the spirit, as the priestess the heavenly flame—this is his understanding. And that is why free will / and higher power to command and to accomplish have been given to him, who is like the gods, and that is why the most dangerous of goods, language, has been given to man, so that creating, destroying and perishing, and returning to the everliving, to the mistress and mother, he may bear witness to what he is / to have inherited, learned from her, her most divine gift, all-sustaining love. (IV, 246)
Language, the field of "the most innocent of all occupations," is "the most dangerous of goods." How can these two verses be reconciled? We shall put this question aside for the moment, and consider three preliminary questions: 1. Whose good is language? 2. In what way is it the most {GA 4: 36} dangerous good? 3. In what sense is it a good at all?
First of all, we take note of where this key verse about language is found: in the draft of a poem which is supposed to say who man is in distinction to the other beings of nature; mention is made of the rose, the swans, the stag in the forest (IV, 300 and 385). Distinguishing man from the other living creatures, the cited fragment begins thus: "But man dwells in huts."
Who is man? He is the one who must bear witness to what he is. To bear witness can signify to testify, but it also means to be answerable for what one has testified in one's testimony. Man is he who he is precisely in the attestation of his own existence. This attestation does not mean a subsequent and additional expression of mans being; rather, it forms a part of man's existence. But what should man testify to? To his belonging to the earth. This belonging consists in the fact that man is the inheritor, and the learner of all things. But things, of course, stand in opposition. What keeps things apart in opposition and at the same time joins them together, Hölderlin calls "intimacy." The attestation of belonging to this intimacy occurs through the creation of a world and through its rise, as well as through its destruction and decline. The attestation of man's being, and thus his authentic fulfillment, comes from freedom of decision. Decision takes hold of what is necessary, and places itself in the bond of a highest claim. Man's being a witness to his belonging among beings as a whole occurs as history. But so that history may be possible, language has been given to man. It is one of man's goods.