My realm—what realm stretches further?

To the grey yonder of the abyss?

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

I await friends, ready day and night

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

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

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing

Keep your door open to new friends!

Nothing but ghosts of friends!

The one you wanted?

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —

Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?

But now alas! No arrow is dangerous

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

O summer garden!

Who still reads the signs

Your hope stayed strong:

O summer garden!

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

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

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

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

Am I another? A stranger to myself?

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

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

Died in my mouth—

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!

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

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

I compare it to parchment that the hand

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

Those I longed for,

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

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

Full of love and fear!

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?

The feast of feasts:

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

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

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

Sprung from myself?

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

That knock at my heart and window nightly,

Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,

At noon was the time one became two ...

Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

In the heights my table was set for you: —

My bow is bent!

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

Too often resisted his own strength,

O noon of life! Second time of youth!

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,

Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

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

Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?

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

That they have aged has driven them away:

Who lives so close to the stars

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

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

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!

I await friends, ready day and night,

Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!

I learned to live

Those I deemed changed into my kin,

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

Let the old go! Let the memories go!

Once you were young, now—you are younger!