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§25 The poet as the enigmatic "sign" [192-193]

this reason it can come as no surprise that in the hymn of that river that is specifically named and thought on several occasions in the Ister hymn, namely in the Rhine hymn, the eighth strophe says the following:


Es haben aber an eigner
Unsterblichkeit die Gotter genug und bedürf en
Die Himmlischen eines Dings,
So sinds Heroën und Menschen
Und Sterbliche sonst. Denn weil
Die Seeligsten nichts fühlen von selbst,
Muss wohl, wenn solches zu sagen
Erlaubt ist, in der Götter Nahmen
Theilnehmend fühlen ein Andrer,
Den brauchen sie; jedoch ihr Gericht
1st. dass sein eigenes Haus
Zerbreche der und das Liebste
Wie den Feind schelt' und sich Vater und Kind
Begrabe unter den Trümmern,
Wenn einer, wie sie, seyn will und nicht
Ungleiches dulden, der Schwärmer.


Yet of their own
Immortality the gods have enough. and if one thing
The heavenly require,
Then heroes and humans it is
And otherwise mortals. For since
The most blessed feel nothing of themselves,
There must presumably. if to say such
Is allowed, in the name of the gods
Another partake in feeling,
Him they need; yet their own ordinance
Is that he his own house
Shatter and his most beloved
Chide like the enemy and bury his father
And child beneath the ruins,
If someone wants to be like them and not
Tolerate unequals. the impassioned one.


An Other must be, who is other than the gods and in his being other must "tolerate unequals." This Other is needed to "partake in feeling" in the name of the gods[29] Partaking in feeling consists in his bearing sun and moon, the heavenly, in mind and distributing this share of the heavenly to humans, and so, standing between gods and humans. sharing the holy with them, yet without ever splitting it apart or fragmenting it. Such communicating occurs by this Other pointing toward the holy in naming


Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister” (GA 53) by Martin Heidegger