The Last Supper

The Last Supper is the meal Zarathustra prepares for his guests after The Prophet interrupts the gathering to insist that hunger, not another speech, is the danger requiring attention. The scene makes hospitality a collective undertaking: The Prophet demands food and wine, the kings contribute provisions, Zarathustra offers lambs and other foods, and even kings are asked to cook. Its comic practicalities culminate in an event remembered in history books by the name The Last Supper; during the meal, conversation turns wholly to the Higher Man.

From Silence to an Urgent Request

The meal interrupts a moment of collective stillness. Zarathustra has spoken of the children, the living garden, and the trees of life of his will and highest hope, then stopped as longing overcame him. He closes his eyes and mouth, moved by what he has said, while his guests stand silent and dismayed. Only The Prophet begins making signs with his hands and features. His intervention breaks the emotional pause not with a response to Zarathustra’s hopes but with a pressing bodily need.

The Prophet thrusts himself forward, grasps Zarathustra’s hand, and reminds him that he had been invited to a meal. Many of those present have travelled far, he points out, and should not be fobbed off with speeches. The guests have been thinking about dangers such as freezing, drowning, and choking; The Prophet contrasts those concerns with the danger he says no one has considered: starvation. He adds thirst to his complaint. The exchange gives the meal its immediate cause: the guests’ gathering cannot remain only a gathering of words when one of them insists that he is hungry and thirsty.

Provisions and the Work of Hospitality

The Prophet does not accept water as a sufficient answer to thirst. Although he has heard water splashing there as abundantly as speeches of wisdom, he wants wine, which he presents as a remedy for weary and drooping people. The contrast playfully sets his needs against Zarathustra’s capacity to drink water: the host may be content with it, but, The Prophet argues, not everyone is a born water-drinker.

The King on the Left, usually silent, finds his voice to report that he and The King on the Right have brought wine in plenty: a whole load carried by The Ass. His contribution answers The Prophet’s demand, but he notes that bread is still missing. Zarathustra laughs at the suggestion. Bread, he says, is precisely what hermits do not have; for this meal he proposes two lambs, prepared with sage, as well as roots, fruits, and nuts. His list moves from the missing staple to a more elaborate feast, including food suitable for gourmets and epicures and nuts that must be cracked.

Zarathustra’s offer does not leave the guests as passive recipients. Anyone who wants to eat must lend a hand, he insists, including the kings; with Zarathustra, even a king may be a cook. Everyone heartily agrees, making the preparation part of the gathering rather than a service performed for its distinguished guests. The proposal turns the hierarchy of the company into a joke without dissolving its practical purpose: food must be prepared, and those who will share it are invited to help.

Objection, Laughter, and the Meal’s Name

Agreement is not universal. The Voluntary Beggar objects to flesh, wine, and spices, and jokingly asks whether people take to caves and high mountains in order to eat such meals. His protest gives the feast a countervoice: the menu that promises recovery and pleasure to The Prophet appears to him at odds with the austerity associated with mountain solitude. The disagreement is presented as banter, not as a dispute that prevents the meal.

The King on the Right marvels at hearing such cleverness from a philosopher and remarks that it is rare to find a philosopher who is both clever and wise rather than an ass. The praise receives an immediate comic answer. The Ass maliciously replies with a bray, and the narrator marks this exchange as the beginning of the long meal subsequently called The Last Supper in the history books. The solemn-sounding name therefore arrives amid practical demands, objections about food, praise of a philosopher, and an animal’s interruption—not as the label for a silent or purely ceremonial rite.

Conversation and Narrative Function

Once the meal begins, nothing is spoken of but the Higher Man. The change in subject gives the episode its structural force. The gathering first pauses over Zarathustra’s emotionally charged words; The Prophet then redirects attention to hunger and thirst; food and wine have to be assembled, and the company consents to work together. Only after these needs and comic exchanges does the scene settle into sustained discussion of the Higher Man.

The episode thus joins material hospitality to philosophical conversation without treating them as rivals. The Prophet demands that words give way, at least for a time, to food; Zarathustra answers not by abandoning speech but by making a shared meal possible. The title’s historical weight is set against the scene’s earthy particulars: wine carried on The Ass, two lambs, sage, roots, fruits, nuts, and the possibility of kings cooking. Its ending, however, points beyond the menu. The meal is remembered by its name, while its defining subject is the Higher Man, whose discussion occupies the gathering once eating has begun.