CHAPTER 10Lou Salomé and
the Quest for Intimacy
Homoeroticism · The sexual Dionysus · The Lou Salomé
story · Zarathustra as bulwark · Human and superhuman- The Darwinist misconception · Fantasies of annihilation
- "I am so sick of tragic gestures and words!"
J • IETZSCHE ENTITLED the fourth book of The Gay Science
"Sanctus Januarius" in order to commemorate the exhilarating
month of January (1882) he had spent in Genoa. The tide also paid
homage to the martyred Sanctus Januarius. In Naples, this saint is
honored with many paintings and statues, which Nietzsche had first
admired in 1876. This martyr, who is known in Naples as San
Gennaro, was a man with striking feminine characteristics. He had a
soft beauty and experienced periodic bleeding. Legend associated his
martyr's blood with menstrual blood. Considered both man and
woman, he became the saint of androgyny. In the subterranean
chapel of the central church in Naples, which bears his name, the
head of the decapitated martyr was preserved along with two vials of
his blood, which was considered miracle-working. The poem that
opens book 4 of The Gay Science is addressed to this femminiello^ as he
was also known in Naples:
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