ABSTRACT
Placing Zarathustra's animals within a complex psychical framework, this chapter expresses that the proud eagle represents the pride of imagination; that the clever (klug) serpent represents the prudence (Klugheit) of reason; and that their union symbolizes the 'proud, deceptive consciousness' of the man of ressentiment. Zarathustra is a clever man, a prudent man, a resentful man; a man who, in the interests of self-preservation, would rather 'conceal and deny broken, proud, incurable heart' than choke to death on self-contempt. 'Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity', and time and again in Friedrich Nietzsche's work, amidst a barrage of vitriol, contumely and general polemic, one encounters this contemptible figure. As evidenced by the following textual references, imagination is inextricably bound up with Zarathustra's so-called wisdom; his youthful wisdom – possessed at a time when he had 'wanted to dance beyond all heavens' – resided in (Wagnerian) 'visions' and (Schopcnhauerian) 'consolations'.
