purely sprung forth. In the crossing over that belongs to this counter-striving, there prevails the originary hostility, yet one that, because it is no breaking apart of oppositions, but rather their originary unification, has the character of a blessedness [Seligkeit]—‘blessed enmity’ [Feind-seligkeit]—if we may be permitted to attribute to this word this counter-turning sense of against and toward one another.
By this path of analysis, we can create for ourselves a sketch of the essential structure of what Hölderlin names that which has purely sprung forth, wherein lies contained the beyng of the demigods, that beyng which the poem “The Rhine” poetically thinks.
Yet that which has purely sprung forth is an “enigma.” With this, we approach what has purely sprung forth as a mystery. In its grounds, however, the mysterious character pertaining to that which has purely sprung forth is not an additional aspect; rather, the enigmatic belongs to the inner essence of what has purely sprung forth. Therefore, we shall not be able to surmise, or ever to explain, such beyng by means of the sketch we have just drawn (birth—ray of light—need—discipline) and, above all, we should from the outset never wish to explain it, precisely if we understand such beyng.
In the commonplace view regarding cognition and knowing, explaining and understanding are conflated as being the same thing. That which has been explained is counted as having been made comprehensible and understood. Occasionally, a difference of degree is inserted between explanation and understanding, and one conceives of explanation as being the understanding of what is thing-like and corporeal, whereas understanding, by contrast, is regarded as that explaining directed toward the psychic and spiritual. By contrast, I take understanding to be the opposite in essence to explanation, and regard explanation as the necessary un-essence [Un-wesen] of understanding. To explain something means to bring it back to something that is clear to us—that is, in this context, to whatever is handy and