Your hope stayed strong:

Who still reads the signs

The strongest was he who drew his bow like this— —:

To the grey yonder of the abyss?

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!

That knock at my heart and window nightly,

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —

That look at me and say: "were we once friends?" —

My realm—what realm stretches further?

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

— There you are, friends!— Alas, but I am not

O summer garden!

Died in my mouth—

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

New friends! Come! It's time! It's time!

That they have aged has driven them away:

No longer friends, they are—what should I call them?—

The feast of feasts:

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing

Too often resisted his own strength,

What once tied us together, one hope's bond —

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

Keep your door open to new friends!

In the heights my table was set for you: —

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—

As that arrow,—away from here! For your own good! .....

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,

I've become a wicked hunter!— Look how much

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

But now alas! No arrow is dangerous

At noon was the time one became two ...

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!

Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

O noon of life! Second time of youth!

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

You hesitate, amazed—oh, you are quite sullen!

The one you wanted?

Where are you friends? Come! It's time! It's time!

Here one has to be a hunter and chamois-like.

Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?

Let the old go! Let the memories go!

I compare it to parchment that the hand

O summer garden!

Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,

I—am no longer the same? Hands, face, gait have changed?

The friend of noon—no! do not ask who he is—

A sorceror did it, the friend at the right time,

I learned to live

My bow is bent!

No, leave! Do not be angry! You—cannot live here:

And what I am, to you friends—I am not?

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

Nothing but ghosts of friends!

I await friends, ready day and night

I await friends, ready day and night,

Those I longed for,

Who lives so close to the stars

Am I another? A stranger to myself?

Those I deemed changed into my kin,

Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

Sprung from myself?

Full of love and fear!

Is afraid to grasp,—like parchment that is discolored, burnt.

Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?

You turn away?— O heart, you have borne enough,

The wedding has come for light and darkness .....

Once you were young, now—you are younger!

Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!