Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 15:30:28 -0500
From: Dan Dzenkowski <djdzenko-AT-students.wisc.edu>
Subject: Zarathustra's Dream


        In my weekly Nietzsche discussion group a problem arose that a few
of you may be able to solve.  Seeing how the list does not want to work on a
discussion of Zarathustra in its entirety, I give up...for now. 

At Noon

Z is sitting down at the bottom of a fruit bearing tree (he does this in the
first book).  He wants to pluck the grape from it, but does not and decides
to sit down.  I think that the tree represents life its self and Z wishes to
praise instead of thoughtlessly take.  Z then falls asleep.  "Still" he says
the world has become perfect...he is dreaming, but his eyes are awake, or is
he really dreaming?  "golden sadness opposes her"  is this the refusal to
will the eternal return and thus to accept the past and overcome resentment
towards actions in the past, which prohibit you from moving forward?  
        Ship in the cove, is this representative of his years of wandering
and finally having a place to rest that is without danger? But what danger
can one really face, except resentment?  Once one has overcome resentment,
what can harm one, Pirates, snakes, spiders? 
        Z keeps saying to keep still, why?  Why, does he not want the Old
noon , not to wake up?  Is the old noon, the resentful one, that has to
overcome his past and become reborn eternally as a child?  The eternal
child.  Keep still it is the great noon.  Man walks on two legs at this time
of day, or life.  
    "It is  little that makes the best happiness." Is this why he wants it
to be still and quiet?  What is going on?  
        "the well of eternity" "round ring" "break heart" are these not all
descriptions of the eternal recurrence.  Is Zarathustra becoming more than a
higher man at this point "what is happening to me?"
        "and he felt that he was asleep" Strange. I thought that he was
asleep. What the hell is going on here?
        Then he starts yelling at himself to get up!  No more stillest hour,
get up and follow your destiny.  Stop sleeping, stop dreaming, stop
idealizing, stop falling into Plato's trap. He falls asleep again.  The
world is perfect, let me sleep!  Zarathustra loves earthly things, but
heaven shines on him.  When will transcendence come, is there more, why only
dew? "Cheerful, Dreadful abyss of noon!"  How long must I wait, are there
not other things.  Must I sing the night song once more....
        Zarathustra had been tempted to sit down and take it easy, that is
not possible for the Ubermensch..his moment rest seemed like an eternity and
was a danger, he was drunken with rapture for a second.  He released all of
his resentment through a burst of Dionysian rapture,which released him from
Apollo's dream world.

        This passage is so confusing any ideas out there.


LambdaC, are you still with us?


To the guy who recorded Nietzsche's  compositions, I wouldn't mind
discussing some of the poetry behind those compositions are you still with
us as well?


Dan



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