OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
presence give order? The saying has nothing direct to say about this, not, at least, to the extent we have so far considered it. If we attend, however, to the still untranslated portion it seems to say quite unambiguously to whom or what it is directed:
διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις
The things which stay awhile let order belong ἀλλήλοις, to one another. So we are generally accustomed to read the text. We relate the ἀλλήλοις to the δίκην and τίσιν, if we represent matters clearly and explicitly as Diels does (though Nietzsche's translation skips over the whole issue). It seems to me, however, that relating the ἀλλήλοις directly to the διδόναι δίκην καὶ τίσιν is neither linguistically demanded nor, more importantly, justified by the matter itself. Hence it is from the matter itself that we must ask whether ἀλλήλοις immediately relates to δίκην, or whether it does not rather relate only to the τίσιν that immediately precedes it. The discussion here partially depends on how we translate the καί that stands between δίκην and τίσιν. But this depends on what τίσις says here.
One is accustomed to translate τίσις as "penalty [Buße]." This leads us to give διδόναι the meaning of "pay." Whatever stays awhile pays penalty: it makes this payment as punishment (δίκη). The court of justice is complete: not even injustice is missing, though admittedly no one is properly able to say in what it consists.
τίσις can indeed mean "penalty." It must, however, not do so since this does not name the essential and original meaning of the word. For τίσις is "esteem." To esteem something means to pay heed to it and therefore find satisfaction in what is estimable in it. The essential process of esteem, the finding of satisfaction, can occur in what is good as the bestowing of favour. But with respect to what is bad it can occur as penalty. This mere explanation of the word, however, does not bring us to its matter in the saying unless we are already, as with ἀδικία and δίκη, thinking out of the matter which comes to language in the saying.
According to the saying, αὐτά (τὰ ἐόντα), the things that stay awhile in presence, stand in dis-order. As they while they tarry. They hang on. For in the transition from arrival to departure they pass, hesitantly, through their while. They hang on: they cling to themselves. When the things that stay awhile hang on, they stubbornly follow the inclination to persist in such hanging on, indeed to insist on it. They are concerned with permanent continuance and no longer look to the δίκη, the order of the while.
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