Tarantulas

This is from Friedrich Nietzsche
You know, of course you probably know that he was the philosopher
Who announced the death of God
What he meant by that was that the fundamental
Metaphysics that underly
Western culture had lost their foundation
And that the consequence of that would be
The disintegration of the idea of value itself
Especially of value hierarchies
He thought of the inevitable consequence of that
Or one of the consequences of that
A dramatic move towards a doctrine of radical equality
See because if value itself is destroyed
The value distinction between things
So that one thing is not any better than another
Then there's no reason for hierarchies of virtue or of value
And so the equality doctrine is a logical, is a logical outcome
So here's what he wrote about that

Behold; this is the hole of the tarantula
Do you want to see the tarantula itself?
Here hangs its web; touch it so that it trembles
There it comes willingly. Welcome, tarantula!
Your triangle and symbol sits black on your back
And I also know what sits in your soul: revenge sits in your soul
Wherever you bite, black scabs grow
Your poison makes the soul whirl with revenge
Thus I speak to you in a parable - you who make souls whirl
You preachers of equality
To me you are tarantulas, and secretly vengeful
But I shall bring your secrets to light
Therefore I laugh in your faces with my laughter of the heights
Therefore I tear at your webs
That your rage may lure you out of your lie-holes
And your revenge may leap out from behind your word: justice
For that man be delivered from revenge
That is for me the bridge to the highest hope
And a rainbow after long storms
The tarantulas, of course, would have it otherwise
"What justice means to us is precisely that the world be filled
With the storms of our revenge"
Thus they speak to each other
"We shall wreak vengeance and abuse on all whose equals we are not"
Thus do the tarantula-hearts vow
"And 'will to equality' shall henceforth be the name for virtue
And against all that has power we want to raise our clamour!"
You preachers of equality
The tyrannomania of impotence clamours thus out of you for equality
Your most secret ambitions
To be tyrants thus shroud themselves in words of virtue!
Aggrieved conceit, repressed envy
Perhaps the conceit and envy of your fathers
Erupt from you as a flame and as the frenzy of revenge
What was silent in the Father speaks in the Son
And I often found the Son the unveiled secret of the Father
They're like enthusiasts
But it is not the heart that fires them, but revenge
And when they become elegant and cold it is not the spirit
But envy, that makes them elegant and cold
Their jealousy leads them even on the paths of thinkers
And this is the sign of their jealousy: they always go too far
Till their weariness must in the end lie down to sleep in the snow

Tarantulas
Tarantulas
Tarantulas
Tarantulas

Out of every one of their complaints sounds revenge
In their praise there is always a sting
And to be a judge seems bliss to them
But thus I counsel you my friends
Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
They are people of a low sort and stock

The hangman and the bloodhound
The hangman and the bloodhound
The hangman and the bloodhound
The hangman and the bloodhound

Look out of their faces
Mistrust all who talk much of their justice!
Verily, their souls lack more than honey
And when they call themselves "the good and the just"
Do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had power
My friends, I do not want to be mixed up and confused with others
Some preach my doctrine of life
And are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas
Although they are sitting in their holes, these poisonous spiders
With their backs turned on life, they speak in favour of life
But only because they wish to hurt

They wish to hurt those who now have power
For among those the preaching of death is still most at home
If it were otherwise, the tarantulas would teach otherwise
They themselves were once the foremost slanderers of the world
And burners of heretics
I do not wish to be mixed up and confused
With these preachers of equality