Thus Spoke Zarathustra · Chapter
XXXII: The Dance-Song explained
Zarathustra encounters maidens dancing in a meadow and encourages them to continue, singing a song that celebrates Life and Wisdom while satirizing the spirit of gravity.
What happens
Zarathustra encounters maidens dancing in a meadow and encourages them to continue, singing a song that celebrates Life and Wisdom while satirizing the spirit of gravity. After the dance, he grows sad as evening falls, questioning the meaning of his own existence.
Themes in this chapter
The Body and the Earth
Zarathustra celebrates the physicality of dance and the natural setting, contrasting with the spirit of gravity.
Solitude and Companionship
Zarathustra's joy in the dance gives way to a solitary melancholy as evening falls, questioning his own existence.
Characters to notice
- Zarathustra
Sings a dance-song praising Life and Wisdom, then becomes melancholy at evening.
- Life
Addressed directly by Zarathustra in his song; described as changeable, wild, and womanly.
Key passages
“Cease not your dancing, ye lovely maidens! No game-spoiler hath come to you with evil eye, no enemy of maidens. God’s advocate am I with the devil: he, however, is the spirit of gravity.”
Keep dancing, beautiful maidens! I am not here to spoil your fun; I stand against the heavy, oppressive spirit that weighs things down.
Zarathustra aligns himself against the 'spirit of gravity,' a recurring Nietzschean symbol of dogmatism and pessimism.
“But changeable am I only, and wild, and altogether a woman, and no virtuous one: Though I be called by you men the ‘profound one,’ or the ‘faithful one,’ ‘the eternal one,’ ‘the mysterious one.’ But ye men endow us always with your own virtues—alas, ye virtuous ones!”
Life says she is merely changeable and wild, not virtuous, and that men project their own moral qualities onto her.
Life speaks in a feminine voice, critiquing how humans attribute fixed virtues to what is inherently fluid and dynamic.
“Ah, my friends; the evening is it which thus interrogateth in me. Forgive me my sadness! Evening hath come on: forgive me that evening hath come on!”
My friends, the evening itself is questioning me from within. Please forgive my sadness—it is simply that evening has arrived.
Zarathustra's shift from joy to sorrow reflects the Nietzschean theme of embracing both affirmation and melancholy.