Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

Zarathustra describes the three stages of the spirit by describing “how the spirit becomes a camel, and the camel a lion, and finally the lion a child” (16). He likens the spirit to a camel, who desires to carry what is heaviest. In carrying the load, the spirit rejoices in its strength. The camel takes this load into the desert, where the first metamorphosis occurs. The spirit no longer desires to follow a master but to be its own master. The spirit becomes a lion as its hunts for freedom: “Here it seeks its last master and wants to fight him and its last god. For victory it wants to battle the great dragon” (16). The great dragon whom the spirit no longer recognizes as its master is what Zarathustra terms the “Thou Shalts.” The “Thou Shalts” are rules meant to govern how one lives. The lion proves vital to the metamorphosis of the spirit as it is only the lion who can create freedom in the face of the great dragon. The lion then becomes a child. The child marks a new beginning, an innocence, and a forgetting. The child allows the spirit to say yes to the new game of creation.