lion (courageous and honourable) simultaneously, only then does one have reason enough to depart from it in search of better values.

“Thou-shalt,” lieth in its path, sparkling with gold—a scale-covered beast; and on every scale glittereth golden, “Thou shalt!”
The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and thus speaketh 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’ any more. Thus speaketh the dragon.”

The brilliant play on the word “scale” (that refers to the scales of a reptilian creature as well as a weighing scale) can hardly be missed here. The dragon of social convention represents all hierarchies of values that are at work in the societies of man. This dragon must be defeated by the lion, if the soul is to carry on ahead in its journey of erecting new tables of values. “Thou shalt” views the individual as a part of the whole (community, country and cosmos). But the sovereign lion reinstates the cosmic significance of the individual after it defeats the dragon.

“My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent?
To create new values—that, even the lion cannot yet 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 right 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 “Thou-shalt”: now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture.”

Although the lion is not capable enough of erecting new tables of values, it is still capable of assuming that it may be possible, or even desirable, to create new tables of values. The lion’s might and courage defeats blind obedience, and this is an important foothold for the soul to reach the child stage. It changes the direction of the individual from that of social duty and expediency towards one that strives for meaning and individual responsibility. Nietzsche uses the term “holy Nay” to differentiate from the mindless and skeptical “Nay” of the nihilist. The former is “holier” because it selects a more supreme action to indulge oneself in, while the latter seeks to question the meaning of action itself for the sake of an all-encompassing idleness and unbelief. The soul, in the form of the lion, must prey on itself, or at least on that which it used to be - the camel. What the camel form of the soul once considered its ultimate value (social order), the lion must now disregard, so that it can make a leap into the wilderness.

“But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath 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, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: ITS OWN will, willeth now the spirit; HIS OWN world winneth the world’s outcast.”

After the part of the lion is over, the soul assumes the form of the child. The child represents potential itself. We know this to be true even in our day to day lives - we encounter a small child or an infant, and are instantly filled with joy and positive emotion, because in the face of that child, we see potential itself. The child represents a range of possibilities, some of which can be miraculously good, and something that can bring about those wonderful possibilities is indeed a joy to behold. The soul takes up this role for it is the child that confronts and explores the world of objects and interacts with it. In learning and playing with the elements that constitute the world, the child discovers new values and organises them into hierarchies. The games of the child transform into the games of the societies of man. The soul’s “holy Yea unto life” is its willingness to live and to make the world less tragic so that the individual might have something worthwhile to do while he lives out his years, careworn but fulfilled. The individual renounced all worldliness with conviction that the world is made up of material objects that he does not want. It is the realisation that the world is instead made up of potential that wins back the outcast.