Chapter 3 Prologue to Zarathustra III

Zarathustra came to the nearest city by the forest.It is found that there are many people gathered in the market: because it was announced, everyone can see the performance of a soft rope walker.Then Zarathustra said to the crowd: "I teach you what is superman. Man is to be surpassed. What efforts have you made to surpass him? Until now, all creatures have created their own species, are you willing to be the back wave of this great trend, are you willing to return to the beasts and not surpass humans? What are apes to humans?A ridicule or a painful humiliation.The same is true of man to superman: a ridicule or a painful humiliation.

You have run the long distance from worm to man, but in many ways you are still worm.Once you were apes, but now man is more ape than any ape. The smartest among you is only a contradiction and hybrid of plant and monster.But am I teaching you to become a plant or a monster? Now, I teach you what is Superman! Superman is the meaning of the earth.Let your will say: the superman must be the meaning of the earth! Brothers, I pray: be true to the earth, and trust not those who talk of super-earth hopes!Whether consciously or not, they are poisoners. They are scorners of life, dying, and poisoners themselves.The earth has loathed them: let them go!

Formerly it was the greatest blasphemy to insult God; now that God is dead, the blasphemer of God is also dead.The scariest thing now is to desecrate the earth, to respect the meaning of the "unknowable" above the earth! Formerly the soul scorned the body, and this contempt was then considered the noblest thing:—The soul wanted the body to be thin and hungry.It thinks that in this way it escapes the body and at the same time escapes the earth. Ah, the soul itself is uglier and hungrier; cruelty is its pleasure! But tell me, you brothers, how does your body express your soul?Are your souls poor, filthy, and wretchedly self-sufficient?

Truly, man is an unclean river.If we were the sea, we could accept an unclean river without polluting ourselves. Now I teach you what Superman is: he is the sea; in whose bosom your great contempt may sink. What is the greatest thing you can experience?That was the moment of great contempt.At that time, your happiness is disgusting to you, and so is your reason and morality. At that time, you said: 'What is my happiness worth!It is poverty, filth, and pathetic complacency.But my happiness should make life meaningful! ' Then you say: 'What is my sanity worth!Does it hunger for knowledge as a lion loves its prey?It is poverty, filth, and wretched complacency! '

At that time, you said: 'What is my moral worth!It hasn't driven me into a frenzy yet.How am I weary of my good and my evil!All this poverty, filth, and wretched complacency! ' Then you say: 'What is my justice worth!I don't feel like I'm flame and coal.But the upright shall be of fire and coals! ' Then you say: 'What is my mercy worth!Isn't mercy the cross that crucifies the lover of mankind?But my mercy is not a crucifixion. ' Have you already said so?Have you already shouted that?well!Why have I never heard you cry like this! It is not your sin, but your temperance, cry to heaven; your aversion to sin cry to heaven!

Where is the lightning that will lick you with its tongue?Where is the madness that should inject you? Now I teach you what Superman is: he is this lightning, this madness! "— When Zarathustra had finished these words, one of the crowd cried: "We have heard enough of the rope walker, let us see him." And the crowd laughed at Zarathustra.And the rope walker thought that everyone asked him to play, so he began to perform.