9
FINK: Mr. Heidegger cannot come today since he is prevented by an important trip. He asks us, however, to continue explication of the text, so that we make some further progress in our interpretation of the fragments. By means of the summary, he will inform himself about the progress of this session in order then to express an opinion.
Let us bring to mind the way of thought, better, the gist of open questionabilities, that has led us in the last session. We started out from the problem of the transformations of fire with the question whether the change of an original stuff is thereby thought, or whether a relatedness of lv and πάντα is aimed at. Finally, we arrived in Fr. 76 at the dark formula, difficult to comprehend, that something lives the death of another. This formula is then used in Fr. 62 as a mark of the relationship of immortals to mortals, or mortals to immortals. Is it only a matter here of another domain for the employment of the problematic formula, "to live the death of something"? Is the formula also meant here in the fundamental breadth, as we have learned it in Fr. 76 in the relationship of the elements, fire, air, water, and earth? Is it a matter of cosmological references, or of cosmological counterreferences in so far as the formula is here applied to things that stand open in a special manner to the whole, that is, to gods and humans? Is the above mentioned formula applied here to cosmological living beings? Perhaps that happens, because the relationship of immortal to mortal is analogous to the reference of £v in the form of lightning, of sun, and of fire, to the πάντα. Is the fundamental relatedness, ever disconcerting to us, of ἕν and πάντα rather sayable from out of its reflection? Is the world-relatedness of ἕν and πάντα rather sayable from out of the relationship of gods and humans who understand being? With this, the path of our problem situation is first of all indicated. Let us now attempt to clarify the structure of Fr. 62. For we cannot say that its structure has become clear and distinct at this point.
The fragment runs: Ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι. ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες. We could translate, "Immortal: mortal, mortal: immortal." Diels thereby brings immortals into a relationship to mortals and mortals into a reference to immortals. In addition, this relationship is explained by the dark problem-formula that Diels translates as follows: "for the life of these is the death of those, and the life of those is the death of these." This translation appears to me