The first part of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra , following the prologue, is generally read as

The first part of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, following the prologue, is generally read as an invitation to overcome inherited values and affirm earthly life. "The Three Metamorphoses" sketches that transformation through the camel, which bears the weight of duty; the lion, which claims freedom through its sacred "No"; and the child, which can finally create new values. "On the Teachers of Virtue" is usually read as a satire of respectable morality: Zarathustra's exemplary teacher makes virtue sound like a recipe for sleeping comfortably through life. "The Afterworldly" attacks the impulse to invent another world to compensate for suffering in this one, urging people to return their attention to the earth. "On the Despisers of the Body" completes that turn by presenting the body as the deeper source of thought and value, with the conscious mind serving its larger wisdom—a thread running through all four opening speeches.