through all revealing, thoroughly attuning it, but which itself rests, lasts, and essences.
What is this? Does the Goddess tell us anything about it? Indeed; and poignantly enough, if we attend to what Parmenides finds before him, by her direction, upon his first path.
In Fragment VIII, 1 f., the Goddess says:
. . . μόνος δ᾽ ἔτι μῦθος ὁδοῖο
λείπεται ὡς ἔστιν
. . . “there still remains just one saying of the path that leads forth to there . . . (which shows): ὡς ἔστιν ‘that it is’;”
We are embarrassed and ask: What is, then? The answer lies near: it is obvious: beings and not nothing. But in order to establish such a thing, no unusual path beyond the ordinary representation and opinion of humans is required. It is much more a matter of bringing into view what is most difficult to think.
By his wording, Parmenides provides an unequivocal report concerning what the ὡς ἔστιν, “that it is,” refers to. In Fragment VI, 1 he says: ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι, “[it] is: namely being.” But in saying this, is not “being” mistaken for some being? Only of beings are we able to say “[it] is.” Before rushing to entrench ourselves in this objection, one which all too easily announces itself, we must first ask ourselves whether we also think in a Greek manner the Greek saying of the words: ἔστι and εἶναι; even more, whether we think something, on the whole, sufficiently determinate in our use of the words “is” and “being.” Thought in a Greek manner, εἶναι says: “to presence.” This verb speaks more precisely. It brings us demonstrably closer to the matter to be thought. Accordingly, we must translate ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι as: “presencing namely presences” [anwest nämlich anwesen]. And—at the same time we come across a new difficulty. We stand before an obvious tautology. Certainly, and before a genuine one, too. It does not count the identical twice. Rather, it names the same, and it itself, once:
ἔστιν εἶναι: “presencing (itself) presences”
According to Parmenides, the name for this state of affairs surrounding the matter of thinking is: τὸ ἐόν. This fundamental word of his thinking names neither “the being,” nor merely “being.” Τὸ ἐόν must be thought as a verbal participle. Then it says: “presencing: presencing itself” [anwesend: anwesen selbst]. Fragment VIII, 2 f. says of the only possible path of this saying: