Zarathustra was thirty years old when he left his homeland and the lake of his homeland, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and did not tire of it for ten years. But at last his heart changed — and one morning, rising with the dawn, he stood before the sun and spoke to it thus: "You, great star! What would your happiness be, if you had not those whom you illumine! For ten years you have climbed to my cave: you would have grown weary of your light and of this journey without me, my eagle and my serpent. But we waited for you every morning, drew from you our overflow, and blessed you with a name. Behold! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to receive it. I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise among men have grown glad again of their folly, and the poor again of their riches. I must go down into the depths: as you do in the evening, when you go behind the sea and carry light even to the nether world, you over-rich star! Like you, I must go down, as men say, to whom I shall descend. Bless me then, tranquil eye, that can behold without envy even a happiness too great! Bless the cup that wants to overflow, that the water may flow golden from it and carry everywhere the reflection of your delight! Behold, this cup wants to become empty again, and Zarathustra wants to become man again." Thus began the down-going of Zarathustra. Zarathustra went down the mountain alone, and no one met him. But when he entered the forest, suddenly there stood before him an old man, who had left his holy cottage to seek roots in the forest. And the old man spoke to Zarathustra thus: "This wanderer is not unknown to me; some years ago he passed this way. Zarathustra he was called, but he has changed. Once you carried your ashes to the mountain: will you now carry your fire into the valleys? Do you not fear the arsonist's punishment? Yes, I recognize Zarathustra. His eyes are pure, and around his mouth no disgust hides itself. Does he not walk like a dancer? Zarathustra is changed, Zarathustra has become a child, Zarathustra is an awakened one: what do you now want among the sleepers? You lived in your solitude as in the sea, and the sea bore you up. Alas, would you now climb ashore? Alas, would you again drag your own body?" Zarathustra answered: "I love mankind." "Why, said the saint, did I go into the forest and the mountains? Was it not because I loved men all too much? Today you love mankind, and you descend toward them: but will you bring them light? Do you not fear the arsonist's punishment?" Zarathustra answered: "I love mankind no longer. I love better that which is greater than men: it is not man, but the overman." Zarathustra, descending the mountain alone, arrived at the nearest town, which he called The Motley Cow. The people had gathered in the marketplace, for they awaited a tightrope walker. And thus Zarathustra spoke to the people: "I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and would rather go back to beasts than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And just so shall man be to the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from the worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes. But the wisest among you is only a discord and hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Once the sin against God was the greatest sin: but God died, and with him the sinners. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth! Once the soul looked contemptuously upon the body: and this contempt was supreme, it wished the body meager, ghastly, famished. Thus it thought to escape the body and the earth. I entreat you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of superterrestrial hopes! They are poison-mixers, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go! Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end; what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under. I love those who know not how to live except by going under, for they are the crossing over. I love the great despisers, because they are the great venerators, and arrows of longing for the other shore. I love those who do not spare themselves, and who die in truth of their own will. It is unto your earth that your redemption shall be brought: from yourselves must flow your victory and your redemption. The overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I entreat you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of superterrestrial hopes! Behold, I teach you the overman: he is this lightning, he is this madness.