First Part · XIII. Chastity

The naturally chaste who laugh at chastity

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Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for me to do.

Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters.

Verily, there are chaste ones from their very nature; they are gentler of heart, and laugh better and oftener than you.

They laugh also at chastity, and ask: “What is chastity?

Is chastity not folly? But the folly came unto us, and not we unto it.

We offered that guest harbour and heart: now it dwelleth with us—let it stay as long as it will!”—

Zarathustra says that speaking of filth is not the worst thing; shallow truth is worse. He ends with those chaste by nature, who laugh and call chastity a folly that came to them as a guest.

Love, chastity, woman and marriageSome are chaste by nature, gentle and cheerful, and treat chastity as a guest rather than a struggle.
Laughter, dance and lightnessThe truly chaste laugh better and oftener, even at chastity itself.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

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

Three evil things rehabilitated for higher menAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that in weighing voluptuousness, lust of power and selfishness Nietzsche sought to give healthy men back innocence and a clean conscience in their desires, not to license the vulgar or the weak, and that his teaching is esoteric, meant to save higher men from compromising their genius with traditional values.