First Part · XIII. Chastity

Against city lust; innocence in the instincts

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I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, there are too many of the lustful.

Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?

And just look at these men: their eye saith it—they know nothing better on earth than to lie with a woman.

Filth is at the bottom of their souls; and alas! if their filth hath still spirit in it!

Would that ye were perfect—at least as animals! But to animals belongeth innocence.

Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel you to innocence in your instincts.

Zarathustra says he loves the forest and finds cities full of the lustful. He counsels innocence in the instincts, not their slaughter.

Love, chastity, woman and marriageZarathustra condemns lustful men and asks for innocence in the instincts rather than their slaughter.
Fidelity to the earth and the bodyHe wants men to be at least as innocent as animals, not to kill their instincts.

Commentary on this passage

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.