# The Three Evil Things explained — Thus Spoke Zarathustra

> Chapter companion for Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

## 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.

## Character check-ins

### 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 lines

> 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._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/thus_spoke_zarathustra_se/chapters/part-iii-liv-the-three-evil-things
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/thus_spoke_zarathustra_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/thus_spoke_zarathustra_se/chapters