EARLY GREEK THINKING

the transition from approach to withdrawal, continue. This lingering endurance of the transition is the enjoined continuance of what is present. The enjoined continuance does not at all insist upon sheer persistence. It does not fall into disjunction; it surmounts disorder. Lingering the length of its while, whatever lingers awhile lets its essence as presencing belong to order. The διδόναι designates this "letting belong to."

The presencing of whatever is present for the time being does not consist in άδικία by itself, i.e. not in disorder alone; rather, it consists in διδόναι δίκην τῆς άδικίας, since whatever is present lets order belong in each case. Whatever is presently present is not a slice of something shoved in between what is not presently present; it is present insofar as it lets itself belong to the non-present:

διδόναι. αὐτὰ δίκην . τῆς άδικίας,

The experience of beings in their Being which here comes to language is neither pessimistic nor nihilistic; nor is it optimistic. It is tragic. That is a presumptuous thing to say. However, we discover a trace of the essence of tragedy, not when we explain it psychologically or aesthetically, but rather only when we consider its essential form, the Being of beings, by thinking the διδόναι δίκην . τῆς άδικίας.

Whatever lingers awhile in presence, τὰ ἐόντα, becomes present when it lets enjoining order belong. To what does the order of jointure belong, and where does it belong? When and in what way does that which lingers awhile in presence give order? The fragment does not directly say anything about this, at least to the extent we have so far considered it. If we turn our attention to the still untranslated portion, however, it seems to say clearly to whom or what the διδόναι is directed

διδόναι γὰρ αὐτα δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις

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