Thus Spoke Zarathustra · Chapter
The Friend explained
Zarathustra reflects on the nature of friendship, emphasizing that a true friend serves as a third party to prevent the anchorite's inner dialogue from sinking into depth.
What happens
Zarathustra reflects on the nature of friendship, emphasizing that a true friend serves as a third party to prevent the anchorite's inner dialogue from sinking into depth. He argues that friendship requires honoring the enemy within the friend, waging war for them, and seeing them as an arrow toward the Superman. He critiques women as incapable of friendship due to their historical roles as slaves or tyrants, and calls for a higher form of comradeship.
Themes in this chapter
The Übermensch and Self-Overcoming
Friendship is framed as a means to surpass oneself, with the friend serving as an arrow toward the Superman.
Solitude and Companionship
Explores the tension between the anchorite's solitude and the necessity of a friend as a 'third one' to prevent sinking into depth.
Critique of Herd Morality
Rejects conventional friendship based on pity or comfort, advocating instead for a friendship that involves war, honor, and self-overcoming.
Characters to notice
- Zarathustra
Delivers a discourse on the nature and requirements of true friendship.
- The Superman
Referenced as the ultimate goal toward which a friend should be an arrow and a longing.
Key passages
“One, is always too many about me—thinketh the anchorite. “Always once one—that maketh two in the long run!””
The solitary person feels that even one other person is too many, because being alone with oneself eventually creates an inner duality.
Introduces the need for a friend as a third party to mediate inner conflict.
“In one’s friend one shall have one’s best enemy. Thou shalt be closest unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him.”
A true friend should also be a worthy adversary; you are most connected when you resist each other.
Highlights the paradoxical nature of friendship as a form of honorable struggle.
“As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best, cows.”
Women are not yet able to form true friendships; they are like cats, birds, or at best cows.
Reflects Nietzsche's controversial view on women's capacity for friendship.