"true" destiny alloted to the Greeks. "To be ψεῦδος" or "to be not ψεῦδος" presupposes here that Zeus lets something or other appear in the first place. In fact Homer speaks of Zeus φαίνων, Zeus who lets something appear. But "to let appear" is indeed to unveil. How then can he conceal? Zeus must let something come into appearance; however, such a thing, while it shows itself, at the same time only foreshadows or portends, and hence does not completely unveil but simultaneously shrouds. This is the manner of the showing of signs: σήματα. It is therefore that Zeus is called in this passage Ζεῦς σήματα φαίνων—the one who lets signs appear. A "sign" is that which, in appearing and pointing out, thereby lets something else appear—though in such a way that it does not relegate this to the manifest (where the sign itself appears) but precisely holds it back, i.e., veils. This self-appearance and self-disclosure, which also veils something by holding it back, is precisely what showing is. Only where there holds sway a letting appear and, hence, a disclosing, does there exist the free play for the possibility of ψεῦδος, i.e., the showing that also covers and holds back. The essence of ψεῦδος resides in an exhibiting that conceals, or, we could say, it resides in a dissembling.
We must nevertheless think this "dissembling" (obstructing, disguising) as both a process and a state of affairs. A neighboring house "obstructs" the self-showing of the mountain; a cupboard put in front of the door "disguises" the wall at that place and presents it thereby as a wall that is not broken up. The cupboard disguises—on the one hand by covering up the hole in the wall and also, at the same time, by making appear and presenting an unbroken wall. The disguising is a hiding. This old German word (Verhehlen) derives from hehlen (hide, secrete), which means "to conceal." "Hiddenness" is concealment. We now use "dissembling" and "hiding"—and indeed in a "negative" sense—for the most part only with reference to human behavior, which we understand as "subjective" in opposition to "objective" events. "Dissembling" is for us "self-dissembling," and this becomes, in relation to others, "deceiving." Similarly, "hiding" also is used in a subjective sense: not to hide something to oneself, not to fool oneself, i.e., not to delude oneself, not to dissemble to oneself: to be "without a hidden secret," without concealment, and without veiling digression, i.e., in the case of an action or a communication. Originally, however, "hiding" meant any kind of "concealing"; the older German language knew even the word—which has since been lost—"dis-hide" [enthehlen]: to take out of concealedness. For many years I have used in my lectures the Word "dis-close" [Entbergen]. In case there should come a time when we are again capable of experiencing dis-closure and unconcealedness (ἀλήθεια), we might also find again the lost word "dis-hiding" and appropriate it anew. "Hiding" [Hehlen] is, moreover, closely related to