of beings reveals itself in opposition to the tried and usual. The highest form of suffering is dying one's death as a sacrifice for the preservation of the truth of Being. This sacrifice is the purest experience of the voice of Being. What if German humanity is that historical humanity which, like the Greek, is called upon to poetize and think, and what if this German humanity must first perceive the voice of Being! Then must not the sacrifices be as many as the causes immediately eliciting them, since the sacrifice has in itself an essence all its own and does not require goals and uses! Thus what if the voice of the beginning should announce itself in our historical destiny?
But what if the beginning has fallen into oblivion? Would we not then need to experience first of all that this oblivion is not mere negligence or dereliction on the part of man but is an event pertaining to the very essence of Being itself, i.e, to unconcealedness?
What if man had not only forgotten the essence of Being but if Being itself had forgotten man and had abandoned him to self-forgetfulness? Are we speaking of λήθη here only to appear erudite?
The Greeks are largely silent over λήθη. At times, however, they do speak of it. Hesiod mentions λήθη together with λιμός, the absence of food, as one of the daughters of the veiling night. Pindar also speaks of it and indicates the direction we need to follow in order to glimpse its hidden essence.