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


Who still reads the signs
Love once inscribed on it, the faded ones?



I compare it to parchment that the hand



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

O noon of life! Second time of youth!
O summer garden!
Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting!



I await friends, ready day and night,

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

No longer friends, they are—what should I call them?—
Nothing but ghosts of friends!



That knock at my heart and window nightly,


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

— O withered word, once fragrant as the rose!

O noon of life! O time to celebrate!


O summer garden!
Restless happiness in standing, watching and waiting: —


I await friends, ready day and night
Where are you friends? Come! It's time! It's time!

Now we celebrate together, certain of victory,

The feast of feasts:


Friend Zarathustra has come, the guest of guests!

Now the world laughs, the dread curtain is rent,
The wedding has come for light and darkness .....

Am I another? A stranger to myself?


Sprung from myself?

A wrestler, who too often subdued himself?
Too often resisted his own strength,



Wounded and stopped by his own victory?

— There you are, friends!— Alas, but I am not
The one you wanted?
You hesitate, amazed—oh, you are quite sullen!
I—am no longer the same? Hands, face, gait have changed?



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

In the heights my table was set for you: —
Who lives so close to the stars



To the grey yonder of the abyss?



My realm—what realm stretches further?

And my honey—who has tasted it? .....

This song is over—the sweet cry of longing


Died in my mouth—

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


The friend of noon—no! do not ask who he is—
At noon was the time one became two ...

I sought where the most biting wind blows?

I learned to live


Where no one lives, in desolate polar zones,
Unlearned man and god, curse and prayer?


Become a ghost who crosses glaciers?

O longing of youth that misunderstood itself!



Those I longed for,


Those I deemed changed into my kin,
That they have aged has driven them away:

Only he who changes remains akin to me.

I've become a wicked hunter!— Look how much
My bow is bent!



The strongest was he who drew his bow like this— —:
But now alas! No arrow is dangerous


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

— My old friends! Now how pale you look!

Full of love and fear!
No, leave! Do not be angry! You—cannot live here:

Here among this most remote realm of ice and rock—
Here one has to be a hunter and chamois-like.

You turn away?— O heart, you have borne enough,
Your hope stayed strong:



Keep your door open to new friends!


Let the old go! Let the memories go!

Once you were young, now—you are younger!