Hyperion by Friedrich Holderlin

Author:Friedrich Holderlin [Holderlin, Friedrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Visionary & Metaphysical, Philosophy, History & Surveys, Modern
ISBN: 9780981955797
Google: 1avhToTHmz0C
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2009-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

SECOND VOLUME

μη φυναι, τον απαντα νικ λογον.

το δ’επει φαν βηναι κειϑεν, οϑεν περ ηκει,

πολυ δευτερον ως ταχιςα.

. . .

Not to be born surpasses thought and speech.

The second best is to have seen the light

and then to go back quickly whence we came.

SOPHOCLES

FIRST BOOK

HYPERION TO BELLARMIN

We lived the last beautiful moments of the year after our return from the region of Attica.

Autumn was a brother of spring for us, full of mild fire, a festive time for the memory of sorrows and past joys of love. The withering leaves bore the color of red sunset; only the spruce and the laurel stood in eternal green. In the clear breezes, migrating birds lingered, others swarmed in the vineyard and in the garden and reaped joyfully what the men had left. And the heavenly light ran pure from the open sky; through all branches, the holy sun smiled, the kind sun that I never name without joy and thanks, that has often healed me in deep sorrow with a glance, and purified my soul of discontent and worries.

We visited all our dearest paths, Diotima and I; vanished, blessed hours encountered us everywhere.

We remembered the past May; we had never before seen the earth as we did then, we said, it had been transformed, a silver cloud of blossoms, a joyful flame of life, rid of all coarser matter.

O! All was so full of pleasure and hope, cried Diotima, so full of incessant growth and yet also so effortless, so blissfully calm, like a child who is lost in play and no longer thinks.

In this, I cried, I recognize it, the soul of nature, in this still fire, in this lingering in its mighty haste.

And it is so dear to the happy, this lingering, cried Diotima; do you recall? we stood one evening together on the bridge after a fierce storm, and the red mountain waters shot away under us like an arrow, but beside them the forest stood green in peace, and the bright beech leaves scarcely stirred. It did us such good then that the soulful green did not also fly away from us as the brook did, and the beautiful springtime held as still for us as a tame bird, but now it is nonetheless gone, over the mountains.

We smiled about these words, although mourning was nearer to us.

Thus should our own blissfulness, too, depart, and we foresaw it.

O Bellarmin! Who, then, may say that he stands fast, when the beautiful, too, thus ripens toward its fate, when the divine, too, must humble itself and share mortality with all that is mortal!

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