Friedrich
Nietzsche
Beyond
Good and Evil
[This translation by Ian Johnston of Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, has certain copyright restrictions. For information please use the following link: Copyright. For comments or question please contact Ian Johnston.
[The
translation of the following poem, which concludes Nietzsche's Beyond Good and
Evil, is quite literal. It makes no attempt to take freedoms in order to
render the poem in more lyrical English]
Out
of the High Mountains
Aftersong
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O
noon of life! A time to celebrate!
Oh garden of
summer!
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 that the glacier's grayness
today decked
itself with roses?
The stream is seeking you, and wind and clouds
with yearning push themselves higher into the blue today
to look for you from the furthest bird's eye view.
For
you my table has been set at the highest point.
Who lives so
near the stars?
Who's so near the furthest reaches of the bleak abyss?
My realm—what realm has stretched so far?
And my honey—who has tasted that? . . .
There
you are, my friends!—Alas, so I am not the man,
not the one
you're looking for?
You hesitate, surprised!—Ah, your anger would be better!
Am I no more the one? A changed hand, pace, and face?
And what am I—for you friends am I not the one?
Have
I become another? A stranger to myself?
Have I sprung
from myself?
A wrestler who overcame himself so often?
Too often pulling against his very own power,
wounded and checked by his own victory?
I
looked where the wind blows most keenly?
I learned to
live
where no one lives, in deserted icy lands,
forgot men and god, curse and prayer?
Became a ghost that moves over the glaciers?
—You
old friends! Look! Now your gaze is pale,
full of love
and horror!
No, be off! Do not rage! You can't live 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 deep
my bow
extends!
It was the strongest man who made such a pull—
Woe betide you! The arrow is dangerous—
like no arrow—away from here! For your own good! . . .
You're
turning around?—O heart, you deceive enough,
your hopes
stayed strong:
hold your door open for new friends!
Let the old ones go! Let go the memory!
Once you were young, now—you are even younger!
What
bound us then, a band of one hope—
who reads the
signs,
love once etched there—still pale?
I compare it to parchment which the hand
fears to touch—like that discoloured, burned.
No
more friends—they are . . . But how can I name that?—
Just friendly
ghosts!
That knocks for me at night on my window and my heart,
that looks at me and says, "But we were friends?"—
—O shrivelled word, once fragrant as a rose!
O
youthful longing which misunderstands itself!
Those yearned
for,
whom I imagined changed to my own kin,
they have grown old, have 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.
You friends, where are you? Come! It's time! It's time
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The
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—
it was at noon when 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 horror curtain splits,
the wedding came for light and darkness . . . .
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