This now reminds me of something I wrote on April 9, 2010:
The experiments or attempts (both Versuche in German) of the great man—that is, the man of strong will—become temptations (also Versuche) when they flow into the public sphere, for the distance created by them between themselves and ‘the rest’ arouses in some among this ‘rest’ the pathos, the feeling, of distance, and this in turn arouses in some erôs, that is, the will to narrow the distance between themselves and the one who aroused it. These others see reflected in that great man their own ‘next’ selves, which they then seek to attain.
You obviously see your ‘next’ self reflected in Nietzsche. And in seeking to attain that, you inadvertently become someone in whom others see their own ‘next’ selves reflected. But what about Nietzsche himself? More generally, what about the genuine philosopher himself? If he is the highest human being (and I agree with Laurence Lampert that he is), in whom can he himself see his ‘next’ self reflected? It can only be in a god (compare Gay Science 143. Also, Nietzsche says somewhere that the Greek nobility related themselves to their gods as lower nobility to higher nobility). Zarathustra was Nietzsche’s Dionysus, Nietzsche himself was Zarathustra’s soul, his Ariadne. Nietzsche imagined a Dionysus who gave everything to him (see TSZ Of the Great Longing, which is the mature counterpart to the Night-Song). Because Zarathustra gave everything to him, he himself became overfull, he himself became a Dionysus. The climax of the Night-Song is when Zarathustra cries that he longs for speech. One time when I was ‘living through’ that song, I ran into a wall at that point, because I did not understand what he meant by that. I think I do now. He, a Dionysus, longed for speech by his Ariadne. He longed to be a receiver for a change. And this happens after he gives his Ariadne his “last thing to give” in Of the Great Longing. (The only thing that still confuses me a bit is the use of the word “soul” in the Night-Song. In the Night-Song, Zarathustra does not address his soul as a different person, but in Of the Great Longing, he does. I don’t think these two ‘souls’ should be identified. I think that in the Night-Song, “my soul” is just a poetic way of saying “I”, whereas in Of the Great Longing, it designates his anima, his Ariadne—the Psyche to his Eros).