where the activity and life of nature is "concentrated," where "something intimative" gathers around human beings. The abode has its locale. The way in which the locale determines the abode, the manner in which the locale is the locale in each case. we name the locality of the locale [die Ortschaft des Ortes]. The locality of the locale bestows rest upon the abode. "Here. however, we wish to build," here at this river.
The river "is" the locality that pervades the abode of human beings upon the earth, determines them to where they belong and where they are homely [heimisch]. The river thus brings human beings into their own and maintains them in what is their own. Whatever is their own is that to which human beings belong and must belong if they are to fulfill whatever is destined to them, and whatever is fitting, as their specific way of being. Yet that which is their own often remains foreign to human beings for a long time, because they abandon it without having appropriated it. And human beings abandon what is their own because it is what most threatens to overwhelm them. One's own is least of all something that produces itself of its own accord. One's own must come to be appropriate. And in tum, whatever has become appropriate needs to be appropriated.[7] All this is true only on the presupposition that initially human beings are not and indeed never "of themselves," or through any self-making, in that which is their own. In that case, however, to dwell in what is one's own is what comes last and is seldom successful and always remains what is most difficult. Yet if the river determines the locality of the homely, then it is of essential assistance in becoming homely [Heimischwerden] in what is one's own. By "assistance" we understand here not some occasional support but something steadfastly standing by [den ständigen Beistand], this word taken in the full force of its naming, meaning that the river is in advance and everywhere there-by [da-bei] and "there" ["da"].
REVIEW
The poem "The Ister" names the river that we know by the name "Donau." The river is named. That could mean: it is "mentioned" in the poem. Here, however, we use the word "naming" in Hölderlin's sense. For Hölderlin. naming means something higher. "Naming" means: to call to its essence that which is named in the word of poetizing, and to ground this essence as poetic word. Here, "naming" is the name for poetic telling. Such telling, in being a naming, receives a unique vocation that does not allow itself to be straightforwardly transferred to other poetry or other poets. The historical being of the poetry of Goethe and Schiller is such that it neither has to be, nor can be, a naming, even though Goethe and Schiller are, in