lution.

Already at the beginning of this history I hinted at the reasons which
led my brother to select a Persian as the incarnation of his ideal of
the majestic philosopher. His reasons, however, for choosing Zarathustra
of all others to be his mouthpiece, he gives us in the following
words:--"People have never asked me, as they should have done, what the
name Zarathustra precisely means in my mouth, in the mouth of the first
Immoralist; for what distinguishes that philosopher from all others
in the past 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 the essential wheel in the working of things. The
translation of morality into the metaphysical, as force, cause, end in
itself, was HIS work. But the very question suggests its own answer.
Zarathustra CREATED the most portentous error, MORALITY, consequently he
should also be the first to PERCEIVE that error, not only because he
has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other
thinker--all history is the experimental refutation of the theory of
the so-called moral order of things:--the more important point is that
Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In his teaching
alone do we meet with truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue--i.e.:
the reverse of the COWARDICE of the 'idealist' who flees from reality.
Zarathustra had more courage in his body than any other thinker before
or after him. To tell the truth and TO AIM STRAIGHT: that is the first
Persian virtue. Am I understood?... The overcoming of morality through
itself--through truthfulness, the overcoming of the moralist through his
opposite--THROUGH ME--: that is what the name Zarathustra means in my
mouth."

ELIZABETH FORSTER-NIETZSCHE.

Nietzsche Archives,

Weimar, December 1905.

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

FIRST PART. ZARATHUSTRA'S DISCOURSES.

ZARATHUSTRA'S PROLOGUE.

1.

When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of
his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and
solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart
changed,--and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the
sun, and spake thus unto it:

Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for
whom thou shinest!

For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou wouldst have
wearied of t