Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

“Bless the cup that wants to flow over, such that water flows golden from it and everywhere carries the reflection of your bliss! Behold! This cup wants to become empty again, and Zarathustra wants to become human again.”

The cup that wants to overflow is a reference to the biblical scene in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus pleads with his Father to take away the cup before him, yet Zarathustra willingly embraces the cup before him. This embrace symbolizes Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity.

“Once the soul gazed contemptuously at the body, and then such contempt was the highest thing: it wanted the body gaunt, ghastly, starved. Thus it intended to escape the body and the earth. Oh this soul was gaunt, ghastly, and starved, and cruelty was the lust of this soul! But you, too, my brothers, tell me: what does your body proclaim about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and filth and a pitiful contentment?”

The relationship between the soul and the body remains a prominent theme throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this quote, Zarathustra critiques the pre-existing desire of the soul to escape the body. If one spends their life living in virtue of the soul, then they have fallen susceptible to the preachers of death. And the embrace of the body becomes an embrace of life.

“Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and overman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and standing still. What is great about human beings is that they are a bridge and not a purpose: what is lovable about human beings is that they are a crossing over and a going under.”

Nietzsche juxtaposes the tightrope walker with his understanding of the overman. Man is like the rope extended between two pillars, or rather, between animal and the overman. As such, man is not a purpose but a connection between two worlds.