Nietzsche - Driven by Wotan

 

"Spread-eagled, shuddering,

Like a half-dead man whose feet are warmed -

Shaken alas! by unknown fevers, 

Trembling with sharp icy frost-arrows,

Pursued by you, my thought!

Unutterable, veiled, terrible one!

Huntsman behind the clouds!

Struck down by your lightning-bolt,

You mocking eye that stares at me from the darkness-

thus I lie,

Bend myself, twist myself, tortured

By every external torment,

Smitten

By you, cruel huntsman,

You unknown - God!.....

You - Hangman God!

You God veiled in lightning! Unknown One, speak,

What do you want, unknown - God?

My unknown,

My Hangman-god!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra ('The Sorcerer') - Friedrich Nietzsche.

Can anyone deny that in this passage we sense the driving-force behind Nietzsche as being the god Wotan? Not to put this passage out of context it is the words of a Sorcerer to Zarathustra, and not stated as the words of Nietzsche. The Sorcerer is rebuked by Zarathustra for his words. But the knowledge here is clear, that what is spoken of is the One-Eyed Hunter-God, Wotan, also known as 'The Terrible One'. Nietzsche was a classical scholar but he was German, and we would thus expect him to be driven by a German God. Carl Jung was very similar in that he had a very profound dream of the Wild Hunter-God at the time of the death of his mother.