Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/18



XIV INTRODUCTION No ray of the Divine Majesty descends into the womb of Dughdo; no Frohar or genius of Zarathustra is enclosed in a Homa plant, in order to be absorbed at a sacrifice by Paurushaspa, from whose union with Dughdo old Zarathustra was born according to the later prose literature of the Avesta; no dangers are escaped by him till he is thirty years of age, although Nietzsche's Zarathustra begins to teach people at the same date, when his old model began his conversations with Ahura and received from him his revelations; nothing is said about him having had only one disciple for ten years and having converted then two sons of Hogva, till at last king Vishtaspa himself was gained over to Zarathustra's religion by his queen Hutaosa. The modern Zarathustra is neither killed in the battle nor has he any sons who might carry on his work after his death. He stands quite alone, his only permanent companions being two animals, an eagle and a serpent. He is neither an historical nor a mythical person, but a "ghost," as Nietzsche would have called him, a type existing nowhere, and yet the incorporation of wishes and aspirations ; an ideal reflected in a human image; a man as man should be in Nietzsche's opinion, and as he would have liked to be himself.

Under these circumstances it is but natural that in Nietzsche's Zarathustra there should be a strong personal element; that he should be part of Nietzsche himself. He has his creator's love for loneliness and wild rocky mountains ; his love for the sea and its wonders; his love for a simple life almost in poverty; like him he is an eager wanderer; he has his extreme individualism ; and a hundred great and small events in his story are reflections of small and great occurrences in Nietzsche's own life. Yet, as Nietzsche has not even made an attempt in his