I compare it to parchment that the hand

Who still reads the signs

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

The feast of feasts:

O noon of life! Second time of youth!

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

Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

I await friends, ready day and night

Sprung from myself?

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

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

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

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

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

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—

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

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

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!

Am I another? A stranger to myself?

Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

Once you were young, now—you are younger!

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,

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

Those I deemed changed into my kin,

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

O summer garden!

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

That they have aged has driven them away:

I await friends, ready day and night,

The one you wanted?

I learned to live

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

Nothing but ghosts of friends!

Those I longed for,

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

But now alas! No arrow is dangerous

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,

Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?

Who lives so close to the stars

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

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

At noon was the time one became two ...

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

That knock at my heart and window nightly,

O summer garden!

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

Let the old go! Let the memories go!

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!

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

Died in my mouth—

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing

Keep your door open to new friends!

Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?

Full of love and fear!

Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?

In the heights my table was set for you: —

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

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

Too often resisted his own strength,

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

To the grey yonder of the abyss?

My bow is bent!

Your hope stayed strong:

My realm—what realm stretches further?