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language, a grazing herd is spoken of, which is driven forward and tended by means of the blow of the whip. But if we now refer the blow to the lightning bolt, then the blow is also thunder, which resounds through the wide spaces, the voice of lightning, which drives forward and guides all crawling things. νέμειν means on one hand to drive to pasture, tend and feed; on the other, however, to dispense and allot. We can then say: everything which crawls is allotted by the blow as the voice of lightning.
HEIDEGGER: νέμεται also refers to Νέμεσις [goddess of retribution].
FINK: Νέμεσις, however, does not have only the meaning of allotting and dispensing.
PARTICIPANT: νέμεται refers equally to νόμος [custom, law].
FINK: νόμος regulates for all the citizens of the city the dispensing of what is appropriate to them. The obvious image, which is, however, no allegory, means that everything which crawls is put to pasture with a blow being allotted to it. In νέμεται the coerciveness of what befalls one (being driven forward by a blow) connects with the tranquility of grazing. We must hear many things together in νέμεται: guiding, pursuing, and steering of the blow and being driven. To the latter there also belongs a tending and being steered. Allotment also belongs to the tranquil sense of grazing. Grazing as allotment is protection as well as getting steered in the sense of being forced. {GA 15: 58}
HEIDEGGER: I would like to read a few verses from Hölderlin's poem, "Peace."
Unyielding and unvanquished, you strike alike
The lion-hearted, Nemesis, and the weak,
And from the blow your victims tremble
Down to the ultimate generation.
You hold the secret power to goad and curb
For thorn and reins are given into your hands,
(Stuttgart edition, vol. 2, 1, p. 6, lines 13-18)14
FINK: A strophe from Hölderlin's poem, "Voice of the People" (first edition), also belongs here:
And, as the eagle pushes his young and throws
Them from the nest, to look in the fields for prey,
So, too, the sons of man are driven
Out and away by the God's own kindness
(Stuttgart edition, vol. 2, 1, p. 50, lines 33-36)14
The kindness of the gods unites in itself the grace and the coercion which we must listen for in νέμεται in Fr. 11. Therewith we have a preliminary orientation concerning that which πληγῇ and νέμεται mean. But does the blow, which guides and allots, refer generally to τὰ πάντα? In the saying itself, τὰ πάντα are not mentioned. Instead of this, it mentions πᾶν ἑρπετόν. It would seem as though a specific field were