Category Archives: Holderlin

The holy

Posted on July 29, 2024 | Comments Off on The holy

I wonder whether we will recognize it once more?

Hölderlin’s poetry is a destiny for us. It is waiting for the moment when the mortals will respond to it.

What does Hölderlin’s poetry say? Its crucial word is: the holy.

This word speaks about the flight of the gods. It says that the gods, who have fled, are saving us until we are inclined and able to dwell near them. This site is the proper place of being at home. Therefore, it remains necessary to prepare for the sojourn in this nearness.  Thus we take the first step on the path that leads us there, where we respond properly to the destiny that is Hölderlin’s poetry. In this way we arrive only at the place of the poetic word [Wortort] in which ‘the god of gods’ perhaps appears.

For on its own, no human calculation and design [Machen] can bring forth a turning [Wende] in the world’s present condition. Especially not because human design is already formed by this very condition of the world and has fallen prey to it. How then could it still gain control over it?

Hölderlin’s poetry holds a destiny for us. It is waiting for the moment when we mortals will respond to it. The response leads the way towards a coming near the place of the gods, who have fled; that means into the place of light, which saves us.

Yet, how should we recognize and remember all this? By listening to Hölderlin’s poetry.

[…]

The first guiding word reads:

‘Everything is intimately interrelated [innig].’

This means: One is intimately appropriated [vereignet] to the other, but in such a way that each thereby remains in its own proper domain: gods and men, earth and heaven. Intimate interrelatedness [Innigkeit] does not mean a merging and effacing of differences. Intimate interrelatedness means the belonging together of the unfamiliar, the sway of strangeness, and the claim of reserve [Scheu].

The second guiding word is a question:

‘How do I render thanks?’

Thanking is the awe-inspiring, reverential, accepting remembrance [Andenken] of what was granted, and it is only a sign pointing towards the vicinity of the fleeing gods, who are saving us.

The third guiding word is:

‘It can be perceived by a deep testing.’

The testing must have been performed ‘on one’s knees’. Wilfulness has to humble itself and disappear. Only one thing is incumbent on thought and meditation: to think ahead of poetry in order to give way to it. By listening repeatedly, we become better at listening. […]

  • Heidegger, letter, 1963, Zollikon Seminars: Protocols, Conversations, Letters (tr. Mayr and Askay)

Comments Off on The holy

Posted in Heidegger, Holderlin

As when on holiday … (Wie wenn am Feirertage … )

Posted on September 25, 2022 | Comments Off on As when on holiday … (Wie wenn am Feirertage … )

     As on holiday, to see the field
A countryman goes out in the morning, when
Out of the hot night the cooling lightning had fallen
For a long time, and in the distance thunder sounded,
And the stream once again fills its banks,
Fresh green covers the earth,
The reassuring rain falls from the heavens,
The grapevine drips, and the trees
Of the grove stand gleaming in the quiet sun:

     So they stand in good weather,
Mastered by no one, but All-Presence,
So wonderful, holds in its light embrace
The powerful, godly beauty of Nature.
So when she seems to sleep at certain times of the year,
In the sky or under the garden leaves, or among the world’s people,
The poets’ faces are also sad,
They seem to be alone, but they’re always
Having a premonition, as Nature does when she rests.

     Now day breaks! I attended to its coming,
And what I saw my words must convey as holy,
For she herself, who is older than Time
And higher than the gods of East and West,
Nature has now awakened to the clashing of armies
And from the upper air to the abyss below,
According to fixed law, as once produced from holy Chaos,
The All-Inspiring
Begins to stir once more.

     And a fire gleams, as in that man’s eye
When he makes great plans; so
Once more, with signs for kindling, 
The deeds of the world
Stir fire in the souls of poets,
And what went before, barely noticed,
Is only now revealed,
And those who happily farm our land
In the form of workers are now revealed
As the gods’ all-living powers.

     You ask where they are? Their spirit drifts in song
When the sun of day and warm earth 
Grow, and storms in the air, and others
Prepared in the depths of time, 
Full of meaning and murmuring to us,
Wander between heaven and earth and among the people.
They are everyone’s thoughts together
And quietly find their lodging in the souls of poets,

     So that suddenly dazed, long familiar
With the infinite, exalted by memory,
Brought to the kindling point by the holy radiance,
The fruit born of love, the work of God and men,
The song succeeds in testimony to both.
So it happened, as the poets say, when she wanted
To see the god made visible, his lightning fell
On Semele’s house, and the one struck by God
Bore holy Bacchus, the fruit of the storm.

     And so it is the songs of earth, without danger,
Now drink the fire of heaven.
Under God’s thunderstorms, fellow poets,
We must stand bare-headed to grasp
The Father’s radiance with our own hands,
Wrap the heavenly gift as song 
And give it to the people.
For if only, like children, 
We have pure hearts, and our hands are guiltless,

     The Father’s radiance won’t burn us,
And, deeply shaken, taking the Strong One’s sufferings
As our own, our hearts will stand fast
In God’s high down-rushing storm as he approaches.
But woe is me! when of

Woe me!

         And let me confess

I approached to see the gods,
And they themselves threw me down beneath the living,
False priest that I am, into the dark, that I
Sing my warning song to those who can be taught.
There

— Hölderlin (via here)

Comments Off on As when on holiday … (Wie wenn am Feirertage … )

Posted in Holderlin