is accomplished with the Greeks, according to the prevalent view, by a dissociation of "logos" (reason) from "mythos," then it seems entirely understandable that in the first "primitive" attempts at such thinking there might still be preserved remnants of "mythical" representation. By means of such reflections, the presence of a goddess in a "philosophically didactic poem" might be adequately explained. And from this explanation it follows that the reference to the goddess and she herself can now be dismissed as poetical and pseudo-mythical decorations, since indeed what matters is only to come to know the "philosophical system" of the thinker.
That is the merest sketch of a widely-held position concerning the appearance of the goddess in the didactic poem of Parmenides. Although it is advocated in all sorts of treatises, it nevertheless remains a singular error. If this position originated only in the presumption of successive generations to know everything better, or if it were merely the product of historiographical comparison, calculating back and forth between the appearances of former and later times, then we could dispense with such explanations. The difficulty is that in them a mode of thought is speaking which, over two millennia, has solidified itself in the West and is in a certain respect even an aberrant consequence of the very thinking expressed in Parmenides' "didactic poem." We ourselves move within the long tradition of this mode of thinking, and we take it therefore as the "natural" one.
Supposing, however, that the thinking of Parmenides and of Heraclitus is essentially of an other kind, then what is required of us is a renunciation of the prevailing views, a renunciation that has nothing to do with the mere refutation of scholarly misinterpretations of the two thinkers. Actually, the renunciation touches us personally and affects us in an ever new manner and ever more decisively. Only superficially does this renunciation seem to be a "negative" attitude. In truth it accomplishes the first step, whereby we pledge our heedfulness to the claim of the beginning, a beginning which, in spite of the historiographically represented temporal remoteness, is closer to us than what we are wont to consider the nearest.
Recapitulation
I) Outset and beginning. Ordinary thinking and the thinking begun by the beginning. Retreating in face of Being. The few and simple texts. Reference to "translating."
We are attempting to follow the path of thought of two thinkers, Parmenides and Heraclitus. Both belong, historiographically calculated, to