Blogging Nietzsche—Nietzsche's Poetry: "The Scornful One"

The meaning of many of Nietzsche’s poems is clear from the first reading. Such is not the case with his poem “The Scornful One” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, ‘Joke, Cunning, and Revenge’: Prelude in German Rhymes, No. 10):

10. The Scornful One

Much do I let fall and spill,

thus I’m scornful, you malign.

One who drinks from cups too full will

often let much fall and spill — ,

yet never think to blame the wine.

Many people in Western culture, according to Nietzsche, do not live the fullest possible life. They artificially constrain and box themselves in like sad-looking animals caged in a zoo with Western/Judeo-Christian morality and with our averaging, herd-like contemporary culture.

According to Nietzsche, strong individuals are able to throw off the shackles of morality, guilt, and the surrounding cultural expectations to live a more authentic and individualistic life. These stronger individuals are able to live relatively fuller lives than their moralizing, herd-like counterparts. This is the meaning of the third line of the poem: “One who drinks from cups too full…” The strongest individuals drink their fill from the cup of life. They do not constrain themselves from having their fill because of moral, religious, or philosophical concerns; they drink their fill of metaphorical wine because they are driven to do so by a love of their earthy, embodied, physical, life-affirming existence.

Moralizing and religious individuals often criticize those who drink fully from the cup of life. They hold that people should have more moderation, temperance, and restraint—virtues known both to Western religious believers and to Aristotle in Greek moral philosophy. Not only do they chastise and blame the wine-drinker for having his or her fill from the cup of life, and for spilling the wine, they blame the wine itself for being morally corrupting, for being too great a temptation for man’s weakness of will, sometimes for being a tool of the devil himself (the “demon liquor” as it was once referred to by the temperance movement of a century ago). The same is true for many earthly pleasures in Western culture (“sex, drugs, and rock and roll” as they are known colloquially): they are not virtuous in themselves because of their pleasurable qualities; they are seen as potentially corrupting temptations.

Nietzsche makes an interesting claim in the first line of the poem, that those who drink fully from the cup of life often let much “fall and spill.” Those who fully embrace this earthy, embodied existence and all it has to offer—from pleasures to accomplishments to artistic expression—sometimes cause some chaos along the way; they bump into the furniture, make a mess of things, take the wrong turns, and, as Nietzsche says metaphorically, sometimes spill the wine. How could it be otherwise? If you are willing to take risks that your moralizing friends are not willing to take, for the sake of living the fullest possible life, spilling the wine and breaking some eggs are the price to pay for being part of the world instead of looking at it safely from within the cage of morality and judgment, or from seeking to escape the world through some religious or Platonic heaven.

Both the moralizer and the life-affirming wine drinker who has one’s fill from the wine-cup of life agree that doing so will sometimes make a mess: the wine will be spilt from time to time if you drink from a full cup (that is, if you live the fullest possible life). The difference, however, is that the moralizer blames the wine, denying its life-affirming qualities and preferring a life of restraint and moderation.

Stronger individuals, however, know that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the wine (either literally or as a metaphor for the fullness of earthly life), even in having one’s fill of the supposed excesses of life—for only by embracing life fully with all one’s being can one truly live, beyond the meager and average existence of the moralist and the abstainer. Even when the wine is spilt, the life-affirming wine drinker doesn't blame the wine, or even himself. Occasionally spilling the wine of life is a necessary price to pay for living the fullest possible life—for knowing the greatest joys, pleasures, and happinesses; for reaching the greatest heights, accomplishments, and achievements; for being the most authentically you version of yourself that you can be; and for squeezing every last drop of life from this all-too-brief earthly existence.

For Further Reading:

• The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche