“The Song of Melancholy” /  
“Only Fool! Only Poet!”—Nietzsche’s 
Philosophical Poetry
Elisabeth Flucher
University of Siegen, German Department, Hölderlinstr. 3, 57076 Siegen, Germany
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0879-4744
elisabeth.flucher@uni-siegen.de
This article analyzes Nietzsche’s poem “The Song of Melancholy,” which later 
appeared in the Dionysus Dithyrambs under the title “Only Fool! Only Poet!”. 
While Nietzsche scholars have noted that Nietzsche outlines a new poetic program 
in this poem that valorizes the commonly devalued terms “lie” and “robbery,” 
the question of the poet’s relationship to truth remains controversial. Existing 
interpretations of the poem tend to read the phrase “only poet” as limiting and 
pejorative, excluding the poet from any pursuit of truth. The reason for this 
interpretation lies in the fact that, according to Nietzsche scholarship, truth 
(as absolute) was abolished in Nietzsche’s analysis of nihilism. A reference 
to truth (however complicated) is still present in the poem’s depiction of a new 
poetic program. This program, it is argued, not only integrates philosophical 
reflection into the new poetic program (thus transcending the alternative of poetry 
or philosophy), but also reevaluates animality and sexuality as conditions of 
philosophy and poetry. The poet’s treatment of melancholy in Nietzsche’s poem 
is anticipated by the type of melancholic fool in Shakespeare’s comedies, who 
overcomes his melancholy by singing and laughing. The relationship between 
philosophy and poetry is thus contextualized in the historical semantics of the fool 
and melancholy.
Keywords: literature and philosophy / German poetry / Nietzsche, Friedrich / melancholy / 
fool / laughter
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Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 46.2 (2023)
Introduction: Nietzsche’s Thus spoke Zarathustra as 
philosophical poetry?
Nietzsche’s poetic oeuvre and the poetical quality of his “philosophi-
cal” work has increasingly received attention in Nietzsche scholarship 
in the past few years, particularly in its German-speaking branch (cf. 
Pelloni and Schiffermüller; Benne and Zittel; Grätz and Kaufmann; 
PKn, letnik 46, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2023
24
König, Zweite Autorschaft).1 This recent peak of attention put aside, 
a continuity of interest in the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of 
Nietzsche’s works is of course to be noted, an interest, which has been 
reignited for the German-speaking scholarship in the 1990s (cf. Tebartz 
van Elst; Zittel, Ästhetisches Kalkül), being anticipated by traditions of 
deconstruction and rhetoric in France in the 1960s and 1970s and in 
the United States in the 1980s. Hence, however recent this “aesthetic 
turn” in Nietzsche scholarship may seem, a sensibility for Nietzsche’s 
aesthetic ways of thinking dates well back to Heidegger, and even fur-
ther to the turn of the twentieth century (cf. Flucher, Philosophische 
Seiltänze 301–313). While a certain blindness for its own history may 
be stated in recent Nietzsche scholarship, this shall not be the point of 
this paper. Rather, I am going to discuss one poem by Nietzsche that 
belongs to the context of the fourth book of Thus spoke Zarathustra, 
“Das Lied der Schwermut (The Song of Melancholy),” and which 
was later adapted for the Dionysos-Dithyrambs using the title “Nur 
Narr! Nur Dichter! (Only Fool! Only Poet!)” (cf. Groddeck, Friedrich 
Nietzsche XVII–LVI). While focusing on one poem in particular, I am 
going to keep the horizon of a general and systematic discussion of the 
relationship of philosophy and literature in mind (as exemplified in 
Gabriel and Schildknecht; Magnus, Stewar and Mileur; Schildknecht 
and Teichert; Faber and Naumann; Born and Zittel; Benne and Abbt; 
Sölch and Capelle).2
One recurring aspect of the debate on philosophy and literature is 
the question of hierarchy between the two fields. While theoretically, 
most researchers in Nietzsche scholarship agree that the hiatus between 
literature and philosophy should be put aside or overcome (or already 
has been overcome), this program has been surprisingly difficult to real-
ize in praxis. Thus, although the ending of the literature-philosophy-
divide has been proclaimed several times, their possible conciliation is 
still being discussed today. The goal of this paper is thus not to repeat 
these well-known proclamations, but rather to shed light on the innate 
paradoxicality and intricacy (and implicit elitism) of the question at 
1 Furthermore, an edited volume on this topic is being prepared at the moment by 
Mark-Georg Dehrmann and Christoph König, collecting essays which have been dis-
cussed at several meetings of the Peter Szondi-Kolleg from 2016–2019. The Friedrich 
Nietzsche Society (FNS) is dedicating this year’s 28th annual conference to “Nietzsche 
and the Lyric,” held from September 14–16, 2023, in Lausanne, claiming that the 
topic “remains rather unexplored in the English-speaking scholarship.”
2 Duhamel and van Gemert even use an adaptation of the title of Nietzsche’s poem 
as their book title Nur Narr? Nur Dichter?.
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
25
hand, as well as to widen the discussion by opening it to a broader field 
of historical and cultural analysis, including a gender perspective.
Two rhetorical strategies and their respective semantical fields can 
be mapped out in the question of literature and philosophy: a rheto-
ric of divide, hierarchy, binarity, and subordination on the one hand, 
and a rhetoric of harmony, (re)conciliation, relatedness, equality and 
unity on the other hand. Instead of agreeing with one of these two 
sides, I will try to reconstruct Nietzsche’s own positioning within this 
question. My argument will be that Nietzsche’s poem is philosophical 
exactly in the sense that it implies a discussion of this abstract question, 
as well as providing an argument that leads to a non-conventional (and 
“non-propositional,” cf. Gabriel) solution of said debate. Thus, instead 
of discussing this question in abstract terms, I will follow the line of 
thought presented in this particular poem (or rather, its two versions), 
contextualizing it within the texts that they make a part of (Thus spoke 
Zarathustra and Dionysos-Dithyrambs) as well as within historical dis-
courses (with short references being made to the history of the fool, of 
melancholy, poetry, knowledge, and their respective entanglements). 
Thereby, I am going to “show” (rather implicitly) that taking the side 
of a particular text already frames and biases the discussion of literature 
and/or philosophy in a certain way—it makes a case for individual texts 
being more than instances or examples of theories. Thus, the question 
of Thus spoke Zarathustra being a case of poetic prose or philosophical 
poetry, shall not be answered in an either/or manner, as this would 
affirm their implied hierarchy. Rather, the mingling of philosophical 
and poetic styles, as exemplified in Nietzsche’s texts, as I will argue, 
shall give his readers the chance to discover a multiplicity of modes of 
writing and thinking, which in return shall transform their (en)gen-
dered ways of being and living (among the vast literature on philosophy 
as a life-form or life-style, cf. Hadot; Müller, Nietzsche-Lexikon 27–42). 
“Only Fool”? (De)valuation of poets in the context of Thus 
Spoke Zarathustra
“The song of melancholy (Das Lied der Schwermuth)” is both the 
name of a chapter in Za IV3 and a song within this chapter, which 
is later adapted as “Only Fool! Only Poet!” in DD. This altered title 
draws on the famous finale of the poem, already present in its first 
3 Standard references for Nietzsche’s opus are used throughout the paper.
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version: “Nur Narr! / Nur Dichter!” (Za IV 374) This poem in par-
ticular has received a lot of attention in Nietzsche scholarship and is 
one of the most discussed poems of DD, most likely because of its 
central topic, the alleged devaluation of poets and its inherent state-
ment about the paradox and exclusive relation between the search for 
truth and poetry. In my reading, I will try to show that the poem does 
indeed not treat these two options as exclusive, but rather proposes a 
kind of (negative) dialectic.4
In the Za-version, the poem is presented by the magician, a figure 
which exclusively appears in the fourth part of Za. As this part is mainly 
construed as a parody on the first three parts (cf. Zittel, Ästhetisches 
Kalkül 41), the magician could be understood as a satiric version of 
the poet, a figure which is prominent in the second part of Za, where 
Zarathustra criticizes the lack of truthfulness and the will to deceive on 
the part of “the poet,” a term that refers to a generalized concept rather 
than to a singular person.5 These generalized types, the magician and 
the poet, among others, represent certain aspects and features of their 
kind, which are then scrutinized in Zarathustra’s speeches. Zarathustra’s 
famous critique of poets in the chapter “On the blessed isles (Auf den 
glückseligen Inseln)” relies on the concept of lie or falsehood: “Alles 
Unvergängliche—das ist nur ein Gleichniss! Und die Dichter lügen 
zuviel.” (Za II 110) More importantly, it rephrases a famous quote 
by Goethe, stating the opposite of the original verse (cf. Allemann 53; 
Zittel, Ästhetisches Kalkül 38; Flucher, Philosophische Seiltänze 79). It 
creates a connection between “Gleichniss” (which could be translated 
as “simile,” “parable,” “metaphor,” or “allegory”) and lie. Now, the 
transformed quote seems to state that what poets do is to produce 
“similes” and that these could be viewed as lies (cf. Schiffermüller 71). 
The quantifier “zuviel” (too much) then would qualify this statement, 
arguing that the relation between truth and lie is a scale rather than a 
logical alternative. But the word “Gleichniss” is also related to “das 
Unvergängliche,” which focuses another different aspect of poetic 
speech, namely the production of absolutes, or philosophical ideas (in 
a poor Platonist sense, which might defer from Plato’s own views).6 
4 For the use of Adorno’s term of a “negative dialectic” in relation to Nietzsche’s Za 
see Zittel, Ästhetisches Kalkül 109.
5 However, similarities between the magician and Richard Wagner have been dis-
cussed in Nietzsche scholarship, providing Nietzsche’s relation to Wagner, as docu-
mented in several discussions of him in his unpublished notebooks and in letters, as 
interesting intertext. Cf. Himmelmann 42.
6 For a thorough discussion of Nietzsche’s reception of ancient philosophy see 
Müller, Griechen.  
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
27
Thus, what is essentially at stake in Zarathustra’s “scolding” of poets, is 
actually a critique of philosophy, at least a certain type or style of phi-
losophy which produces “truths” rather than questions or demolishes 
them. Other aspects relevant to philosophy might be “search for truth,” 
“will to truth,” as well as an aphoristic tradition that represents a cer-
tain style of writing and thinking. While I cannot unfold these aspects 
here at length, I would just like to state that Nietzsche seems to affirm 
some of these ascriptions for his own writing, in order to strengthen 
the argument that his critique does not aim at rejecting “philosophy” 
in general, as the term is multi-faceted. 
However, it appears that in Nietzsche scholarship so far it has not 
yet been pointed out that what is at stake in Zarathustra’s critique of 
poetry, is actually a critique of (idealistic) philosophy. I would like to 
highlight this point, as it completely turns the discussion around. Now, 
it should be mentioned that Zarathustra never uses the term “philoso-
phy” or “philosophers” while he does speak about “poets.” However, 
he does use terms like “die freien Geister” or “die Wahrhaftigen” (cf. 
Za II 133), who represent a positive view on philosophers in the sense 
of “seekers of truth.” His discussion of “scholars,” “priests,” “the virtu-
ous,” or “the conscientious” may be used as reference as well. These dis-
cursive prerequisites frame his discussion of “poetry and philosophy,” 
and to read them in this way should be marked as a construction that 
the interpreter undertakes. With this being said, I would like to turn to 
a close reading of the poem.
In the poem’s first strophe the lyrical “I” reflects on the memory of 
a past experience, in which he/she suffered from a thirst and longing 
for humidity, while being watched by the sun’s mischievous glances 
(cf. Tönnies 63, who takes the sun beams’ voice as the poem’s point of 
view). This allegoric situation uses natural elements as metaphors for 
affective as well as philosophical states: the striving for humidity is actu-
ally a striving for consolation, while the suffering from the burning sun, 
the thirst and weariness it creates, are later on in the poem identified 
with the speaker’s quest for truth. The burning sun is also associated 
with melancholy, as the “demon of the noon” is closely connected with 
the mid-day. However, most interpreters miss this association by instead 
connecting the evening with melancholy (cf. Grundlehner 191). Now, 
the situation in which a reflection of the past is possible, is one in which 
dew is falling from the sky—it is thus a situation in which the longing is 
relieved: “Bei abgehellter Luft, / Wenn schon des Thau’s Tröstung / Zur 
Erde niederquillt.” (Za IV 371) Its consolation is paralleled with “divine 
tears” (“himmlischen Thränen,” Za IV 371) which imply a consolation 
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(and joy) to be found exactly in sadness. This, together with the topical-
ity of weather (sunshine vs. dew/rain, cf. Greiner 128), marks the poem 
as a song on melancholy, as the title “Lied der Schwermuth” already 
implies. One problem with most interpretations of the poem is that 
they ignore this setting of remembrance and its implication of a situa-
tion which has been overcome by the poem’s persona, one that he/she is 
now able to distance him/herself from. And, as shall be explained in the 
course of this interpretation, the melancholic disposition of the poem’s 
speaker enables him/her to this kind of (self-)distancing.
A second problem in scholarly interpretations is the question, how 
the phrase “Nur Narr! Nur Dichter!” shall be read. It appears twice 
in the second strophe, the second time the word “nur” being high-
lighted: “Nur Narr! Nur Dichter!” (Za IV 372) The phrasing “only 
poet” seems to imply the inferiority of poets in relation to those who 
are seeking truth. Nietzsche puts this in a metaphor of courtship: “Der 
Wahrheit Freier? Du?—so höhnten sie—/ Nein! Nur ein Dichter!” 
(Za IV 371) The wooing of the “woman truth” implies the idea or hope 
that truth may soon be possessed in marriage. The semantic relation of 
truth and eros in other passages of Za as well as in other texts however 
makes it seem doubtful that woman or truth may ever be possessed or 
conquered (cf. Derrida). It rather seems that Nietzsche uses “woman” 
as a metaphor in order to highlight the ungraspable, unreachable 
nature of truth. The point of the erotic metaphor in the poem then is 
that truth is not to be possessed and that a person presenting himself as 
“Freier” (cf. Grimm ad Grimm 107; Sommer 662–663) of truth may 
well be scolded and laughed at. In this context the alternative between 
being a suitor of truth or being a poet appears in a different light, and 
being a poet may be the more truthful option here, as it renounces the 
entitlement of one who believes that he may bring truth into his pos-
session. In the following lines of the second strophe, everything being 
said about poets seems to undergo a transvaluation, and the attributes 
which seem negative at first glance are to be affirmed:
Ein Thier, ein listiges, raubendes, schleichendes,
Das lügen muss,
Das wissentlich, willentlich lügen muss:
Nach Beute lüstern,
Bunt verlarvt,
Sich selber Larve,
Sich selbst zur Beute—
Das—der Wahrheit Freier?
Nein! Nur Narr! Nur Dichter! (Za IV 372)
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
29
The poet is portrayed here as predator, who is determined by a necessity 
to lie, but who is aware of this necessity (“Das wissentlich, willentlich 
lügen muss”). Thus, he is not in denial about his own nature and the 
conditions of his “animalic” existence (cf. Henne 37)—this is a coun-
terpoint to idealistic theories of self-consciousness, which are based on 
a strong and anthropocentric view on self-consciousness. In contrast 
to idealistic theories, Zarathustra defends a reasoning of the body (cf. 
Za IV 39–41). The poet is acting deviously, but he is aware of his lies 
(cf. Reschke 198). He is deceiving and wearing masks, but eventually, 
he falls prey to his own mask play (“Sich selber Larve, / Sich selbst zur 
Beute”). This is an interesting twist of argument: the poet is attributed 
with a complex and reflexive self-relation, which marks him as highly 
self-conscious and brings him closer to a “philosophical” type, but what 
makes him actually philosophical, is his self-deception. There is a cri-
tique of reason at play here, which questions the lucidity of self-reflec-
tion and grounds it within a broader anthropology or rather bestiology 
and eventually even within a theory of life, which makes Nietzsche’s 
theory of reason compatible with posthumanist theories. This destruc-
tive self-relation (cf. Kommerell 485) which marks his reflexivity is 
then related to the “animalic” nature of the poet, which describes him 
as aggressor (cf. Kaiser 310). His predatory qualities are of importance 
in contrast to a counterposed naïve morality of victimhood represented 
in the lamb. In the poem, the lamb represents a part within the poet’s 
soul, which becomes prey to his own predatory and reflexive nature:
Oder, dem Adler gleich, der lange,
Lange starr in Abgründe blickt,
In se ine  Abgründe:—
Oh wie sie sich hier hinab,
Hinunter, hinein,
In immer tiefere Tiefen ringeln!—
Dann,
Plötzlich, geraden Zugs,
Gezückten Flugs,
Auf Lämmer stossen. (Za IV 372-373)
Being drawn in by “his own abysses” and “staring” into them creates a 
kind of dizziness, as the abysses themselves start to move in circles in 
a downward spiral (“Oh wie sie sich hier hinab, / Hinunter, hinein, / 
In immer tiefere Tiefen ringeln”). This introspection is not contempla-
tive, but rather existential and dangerous, as the predator-like subject is 
looking into the abyss of its own subjectivity, but then turning against 
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30
an objectified victim within itself. This predatory situation represents a 
complicated self-relation (relatable also to the term “Büßer des Geistes,” 
which is associated with poets, cf. Za II 166), which leads to a reevalu-
ation of the relation of poets towards truth. In this step (in the fourth 
strophe of the poem) the poet’s self-consciousness is analyzed as self-
reflexive in a destructive sense. This destruction is not only an inherent 
critique of philosophy, it also plays an important role in Zarathustra’s 
new view of poets, with their destructive self-relation being part of a 
productive recreation. 
Another important step in the poem’s argument leading the way 
to a revaluation of poets is to be found in its third strophe. Again, it is 
closely related with a philosophical framing of poetry. The strophe at 
first presents a dichotomy between an attitude which has already in the 
second strophe been characterized with the term “der Wahrheit Freier.” 
This binary relation between “truth” and “poetry” is now analyzed more 
closely. In a first step, the attribute “wooers of truth” is rejected:
Das—der Wahrheit Freier?
Nicht still, starr, glatt, kalt,
Zum Bilde worden,
Zur Gottes-Säule,
Nicht aufgestellt vor Tempeln,
Eines Gottes Thürwart:
Nein! Feindselig solchen Wahrheits-Standbildern. (Za IV 372)
The characterization of the “wooer of truth” is phrased in negative 
terms. What is rejected is a static idea of truth and its archaic, religious 
veneration, a veritable idolatry of truth. The amalgamation of erotic 
and religious allusions is quite striking, echoing the semantics of wed-
ding in Za III’s “The seven Seals” and its sexual undertones. What is at 
stake here, is an epistemological critique of literary expression and the 
question, what kind of ontology is implied in these expressions: does 
the literary expression contribute to a static view of “being” or does it 
embrace change and plurality? Already in Za II, in the chapter “On the 
blessed isles” the critique of poets is completed with a positive alterna-
tive: “Aber von Zeit und Werden sollen die besten Gleichnisse reden: 
ein Lob sollen sie sein und eine Rechtfertigung aller Vergänglichkeit!” 
(Za II 110) This program is of course contrary to a (static) venera-
tion of (static) being. It rather postulates transience and moreover 
demands a way of speaking which justifies and praises this imperma-
nence. Speaking in “comparisons” or “similes” is a characterization that 
is not limited to poetic speech, but to linguistic expression in general, 
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
31
as established in Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne 
(cf. WL; Naumann). A “philosophical” critique of language is thus the 
condition of a new poetic mode of expression, which would be able 
to “praise” fluid and transient becoming instead of static being. In the 
poem’s third strophe this program is expressed as follows:
In jeder Wildniss heimischer als vor Tempeln,
Voll Katzen-Muthwillens,
Durch jedes Fenster springend
Husch! in jeden Zufall,
Jedem Urwalde zuschnüffelnd,
Süchtig-sehnsüchtig zuschnüffelnd,
Dass du in Urwäldern
Unter buntgefleckten Raubthieren
Sündlich-gesund und bunt und schön liefest,
Mit lüsternen Lefzen,
Selig-höhnisch, selig-höllisch, selig-blutgierig,
Raubend, schleichend, lügend liefest:—(Za IV 372)
This passage is not only an example of “allegory” or “Gleichnisrede” as 
programmatically established in the critique of poets, but also a stance in 
relation to the demanded accidental ontology: contingency is embraced 
in the allegory of the poet as panther. This is also exemplified or embod-
ied in the emphasis on the panther’s movements, which is determined 
only by the “wantonness” of a cat (“Katzen-Muthwillen”). Its beauty and 
health are opposed to the sickliness and fatigue of the lyrical “I” of the 
past when it was suffering from thirst and desiring consolation (cf. the 
last strophe of the poem). Here, on the contrary, the tropical topography 
is explicitly soliciting enjoyment. All of this may be viewed as a phantasy 
or utopia, as it is put in brackets and phrased in present participles or 
conditional sentences when describing the panther’s movement and thus 
closing the strophe in a conjunctive mode. The paradisical topography 
is highlighted by a vocabulary of sensual experience, combining aesthet-
ics and voluptuousness (marked as “sinful”): “Süchtig-sehnsüchtig zus-
chnüffelnd.” A similar act of “sleuthing” or “scenting” the air is present in 
“Among daughters of the desert” (cf. Za IV 379–380), the good or fresh 
air representing an atmosphere of free-spiritedness and freedom from 
constricting moral judgments (cf. Flucher, “Die Wüste” 225). A certain 
“desire” (“sehnsüchtig”) to loot, to sneak and to lie is attributed to the 
poet as predator, reframing these metaphorical concepts and integrating 
them into a new poetics. Nietzsche uses words with double meaning, 
which set a link between animalic behavior and an anthropomorphic 
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32
interpretation of these same activities. The word “lying” (“lügend”) how-
ever, stands out, as it is genuinely anthropomorphic and leads back to 
the philosophical question of truth and lie. It hints at the fact that the 
strophe is not actually about animals’ hunting behavior, but about some-
thing else. The word “desire” is important as it highlights again the fact 
that the idea of a new poet is utopian in nature and requires an attitude 
of embracing change, envisioning a future, and striving towards its real-
ization: “Also / Adlerhaft, pantherhaft / Sind des Dichter Sehnsüchte.” 
(Za IV 373) The allegory is thus leading to a characterization of the poet 
(cf. Henne 309; Kaiser 317). 
Remains the question, how this depiction of the poet is to be evalu-
ated. Different levels of narrative voices are to be discerned and consid-
ered when interpreting the poem (cf. Zittel, “Wer also erzählt” 340–342). 
Focusing on the poem’s text only, we find a utopian vision of a new kind 
of poet who is described in comparisons with predatory animals (who are 
however loaded with mythological meaning, the panther being an attri-
bute of Dionysos, Nietzsche’s god of poetry and (re)creation). We find 
a positive valuation of the poet, which is defended against the sun’s evil 
comments. However, if we look at the narrative framing of the poem in 
Za IV, we find that it is presented by the magician, a figure who is him-
self scolded by Zarathustra for his deception. This not only creates an 
interesting self-referentiality of the text producing a meta-commentary, 
but also questions the validity of the poem’s vision of a transvalued and 
thus new kind of poetics (cf. Dehrmann 457). Before dealing with this 
question, one last aspect of the poem’s stance should be added. The last 
strophe, most importantly its last four verses, have provoked most atten-
tion in interpreters’ discussions of the poem. However, most of them 
judge unanimously about the meaning of the poem’s final verses, over-
looking the strophe’s complex tense construction:
So sank ich selber einstmals
Aus meinem Wahrheits-Wahnsinne,
Aus meinen Tages-Sehnsüchten,
Des Tages müde, krank vom Lichte,
—sank abwärts, abendwärts, schattenwärts:
Von Einer Wahrheit
Verbrannt und durstig:
—gedenkst du noch, gedenkst du, heisses Herz,
Wie da du durstetest?—
Dass ich verbannt sei
Von a l ler  Wahrheit,
Nur Narr!
Nur Dichter! (Za IV 374)
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
33
The final strophe closes the temporal frame of memory that has been 
established in the first strophe (cf. König, Zweite Autorschaft, 187). All 
the feelings discussed in this strophe are thus remembered, situated in 
the past, and possibly overcome or, as the longing of the past I is de-
scribed as sickly, it is likely that they are finally healed or at least, that 
the lyrical “I” has achieved some distance to its past. The past sickness 
is described again metaphorically as being “burnt” by truth, specifically 
by “one” truth, which can be read not as a single fact or assertion, but 
rather as truth’s singularity: the one and only truth. The consequence 
seems to be that the lyrical “I” renounces truth altogether. This is in-
deed the case for the lyrical “I” of the past. However, this renunciation 
of truth is qualified in two ways: 1) The conclusion is presented as logi-
cally wrong. The past lyrical “I” is deducing from a negation of “one” 
truth the rejection of “all” truth, which is clearly an erroneous general-
ization. The possibility of “other” truths only seems logical. 2) The de-
sire to be “banished” from/by truth altogether (“Dass ich verbannt sei / 
Von aller Wahrheit”) can be explained as past desire and as reaction of 
despite and of affect. It is exactly this desire to be excluded from truth, 
which is characterized as symptom of a sickness (“Des Tages müde, 
krank vom Lichte”). Thus, it seems unlikely that the wish to be banned 
from truth should be the conclusion of the speaker, let alone, on a dif-
ferent level, of the poem. However, this is the conclusion that most 
interpreters draw (cf. Andreas-Salomé 202; Groddeck, “Die Wahrheit” 
323; Grundlehner 198; Henne 309; Kaiser 321–322; Kast 396–397).
What about the poem’s context in Za IV? The magician is presented 
as a figure who is himself deceiving and playing with masks. He does 
not seem to be a trustworthy “narrator” or someone who represents 
Zarathustra’s own position, but then again, it is not clear that there is a 
consistent position to be defended. Rather there is a “labyrinthic” vari-
ety of positions that are being played out (cf. Zittel, “Wer also erzählt” 
340). However, the magician’s untruthful deception does not lie in 
his program of a poet as predator which is promoted in the poem, but 
rather in the atmosphere of nostalgia and remembrance it evokes. This 
evocation of past suffering revives and actualizes the suffering, and even 
worse, might affect the listeners (cf. Grundlehner 198, who describes 
the effect as “depression”). The affective quality of the poem is thus 
quite contrary to its actual message or meaning. Although this recep-
tion would be a misreading of the poem’s sense, it might still be a 
powerful reading. It is this atmosphere then, which is criticized in the 
context of Za IV:
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Also sang der Zauberer; und Alle, die beisammen waren, giengen gleich Vögeln 
unvermerkt in das Netz seiner listigen und schwermüthigen Wollust. Nur der 
Gewissenhafte des Geistes war nicht eingefangen: er nahm flugs dem Zauberer 
die Harfe weg und rief ‘Luft! Lasst gute Luft herein! Lass Zarathustra herein! 
Du machst diese Höhle schwül und giftig, du schlimmer alter Zauberer!’” (Za 
IV 375)
This passage seems to confirm Zarathustra’s supposed critique or scold-
ing of poets, as it is the magician’s song which creates critical suspicion 
here. However, the “conscientious of spirit” is also not speaking for 
Zarathustra or for the text, so his perspective should be interpreted 
with care. Nevertheless, his affinity to science makes him a reasonable 
reference point in this case. What he criticizes is the way the magician 
speaks about “truth.” He not only seems to use the word in a mislead-
ing sense, he is also “making too much of a fuzz” about it: 
Du verführst, du Falscher, Feiner, zu unbekannten Begierden und Wildnissen. 
Und wehe, wenn Solche, wie du, von der Wahrheit Redens und Wesens 
machen! / Wehe allen freien Geistern, welche nicht vor solchen Zauberern auf 
der Hut sind! Dahin ist es mit ihrer Freiheit: du lehrst und lockst zurück in 
Gefängnisse. (Za IV 375) 
This critique implies references to the song, to their pronounced “de-
sires” and their exotic landscapes which are said to be “alluring.” The 
main argument is that the song leads the way to a loss of freedom, 
while the “scrupulous of spirit” is a defender of “free spirits,” as is 
Zarathustra. The glorification of poetry risks an uncritical veneration 
which produces not only a profound loss of intellectual truthfulness 
and freedom (a “sticky and heavy” atmosphere), it also spreads melan-
choly (cf. König, Zweite Autorschaft, 182).
The fool’s mask play: Hiding or seeking melancholy
The magician’s song is considered as deceiving by the “scrupulous of 
spirit” because it evokes melancholy without actually suffering from it. 
The actual deception of the magician is pretending to be melancholic 
and suffering from a lack of knowledge, or in the poem’s terms from an 
“exclusion from truth.” But this connection between truth and melan-
choly is quite demanding and has a long history, so a few words should 
be said about the tradition of erudition and melancholy, and its con-
nection with the history of the fool. Melancholy and erudition are con-
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
35
nected at least since the Renaissance, when Ficino revived the antique 
concept of melancholy (cf. Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl 161–165). In 
antiquity, melancholy referred to “black bile” and was used as a medical 
concept in the humoral pathology, in which context it also referred to 
a character type. It was already in antiquity linked with poets and phi-
losophers, but the conception of the “genius” melancholic was finally 
established in the Renaissance. Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy 
(1621) collects symptoms, treatments and other anecdotes, sources 
and general reflections in an encyclopedic manner und understands 
his book as therapy for melancholics, while he himself writes from the 
informed position of a melancholic (cf. Heusser 1). Writing and read-
ing, especially overly studying, can thus be all reasons for melancholy, 
but they can serve as healing strategies as well. Now, the fool is also part 
of this history (cf. Schillinger), as satirical treatments of scholars have 
at least since early modern times used the fool as a way to demonstrate 
scholars’ inadequacies in relation to society (cf. Košenina). This satirical 
treatment of scholars has a long tradition dating back to antiquity, for 
example in Aristophanes’ “Clouds” (for a discussion of these references 
in Za cf. Flucher, Philosophische Seiltänze 128). The appearance of the 
fool in modern literature is thus dating back to a satirical tradition, in 
comedy and prose, which treats the scholar as fool. 
Most influential for the dramatic staging of the fool in German 
literature of the early modern period as well as of the enlightenment 
and after that, in the nineteenth century, have been Shakespeare’s plays 
(cf. Lande 17–37). For the discussion of Nietzsche’s poem, it may be 
a useful reference, because Shakespeare’s comedies endow a relation 
between the fool and melancholy which is illuminating for Nietzsche’s 
own staging of a melancholic fool. There are a few of Shakespeare’s 
plays in which fools are characterized as melancholics. One of them is 
As You Like It, in which there are two fools, one of them, Jacques, rep-
resenting the melancholic who criticizes mankind for its madness (cf. 
Greiner 119). That the person accused of melancholy or folly is him/
herself exposing society’s own irrationality, is a commonplace in the 
history of melancholy and most famously exemplified in an anecdote 
on Democritus, whose fellow citizens are assigning Hippocrates to put 
him under examination because of his continuous laughter. It turns 
out, however, that Democritus has good reasons to laugh at society, 
and it is exactly his superior insight that made him mad (cf. Starobinski 
165–167). It is important to consider that melancholy was already in 
antiquity considered a sickness of the body as well as of the mind (cf. 
Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl 52–54), and is closely linked with gen-
PKn, letnik 46, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2023
36
eral madness. Shakespeare’s Jacques is turned from melancholic to fool, 
thus satirizing the melancholic’s disposition, but also transforming it 
to a kind of wisdom, which uses the pain or sadness and transforms 
it to laughter (cf. Greiner 123). The fool Feste in Twelfth Night, or 
What You Will is gaining superior insight because he is the only one 
who knows that he is playing a role (cf. Greiner 126). Thus, he is wear-
ing masks, but is aware of these masks. This attitude creates a distance 
to the world, serenity, and inner freedom (cf. Greiner 127). Another 
common expression of a fool’s coping with his melancholy is the sing-
ing of a song. The singing of a sad song creates again a freeing distance 
and gaiety (cf. Greiner 129, 135). All of these examples of fools in 
Shakespeare’s dramas, not to mention Hamlet’s famous example of a 
character turned to a fool out of wisdom (cf. Greiner 134), prefigure 
the fool’s relation to both melancholy and truth in Nietzsche’s “Song 
of Melancholy.” 
In Nietzsche’s version, the magician is not characterized as sad or 
gay, nor is he wavering between both. His kind of melancholy is shaped 
by disgust and a deep feeling of senselessness, it is a nihilistic version 
of melancholy. This is interesting, because quite many interpreters 
read the magician’s song as expression of a nihilist philosophy. What 
they mean by this is usually a loss of orientation after the “death of 
God,” implying that no other ideal like truth, beauty or morality is 
able to replace God as absolute mark of reference. Accordingly, the 
wish to be expelled from truth as displayed in the song is interpreted 
as expression of nihilism (cf. Grundlehner 184–199). However, the 
situation is more complex. The magician is inspired by the “Spirit of 
Gravity (Geist der Schwere),” who is well established in the context of 
Za as Zarathustra’s personal devil and counterpart. More precisely, the 
magician is “possessed” by the spirit of gravity: “Und schon […] fällt 
mich mein schlimmer Trug- und Zaubergeist an, mein schwermüthi-
ger Teufel, /—welcher diesem Zarathustra ein Widersacher ist aus dem 
Grunde: vergebt es ihm! Nun will  er vor euch zaubern, er hat gerade 
seine Stunde; umsonst ringe ich mit diesem bösen Geiste.” (Za IV 
370) The magician’s performance is thus actually an appearance of the 
spirit of gravity in disguise, just like Zarathustra is described as one of 
the masks of the same spirit. I would argue that this description does 
not withstand critique and is not in line with the rest as Za. However, 
it is true that Zarathustra himself is indeed depicted as someone who 
has to fight and overcome the spirit of gravity. In this way, the magi-
cian is mirroring Zarathustra (like the other higher men) in an inter-
esting way, highlighting as well as satirizing and distorting some of his 
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
37
traits. The magician, although being possessed by the spirit of gravity, is 
indeed a comedian who is aware of his mask play.7 He is a melancholic 
fool in the established Shakespearean tradition. However, Nietzsche’s 
fool is not wise, but sly, and wants to deceive his audience. This implies 
that he himself is not fooled by the devil, he is only pretending to fall 
prey to melancholy and thus remains in a free state of mind. His comic 
distance is expressed in the metaphor of the mask, which is echoed in 
the song. Thus, the song describes the remembrance of a past state of 
melancholy and loss of sense, which both have been overcome by the 
lyrical “I”.
The mask play of a new “predatory poet” as postulated in the poem 
becomes a metaphor of a free and independent state of mind. The 
intentional lying (“wissentlich, willentlich lügen,” Za IV 371) and 
display of colorful masks (“Bunt verlarvt”) are then part of a poetic 
program which aims for the speaker’s moral independence, and for a 
diverse multiplicity of expressions: “Nur Buntes redend, / Aus Narren-
Larven bunt herausschreiend, / Herumsteigend auf lügnerischen Wort-
Brücken, / Auf bunten Regenbogen, / Zwischen falschen Himmeln / 
Und falschen Erden, / Herumschweifend, herumschwebend.” (Za IV 
372) This is a poetic program which uses language’s freedom to express 
“lies” and thereby opens unlimited possibilities of imagining different 
realities. What is rejected then is a limitation of poetry to mimesis in 
a Platonic sense. It allows poetry to go beyond moral judgment and 
enables the speaker/writer/performer to try and explore different reali-
ties without being bound by them personally and morally. So, what is 
at stake here, is actually poetry’s autonomy and freedom of expression; 
a freedom that appears to be “predatory” or “evil” from a certain (mor-
alistic) perspective. Poetry’s autonomy and its potential of self-reflexive 
thought (cf. Kommerell 485) make it a kind of philosophical undertak-
ing (cf. Stegmaier), not philosophy’s rival (cf. Pütz 50).
Final note: Gender crossing
So far, the aspect of gender has not been considered in the argumenta-
tion at hand. However, it is important to note that the magician has 
two appearances in Za IV, and that his other song (“The Magician,” Za 
IV 313–317) is also present in the version of the Dionysos-Dithyrambs 
7 Diderot’s Paradoxe sur le comédien would make an interesting reference for this 
discussion, cf. Benne and Abbt 65–71.
PKn, letnik 46, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2023
38
(DD 398–401). In the second version of the poem, the speaker of the 
song becomes Ariadne, addressing Dionysos (“Ariadne’s Lament,” 
“Die Klage der Ariadne”). We thus witness a transformation of gen-
der between the first and second version of the song. It is notable that 
also in “The Song of Melancholy” the question of gender is addressed, 
as the appearance of the spirit of gravity in the introduction to the 
poem is discussed under the question of its gender manifestation: “[E]s 
gelüstet ihn, nackt zu kommen, ob männlich, ob weiblich, noch weiss 
ich’s nicht.” (Za IV 370) There is a lack of determination concerning 
the gender of the spirit of gravity, which is quite peculiar, because why 
would a “spirit” need a sexual identity? First of all, Nietzsche highlights 
the animalic aspects in this chapter and gives them a substantial role in 
his poetic program (the poet as predator). Secondly, there is a gender 
metaphor in the background, which construes truth as woman, the 
seeker of truth as suitor/wooer. Now, in the poem it is exactly this 
kind of relation to truth, which is repudiated. So, it would follow that 
the proposition of a new relationship with truth and a different con-
ception of truth would have effects on their gender manifestation as 
well (on the general concept of gender transformation in Nietzsche 
see Oppel). In that respect it is striking that in “Ariadne’s Lament,” 
instead of truth we find Dionysos’ labyrinthian wisdom, instead of a 
male wooer of truth we find Ariadne who is left behind by her lover 
Dionysos for good. The marriage or union with the lover which is 
still sought in “The Song of Melancholy” has become impossible in 
“Ariadne’s Lament.” Thus, “Ariadne’s Lament” presents the case of a 
female melancholic lover, whose love is actually lost and who needs 
to overcome her melancholy. In “The Song of Melancholy,” “Only 
Fool! Only Poet!” the suitor of truth is disappointed, but his rejection 
is less extreme, less existential. He might still have hope to find truth, 
although a close examination of the poem allows to conclude that he 
has reached a wiser standpoint. In “Ariadne’s Lament” however, this 
conclusion is much clearer, the case for an overcoming of melancholy 
much stronger. While in the Zarathustra-version this is expressed by 
the context of the song, by the scolding of the magician by Zarathustra 
(cf. Za IV 317), and by the overall impression that the magician might 
be an “imposter,” this is expressed in “Ariadne’s Lament” in the ver-
sion of the Dionysos-Dithyrambs by Dionysos’ answer to Ariadne (cf. 
DD 401), commenting on her lamentation (cf. König, “Ich bin dein 
Labyrinth”) and reminding her of her autonomy.
The instance of gender crossing exemplified in “The Magician” and 
“Ariadne’s Lament” (cf. Krell 19–22) is also relevant for “The Song of 
Elisabeth Flucher:     Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry
39
Melancholy” as the magician can wear many masks and is speculat-
ing about the spirit of gravity’s sex when he/she appears “naked.” This 
dialectic of nakedness and mask, or essence and appearance, reflects the 
magician’s own mask play as well as the mask play that he demands 
of the predatory poet and the mask play he suspects Zarathustra to 
be playing. These mark at least four instances of mask play, which 
complicate the chapter’s structure. The magician, however, strives to 
exhibit the spirit of gravity during his performance in his nakedness, 
thus also exposing his/her sexual identity: “[H]ört nun und seht, ihr 
höheren Menschen, welcher Teufel, ob Mann, ob Weib, dieser Geist 
der Abend-Schwermuth ist!” (Za IV 371) Thus, in the mask play, with 
a maximum of deceit and comedian’s distance, some kind of essence 
is supposed to be appearing. The magician hints at the solution of this 
question, but it remains an unsolvable riddle. What is hinted at then, 
may be a radically new conception of truth.
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»Pesem melanholije«, »Samo norec! Samo pesnik!« 
– Nietzschejeva filozofska poezija
Ključne besede: literatura in filozofija / nemška poezija / Nietzsche, Friedrich / 
melanholija / bedak / smeh
Članek analizira Nietzschejevo »Pesem melanholije«, ki se je pozneje pojavila 
v Dionizovih ditirambih naslovljena »Samo norec! Samo pesnik!«. Če so razi-
skovalci Nietzscheja ugotovili, da pesnik v tej pesmi zasnuje nov pesniški pro-
gram, ki prevrednoti običajno razvrednotena pojma »laži« in »kraje«, pa ostaja 
vprašanje pesnikovega odnosa do resnice neodgovorjeno. Obstoječe inter-
pretacije zveze »samo pesnik« se nagibajo k omejevalnemu in ponižujočemu 
pomenu, ki naj bi ga imela v tej pesmi, s čimer pesniku odrečejo možnost 
stremljenja po resnici. Razlog za to interpretacijo je po mnenju njegovih prou-
čevalcev v dejstvu, da je Nietzsche resnico (kot absolutum) v analizi nihilizma 
ukinil. Vendar pa je (kakorkoli že zapleteno) raziskovanje resnice še vedno 
prisotno v načinu, kako pesem upodablja nov pesniški program. V članku 
torej zagovarjam tezo, da ta program ne le vključuje filozofsko refleksijo (in 
tako preseže izbiro med poezijo in filozofijo), ampak tudi na novo ovrednoti 
živalskost in spolnost kot pogoja filozofije in poezije. Pesnikovo ukvarjanje z 
melanholijo izhaja iz lika melanholičnega norca iz Shakespearovih komedij, ki 
lastno melanholijo premaguje s petjem in smehom. Razmerje med filozofijo 
in poezijo je tako kontekstualizirano znotraj zgodovinskih pomenov norca in 
melanholije.
1.01 Izvirni znanstveni članek / Original scientific article
UDK 821.112.2.09-1Nietzsche F.:1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/pkn.v46.i2.02