Freelance Translators from Scratch

For fun, I have started to work on translating a well-known (often misunderstood) work by Nietzsche. I will start from the beginning and add to the body of translation when I feel so inspired. I have yet to read an English translation, so I am hoping that my translations will have a unique quality to them. We’ll see.

You can consult the source text at Project Gutenberg, an online book catalog (”the first producer of free electronic books”). The direct link to the source is here.

Part 1

Zarathustra’s preamble.

1.

When Zarathustra was thirty years of age, he departed from his home and the sea near his home and wandered off into the mountains. Here his spirit was at ease and he enjoyed his solitude, never tiring of this life for ten years. And yet, it so passed that he had a change of heart - one morning he rose with the sun, stood before it, and addressed it thus:

   “Collosal star! What happiness would you find if you had not those to whom you bring illumination!

    For ten years you came up here to my cave: you would have had your fill of both your radiance and this place were it not for me, my eagle, and my serpent.

   But we awaited your arrival each morning, bathed in your abundant brilliance and were grateful to you in return.

   Behold! I brim with wisdom, like the bee who has gathered too much nectar; I am in need of outstretched arms.

   I yearn to give it all away, to spread it around, until the wiser men again embrace their own folly and the poor once more value their bounty.

   That is why I must lower myself into the abyss: as do you in the evening, when you pass beneath the horizon to bring light to the Underworld, you glorious luminary!

    I must, like you, descend, founder - or _sink_, as the people like to say, the same people for whom I wish to leave this place.

    So bless me then, you calm eye, capable of gazing upon immense fortune without turning green!

    Bless the cup that floweth over, so that golden water may from hence stream forth and everywhere be a reflection of your rapture!

   Behold! This cup wishes to once more be empty; and Zarathustra wishes to again be among men.”

    - Thus began Zarathustra’s decline.

[translated February 28, 2008]