Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!

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

My bow is bent!

To the grey yonder of the abyss?

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing

Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

O summer garden!

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

Who still reads the signs

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?

I compare it to parchment that the hand

I await friends, ready day and night

Sprung from myself?

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

I await friends, ready day and night,

I learned to live

Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?

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

Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?

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

Am I another? A stranger to myself?

O summer garden!

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

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

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!

The one you wanted?

At noon was the time one became two ...

My realm—what realm stretches further?

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,

Once you were young, now—you are younger!

Keep your door open to new friends!

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!

Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!

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

Nothing but ghosts of friends!

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

Those I deemed changed into my kin,

But now alas! No arrow is dangerous

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

Your hope stayed strong:

Too often resisted his own strength,

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

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —

O noon of life! Second time of youth!

Full of love and fear!

That they have aged has driven them away:

Died in my mouth—

Let the old go! Let the memories go!

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

Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

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

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

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

Those I longed for,

That knock at my heart and window nightly,

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

The feast of feasts:

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

Who lives so close to the stars

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

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—

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

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

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

In the heights my table was set for you: —