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“Superego chief hitting my clown-head”, “devouring mother”, “the big bad thingy supposedly coming from the Oedipus complex”, Lacan puts into jeopardy the too familiar images of the ferociousness of the super-ego and its origins. Whilst declaring having never really approached it, he nonetheless identifies in it from the start a structure of language: the function of “thou” (tu), pure imperative, tyrannical, pure signifier, the senseless law that splits from the veritable law and, exerting censorship, extends into the splitting of the unconscious. This splitting results from the signifier as such, the impossible guarantee of the law, and thus represents the signifier that lacks. The source of infant distress, by the Verwerfung that it causes, it gives a real base to the law, making it solid and singular. The super-ego exerts the constraint of an obligation, “you must”, having no relation with the call of “duty” of the Freudian ascetic, “where id was there ego shall be”, opening up the moral dualism of constraint and desire. Both cover and veil their source, the un-nameable fault of the signifier, S(A/). The key to their articulation is in its function of linking guilt and renunciation of desire. The desiring subject forgets the super-ego. Yet paradoxically, with the effects of working through (Durcharbeitung), the superego helps to liberate desire during analysis.It was later that Lacan revealed “the essence of the super-ego”. Its loud voice, object a, cause of masochism, echoes both the lack of guarantee and the cry of the original father. For the pervert, as for the neurotic, but differently, it orders the impossible: Come! (Jouis?!), which confronts the no-sexual relation. Finally, it also reveals itself to be a diabolical force pushing to say something. Multiform, the super-ego is irreducible, as testifies this “new Critique of Reason on the articulation of the impure”.