The feast of feasts:

I await friends, ready day and night

O summer garden!

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!

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

The one you wanted?

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

Those I longed for,

I compare it to parchment that the hand

Those I deemed changed into my kin,

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?

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

O summer garden!

Who lives so close to the stars

I learned to live

That they have aged has driven them away:

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

Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,

My realm—what realm stretches further?

Died in my mouth—

I await friends, ready day and night,

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

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

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

Sprung from myself?

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,

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

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!

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

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

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

Too often resisted his own strength,

Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?

But now alas! No arrow is dangerous

Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?

Who still reads the signs

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

To the grey yonder of the abyss?

Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

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

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

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

Am I another? A stranger to myself?

My bow is bent!

Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

Your hope stayed strong:

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

Keep your door open to new friends!

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing

O noon of life! Second time of youth!

Once you were young, now—you are younger!

Let the old go! Let the memories go!

Nothing but ghosts of friends!

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—

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

Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

At noon was the time one became two ...

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

In the heights my table was set for you: —

That knock at my heart and window nightly,

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

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

Full of love and fear!