Spiders
A NOISELESS patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the
spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchorhold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O mysoul.
Walt Whitman
The common garden spider makes its web by first throwing a part of itself—a "filament" pulled from the abdomen (Whitman l. 4)—to the wind. It "catch[es] somewhere" (Whitman l. 10) Line becomes "bridge" (Whitman l. 9). "[B]ridge" becomes frame. Frame is pulled inward to form a center. That center is circled round and round in an outward direction, the spider trailing a matrix of tiny cells in a pattern unique to his species, then inward again the spider retreats to rest at his post, the hairs on his legs thus extended, thus enlarged, by this most natural prosthesis in order to intensify his tactile perception of each encounter his web makes with the outside world on which he feeds.
There is no question that the spider is the most prevalent—though possibly the least explicated—metaphor of the human condition at this point in history. The emergence of the world wide web as the most common moniker for the enormous network of information now accessible through computers demonstrates an acknowledgment of an intuitive, if not direct, relationship between the most recent evolution of human consciousness and an ancient deity: the spider. Host, guest, vampire, tasty morsel, deadly assassin, silent artist, solitary stranger and alien to the insect kingdom, the spider has maintained a place among the most feared and fascinating creatures in our world.
Historically, among several Native American legends, the spider was held in a position of honor as the great creator of the world, a story immortalized by the plastic dreamcatchers that hang next to cash registers in gas stations on reservations out west. Children have been trained to love spiders and to appreciate their artistry by stories such as E. B. White's Charlottes Web, a love that is soon returned to fear by the gothic tradition which would lose a large percentage of its purchase on creepiness were it without the gossamer veils, spindly legs and poisonous venom of this most effective fear provoking image. As desert dwellers, spiders have startled many a lonesome cowboy. Spinoza was known to amuse himself by placing a spider in a web that was not his own in order to watch the rightful resident fight the intruder to the death. Nietzsche returned to the image of the spider again and again and again and again as an emblem of eternal recurrence.
From Don DeLillo's The Body Artist
"Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the wind-swayed web" (DeLillo 9).
the story of Arachne illustrates the difference between images and text--Athena's representation about language--arachness's about seduction. [see Tracing Arachne's Web: Myth and Feminist Fiction Kristin M. Mapel Bloomberg]
spidey sense and delillo and (Donald trump)
Arachne as gambler
Steinbeck connecting gambling and prostitution.—spider hostesse
Deleuze becoming animal: Spider-man: The Lemming—article that converges theory and practice—what questions we asked while composing in that medium.
"Structure" can be about getting into the multimedia format.
teaching the technique of "reading for entertainment". www. The only principle in the www.
The power of the permanent record
Banks
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly, "
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show you when you are there."
"Oh no, no," said the Fly, "to ask me is in vain;
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."
"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the Spider to the Fly.
"There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin;
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "for I've often heard it said
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!"
Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, "Dear friend, what can I do
To prove that warm affection I've always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;
I'm sure you're very welcome - will you please take a slice?"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "kind sir, that cannot be,
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!"
"Sweet creature," said the Spider, "you're witty and you're wise;
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf;
If you step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself."
"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say;
And bidding good morning now, I'll call another day."
The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again;
So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready to dine upon the Fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
"Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple, there's a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are as dull as lead."
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, Then near and nearer drew, -
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue;
Thinking only of her crested head - poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den
Within his little parlour - but she ne'er came out again!
And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne'er heed;
Unto an evil counsellor close heart, and ear, and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.
Mary Howitt (1799-1888) was born in Coleford, England the daughter of Samuel Botham a land-surveyor. In 1809, Mary and her sister were sent to a Quaker school in Croydon; the dress code of which Mary would remember years later when writing her autobiography. She married at the age of 22 to William Howitt, a reluctant chemist and co-writer on alot of her published poetry. She was the first English translator of Hans Christian Anderson, and apart from her poetry also wrote a number of works for children. She died in Rome, Italy; having converted to Roman Catholicism at the tender age of 83.
In Nietzsche and Philosophy, Deleuze puts forth that every "game has two moments which are those of a dicethrow—the dice that is thrown and the dice that falls back" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25). These two moments, however, are inextricably linked—in the way that "two hours of a single world, the two moments of a single world, midnight and midday, the hour when the dice are thrown, the hour when the dice fall back" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25) are linked. Deleuze insists that games are not a matter of constellations of multiple outcomes that manifest over time to produce either a winning or losing result; "On the contrary, it is a matter of a single dicethrow which, due to the number of the combination produced, comes to reproduce itself as such" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25). To throw the dice is to affirm the necessity of chance and thus to unhinge one's actions from the temporal restraints of causality and in doing so to instantiate an independent act—independent of anticipated results, independent of time and the concept of consequence, disengaged from the always churning machine of becoming. It is to release at random, to in fact, celebrate randomness by consciously creating it, and in thereby doing, opening up the possibility for perceiving other non-contingent singular actions to take place within the confines of the respective rules at hand.
Deleuze-Guatarri's A Thousand Platueas aims at creating a place in philosophical discourse for a subjectivity that does not necessarily function as its undisputed center. Schitzoanalysis provides for its users an mode of conceptual navigation that, unlike theories that center individual development on larger, older mythic figures (i.e. Oedipus Rex, Narcissus)—indeed, theories that center on individual development at all—simply regards such mythic structures very much in the way a flâneur might regard a monument in a crowded city square, or the way a spider regards a fly trapped in its web: a source of nourishment that renders adherent structures visible and thus less effective. In other words, instead of assuming that the mythic frameworks upon which all language and all narrative are based function as self-contained seats of influence, schitzoanalysis allows a type of interaction with myth that acknowledges its usefulness, in so far as it provides a locatable site of connection, a site that can be pinned down historically; however, it is a site of connection that serves as a kind of stage for the enactment of two opposing moments: "the hour when the dice are thrown, the hour when the dice fall back" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25).
While it may seem somewhat hypocritical, let us take for a moment the myth of Arachne, the great and talented weaver of tapestries in Ovid's Metamorphosis, as her story contains within it an approach to mythic construction. This character ironically spurns the notion of divine inspiration choosing to duel with a god—to engage Athena in the seductive mode described earlier in regards to Baudrillard's game—as opposed to thanking her and in doing so relinquish all claims to the merit of her work. Because of her victory—a hollow victory that both results in the articulation of humanity's relationship to the gods as mere pawns in a game of power and pleasure (one that is rooted in the reversible ludic dynamic the game, as is evident from the images of rape and seduction Arachne transposes onto the tapestry'svisual narrative) and which prompts her to suicide—is transformed into a creature comprised primarily of hands (in the story, the Arachne's hands grow to form her new legs and thus her primary means of engaging the world) cursed to survive not on the grace of the larger powers that be—the mythological heirarchy—but on the tension formed between the deployment of one's skills and those things brought on by the forces of chance: a spider, nature's silent gambler who, by extending her boundaries with an adhesive material generated from within and sustained by the blood of her victims, forgoes the need to wander and waits instead. However, unlike the chance to which the flâneur throws himself, the chance brought forth by motion, the spider's mode of navigation is to hover—to stay still—to await opportunity. Instead of plunging into the flow, the spider weaves herself into it (McLuhan—extensions of self) extending her boundaries in order to contain her nourishment, much in the same way that the gambler extends his/her boundaries outwardly to contain the larger structure of the game in order to reap his winnings. Both characters survive on chance; both characters regard chance as necessity. There is a certain relinquishing of will that both figures must achieve in order that they survive, and this is not a connection that is missed by Deleuze in his analysis of the dicethrow:
The bad player counts on several throws of the dice, on a great number of throws. In this way he makes use of causality and probability to produce a combination that he sees as desirable. He posits this combination itself as an end to be obtained, hidden behind causality. This is what Nietzsche means when he speaks of the eternal spider, of the spider's web of reason, "A kind of spider of imperative and finality hidden behind the great web, the great net of causality – we could say, with Charles the Bold when he opposed Louis Xi, "I fight the universal spider'" (GM III 9). (Nietzsche and Philosophy _____ )
CLOSE READ AND CONNECT
In the story of Arachne, however, the dual nature of the gambler and the seductive mode of operation he requires is made visible. For Arachne, the web itself has become an art object of the highest merit. The seamlessness of the narratives she creates, the smoothly blended colors, the elaborate detail of the objects represented, this is what her skill is capable of producing, and one must not forget the element of performance, the swiftness and exactitude with which she does the rendering, is just as attractive to the nymphs as the final product. Through her artistry, Arachne conceals her substructure (the fibrous quality of the tapestries she creates and their indisputably linear method of production) rendering their mode of composition invisible—transparent. The narratives she creates do not appear to others as the result of an identifiable process, but breathe with a wholeness and life so seductive that the nymphs are lured from the natural and thus god-made beauties of their abodes to come and gaze at her creations, her process of creation, with an interest that rouses the envy of Athena. The story on one level deals with the natural tension between the artist or craftsman and his or her maker whereupon the creative process becomes both the reason, the weapon and the stakes of battle. In the story of Arachne, this solitary orphaned and impoverished artisan challenges the paragon of reasoned thought with her hands—and their capacity to make those connections necessary to reveal the nature of humankind's relationship to the immortals. What is revealed in her narrative is not, as in the tapestry woven by Athena, the power and authority of the gods, but their decadence, their susceptibility to the seductivepowers of human beings. Images of gods in the guise of animals engaged in sexual intercourse with a myriad of unwilling women, these are the narratives rendered by the arrogant craftswoman, displayed before the face of Athena and her subjects. At once recognizing Arachne as the superior talent, Athena's only response is violence. Three blows to the face and a humiliating fourth send Arachne into a too-proud suicidal leap, hanging herself from a thread, but before the abused woman could choke the life from herself, Athena transforms her into a spider, so that she might endure the limits of time in a state of constant suspension.The suspension might be likened to the threshold state so sought after by the characters who populate The Arcades Project. And, it seems no coincidence that spiders are so often found suspended across these places without destiny, these passages between zones, for it is there that all traffic must pass, that chanceis given the greatest reign—between systems, between structures. So much like the web of erotic stimuli cast by the prostitute through her use of visual queues and innuendo, the spider seduces with the illusion of safety, the silence of vested patience, and the stillness that draws no notice to itself.
Might the myth of Arachne allow for a different mode of engagement—a different way of reading—than her predecessors Oedipus Rex and Narcissus? Arachne makes the most of what she has. Her father who is no longer living was a great dyer of fabrics and it is this material that is all that she has left with which to care for herself. She becomes master of the tools of her trade, and through repetition, develops the skill to transcend the crudeness of her materials with the sophistication of her technique. Her portraits somehow come to life upon their completion with a wholeness that fascinates. However, this kind of resilience to the lack of godly blessings is not appreciated by Athena, who would take all the credit. Her perceived arrogance makes the argument that beauty and perfection may also be synthetic—made less because of and more in spite of the gods. Real work and time-honed skill, these are the virtues of Arachne. Without charm or luck, she labors to create, and in doing so, teaches others that it might be done without the aid of the immortals, not the kind of things a goddess wants to hear. With Arachne, the fruits of the artist's labor do not harken back to some primal deed, nor do they merely reflect the artist's perception of self. This artist works with her hands in a world filled with things, drawing on the myths indeed, but through selection, through the creation of certain constellations, through the editing process, the process of selection, critique the world she aims to represent—and yet it is not the story that is of value in her work, the stories that are already well-known enough, but the manner in which they are told, and the instance of her telling it—the performance of the weaving process, that strikes awe in all who know of her. Of course, she is like so many other figures from ancient mythology, doomed by her greatest strength. Her static placement in a timeless existence in which she is forced to hover, to stay still, to remain suspended and timeless and to be thus forced to survive on whatever the winds blow her way, this is her punishment and the punishment of all artists who find themselves suspended--timelessly fixed--within the confines of the art object they produce. Whereas Oedipus becomes destroyer and defiler of his creators (mother and father alike) and Narcissus the cause of his own fatal narcosis, Arachne becomes poison—the creator of beauty that ensnares with the extended self in order to deliver a bite to paralyze her victim and satisfy her thirst for blood. This vampiric quality of the spider belies all who remain within the threshold, spurning origins, their reflections, in favor of the feast of exteriority. It is the quality that all of Benjamin's types share.
We see this in Benjamin's disucussion of Nietzsche's concept of eternal return
Eudoxus and the Arachne—navigation device?
Spinoza’s spider fights LOCATE ARTICLE
See Deleuze Proust and Signs: "What is the schema of the spider? The schema of the spider is its web, and its web is the way it occupies space and time. The proof is that the concept of the spider, I don't know how, but you can take the concept of a spider; the concept of a spider will include all of its anatomical parts and even the physiological functions of the spider. Thus one will encounter that funny sort of organ with which the spider makes his web. But can you deduce from it what we can now call the spatio-temporal being, and the correspondence of the web with the concept of a spider, which is to say with the spider as organism. It's very curious because it varies enormously according to the species of spider. There are cases of very extraordinary spiders which, when you mutilate one of their legs, which is nevertheless not used for fabrication, make abnormal webs in relation to their own species, they make a pathological web. What happened? As if a disturbance in space and time corresponded to the mutilation. I would say that the schema of an animal is its spatio-temporal dynamism." (Deleuze on the Web)
“It is not that a large number of throws produce the repetition of a combination but rather the number of the combination which produces the repetition (25) of the dicethrow,. The dice which are thrown once are the affirmation of chance, the combination which they form on falling is the affirmation of necessity. Necessity is affirmed of chance in exactly the sense that being is affirmed of becoming and unity is affirmed of multiplicity. It will be replied, in vain, that thrown to chance, the dice do not necessarily produce the winning combination, the double six which brings back the dicethrow. This is true, but only insofar as the player did not know how to affirm chance from the outset. For, just as unity does not suppress or deny multiplicity, necessity does not suppress or abolish chance. Nietzsche identifies chance with multiplicity, with fragments, with parts, with chaos: the chaos of the dice that are shaken and then thrown. Nietzsche turns chance into an affirmation. The sky itself is called “chance-sky”, “innocence-sky” (Z III “Before Sunrise”); the reign of Zarathustra is called “great chance” (Z IV “The Honey Offering” and III “Of Old and New Law Tables”; Zarathustra calls himself the “redeemer of chance”). “By chance, he is the world’s oldest nobility, which I have given back to all things; I have released them from their servitude under purpose . . . I have found this happy certainty in all things: that they prefer to dance on the feet of chance” (Z III “Before Sunrise” p. 186);
[“It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let the living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!” (Miller TOC 257)] “My doctrine is ‘Let chance come to me: it is as innocent as a little child!’” (Z III “On the Mount of Olives” p. 194). What Nietzsche calls necessity (destiny) is thus never the abolition but rather the combination of chance itself. Necessity is affirmed of chance in as much as chance itself affirmed. For there is only a single combination of chance as such, a single way of combining all the parts of chance, a way which is like the unity of multiplicity, that is to say number or necessity. There are many numbers with increasing or decreasing probabilities, but only one number of chance as such, one fatal number which reunites all its fragments of chance, like midday gathers together the scattered parts of midnight. This is why it is sufficient for the player to affirm chance once in order to produce the number which brings back the dicethrow.
To know how to affirm chance is to know how to play. But we do not know how to play, “Timid, ashamed, awkward, like a tiger whose leap has failed. But what of that you dicethrowers! You have not learned to play and mock as a man out to play and mock!” (Z IV “Of the Higher Man” 14 p. 303). The bad player counts on several throws of the dice, on a great number of throws. In this way he makes use of causality and probability to produce a combination that he sees as desirable. He posits this combination itself as an end to be obtained, hidden behind causality. This is what Nietzsche means when he speaks of the eternal spider, of the spider’s web of reason, “A kind of spider of imperative and finality hidden behind the great web, the great net of causality – we could say, with Charles the Bold when he opposed Louis Xi, “I fight the universal spider” (GM III 9). To abolish chance by holding it in the grip of causality and finality, to count on the repetition of throws rather than affirming chance, to anticipate a result instead of affirming necessity – these are the operations of a bad player. They have their root in reason, but what is the root of reason? The spirit of revenge, nothing but the spirit of revenge, the spider (Z INJURY “Of the Tarantulas”). [Body Artist spider image could be useful here.] Ressentiment in the repetition of throws, bad conscience in the belief in a purpose. But, in this way, all that will ever be obtained are more or less probable relative numbers. That the universe has no purpose, that is it has no end to hope for any more than it has causes to be known – this is the certainty necessary to play well [in this way flânerie and gambling are similar in that both are goal-less, or require a lack of belief in the grand narrative](VP III 465). The dicethrow fails because chance has not been affirmed enough in one throw. It has not been affirmed enough in order to produce the fatal number which necessarily reunites all the fragments and brings back the dicethrow. We must therefore attach the greatest importance to the following conclusion: for the couple causality-finality, probability-finality, for the opposition and the synthesis of these terms, for the web of these terms, Nietzsche substitutes the Dionysian correlation of chance-necessity, the Dionysian couple chance-destiny. Not a probability distributed over several throws but all chance at once; not a final, desired, willed combination, but the fatal combination, fatal and loved, amor fati; not the return of a combination by the number of throws, but the repetition of a dicethrow by the nature of the fatally obtained number.
Spiders survive on chance.
America was founded by gamblers—going for gold or gambling on god.
"And this slow spider, which crawls in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway, whispering together, whispering of eternal things- must not all of us have been there before? And return and walk in that other land, out there, before us, in this long dreadful lane- must we not eternally return?" (TSZ, 157-8)
Nietzsche, Frederich. (1892/1966). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York, NY: Penguin.
ANNOTATIONS:
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the
spheres to connect them,Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor
hold,Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my
soul.Walt WhitmanThe common garden spider makes its web by first throwing a part of itself—a "filament" pulled from the abdomen (Whitman l. 4)—to the wind. It "catch[es] somewhere" (Whitman l. 10) Line becomes "bridge" (Whitman l. 9). "[B]ridge" becomes frame. Frame is pulled inward to form a center. That center is circled round and round in an outward direction, the spider trailing a matrix of tiny cells in a pattern unique to his species, then inward again the spider retreats to rest at his post, the hairs on his legs thus extended, thus enlarged, by this most natural prosthesis in order to intensify his tactile perception of each encounter his web makes with the outside world on which he feeds.
There is no question that the spider is the most prevalent—though possibly the least explicated—metaphor of the human condition at this point in history. The emergence of the world wide web as the most common moniker for the enormous network of information now accessible through computers demonstrates an acknowledgment of an intuitive, if not direct, relationship between the most recent evolution of human consciousness and an ancient deity: the spider. Host, guest, vampire, tasty morsel, deadly assassin, silent artist, solitary stranger and alien to the insect kingdom, the spider has maintained a place among the most feared and fascinating creatures in our world.
Historically, among several Native American legends, the spider was held in a position of honor as the great creator of the world, a story immortalized by the plastic dreamcatchers that hang next to cash registers in gas stations on reservations out west. Children have been trained to love spiders and to appreciate their artistry by stories such as E. B. White's Charlottes Web, a love that is soon returned to fear by the gothic tradition which would lose a large percentage of its purchase on creepiness were it without the gossamer veils, spindly legs and poisonous venom of this most effective fear provoking image. As desert dwellers, spiders have startled many a lonesome cowboy. Spinoza was known to amuse himself by placing a spider in a web that was not his own in order to watch the rightful resident fight the intruder to the death. Nietzsche returned to the image of the spider again and again and again and again as an emblem of eternal recurrence.
From Don DeLillo's The Body Artist
"Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the wind-swayed web" (DeLillo 9).
the story of Arachne illustrates the difference between images and text--Athena's representation about language--arachness's about seduction. [see Tracing Arachne's Web: Myth and Feminist Fiction Kristin M. Mapel Bloomberg]
spidey sense and delillo and (Donald trump)
Arachne as gambler
Steinbeck connecting gambling and prostitution.—spider hostesse
Deleuze becoming animal: Spider-man: The Lemming—article that converges theory and practice—what questions we asked while composing in that medium.
"Structure" can be about getting into the multimedia format.
teaching the technique of "reading for entertainment". www. The only principle in the www.
The power of the permanent record
Banks
The Spider and the Fly
By Mary Howitt (1799-1888)"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly, "
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show you when you are there."
"Oh no, no," said the Fly, "to ask me is in vain;
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."
"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the Spider to the Fly.
"There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin;
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "for I've often heard it said
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!"
Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, "Dear friend, what can I do
To prove that warm affection I've always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;
I'm sure you're very welcome - will you please take a slice?"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "kind sir, that cannot be,
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!"
"Sweet creature," said the Spider, "you're witty and you're wise;
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf;
If you step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself."
"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say;
And bidding good morning now, I'll call another day."
The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again;
So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready to dine upon the Fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
"Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple, there's a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are as dull as lead."
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, Then near and nearer drew, -
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue;
Thinking only of her crested head - poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den
Within his little parlour - but she ne'er came out again!
And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne'er heed;
Unto an evil counsellor close heart, and ear, and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.
Mary Howitt (1799-1888) was born in Coleford, England the daughter of Samuel Botham a land-surveyor. In 1809, Mary and her sister were sent to a Quaker school in Croydon; the dress code of which Mary would remember years later when writing her autobiography. She married at the age of 22 to William Howitt, a reluctant chemist and co-writer on alot of her published poetry. She was the first English translator of Hans Christian Anderson, and apart from her poetry also wrote a number of works for children. She died in Rome, Italy; having converted to Roman Catholicism at the tender age of 83.
In Nietzsche and Philosophy, Deleuze puts forth that every "game has two moments which are those of a dicethrow—the dice that is thrown and the dice that falls back" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25). These two moments, however, are inextricably linked—in the way that "two hours of a single world, the two moments of a single world, midnight and midday, the hour when the dice are thrown, the hour when the dice fall back" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25) are linked. Deleuze insists that games are not a matter of constellations of multiple outcomes that manifest over time to produce either a winning or losing result; "On the contrary, it is a matter of a single dicethrow which, due to the number of the combination produced, comes to reproduce itself as such" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25). To throw the dice is to affirm the necessity of chance and thus to unhinge one's actions from the temporal restraints of causality and in doing so to instantiate an independent act—independent of anticipated results, independent of time and the concept of consequence, disengaged from the always churning machine of becoming. It is to release at random, to in fact, celebrate randomness by consciously creating it, and in thereby doing, opening up the possibility for perceiving other non-contingent singular actions to take place within the confines of the respective rules at hand.
Deleuze-Guatarri's A Thousand Platueas aims at creating a place in philosophical discourse for a subjectivity that does not necessarily function as its undisputed center. Schitzoanalysis provides for its users an mode of conceptual navigation that, unlike theories that center individual development on larger, older mythic figures (i.e. Oedipus Rex, Narcissus)—indeed, theories that center on individual development at all—simply regards such mythic structures very much in the way a flâneur might regard a monument in a crowded city square, or the way a spider regards a fly trapped in its web: a source of nourishment that renders adherent structures visible and thus less effective. In other words, instead of assuming that the mythic frameworks upon which all language and all narrative are based function as self-contained seats of influence, schitzoanalysis allows a type of interaction with myth that acknowledges its usefulness, in so far as it provides a locatable site of connection, a site that can be pinned down historically; however, it is a site of connection that serves as a kind of stage for the enactment of two opposing moments: "the hour when the dice are thrown, the hour when the dice fall back" (Nietzsche and Philosophy 25).
While it may seem somewhat hypocritical, let us take for a moment the myth of Arachne, the great and talented weaver of tapestries in Ovid's Metamorphosis, as her story contains within it an approach to mythic construction. This character ironically spurns the notion of divine inspiration choosing to duel with a god—to engage Athena in the seductive mode described earlier in regards to Baudrillard's game—as opposed to thanking her and in doing so relinquish all claims to the merit of her work. Because of her victory—a hollow victory that both results in the articulation of humanity's relationship to the gods as mere pawns in a game of power and pleasure (one that is rooted in the reversible ludic dynamic the game, as is evident from the images of rape and seduction Arachne transposes onto the tapestry'svisual narrative) and which prompts her to suicide—is transformed into a creature comprised primarily of hands (in the story, the Arachne's hands grow to form her new legs and thus her primary means of engaging the world) cursed to survive not on the grace of the larger powers that be—the mythological heirarchy—but on the tension formed between the deployment of one's skills and those things brought on by the forces of chance: a spider, nature's silent gambler who, by extending her boundaries with an adhesive material generated from within and sustained by the blood of her victims, forgoes the need to wander and waits instead. However, unlike the chance to which the flâneur throws himself, the chance brought forth by motion, the spider's mode of navigation is to hover—to stay still—to await opportunity. Instead of plunging into the flow, the spider weaves herself into it (McLuhan—extensions of self) extending her boundaries in order to contain her nourishment, much in the same way that the gambler extends his/her boundaries outwardly to contain the larger structure of the game in order to reap his winnings. Both characters survive on chance; both characters regard chance as necessity. There is a certain relinquishing of will that both figures must achieve in order that they survive, and this is not a connection that is missed by Deleuze in his analysis of the dicethrow:
The bad player counts on several throws of the dice, on a great number of throws. In this way he makes use of causality and probability to produce a combination that he sees as desirable. He posits this combination itself as an end to be obtained, hidden behind causality. This is what Nietzsche means when he speaks of the eternal spider, of the spider's web of reason, "A kind of spider of imperative and finality hidden behind the great web, the great net of causality – we could say, with Charles the Bold when he opposed Louis Xi, "I fight the universal spider'" (GM III 9). (Nietzsche and Philosophy _____ )
CLOSE READ AND CONNECT
In the story of Arachne, however, the dual nature of the gambler and the seductive mode of operation he requires is made visible. For Arachne, the web itself has become an art object of the highest merit. The seamlessness of the narratives she creates, the smoothly blended colors, the elaborate detail of the objects represented, this is what her skill is capable of producing, and one must not forget the element of performance, the swiftness and exactitude with which she does the rendering, is just as attractive to the nymphs as the final product. Through her artistry, Arachne conceals her substructure (the fibrous quality of the tapestries she creates and their indisputably linear method of production) rendering their mode of composition invisible—transparent. The narratives she creates do not appear to others as the result of an identifiable process, but breathe with a wholeness and life so seductive that the nymphs are lured from the natural and thus god-made beauties of their abodes to come and gaze at her creations, her process of creation, with an interest that rouses the envy of Athena. The story on one level deals with the natural tension between the artist or craftsman and his or her maker whereupon the creative process becomes both the reason, the weapon and the stakes of battle. In the story of Arachne, this solitary orphaned and impoverished artisan challenges the paragon of reasoned thought with her hands—and their capacity to make those connections necessary to reveal the nature of humankind's relationship to the immortals. What is revealed in her narrative is not, as in the tapestry woven by Athena, the power and authority of the gods, but their decadence, their susceptibility to the seductivepowers of human beings. Images of gods in the guise of animals engaged in sexual intercourse with a myriad of unwilling women, these are the narratives rendered by the arrogant craftswoman, displayed before the face of Athena and her subjects. At once recognizing Arachne as the superior talent, Athena's only response is violence. Three blows to the face and a humiliating fourth send Arachne into a too-proud suicidal leap, hanging herself from a thread, but before the abused woman could choke the life from herself, Athena transforms her into a spider, so that she might endure the limits of time in a state of constant suspension.The suspension might be likened to the threshold state so sought after by the characters who populate The Arcades Project. And, it seems no coincidence that spiders are so often found suspended across these places without destiny, these passages between zones, for it is there that all traffic must pass, that chanceis given the greatest reign—between systems, between structures. So much like the web of erotic stimuli cast by the prostitute through her use of visual queues and innuendo, the spider seduces with the illusion of safety, the silence of vested patience, and the stillness that draws no notice to itself.
Might the myth of Arachne allow for a different mode of engagement—a different way of reading—than her predecessors Oedipus Rex and Narcissus? Arachne makes the most of what she has. Her father who is no longer living was a great dyer of fabrics and it is this material that is all that she has left with which to care for herself. She becomes master of the tools of her trade, and through repetition, develops the skill to transcend the crudeness of her materials with the sophistication of her technique. Her portraits somehow come to life upon their completion with a wholeness that fascinates. However, this kind of resilience to the lack of godly blessings is not appreciated by Athena, who would take all the credit. Her perceived arrogance makes the argument that beauty and perfection may also be synthetic—made less because of and more in spite of the gods. Real work and time-honed skill, these are the virtues of Arachne. Without charm or luck, she labors to create, and in doing so, teaches others that it might be done without the aid of the immortals, not the kind of things a goddess wants to hear. With Arachne, the fruits of the artist's labor do not harken back to some primal deed, nor do they merely reflect the artist's perception of self. This artist works with her hands in a world filled with things, drawing on the myths indeed, but through selection, through the creation of certain constellations, through the editing process, the process of selection, critique the world she aims to represent—and yet it is not the story that is of value in her work, the stories that are already well-known enough, but the manner in which they are told, and the instance of her telling it—the performance of the weaving process, that strikes awe in all who know of her. Of course, she is like so many other figures from ancient mythology, doomed by her greatest strength. Her static placement in a timeless existence in which she is forced to hover, to stay still, to remain suspended and timeless and to be thus forced to survive on whatever the winds blow her way, this is her punishment and the punishment of all artists who find themselves suspended--timelessly fixed--within the confines of the art object they produce. Whereas Oedipus becomes destroyer and defiler of his creators (mother and father alike) and Narcissus the cause of his own fatal narcosis, Arachne becomes poison—the creator of beauty that ensnares with the extended self in order to deliver a bite to paralyze her victim and satisfy her thirst for blood. This vampiric quality of the spider belies all who remain within the threshold, spurning origins, their reflections, in favor of the feast of exteriority. It is the quality that all of Benjamin's types share.
We see this in Benjamin's disucussion of Nietzsche's concept of eternal return
Eudoxus and the Arachne—navigation device?
Spinoza’s spider fights LOCATE ARTICLE
See Deleuze Proust and Signs: "What is the schema of the spider? The schema of the spider is its web, and its web is the way it occupies space and time. The proof is that the concept of the spider, I don't know how, but you can take the concept of a spider; the concept of a spider will include all of its anatomical parts and even the physiological functions of the spider. Thus one will encounter that funny sort of organ with which the spider makes his web. But can you deduce from it what we can now call the spatio-temporal being, and the correspondence of the web with the concept of a spider, which is to say with the spider as organism. It's very curious because it varies enormously according to the species of spider. There are cases of very extraordinary spiders which, when you mutilate one of their legs, which is nevertheless not used for fabrication, make abnormal webs in relation to their own species, they make a pathological web. What happened? As if a disturbance in space and time corresponded to the mutilation. I would say that the schema of an animal is its spatio-temporal dynamism." (Deleuze on the Web)
“It is not that a large number of throws produce the repetition of a combination but rather the number of the combination which produces the repetition (25) of the dicethrow,. The dice which are thrown once are the affirmation of chance, the combination which they form on falling is the affirmation of necessity. Necessity is affirmed of chance in exactly the sense that being is affirmed of becoming and unity is affirmed of multiplicity. It will be replied, in vain, that thrown to chance, the dice do not necessarily produce the winning combination, the double six which brings back the dicethrow. This is true, but only insofar as the player did not know how to affirm chance from the outset. For, just as unity does not suppress or deny multiplicity, necessity does not suppress or abolish chance. Nietzsche identifies chance with multiplicity, with fragments, with parts, with chaos: the chaos of the dice that are shaken and then thrown. Nietzsche turns chance into an affirmation. The sky itself is called “chance-sky”, “innocence-sky” (Z III “Before Sunrise”); the reign of Zarathustra is called “great chance” (Z IV “The Honey Offering” and III “Of Old and New Law Tables”; Zarathustra calls himself the “redeemer of chance”). “By chance, he is the world’s oldest nobility, which I have given back to all things; I have released them from their servitude under purpose . . . I have found this happy certainty in all things: that they prefer to dance on the feet of chance” (Z III “Before Sunrise” p. 186);
[“It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let the living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!” (Miller TOC 257)] “My doctrine is ‘Let chance come to me: it is as innocent as a little child!’” (Z III “On the Mount of Olives” p. 194). What Nietzsche calls necessity (destiny) is thus never the abolition but rather the combination of chance itself. Necessity is affirmed of chance in as much as chance itself affirmed. For there is only a single combination of chance as such, a single way of combining all the parts of chance, a way which is like the unity of multiplicity, that is to say number or necessity. There are many numbers with increasing or decreasing probabilities, but only one number of chance as such, one fatal number which reunites all its fragments of chance, like midday gathers together the scattered parts of midnight. This is why it is sufficient for the player to affirm chance once in order to produce the number which brings back the dicethrow.
To know how to affirm chance is to know how to play. But we do not know how to play, “Timid, ashamed, awkward, like a tiger whose leap has failed. But what of that you dicethrowers! You have not learned to play and mock as a man out to play and mock!” (Z IV “Of the Higher Man” 14 p. 303). The bad player counts on several throws of the dice, on a great number of throws. In this way he makes use of causality and probability to produce a combination that he sees as desirable. He posits this combination itself as an end to be obtained, hidden behind causality. This is what Nietzsche means when he speaks of the eternal spider, of the spider’s web of reason, “A kind of spider of imperative and finality hidden behind the great web, the great net of causality – we could say, with Charles the Bold when he opposed Louis Xi, “I fight the universal spider” (GM III 9). To abolish chance by holding it in the grip of causality and finality, to count on the repetition of throws rather than affirming chance, to anticipate a result instead of affirming necessity – these are the operations of a bad player. They have their root in reason, but what is the root of reason? The spirit of revenge, nothing but the spirit of revenge, the spider (Z INJURY “Of the Tarantulas”). [Body Artist spider image could be useful here.] Ressentiment in the repetition of throws, bad conscience in the belief in a purpose. But, in this way, all that will ever be obtained are more or less probable relative numbers. That the universe has no purpose, that is it has no end to hope for any more than it has causes to be known – this is the certainty necessary to play well [in this way flânerie and gambling are similar in that both are goal-less, or require a lack of belief in the grand narrative](VP III 465). The dicethrow fails because chance has not been affirmed enough in one throw. It has not been affirmed enough in order to produce the fatal number which necessarily reunites all the fragments and brings back the dicethrow. We must therefore attach the greatest importance to the following conclusion: for the couple causality-finality, probability-finality, for the opposition and the synthesis of these terms, for the web of these terms, Nietzsche substitutes the Dionysian correlation of chance-necessity, the Dionysian couple chance-destiny. Not a probability distributed over several throws but all chance at once; not a final, desired, willed combination, but the fatal combination, fatal and loved, amor fati; not the return of a combination by the number of throws, but the repetition of a dicethrow by the nature of the fatally obtained number.
Spiders survive on chance.
America was founded by gamblers—going for gold or gambling on god.
"And this slow spider, which crawls in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway, whispering together, whispering of eternal things- must not all of us have been there before? And return and walk in that other land, out there, before us, in this long dreadful lane- must we not eternally return?" (TSZ, 157-8)
Nietzsche, Frederich. (1892/1966). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York, NY: Penguin.
ANNOTATIONS:
The above images were taken
from the following webpage: CLICK HERE
"The priest knows, as
every one knows, that there is no longer any "God," or any
"sinner," or any "Savior" — that "free will" and
the "moral order of the world" are lies — : serious reflection, the profound
self-conquest of the spirit, allow no man to pretend that he does not know it
... All the ideas of the church are now recognized for what they are — as the
worst counterfeits in existence, invented to debase nature and all natural
values; the priest himself is seen as he actually is — as the most dangerous
form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation."
(Nietzsche The Antichrist
section #38).
"The spider sewed at
Night
Without a Light
Upon an Arc of White.
If Rough it was a Dame
Or Shroud of Gnome
Himself himself inform
Of immortality
His Strategy
Was Phisiognomy"
("A Spider Sewed at
Night" by Emily Dickinson FIND SOURCE)
The greatest weight.-- What,
if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest
loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived
it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will
be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh
and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to
you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this
moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal
hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it,
speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself
down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well
disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more
fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
Nietzsche, The Gay
Science _____pag____
"But what is a body
without organs? The spider too sees nothing, perceives nothing, remembers
nothing. She (181) receives only the slightest vibration at the edge of
her web, which propagates itself in her body as an intensive wave and sends her
leaping to the necessary place. Without eyes, without nose, without mouth, she
answers only to signs, the merest sign surging through her body and causing her
to spring upon her prety. The Search is not constructed like a cathedral
of like a gown, but like a web. The spider-Narrator, whose web is the Search
being spun, being woven by each threadstirred by one sign or another: the web
and the spider, the web and the body are one and teh same machine. Though
endowed with an extreme sensibility and a prodigious memory, the anrrator has
no organs insofar as he is deprived of any coluntary and organized use of such
faculties. On teh other hand, a faculty functions wihtin him when constrained
and obliged to do so; and the corresponding organ wakens within him, but as an intensive
outlineroused by the waves that provoke its involuntary use. Involuntary
sensibility, involuntary memory, involuntary thought that are, each time, like
the intense totalizing reactions of the organless body to signs of one nature
or another. It is this body, this spider's web, that opens or seals each of the
tiny cells that a sticky thread of the Search happens to touch. Strange
plasticity of the narrator: it is the spider-body of the narrator, the spy, the
policeman, the jealous lover, the interprester--the madman-- the universal
schizophrenic who will send out a thread toward Charlus the paranoiac, another
thread toward Albertine the erotomaniac, in order to make them so many
marionettes of his own delirium, so many intensive powers of his organless
body, so many profiles of his own madness. (181-182)
(Gilles Deleuze, Prouse and
Signs The Complete Text, Translated by Richard Howard, Theory Out of Bounds,
Volume 17, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1972)
"In unperceived Hands —
And dancing softly to
himself
His Yarn of Pearl — unwinds
—
He plies from Nought to
Nought —
In unsubstantial Trade —
Supplants our Tapestries
with His —
In half the period —
An Hour to rear supreme
10 His Continents of Light —
Then dangle from the
Housewife's Broom —
His Boundaries — forgot
—"
(Emily Dickinson, "The
Spider holds a Silver Ball" SOURCE
"LO, THIS is the
tarantula's den! Would'st thou see the tarantula itself? Here hangeth its web:
touch this, so that it may tremble.
There cometh the tarantula willingly: Welcome, tarantula! Black on thy back is thy triangle and symbol; and I know also what is in thy soul.
Revenge is in thy soul: wherever thou bitest, there ariseth black scab; with revenge, thy poison maketh the soul giddy!
Thus do I speak unto you in parable, ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of equality! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones!
But I will soon bring your hiding-places to the light: therefore do I laugh in your face my laughter of the height.
Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word "justice."
Because, for man to be redeemed from revenge- that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.
Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. "Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance"- thus do they talk to one another.
"Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like us"- thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves.
"And 'Will to Equality'- that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against all that hath power will we raise an outcry!"
Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue-words!
Fretted conceit and suppressed envy- perhaps your fathers' conceit and envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance.
What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father's revealed secret.
Inspired ones they resemble: but it is not the heart that inspireth them- but vengeance. And when they become subtle and cold, it is not spirit, but envy, that maketh them so.
Their jealousy leadeth them also into thinkers' paths; and this is the sign of their jealousy- they always go too far: so that their fatigue hath at last to go to sleep on the snow.
In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss.
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound.
Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking.
And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but- power!
My friends, I will not be mixed up and confounded with others.
There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas.
That they speak in favour of life, though they sit in their den, these poison-spiders, and withdrawn from life- is because they would thereby do injury.
To those would they thereby do injury who have power at present: for with those the preaching of death is still most at home.
Were it otherwise, then would the tarantulas teach otherwise: and they themselves were formerly the best world-maligners and heretic-burners.
With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice unto me: "Men are not equal."
And neither shall they become so! What would be my love to the Superman, if I spake otherwise?
On a thousand bridges and piers shall they throng to the future, and always shall there be more war and inequality among them: thus doth my great love make me speak!
Inventors of figures and phantoms shall they be in their hostilities; and with those figures and phantoms shall they yet fight with each other the supreme fight!
Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again and again surpass itself!
Aloft will it build itself with columns and stairs- life itself into remote distances would it gaze, and out towards blissful beauties- therefore doth it require elevation!
And because it requireth elevation, therefore doth it require steps, and variance of steps and climbers! To rise striveth life, and in rising to surpass itself.
And just behold, my friends! Here where the tarantula's den is, riseth aloft an ancient temple's ruins- just behold it with enlightened eyes!
Verily, he who here towered aloft his thoughts in stone, knew as well as the wisest ones about the secret of life!
That there is struggle and inequality even in beauty, and war for power and supremacy: that doth he here teach us in the plainest parable.
How divinely do vault and arch here contrast in the struggle: how with light and shade they strive against each other, the divinely striving ones.Thus, steadfast and beautiful, let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely will we strive against one another!Alas! There hath the tarantula bit me myself, mine old enemy! Divinely steadfast and beautiful, it hath bit me on the finger!
"Punishment must there be, and justice"- so thinketh it: "not gratuitously shall he here sing songs in honour of enmity!"
Yea, it hath revenged itself! And alas! now will it make my soul also dizzy with revenge!
That I may not turn dizzy, however, bind me fast, my friends, to this pillar! Rather will I be a pillar-saint than a whirl of vengeance!
Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!Thus spake Zarathustra.
(Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra Section 29 "The Tarantulas" SOURCE
There cometh the tarantula willingly: Welcome, tarantula! Black on thy back is thy triangle and symbol; and I know also what is in thy soul.
Revenge is in thy soul: wherever thou bitest, there ariseth black scab; with revenge, thy poison maketh the soul giddy!
Thus do I speak unto you in parable, ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of equality! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones!
But I will soon bring your hiding-places to the light: therefore do I laugh in your face my laughter of the height.
Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word "justice."
Because, for man to be redeemed from revenge- that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.
Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. "Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance"- thus do they talk to one another.
"Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like us"- thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves.
"And 'Will to Equality'- that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against all that hath power will we raise an outcry!"
Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue-words!
Fretted conceit and suppressed envy- perhaps your fathers' conceit and envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance.
What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father's revealed secret.
Inspired ones they resemble: but it is not the heart that inspireth them- but vengeance. And when they become subtle and cold, it is not spirit, but envy, that maketh them so.
Their jealousy leadeth them also into thinkers' paths; and this is the sign of their jealousy- they always go too far: so that their fatigue hath at last to go to sleep on the snow.
In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss.
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound.
Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking.
And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but- power!
My friends, I will not be mixed up and confounded with others.
There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas.
That they speak in favour of life, though they sit in their den, these poison-spiders, and withdrawn from life- is because they would thereby do injury.
To those would they thereby do injury who have power at present: for with those the preaching of death is still most at home.
Were it otherwise, then would the tarantulas teach otherwise: and they themselves were formerly the best world-maligners and heretic-burners.
With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice unto me: "Men are not equal."
And neither shall they become so! What would be my love to the Superman, if I spake otherwise?
On a thousand bridges and piers shall they throng to the future, and always shall there be more war and inequality among them: thus doth my great love make me speak!
Inventors of figures and phantoms shall they be in their hostilities; and with those figures and phantoms shall they yet fight with each other the supreme fight!
Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again and again surpass itself!
Aloft will it build itself with columns and stairs- life itself into remote distances would it gaze, and out towards blissful beauties- therefore doth it require elevation!
And because it requireth elevation, therefore doth it require steps, and variance of steps and climbers! To rise striveth life, and in rising to surpass itself.
And just behold, my friends! Here where the tarantula's den is, riseth aloft an ancient temple's ruins- just behold it with enlightened eyes!
Verily, he who here towered aloft his thoughts in stone, knew as well as the wisest ones about the secret of life!
That there is struggle and inequality even in beauty, and war for power and supremacy: that doth he here teach us in the plainest parable.
How divinely do vault and arch here contrast in the struggle: how with light and shade they strive against each other, the divinely striving ones.Thus, steadfast and beautiful, let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely will we strive against one another!Alas! There hath the tarantula bit me myself, mine old enemy! Divinely steadfast and beautiful, it hath bit me on the finger!
"Punishment must there be, and justice"- so thinketh it: "not gratuitously shall he here sing songs in honour of enmity!"
Yea, it hath revenged itself! And alas! now will it make my soul also dizzy with revenge!
That I may not turn dizzy, however, bind me fast, my friends, to this pillar! Rather will I be a pillar-saint than a whirl of vengeance!
Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he is not at all a tarantula-dancer!Thus spake Zarathustra.
(Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra Section 29 "The Tarantulas" SOURCE
Your knowledge does not
complete nature, but only kills your own. For once measure your height as a
knower against your depth as a person who can do something. Of course, you
clamber on the solar rays of knowledge upward towards heaven, but you also
climb downward to chaos. Your way of going, that is, clambering about as a
knower, is your fate. The ground and floor move back away from you into the
unknown; for your life there are no supports any more, but only spider's
threads, which every new idea of your knowledge rips apart.
(Quotation from the
following online source: Nietzsche, On
the Use and Abuse of History for Life, section IX)
Comment on The Arachne as
navigation device.
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