______________________________________________________
Friedrich
Nietzsche
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
______________________________________________________
[This document, which has been prepared by Ian Johnston of
Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, has certain copyright
restrictions. For information, please consult Copyright. Editorial comments and translations in
square brackets and italics are by Ian Johnston; comments in normal brackets
are from Nietzsche’s text. Last revised in December 2013]
[Table of Contents for Beyond Good and Evil]
OUT OF THE HIGH MOUNTAINS
AFTERSONG
*
* *
* *
* * * *
O noon of
life! A time to celebrate!
O garden in the summertime!
Restless happiness in standing, gazing, waiting:—
I wait for friends, ready day and night.
You friends, where are you? Come! It's time! It's time!
Was it
not for you the glacier's grayness
decked itself today with roses?
The stream is seeking you—today wind and clouds
with yearning push higher up into the blue
to look for you from the furthest bird's eye view.
At the
highest point my table has been set for you.
Who lives so near the stars?
So near the furthest
reaches of the bleak abyss?
My realm—what realm has stretched so far?
And my honey, too—who has tasted that? . . .
There you are, my friends!—Alas, so I am not the man,
not the one you are looking for?
You hesitate, surprised!—Ah, better you should be enraged!
Am I no more the one? My hand and step and face transformed?
And what am I, you friends—am I not the one?
Have I
become another? A
stranger to myself?
Have I sprung from myself?
A wrestler who overpowered himself too often,
who too often pushed against his very strength ,
wounded and checked by his own victory?
I
searched where the wind most keenly blows?
I learned to live
where no one lives, in deserted icy lands,
forgot men and god, curse and prayer?
Became a ghost traversing glaciers?
—You old
friends! Look! Now your gaze is pale,
full of love and horror!
No, be off! Do not rage! You cannot dwell here:
here between the furthest realms of ice and rock—
here one must be a hunter, like a chamois.
I've
become a wicked hunter! See, how far
my taut bow was stretched!
It was the strongest man who made this pull—
But now, alas! The arrow is dangerous—
like no arrow—away from here! For your own good! . . .
You're
turning round?—O heart, you’ve borne enough,
your hopes stayed strong:
hold your doors open for new friends!
Let the old ones go! Let go the memory!
Once you were young, now—you are better young!
What
bound us then, a band of a single hope—
who reads the signs,
etched there once by love—still pale?
To me it is like a parchment which the hand
is afraid to
touch—as if discoloured, burned.
No more
friends—they are . . . But how can I name that?—
Just ghosts of friends!
That knock for me at night on my window and my heart,
that look at me and say, “But we were friends?”—
—O shrivelled word, once fragrant as a rose!
O
youthful longing which misunderstood itself!
Those I yearned
for,
whom I imagined changed to my own kin,
they have grown old and so exiled themselves.
Only the one who changes stays in touch with me.
O noon of
life! A second youthful time!
O summer garden!
Restless happiness in standing, gazing, waiting!
I wait for friends, ready day and night.
New friends!
Come! It's time! It's time!
* *
*
This song is done—the sweet cry of yearning
died in my mouth:
A magician did it, a friend at the right hour,
a noontime friend—No! Do not ask who it might be—
at noontime one turned into two . . . .
Now we
celebrate, certain of victory, united,
the feast of feasts:
friend Zarathustra came, the guest of guests!
Now the world laughs, the fearful curtain splits,
the wedding has come for light and darkness . . . .
* * * *
* *
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