[The redemption of a broken humanity is to will the past, the present and
the future, all of time. A mysterious message that Zarathustra tells to
cripples and beggars, not to his disciples. Still he says that to have
willed the past is impossible, one can only will in the present moment. Even
in the future it is impossible to know if I will will. In the end there is
the power of the present moment, that in a mysterious way affects or
changes our perspectives on the past and the future. At least this is my
guess in attempting to understand this very difficult section. Thomas.]

When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples
and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto him:
"Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith in
thy teaching: but for them to believe fully in thee, one thing is still
needful--thou must first of all convince us cripples! Here hast thou now a
fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with more than one forelock! The
blind canst thou heal, and make the lame run; and from him who hath too much
behind, couldst thou well, also, take away a little;--that, I think, would
be the right method to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!"
Zarathustra, however, answered thus unto him who so spake: When one taketh
his hump from the hunchback, then doth one take from him his spirit--so do
the people teach. And when one giveth the blind man eyes, then doth he see
too many bad things on the earth: so that he curseth him who healed him. He,
however, who maketh the lame man run, inflicteth upon him the greatest
injury; for hardly can he run, when his vices run away with him--so do the
people teach concerning cripples. And why should not Zarathustra also learn
from the people, when the people learn from Zarathustra?
It is, however, the smallest thing unto me since I have been amongst men, to
see one person lacking an eye, another an ear, and a third a leg, and that
others have lost the tongue, or the nose, or the head.
I see and have seen worse things, and divers things so hideous, that I
should neither like to speak of all matters, nor even keep silent about some
of them: namely, men who lack everything, except that they have too much of
one thing--men who are nothing more than a big eye, or a big mouth, or a big
belly, or something else big,--reversed cripples, I call such men.
And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed over this
bridge, then I could not trust mine eyes, but looked again and again, and
said at last: "That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!" I looked still more
attentively--and actually there did move under the ear something that was
pitiably small and poor and slim. And in truth this immense ear was perched
on a small thin stalk--the stalk, however, was a man! A person putting a
glass to his eyes, could even recognise further a small envious countenance,
and also that a bloated soullet dangled at the stalk. The people told me,
however, that the big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But
I never believed in the people when they spake of great men--and I hold to
my belief that it was a reversed cripple, who had too little of everything,
and too much of one thing.
When Zarathustra had spoken thus unto the hunchback, and unto those of whom
the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then did he turn to his
disciples in profound dejection, and said:
Verily, my friends, I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments and limbs of
human beings!
This is the terrible thing to mine eye, that I find man broken up, and
scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.
[This seems to be a diagnosis of the harm inflicted to man by Christian or
Platonist morality. Th.]

And when mine eye fleeth from the present to the bygone, it findeth ever the
same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances--but no men!
The present and the bygone upon earth--ah! my friends--that is MY most
unbearable trouble; and I should not know how to live, if I were not a seer
of what is to come.
A seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to the
future --and alas! also as it were a cripple on this bridge: all that is
Zarathustra.
[So it seems that Zarathustra too is trapped in a stance that is too
intellectual-Apollonian. Th.]

And ye also asked yourselves often: "Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall he
be called by us?" And like me, did ye give yourselves questions for answers.
Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A harvest?
Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a healed one?
Is he a poet? Or a genuine one? An emancipator? Or a subjugator? A good one?
Or an evil one?
I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I
contemplate.
And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into
unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and
riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!
To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" [Es war] into "Thus
would I have it!" [So wollte ich es: Thus I willed it] --that only do I call
redemption!
[Zarathustra seems to want to will, acquiesce to the Christian-platonic past
state of man, possibly because it is the material from which one can build a
new man, more integrated, more wholesome, less anti-sensual? Th.]

Will--so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you,
my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a
prisoner.
Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth the
emancipator in chains?
"It was": thus is the Will's teeth-gnashing and lonesomest tribulation
called. Impotent towards what hath been done--it is a malicious spectator of
all that is past.
Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time's
desire--that is the Will's lonesomest tribulation.
Willing emancipateth: what doth Willing itself devise in order to get free
from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
Ah, a fool becometh every prisoner! Foolishly delivereth itself also the
imprisoned Will.
That time doth not run backward--that is its animosity: "That which was": so
is the stone which it cannot roll called.
[On second thought, this strategy of willing the past is impossible because
the past is the past, in fact, I'm thinking of Augustine, the past no longer
exists. Th.]

And thus doth it roll stones out of animosity and ill-humour, and taketh
revenge on whatever doth not, like it, feel rage and ill-humour.
Thus did the Will, the emancipator, become a torturer; and on all that is
capable of suffering it taketh revenge, because it cannot go backward.
This, yea, this alone is REVENGE itself: the Will's antipathy to time, and
its "It was."
Verily, a great folly dwelleth in our Will; and it became a curse unto all
humanity, that this folly acquired spirit!
THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: my friends, that hath hitherto been man's best
contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was
always penalty.
"Penalty," so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it feigneth a good
conscience.
And because in the willer himself there is suffering, because he cannot will
backwards--thus was Willing itself, and all life, claimed--to be penalty!
And then did cloud after cloud roll over the spirit, until at last madness
preached: "Everything perisheth, therefore everything deserveth to perish!"
"And this itself is justice, the law of time--that he must devour his
children:" thus did madness preach.
"Morally are things ordered according to justice and penalty. Oh, where is
there deliverance from the flux of things and from the 'existence' of
penalty?" Thus did madness preach.
"Can there be deliverance when there is eternal justice? Alas, unrollable is
the stone, 'It was': eternal must also be all penalties!" Thus did madness
preach.
"No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by the penalty! This,
this is what is eternal in the 'existence' of penalty, that existence also
must be eternally recurring deed and guilt!
Unless the Will should at last deliver itself, and Willing become non-
Willing--:" but ye know, my brethren, this fabulous song of madness!
[This seems to be an attack on Schopenhauer's solution of abandoning the
will, not to suffer. Th.]

Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: "The Will
is a creator."
All "It was" is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance--until the creating
Will saith thereto: "But thus would I have it." [Aber so wollte ich es; But
thus I willed it]--
[Z. restated here is first willing of the past, but then adds, including the
present moment and the future:]
Until the creating Will saith thereto: "But thus do I will it! Thus shall I
will it!"
But did it ever speak thus? And when doth this take place? Hath the Will
been unharnessed from its own folly?
Hath the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Hath it unlearned
the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?
And who hath taught it reconciliation with time, and something higher than
all reconciliation?
Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is the
Will to Power--: but how doth that take place? Who hath taught it also to
will backwards?
--But at this point in his discourse it chanced that Zarathustra suddenly
paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm. With terror in his
eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances pierced as with arrows their
thoughts and arrear-thoughts. But after a brief space he again laughed, and
said soothedly:
"It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so difficult--
especially for a babbler."--
Thus spake Zarathustra. The hunchback, however, had listened to the
conversation and had covered his face during the time; but when he heard
Zarathustra laugh, he looked up with curiosity, and said slowly:
"But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise unto us than unto his disciples?"
Zarathustra answered: "What is there to be wondered at! With hunchbacks one
may well speak in a hunchbacked way!"
"Very good," said the hunchback; "and with pupils one may well tell tales
out of school.
But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise unto his pupils--than unto
himself?"--