Thus Spake Zarathustra

Para aquellos que gustan de filosofía y tienen un espíritu crítico Thus Spake Zarathustra, de Friedrich Nietzsche, ofrece una excelente oportunidad de pensar y debatir.

Acá ponemos unos párrafos en inglés de un tratado que habla de la muerte de Dios, del superhombre y de la voluntad.

En vocabulario encontramos ebb y overman.

Y encontramos una foto de Nietzsche con su hermana. ¡Está buena (la foto)!

 

Truly, a dirty stream is man. One must be a sea, to receive a dirty stream without becoming unclean. See, I teach you the overman: he is this sea; in him your great dislike can pass under and away…

 

Paragraphs

… Our footsteps sound too lonely through the streets. And at night, when they are in bed and hear a man walking nearby long before sunrise, they may ask themselves: Where is this thief going?

Do not go to men, but stay in the forest! Go rather to the animals! Why not be like me - a bear among bears, a bird among birds?"

"And what does the saint do in the forest?" asked Zarathustra.

The saint answered: "I make songs and sing them; and in making songs I laugh and weep and growl and hum: thus do I praise God.

With singing, weeping, laughing, growling and humming do I praise the God who is my God. But what do you bring us as a gift?"

When Zarathustra had heard these words, he bowed to the saint and said: "What should I have to give you?! Let me rather hurry away lest I take something away from you!" - And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, just like two laughing boys.

When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: "Could it be possible?! This old saint in the forest has not yet heard of it, that God is dead!"

When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which is close to the forest, he found many people assembled in the market-place, for it had been announced that a tightrope walker would give a performance. And Zarathustra spoke thus to the people:

I teach you the overman. Man is something to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him?

All beings thus far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and even return to the beast rather than surpass man?

What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the overman: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment.

You have made your way from worm to man, and much inside you is still worm. Once you were apes, and still man is more of an ape than any of the apes.

Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and mix of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?

See, I teach you the overman!

The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The overman shall be the meaning of the earth!

I appeal to you, my brothers, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of other worldly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is exhausted: so let them pass away!

Once sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and with him these sinners. To sin against the earth is now the most terrible sin, and to revere the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!

Once the soul looked disrespectfully on the body, and that disrespect was supreme: the soul wished the body thin, hideous, and starved. Thus it thought to escape from the body and the earth.

Oh, that soul was itself thin, ugly, and starved; and cruelty was the desire of that soul!

But you, also, my brothers, tell me: What does your body say about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and dirt and shameful contentment?

Truly, a dirty stream is man. One must be a sea, to receive a dirty stream without becoming unclean.

See, I teach you the overman: he is this sea; in him your great dislike can pass under and away.

What is your greatest experience? It is the hour of the great dislike.

The hour in which even your happiness becomes repulsive to you, and even your reason and virtue.

The hour when you say: "What good is my happiness! It is poverty and dirt and shameful satisfaction. But my happiness should justify existence itself!"

The hour when you say: "What good is my reason! Does it long for knowledge as the lion for his food? It is poverty and dirt and shameful satisfaction!"

The hour when you say: "What good are my virtues?! As yet they have not made me rage with passion. How exhausted I am of my good and evil! It is all poverty and dirt and shameful satisfaction!"

The hour when you say: "What good is my being just and right! I don't see myself as fire and coals. The just and the right, however, are fire and coals."

The hour when we say: "What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loves man? But my pity is not a crucifixion."

Have you ever spoken this way? Have you ever cried this way? Oh! That I could hear you cry like this!

It is not your sin - it is your caution that cries to heaven; it is the malice of your sin that cries to heaven.

Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the frenzy with which you should be inoculated?

Behold, I teach you the overman: he is that lightning, he is that frenzy.

When Zarathustra had thus spoken, one of the people called out:

"We've heard enough of the tightrope walker; now let's see him also!"

And all the people laughed at Zarathustra. But the tightrope walker, who thought the words were for him, began his performance… (Paragraphs from Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue 3, by Friedrich Nietzsche, in easier English.)

Nietzsche al cuidado de su hermana

 

Vocabulario

Ebb: When the sea or tide ebbs, it moves away from the coast and falls to a lower level.

The tide when it is moving away from the coast:

We'll sail on the ebb.

Overman: another term for superman.

An overman is then someone who has a life which is not merely to live each day with no meanings…

 

Para saber

Aunque Nietzsche inyecta muchas ideas en su libro, algunos temas sobresalen.

El superhombre (Übermensch), un individuo evolucionado que ha alcanzado su potencial, es una idea omnipresente. El hombre como raza es meramente un puente entre los animales y el superhombre. 

La recurrencia eterna también se menciona. Es la posibilidad que todos los eventos en la vida de uno pasen una y otra vez, infinitamente.

La voluntad de poder es el componente fundamental de la identidad humana. Todo lo que hacemos es una expresión de la voluntad de poder.

Muchas críticas al cristianismo se pueden encontrar en Zaratustra, en particular los valores cristianos del bien y el mal y la creencia en la vida después de la muerte.

 

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