Thus Spoke Zarathustra · Chapter
The Three Evil Things explained
Zarathustra recounts a morning dream in which he weighed the world, and then proceeds to weigh the three things traditionally cursed as evil: voluptuousness, passion for power, and selfishness.
What happens
Zarathustra recounts a morning dream in which he weighed the world, and then proceeds to weigh the three things traditionally cursed as evil: voluptuousness, passion for power, and selfishness. He revalues each as wholesome and necessary, defending selfishness as healthy self-enjoyment of the powerful soul, and proclaiming the coming of the great noontide.
Themes in this chapter
Will to Power and Creation
Passion for power is portrayed as a creative, destructive force that breaks down the rotten and hollow, and as the teacher of great contempt.
The Body and the Earth
Voluptuousness is defended as innocent and free, the garden-happiness of the earth, and selfishness is rooted in the healthy, powerful body.
Death of God and Revaluation of Values
Zarathustra revalues the three traditionally cursed things, blessing selfishness and proclaiming a new morality for the great noontide.
Characters to notice
- Zarathustra
Narrates his dream of weighing the world and revalues the three evil things, blessing selfishness and announcing the great noontide.
- The Higher Men
Implied as those who might understand the revaluation; Zarathustra speaks of 'free hearts' and 'lion-willed' individuals.
- The Priests
Criticized as spurious wise who have abused selfishness and taught selflessness as virtue.
Key passages
“Passion for power: the earthquake which breaketh and upbreaketh all that is rotten and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher of whited sepulchres; the flashing interrogative-sign beside premature answers.”
The drive for power is like an earthquake that shatters everything decayed and false; it is a destructive force that exposes hypocrisy and questions all easy answers.
Zarathustra revalues passion for power as a necessary, cleansing force rather than an evil.
“And he who proclaimeth the ego wholesome and holy, and selfishness blessed, verily, he, the prognosticator, speaketh also what he knoweth: 'Behold, it cometh, it is nigh, the great noontide!'”
The one who declares the self sacred and selfishness good is a prophet who announces the approaching great noontide, a turning point in history.
Zarathustra links the revaluation of selfishness to the coming of the great noontide.