Hyperion

by Friedrich Holderlin

  Silence! Silence! It was my most beautiful dream, my first and my last. You are too proud to concern yourself further with this villainous race. And you are right in this. You led them to freedom, and they thought of robbery. You lead them triumphantly into their ancient Lacedaemon, and these monsters plunder, and you are cursed by your father, great son! and no wilderness, no cave is safe enough for you on this Greek soil that you respected like a holy shrine, that you loved more than me.

  O my Hyperion! I am no longer the gentle maiden since I have known all of this. The indignation drives me upward so that I can hardly see to earth, and my offended heart trembles incessantly.

  We will part. You are right. And I want no children; for I would not bestow them on the world of slaves, and the poor plants would wither away before my eyes in this drought.

  Farewell! you dear youth! go where it seems worth the effort to surrender your soul. The world should well have one battlefield, one sacrificial altar where you may disburden yourself. It would be a shame if the good powers all faded away like a dream. Yet however you come to your end, you return to the gods, return into the holy, free, youthful life of nature, whence you came, and that is your longing and also mine.

  So she wrote to me. I was shaken to the marrow, full of terror and pleasure, and yet I sought to compose myself so as to find words for a reply.

  You consent, Diotima? I wrote, you approve of my renunciation? you could understand it? – Faithful soul! you could reconcile yourself to it? Even to my dark vagaries you could reconcile yourself, heavenly patience! and you surrendered yourself, darkened your spirit out of love, happy bosom-child of nature! and became like me, and through your assent hallowed my mourning? Beautiful heroine! what crown did you earn?

  But now let there be enough of mourning, you dear maiden! You have followed me into my night, now come! and let me follow you to your light, let us return to your grace, beautiful heart! O let me see your calm again, blessed nature! let my excess fall asleep forever before your image of peace.

  Is it not true, you dear maiden! that my return is not yet too late, and you will take me back, and can love me again as before? is it not true that the happiness of past days is not yet lost to us?

  I have pushed things to the extreme. I have behaved quite ungratefully toward the motherly earth, have squandered like a serf’s wage my blood and all the gifts of love that she has given me, and O! how many times more ungrateful have I been toward you, you holy maiden! who once took me into her peace, me, a shy, shattered being, out of whose deeply wrung heart scarcely a glimmer of youth stole, as here and there a blade of grass steals up from trodden paths. Had you not called me into life? was I not yours? how, then, could I – O you do not yet know, I hope, do not yet have the unhappy letter in your hands that I wrote to you before the last battle? I wanted to die then, Diotima, and believed I was doing holy work. But how can that be holy which parts lovers? how can that be holy which destroys the pious happiness of our life? – Diotima! life born beautiful! I have now become all the more similar to you in your most unique being, I have finally learned to respect, I have learned to preserve what is good and inmost on earth. O even if I could land up there on the shining islands of the heavens, would I find more than I find with Diotima?

  Hear me now, beloved!

  I shall remain in Greece no longer. That you know. When he banished me, my father sent me enough of his affluence for us to flee into a holy valley of the Alps or Pyrenees and to purchase there a pleasant house and also as much green earth as life’s golden moderation requires.

  If you wish, then I will come at once, and will lead you and your mother on my faithful arm, and we will kiss Calaurea’s shore and dry away our tears and hasten across the Isthmus into the Adriatic sea, where a safe ship will bring us onward.

  O come! in the depths of the mountain world, the secret of our heart will repose like the precious stone in the mine; in the bosom of the woods that tower into the heavens, we will feel as among the pillars of the innermost temple, where the godless do not draw near, and we will sit by the wellspring regarding our world in its mirror, the sky and house and garden and ourselves. Often we will stroll on a clear night in the shade of our orchard and hearken to the god in us, the loving god, while the plant raises its bowed head from its midday slumber, and the silent life of your flowers is refreshed when they bathe their tender arms in dew, and the cooling night air breathes around them and penetrates them, and above us the meadow of the heavens blooms with all its twinkling flowers, and to the side the moonlight, behind westerly clouds, shyly imitates the descent of the sun-youth, as if out of love – and then in the morning when, like a riverbed, our valley fills with warm light, and the golden current runs quietly through our trees and flows around our house and enhances the beauty of the lovely rooms, your creation, for you, and you walk in its sunny radiance and, in your grace, bless the day for me, dear maiden! when, as we thus celebrate the bliss of morning, the earth’s bustling life ignites before our eyes like a burnt offering, and we go to it, to cast our day’s work, to cast our part too, into the rising flame, will you not say then: We are happy, we are again like the ancient priests of nature, the holy and joyful ones who were already pious before a temple stood.

  Have I said enough? decide now my destiny, dear maiden, and soon! – It is fortunate that I am still half an invalid ever since the last battle, and that I have not yet been discharged from my service; otherwise I could not remain, I would have to go forth myself, would have to ask, and that would not be good, that would mean besieging you. –

  O Diotima! anxious, foolish thoughts descend upon my heart, and yet – I cannot think that this hope, too, shall founder.

  Have you not become too great to return now to the happiness of the earth? does the fierce flame of spirit that was ignited by your suffering not consume all that is mortal in you?

  I know well that he who lightly quarrels with the world is reconciled with it even more lightly. But you, with the quiet of a child, you, so happy once in your high humility, Diotima! who will reconcile you when destiny offends you?

  Dear life! is there no more healing power for you in me? of all the tones of the heart, does none call you back any longer into human life where you once so wonderfully lingered in descended flight? O come, O remain in this twilight! This shadow-land is the element of love, and only here does melancholy’s quiet dew run from the heaven of your eyes.

  And do you no longer think of our golden days? the lovely, divinely melodious days? do they not whisper to you from all the groves of Calaurea?

  And see! so much has perished in me, and I have not many hopes left. Your image with its heavenliness I have saved like a household god from the fire. Our life, ours, is still intact in me. Should I now go and bury this too? Shall I go forth restlessly and aimlessly from one foreign ground to another? Is that why I have learned to love?

  O no! you my first and my last! You were mine, you will remain mine.

  HYPERION TO BELLARMIN

  I sat with Alabanda upon a hill of the region in lovely, warming sun, and the wind played with fallen leaves around us. The land was mute; only here and there in the forest resounded a toppling tree felled by a farmer, and beside us the transitory rain-fed stream murmured downward into the calm sea.

  I was virtually carefree; I now hoped to see my Diotima soon, to live with her soon in quiet happiness. Alabanda had talked me out of all my doubts; so sure was he himself about this. He, too, was serene; only in another sense. The future had no more power over him. O I did not know it; he was at the end of his joys; with all his rights to the world, with his whole triumphant nature, he saw himself useless, ineffectual and alone, and he let it happen as if he had lost a game played to while away the time.

  Now a messenger approached us. He brought us the discharge from military service that we had both requested from the Russian fleet, because for us there was nothing more to do that seemed worth the effort. I could now leave Paros whenever I wish
ed. And I was now healthy enough for travel. I did not want to wait for Diotima’s reply, I wanted to go forth to her, it was as if a god drove me to Calaurea. When Alabanda heard this from me, his color changed, and he gazed at me with melancholy. Is it so easy, he cried, for my Hyperion to forsake his Alabanda?

  Forsake? I said. How so?

  O you dreamers! he cried, do you then not see that we must part? How should I see it? I replied; you say nothing of it; and what I saw now and again in you that hinted at a parting I wanted to take as a mood, as an abundance of the heart –

  O I know it, he cried, this divine game of rich love that creates need for itself so as to unload itself of its plenitude, and I wish that it were thus with me, you good man! but this is in earnest!

  In earnest? I cried, but why?

  Because, my Hyperion, he said gently, I would not want to disturb your future happiness, because I must fear being near to Diotima. Believe me, it is risky to live around lovers, and a deedless heart, as mine now is, can hardly bear it.

  O good Alabanda! I said with a smile, how you misjudge yourself! You are not made of wax, and your steadfast soul does not leap so lightly beyond its bounds. For the first time in your life you are whimsical. You play the nurse here at my side, and one sees how little you were made for it. Sitting still has made you timid –

  You see? he cried. That is it precisely. Will I live more actively with you and Diotima? If it were another woman! but this Diotima! can I do otherwise? can I feel her with half my soul? she who is so deeply one – one divinely undivided life? Believe me, it is a childish endeavor to seek to see this being without love. You look at me as if you did not know me? Yet I have become foreign to myself in these last days, since her being has come so alive in me.

  O why can I not give her to you? I cried.

  Stop! he said. Do not console me, for here there is nothing to console. I am alone, alone, and my life is running out like an hourglass.

  Great soul! I cried, must it come to this with you?

  Be at peace! he said. I already began to wither when we found each other in Smyrna. Yes! when I was still a ship-boy, and my spirit and all my limbs became strong and swift on coarse fare, in brave work! When, in the clear air after a stormy night back then, I clung to the top of the mast under the fluttering flag and gazed after the sea birds over the shining depths, when in battle our furious ships often churned up the sea as the tooth of the boar churns up the earth, and I stood at my captain’s side with a clear gaze – then I lived, O then I lived! And long thereafter, when the young Tiniote encountered me on the shore of Smyrna, with his earnestness, with his love, and my hardened soul was thawed out again by the glances of the youth, and learned to love and to hold sacred all that is too good to be dominated, when I began a new life with him, and new, more soulful powers germinated in me for enjoyment of the world and for battle with it, then I hoped again – O! and all that I hoped and had was bound to you; I seized you, sought to drag you forcibly into my destiny, lost you, found you again, our friendship alone was my world, my worth, my glory; now that, too, is over, forever, and all my existence is in vain.

  But is that true? I replied with a sigh.

  True as the sun, he cried, but let it be! Everything is provided for.

  How so, my Alabanda? I said.

  Let me tell you, he said. I have never before spoken to you fully of a certain matter. And then – it also calms you and me a little when we speak of the past.

  Once I walked helplessly on the harbor of Trieste. The privateer on which I served had foundered several years earlier, and I had barely saved myself, along with a few others, on the shore of Seville. My captain had drowned, and my life and my sopping clothes were all that remained to me. I undressed and rested in the sunshine and dried the clothes on the shrubs. Then I walked onward along the street toward the city. Even before the gates, I saw cheerful society in the gardens; I entered and sang a merry Greek song. I did not know a sad one. I burned with shame and pain thus to display my misfortune. I was an eighteen-year-old boy, wild and proud, and hated like death to become an object of men. Forgive me, I said when I was finished with my song; I have just come from a shipwreck and for today know how to do no better service for the world than to sing to it. I had said that, as well as I could, in the Spanish language. A man with an excellent face approached me, gave me money, and, in our language, said with a smile: There! buy yourself a grindstone with that and learn to sharpen knives, and ramble thus on firm land. The advice pleased me. Sir! I will do precisely that, I replied. The others then amply showered me with gifts, and I left, and did what the man had advised me and wandered about for some time in Spain and France.

  What I experienced during this time, how my love of freedom was sharpened on the thousand forms of servitude, and how my courage to live and shrewd mind grew out of many hardships – this I have often told you with joy.

  I pursued my wandering, innocent day’s work with pleasure, yet it ultimately grew bitter for me.

  People took it for a mask, because I must not have looked common enough for it, they imagined that I pursued in secret a dangerous business, and in fact I was twice arrested. That induced me to give it up, and with the little money that I had earned, I set out on my return to the homeland from which I had once run away. I was soon in Trieste and wanted to travel down through Dalmatia. Then a sickness from the hard journey befell me, and my small wealth thereby vanished. So I walked sadly, half-recovered, on the harbor of Trieste. Suddenly the man stood before me who had once taken me under his wing on the shore of Seville. He was peculiarly delighted to see me again, told me that he often recalled me, and asked me how things had gone with me meanwhile. I told him everything. I see, he cried, that it was not in vain to send you for a while to the school of fate. You have learned to endure, now you shall set to work whenever you wish.

  The speech, his tone, his handshake, his countenance, his gaze – like a god’s power, they all struck my being, which, through much suffering, had now become more inflammable than ever, and I yielded.

  The man of whom I speak, Hyperion, was one of those whom you saw with me in Smyrna. On the following night, he initiated me into a solemn society. A shudder ran through me when I came into the hall and, upon my entrance, my companion pointed to the serious men and said: This is the League of Nemesis. Intoxicated by the great sphere of activity that opened up before me, I solemnly consecrated my blood and my soul to these men. Soon thereafter, the meeting was closed, to be resumed elsewhere years later, and each set out on the allotted path that he was to take through the world. I became associated with those whom you found with me several years later in Smyrna.

  The constraint under which I lived often tortured me, and I saw little of the great activities of the league, and my lust for deeds found scant nourishment. Yet all this did not suffice to make me capable of apostasy. My passion for you finally induced me to it. I have often told you that I was as if without air and sun when you were gone; and I had no other choice; I had to give up either you or my league. What I chose, you see.

  But all deeds of man have their punishment in the end, and only gods and children are not struck by Nemesis.

  I preferred the divine right of the heart. For the sake of my darling, I broke my oath. Was that not just? must not the noblest longing be the freest? – My heart took me at my word; I gave it freedom, and you see it needs it.

  Pay tribute to the Genius one time, and he heeds no more mortal hindrance for you, and tears all bonds of life in two for you.

  I broke my obligation for the sake of my friend, I would break friendship for the sake of love. For Diotima’s sake I would betray you, and ultimately murder myself and Diotima, because we would still not be one. But this shall not run its course; if I shall atone for what I did, then I will do it with freedom; I choose my own judges; those against whom I have transgressed shall have me.

  Do you speak of your brothers in the league? I cried; O my Alabanda! do not do that!

/>   What can they take from me but my blood? he replied. Then he grasped me gently by the hand. Hyperion! he cried, my time is out, and all that remains to me is a noble end. Let me go! do not make me small, and have faith in my word! I know as well as you do that I could still fabricate an existence for myself, could, since life’s meal is consumed, still play with the crumbs, but that is not for me; nor for you. Need I say more? Do I not speak to you from your soul? I thirst for air, for cooling, Hyperion! My soul seethes over of itself, and can be held no longer in the old circle. Soon the beautiful winter days are coming, when the dark earth is nothing more than the foil to the shining heavens, then would be a good time, then the islands of light gleam more hospitably anyhow! – this speech surprises you? Dearest! all who are departing speak like drunken men and enjoy behaving festively. When the tree begins to wilt, do not all its leaves bear the color of the red dawn?

  Great soul, I cried, must I bear pity for you?

  I felt in his exaltation how deeply he suffered. I had never experienced such woe in my life. And yet, O Bellarmin! yet I also felt the greatness of all joys to have such a divine image in my eyes and arms. Yes! then die, I cried, die! Your heart is glorious enough, your life is ripe as grapes on an autumn day. Go, perfected one! I would go with you if there were no Diotima.