THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE

AND

EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.”

[Pg 235]

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

The notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in this volume, are said by Mrs
Foerster-Nietzsche to have been the first that Nietzsche ever wrote on the subject of
his great doctrine. This being so, they must have been composed towards the autumn
of the year 1881.
I have already pointed out elsewhere (Will to Power, vol. ii., Translator’s Preface)
how much importance Nietzsche himself ascribed to this doctrine, and how, until the
end, he regarded it as the inspiration which had led to his chief work, Thus Spake
Zarathustra. For the details relating to its inception, however, I would refer the
reader to Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche’s Introduction to her brother’s chief work, which
was translated for the eleventh volume of this Edition of the Complete Works.
In reading these notes it would be well to refer to Nietzsche’s other utterances on the
subject which are to be found at the end of vol. ii. of the Will to Power, and also, if
possible, to have recourse to the original German text. Despite the greatest care, I
confess that in some instances, I have felt a little doubt as to the precise English
equivalent for the thoughts expressed under the heading Eternal Recurrence; and,
though I have attributed this difficulty to the extreme novelty of the manner in which
the[Pg 236] subject is presented, it is well that the reader should be aware that such
doubt has been entertained. For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation,
however accurate, and would question anybody’s right to convert a German sentence
into English—even though he were so perfect in both languages as to be almost
absolutely bilingual,—if he did not completely grasp the thought behind the
sentence.
The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to Thus Spake Zarathustra, cannot
be given any exact date. Some of them consist of comments, written down by
Nietzsche after the completion of the book, and kept as the nucleus of an actual
commentary to Zarathustra, which it seems to have been his intention, one day, to
write; while others are merely memoranda and rough sketches, probably written
before the completion of the work, and which served the purpose of a draft of his
original plan. The reader who knows Thus Spake Zarathustra will be able to tell
wherein the book ultimately differed from the plan visible in these preliminary notes.
As an authoritative, though alas! all too fragmentary elucidation of a few of the more
obscure passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes are of the greatest value; and,
in paragraph 73, for instance, there is an interpretation of the Fourth and Last Part,
which I myself would have welcomed with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was
having my first struggles with the spirit of this great German sage’s life work.