What this lecture course is able to communicate are remarks on the poetry it has selected. Such remarks are always only an accompaniment. It may therefore be that some, or many, or even all of these remarks are simply imported and are not "contained in" the poetry. The remarks. in that case, are not taken from the poetry, not presented from out of this poetry. The remarks in no way achieve what in the strict sense of the word could be called an "interpretation" of the poetry. At the risk of missing the truth of Hölderlin's poetry. the remarks merely provide a few markers, signs that call our attention. pauses for reflection. Because these remarks are merely an accompaniment to the poem , the poetry itself must in the first instance and constantly be present as what comes first.
The texts that form the basis of this lecture course are taken from an edition to which every future hearing of Hölderlin's word must have recourse. This edition was conceived around 1911 by Norbert von Hellingrath, who produced the crucial Volumes I, IV, and V.1 Norbert von Hellingrath died at the age of twenty-eight, in December 1916, at Verdun. (The edition by Zinkernagel may also be used.)
Our lecture course begins with remarks on a "hymn" that Hölderlin himself never published and that, as first written down and in its draft form, he left without a title. Norbert von Hellingrath gave the poem the title "The Ister" (i.e., the Donau [the Danube]).2
The poem consists of four strophes. The fourth is incomplete. Whether it is meant to be the closing strophe of the poem cannot be decided. The poem reads (IV, 220ff.):
DER ISTER
Jezt komme, Feuer!
Begierig sind wir
Zu schauen den Tag,
Und wenn die Prüfung
1st durch die Knie gegangen.
Mag einer spüren das Waldgeschrei.
Wir singen aber vom Indus her
Fernangekommen und
Vom Alpheus. lange haben
1. Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, begun by Norbert von Hellingrath. continued by Friedrich Seebass and Ludwig von Pigenot (vol. 3. 2nd ed.: Berlin, 1922: vols. 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. 2nd ed.: Berlin. 1923).
2. Cf. the lecture course "Andenken" of winter semester 1941/42. p. I (Gesamtausgabe, vol. 52).