Here a new perspective opens up into the essence of the truth that is proper to such a poetizing, and accordingly into the essence of the originarily founding, poetic language. If indeed we consider such language in terms of its capacity for expression, then it is here precisely not supposed to express anything, but to leave the unsayable unsaid, and to do so in and through its saying.
If the essence of truth is to be sought in the manifestness of beings, then concealment and veiling prove to be a particular way that is proper to manifestness. The mystery is not a barrier that lies on the other side of truth, but is itself the highest figure of truth; for in order to let the mystery truly be what it is—concealing preservation of authentic beyng—the mystery must be manifest as such. A mystery that is not known in its power of veiling is no mystery. The higher our knowing concerning the veiling and the more genuine the saying of it as such, the more untouched its concealing power remains. Poetic saying of the mystery is denial.
b) The Locale of Dasein Founded in “Germania”
α) The “Fatherland” as the Historical Beyng of a People
Our interpretation of the poem is thus faced with altogether unique tasks: on the one hand, the task of grasping in itself, in terms of its own intuitable content, the nexus of occurrence indicated by the images; on the other hand, the task of grasping this whole as denial and displacement of what is authentically to be said. At the same time, there lies herein the question of whether—faced with a poetic saying of this kind—interpretation does not in principle reach a limit here, and what kind of limit this is.
In any case, we stand at an important place in the course of our concern with Hölderlin’s poetizing. We stand before the closed door to that of which this poetizing authentically and ultimately tells, that which the poet names the ‘most forbidden fruit’ that ‘each shall taste last’: “the fatherland.” For the poet, this does not mean some dubious greatness of an even more dubious patriotism full of noise. He means the ‘land of the fathers’; he means us, this people of this Earth as a historical people, in its historical being. Such beyng, however, is founded poetically, articulated and placed into knowing in thinking; it is rooted in the actions of those of the Earth who are responsible for the establishing of the state, and in historical space. This historical beyng of the people—the fatherland—is sealed in a mystery, and indeed essentially and forever. Yet for this reason too we shall by ourselves never come before the closed door that leads to it; by ourselves,