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

Once you were young, now—you are younger!

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

O summer garden!

Let the old go! Let the memories go!

Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

Died in my mouth—

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

That knock at my heart and window nightly,

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?

Full of love and fear!

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —

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

Those I deemed changed into my kin,

Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!

Keep your door open to new friends!

But now alas! No arrow is dangerous

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

To the grey yonder of the abyss?

Who still reads the signs

My realm—what realm stretches further?

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

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

The one you wanted?

Those I longed for,

Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

In the heights my table was set for you: —

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

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

The feast of feasts:

Am I another? A stranger to myself?

Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?

O summer garden!

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

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!

My bow is bent!

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

Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?

That they have aged has driven them away:

I learned to live

Sprung from myself?

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

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

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

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

I await friends, ready day and night

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

Your hope stayed strong:

O noon of life! Second time of youth!

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

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,

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

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

Too often resisted his own strength,

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

Who lives so close to the stars

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

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—

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

Nothing but ghosts of friends!

Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

At noon was the time one became two ...

I await friends, ready day and night,

I compare it to parchment that the hand

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