O afternoon of my life! Once did my happiness also descend to the valley that it might seek a lodging: then did it find those open hospitable souls.
O afternoon of my life! What did I not surrender that I might have one thing: this living plantation of my thoughts, and this dawn of my highest hope!
Companions did the creating one once seek, and children of his hope: and lo, it turned out that he could not find them, except he himself should first create them.
Thus am I in the midst of my work, to my children going, and from them returning: for the sake of his children must Zarathustra perfect himself.
For in one’s heart one loveth only one’s child and one’s work; and where there is great love to oneself, then is it the sign of pregnancy: so have I found it.