historicality of human beings as historical is first unveiled. Yet the river is not a "symbolic image" of "human life." It is not a symbolic image at all. on the contrary. we must presumably learn to look toward the historicality of human beings and its essential ground if we wish to grasp the essential scope of the river and its fullness.
When we speak of "human beings" here and throughout these remarks. we always mean the essence of the historical human beings of that history to which we ourselves belong: the essence of Western humankind. "Human beings" means neither "human beings in general," "universal humanity." nor indeed mere "individual" human beings, nor even some form or other in which several or many human beings are united. Yet in the concept of the essence of Western humankind we also necessarily. and therefore always. think those essential relations within which this humankind stands: the relation to world, the relation to earth, the relation to the gods and to alternative gods and false gods. These relations are not, however. simply added on to "human beings" in addition to "their" being human; rather, to be human is in itself to be the unity of this configuration. The becoming homely of human beings thus in itself comprises this full essence of being human. And it is to this alone that the essence of the river relates.
The river is locality and journeying. The enigmatic unity of these essential determinations may be expressed in a formulaic manner in the following statements: The river is the locality of journeying. The river is the journeying of locality. These formulae evoke the impression that we are referring to entirely empty, universal relations. Contrary to this appearance. and in accordance with the word of the hymns, we must think definite and singular relations whose singularity is expressed clearly by way of the proper names that are named in the poem "The Ister." "Hertha" is the Germanic name for mother earth. We are told specifically of the homeliness of the earth in the second strophe. The name "Indus" is named. "Hercules." one of the Greek heroes, is named, the "Isthmus of Corinth" and the river "Alpheus." Heracles here appears in a very obscure relation to the Donau. Greece and the homeland of the upper Donau valley stand in a relation that is clearly named and yet presents an enigma. The Ister has "invited" Hercules from the Isthmus "as a guest." The locales and the journey, the back-and-forth between the foreign and the homely, are poetized in the poem. Yet these relations are alien for us. And we are scarcely offered any immediate foothold we could latch onto in order to illuminate them. All of this forces us almost to pursue locality and journeying in those relations that we can initially grasp in them.
Locale is a spatial determination. Journey. movement. takes its course in time. If locality and journeying indeed belong together in such an originary manner as we have asserted. then the belonging together of