First Part · XVIII. Old and Young Women

The old woman's little truth: the whip

Then answered me the old woman: “Many fine things hath Zarathustra said, especially for those who are young enough for them.

Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right about them! Doth this happen, because with women nothing is impossible?

And now accept a little truth by way of thanks! I am old enough for it!

Swaddle it up and hold its mouth: otherwise it will scream too loudly, the little truth.”

“Give me, woman, thy little truth!” said I. And thus spake the old woman:

“Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!”—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

The old woman says he is right though he knows little of women. As thanks she gives him her little truth, to be swaddled and silenced: 'Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!'

Love, chastity, woman and marriageThe old woman answers Zarathustra's speech with her own barbed saying about going to women.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Defence of Nietzsche's views on womenAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909judgement

Ludovici argues that hostility to Nietzsche's views on women is a misunderstanding: his doctrine is that the sexes are fundamentally antagonistic and should be kept so, against the democratic levelling that would masculinise women and feminise men, a view Ludovici judges right and just; he adds that the discourse's notorious last line was suggested by a woman.