---
title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra"
author: "Friedrich Nietzsche"
translator: "Thomas Common"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Philosophy"
section: 24 of 95
url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/24/
cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 24. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/24/"
---

# Thus Spake Zarathustra

*Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common*

A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs.

## 24. XX. Child and Marriage

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/24/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/24/#p-N

[¶0] I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth.

[¶1] Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man ENTITLED to desire a child?

[¶2] Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee.

[¶3] Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or discord in thee?

[¶4] I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation.

[¶5] Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul.

[¶6] Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!

[¶7] A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create.

[¶8] Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage.

[¶9] Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage. But that which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, what shall I call it?

[¶10] Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain!

[¶11] Marriage they call it all; and they say their marriages are made in heaven.

[¶12] Well, I do not like it, that heaven of the superfluous! No, I do not like them, those animals tangled in the heavenly toils!

[¶13] Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath not matched!

[¶14] Laugh not at such marriages! What child hath not had reason to weep over its parents?

[¶15] Worthy did this man seem, and ripe for the meaning of the earth: but when I saw his wife, the earth seemed to me a home for madcaps.

[¶16] Yea, I would that the earth shook with convulsions when a saint and a goose mate with one another.

[¶17] This one went forth in quest of truth as a hero, and at last got for himself a small decked-up lie: his marriage he calleth it.

[¶18] That one was reserved in intercourse and chose choicely. But one time he spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calleth it.

[¶19] Another sought a handmaid with the virtues of an angel. But all at once he became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become an angel.

[¶20] Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But even the astutest of them buyeth his wife in a sack.

[¶21] Many short follies—that is called love by you. And your marriage putteth an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.

[¶22] Your love to woman, and woman’s love to man—ah, would that it were sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals alight on one another.

[¶23] But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a painful ardour. It is a torch to light you to loftier paths.

[¶24] Beyond yourselves shall ye love some day! Then LEARN first of all to love. And on that account ye had to drink the bitter cup of your love.

[¶25] Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love: thus doth it cause longing for the Superman; thus doth it cause thirst in thee, the creating one!

[¶26] Thirst in the creating one, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me, my brother, is this thy will to marriage?

[¶27] Holy call I such a will, and such a marriage.—

[¶28] Thus spake Zarathustra.