Thus Spake Zarathustra [153]
his love of Wagner's music, and the undoubted power of the great musician's personality, in order to realise how very uncritical his attitude must have been in the first flood of his enthusiasm. Again, when the friendship ripened, we cannot well imagine Nietzsche, the younger man, being anything less than intoxicated by his senior's attention and love, and we are therefore not surprised to find him pressing Wagner forward as the great Reformer and Saviour of mankind. "Wagner in Bayreuth" (English Edition, 1909) gives us the best proof of Nietzsche's infatuation, and although signs are not wanting in this essay which show how clearly and even cruelly he was sub-consciously "taking stock" of his friend--even then, the work is a record of what great love and admiration can do in the way of endowing the object of one's affection with all the qualities and ideals that a fertile imagination can conceive.
When the blow came it was therefore all the more severe. Nietzsche at length realised that the friend of his fancy and the real Richard Wagner-- the composer of Parsifal--were not one; the fact dawned upon him slowly; disappointment upon disappointment, revelation after revelation, ultimately brought it home to him, and though his best instincts were naturally opposed to it at first, the revulsion of feeling at last became too strong to be ignored, and Nietzsche was plunged into the blackest despair. Years after his break with Wagner, he wrote "The Case of Wagner", and "Nietzsche contra Wagner", and these works are with us to prove the sincerity and depth of his views on the man who was the greatest event of his life.
The poem in this discourse is, of course, reminiscent of Wagner's own poetical manner, and it must be remembered that the whole was written subsequent to Nietzsche's final break with his friend. The dialogue between Zarathustra and the Magician reveals pretty fully what it was that Nietzsche grew to loathe so intensely in Wagner,--viz., his pronounced histrionic tendencies, his dissembling powers, his inordinate vanity, his equivocalness, his falseness. "It honoureth thee," says Zarathustra, "that thou soughtest for greatness, but it betrayeth thee also. Thou art not great." The Magician is nevertheless sent as a guest to Zarathustra's cave; for, in his heart, Zarathustra believed until the end that the Magician was a higher man broken by modern values.
Chapter LXVI. Out of Service.
Zarathustra now meets the last pope, and, in a poetical form, we get Nietzsche's description of the course Judaism and Christianity pursued before they reached their final break-up in Atheism, Agnosticism, and the like. The God of a strong, warlike race--the God of Israel--is a jealous, revengeful God. He is a power that can be pictured and endured only by a hardy and courageous race, a race rich enough to sacrifice and to lose in sacrifice. The image of this God degenerates with the people that appropriate it, and gradually He becomes a God of love--"soft and mellow," a lower middle-class deity, who is "pitiful." He can no longer be a God who requires sacrifice, for we ourselves are no longer rich enough for that. The tables are therefore turned upon Him; HE must sacrifice to us. His pity becomes so great that he actually does sacrifice something to us-- His only begotten Son. Such a process carried to its logical conclusions must ultimately end in His own destruction, and thus we find the pope declaring that God was one day suffocated by His all-too-great pity. What follows is clear enough. Zarathustra recognises another higher man in the ex-pope and sends him too as a guest to the cave.
Chapter LXVII. The Ugliest Man.
This discourse contains perhaps the boldest of Nietzsche's suggestions concerning Atheism, as well as some extremely penetrating remarks upon the sentiment of pity. Zarathustra comes across the repulsive creature sitting on the wayside, and what does he do? He manifests the only correct feelings that can be manifested in the presence of any great misery--that is to say, shame, reverence,
When the blow came it was therefore all the more severe. Nietzsche at length realised that the friend of his fancy and the real Richard Wagner-- the composer of Parsifal--were not one; the fact dawned upon him slowly; disappointment upon disappointment, revelation after revelation, ultimately brought it home to him, and though his best instincts were naturally opposed to it at first, the revulsion of feeling at last became too strong to be ignored, and Nietzsche was plunged into the blackest despair. Years after his break with Wagner, he wrote "The Case of Wagner", and "Nietzsche contra Wagner", and these works are with us to prove the sincerity and depth of his views on the man who was the greatest event of his life.
The poem in this discourse is, of course, reminiscent of Wagner's own poetical manner, and it must be remembered that the whole was written subsequent to Nietzsche's final break with his friend. The dialogue between Zarathustra and the Magician reveals pretty fully what it was that Nietzsche grew to loathe so intensely in Wagner,--viz., his pronounced histrionic tendencies, his dissembling powers, his inordinate vanity, his equivocalness, his falseness. "It honoureth thee," says Zarathustra, "that thou soughtest for greatness, but it betrayeth thee also. Thou art not great." The Magician is nevertheless sent as a guest to Zarathustra's cave; for, in his heart, Zarathustra believed until the end that the Magician was a higher man broken by modern values.
Chapter LXVI. Out of Service.
Zarathustra now meets the last pope, and, in a poetical form, we get Nietzsche's description of the course Judaism and Christianity pursued before they reached their final break-up in Atheism, Agnosticism, and the like. The God of a strong, warlike race--the God of Israel--is a jealous, revengeful God. He is a power that can be pictured and endured only by a hardy and courageous race, a race rich enough to sacrifice and to lose in sacrifice. The image of this God degenerates with the people that appropriate it, and gradually He becomes a God of love--"soft and mellow," a lower middle-class deity, who is "pitiful." He can no longer be a God who requires sacrifice, for we ourselves are no longer rich enough for that. The tables are therefore turned upon Him; HE must sacrifice to us. His pity becomes so great that he actually does sacrifice something to us-- His only begotten Son. Such a process carried to its logical conclusions must ultimately end in His own destruction, and thus we find the pope declaring that God was one day suffocated by His all-too-great pity. What follows is clear enough. Zarathustra recognises another higher man in the ex-pope and sends him too as a guest to the cave.
Chapter LXVII. The Ugliest Man.
This discourse contains perhaps the boldest of Nietzsche's suggestions concerning Atheism, as well as some extremely penetrating remarks upon the sentiment of pity. Zarathustra comes across the repulsive creature sitting on the wayside, and what does he do? He manifests the only correct feelings that can be manifested in the presence of any great misery--that is to say, shame, reverence,