查拉图斯特拉如是说 英文版 Thus Spake Zarathustra
尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
Introduction by Mrs Forster-Nietzsche. Page 2
The second part of "Zarathustra" was written between the 26th of June andthe 6th July. "This summer, finding myself once more in the sacred placewhere the first thought of 'Zarathustra' flashed across my mind, Iconceived the second part. Ten days sufficed. Neither for the second, thefirst, nor the third part, have I required a day longer."
He often used to speak of the ecstatic mood in which he wrote"Zarathustra"; how in his walks over hill and dale the ideas would crowdinto his mind, and how he would note them down hastily in a note-book fromwhich he would transcribe them on his return, sometimes working tillmidnight. He says in a letter to me: "You can have no idea of thevehemence of such composition," and in "Ecce Homo" (autumn 1888) hedescribes as follows with passionate enthusiasm the incomparable mood inwhich he created Zarathustra:--
"--Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any distinct notion ofwhat poets of a stronger age understood by the word inspiration? If not, Iwill describe it. If one had the smallest vestige of superstition in one,it would hardly be possible to set aside completely the idea that one isthe mere incarnation, mouthpiece or medium of an almighty power. The ideaof revelation in the sense that something becomes suddenly visible andaudible with indescribable certainty and accuracy, which profoundlyconvulses and upsets one--describes simply the matter of fact. One hears--one does not seek; one takes--one does not ask who gives: a thoughtsuddenly flashes up like lightning, it comes with necessity,unhesitatingly--I have never had any choice in the matter. There is anecstasy such that the immense strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a floodof tears, along with which one's steps either rush or involuntarily lag,alternately. There is the feeling that one is completely out of hand, withthe very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills andquiverings to the very toes;--there is a depth of happiness in which thepainfullest and gloomiest do not operate as antitheses, but as conditioned,as demanded in the sense of necessary shades of colour in such an overflowof light. There is an instinct for rhythmic relations which embraces wideareas of forms (length, the need of a wide-embracing rhythm, is almost themeasure of the force of an inspiration, a sort of counterpart to itspressure and tension). Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in atempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity.The involuntariness of the figures and similes is the most remarkablething; one loses all perception of what constitutes the figure and whatconstitutes the simile; everything seems to present itself as the readiest,the correctest and the simplest means of expression. It actually seems, touse one of Zarathustra's own phrases, as if all things came unto one, andwould fain be similes: 'Here do all things come caressingly to thy talkand flatter thee, for they want to ride upon thy back. On every similedost thou here ride to every truth. Here fly open unto thee all being'swords and word-cabinets; here all being wanteth to become words, here allbecoming wanteth to learn of thee how to talk.' This is MY experience ofinspiration. I do not doubt but that one would have to go back thousandsof years in order to find some one who could say to me: It is minealso!--"
In the autumn of 1883 my brother left the Engadine for Germany and stayedthere a few weeks. In the following winter, after wandering somewhaterratically through Stresa, Genoa, and Spezia, he landed in Nice, where theclimate so happily promoted his creative powers that he wrote the thirdpart of "Zarathustra". "In the winter, beneath the halcyon sky of Nice,which then looked down upon me for the first time in my life, I found thethird 'Zarathustra'--and came to the end of my task; the whole havingoccupied me scarcely a year. Many hidden corners and heights in thelandscapes round about Nice are hallowed to me by unforgettable moments.That decisive chapter entitled 'Old and New Tables' was composed in thevery difficult ascent from the station to Eza--that wonderful Moorishvillage in the rocks. My most creative moments were always accompanied byunusual muscular activity. The body is inspired: let us waive thequestion of the 'soul.' I might often have been seen dancing in thosedays. Without a suggestion of fatigue I could then walk for seven or eighthours on end among the hills. I slept well and laughed well--I wasperfectly robust and patient."
As we have seen, each of the three parts of "Zarathustra" was written,after a more or less short period of preparation, in about ten days. Thecomposition of the fourth part alone was broken by occasionalinterruptions. The first notes relating to this part were written while heand I were staying together in Zurich in September 1884. In the followingNovember, while staying at Mentone, he began to elaborate these notes, andafter a long pause, finished the manuscript at Nice between the end ofJanuary and the middle of February 1885. My brother then called this partthe fourth and last; but even before, and shortly after it had beenprivately printed, he wrote to me saying that he still intended writing afifth and sixth part, and notes relating to these parts are now in mypossession. This fourth part (the original MS. of which contains thisnote: "Only for my friends, not for the public") is written in aparticularly personal spirit, and those few to whom he presented a copy ofit, he pledged to the strictest secrecy concerning its contents. He oftenthought of making this fourth part public also, but doubted whether hewould ever be able to do so without considerably altering certain portionsof it. At all events he resolved to distribute this manuscript production,of which only forty copies were printed, only among those who had provedthemselves worthy of it, and it speaks eloquently of his utter lonelinessand need of sympathy in those days, that he had occasion to present onlyseven copies of his book according to this resolution.
Already at the beginning of this history I hinted at the reasons which ledmy brother to select a Persian as the incarnation of his ideal of themajestic philosopher. His reasons, however, for choosing Zarathustra ofall others to be his mouthpiece, he gives us in the following words:--"People have never asked me, as they should have done, what the nameZarathustra precisely means in my mouth, in the mouth of the firstImmoralist; for what distinguishes that philosopher from all others in thepast is the very fact that he was exactly the reverse of an immoralist.Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil theessential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality intothe metaphysical, as force, cause, end in itself, was HIS work. But thevery question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra CREATED the mostportentous error, MORALITY, consequently he should also be the first toPERCEIVE that error, not only because he has had longer and greaterexperience of the subject than any other thinker--all history is theexperimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order ofthings:--the more important point is that Zarathustra was more truthfulthan any other thinker. In his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulnessupheld as the highest virtue--i.e.: the reverse of the COWARDICE of the'idealist' who flees from reality. Zarathustra had more courage in hisbody than any other thinker before or after him. To tell the truth and TOAIM STRAIGHT: that is the first Persian virtue. Am I understood?...Theovercoming of morality through itself--through truthfulness, the overcomingof the moralist through his opposite--THROUGH ME--: that is what the nameZarathustra means in my mouth."
ELIZABETH FORSTER-NIETZSCHE.