--- title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra" author: "Friedrich Nietzsche" translator: "Thomas Common" languages: [en] shelf: "Philosophy" section: 33 of 95 url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/33/ cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 33. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/33/" --- # Thus Spake Zarathustra *Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common* A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs. ## 33. XXIX. The Tarantulas Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/33/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/33/#p-N [¶0] Lo, this is the tarantula’s den! Wouldst thou see the tarantula itself? Here hangeth its web: touch this, so that it may tremble. [¶1] There cometh the tarantula willingly: Welcome, tarantula! Black on thy back is thy triangle and symbol; and I know also what is in thy soul. [¶2] Revenge is in thy soul: wherever thou bitest, there ariseth black scab; with revenge, thy poison maketh the soul giddy! [¶3] Thus do I speak unto you in parable, ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of EQUALITY! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones! [¶4] But I will soon bring your hiding-places to the light: therefore do I laugh in your face my laughter of the height. [¶5] Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word “justice.” [¶6] Because, FOR MAN TO BE REDEEMED FROM REVENGE—that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms. [¶7] Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. “Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance”—thus do they talk to one another. [¶8] “Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like us”—thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves. [¶9] “And ‘Will to Equality’—that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against all that hath power will we raise an outcry!” [¶10] Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in you for “equality”: your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue-words! [¶11] Fretted conceit and suppressed envy—perhaps your fathers’ conceit and envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance. [¶12] What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father’s revealed secret. [¶13] Inspired ones they resemble: but it is not the heart that inspireth them—but vengeance. And when they become subtle and cold, it is not spirit, but envy, that maketh them so. [¶14] Their jealousy leadeth them also into thinkers’ paths; and this is the sign of their jealousy—they always go too far: so that their fatigue hath at last to go to sleep on the snow. [¶15] In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss. [¶16] But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! [¶17] They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound. [¶18] Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking. [¶19] And when they call themselves “the good and just,” forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but—power! [¶20] My friends, I will not be mixed up and confounded with others. [¶21] There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas. [¶22] That they speak in favour of life, though they sit in their den, these poison-spiders, and withdrawn from life—is because they would thereby do injury. [¶23] To those would they thereby do injury who have power at present: for with those the preaching of death is still most at home. [¶24] Were it otherwise, then would the tarantulas teach otherwise: and they themselves were formerly the best world-maligners and heretic-burners. [¶25] With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice UNTO ME: “Men are not equal.” [¶26] And neither shall they become so! What would be my love to the Superman, if I spake otherwise? [¶27] On a thousand bridges and piers shall they throng to the future, and always shall there be more war and inequality among them: thus doth my great love make me speak! [¶28] Inventors of figures and phantoms shall they be in their hostilities; and with those figures and phantoms shall they yet fight with each other the supreme fight! [¶29] Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again and again surpass itself! [¶30] Aloft will it build itself with columns and stairs—life itself: into remote distances would it gaze, and out towards blissful beauties— THEREFORE doth it require elevation! [¶31] And because it requireth elevation, therefore doth it require steps, and variance of steps and climbers! To rise striveth life, and in rising to surpass itself. [¶32] And just behold, my friends! Here where the tarantula’s den is, riseth aloft an ancient temple’s ruins—just behold it with enlightened eyes! [¶33] Verily, he who here towered aloft his thoughts in stone, knew as well as the wisest ones about the secret of life! [¶34] That there is struggle and inequality even in beauty, and war for power and supremacy: that doth he here teach us in the plainest parable. [¶35] How divinely do vault and arch here contrast in the struggle: how with light and shade they strive against each other, the divinely striving ones.— [¶36] Thus, steadfast and beautiful, let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely will we strive AGAINST one another!— [¶37] Alas! There hath the tarantula bit me myself, mine old enemy! Divinely steadfast and beautiful, it hath bit me on the finger! [¶38] “Punishment must there be, and justice”—so thinketh it: “not gratuitously shall he here sing songs in honour of enmity!” [¶39] Yea, it hath revenged itself! And alas! now will it make my soul also dizzy with revenge! [¶40] That I may NOT turn dizzy, however, bind me fast, my friends, to this pillar! Rather will I be a pillar-saint than a whirl of vengeance! [¶41] Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!— [¶42] Thus spake Zarathustra.