Patmos

By Scott Horton

for the Landgrave of Homburg

By Friedrich Hölderlin

God is near

Yet hard to seize.

Where there is danger,

The rescue grows as well.

Eagles live in the darkness,

And the sons of the Alps

Go fearlessly over the abyss

Upon bridges simply built.

Therefore, since the peaks

Of Time are heaped all about,

And dear ones live close by,

Worn down on the most separated mountains —

Then give us innocent waters;

Give us wings, and the truest minds

To voyage over and then again to return.

Thus I spoke, when faster

Than I could imagine a spirit

In the twilight

Seduced me out of my own home

To a place I never thought I’d visit.

The shaded forests and longing

Streams of my homeland.

I couldn’t recognize the lands,

but then suddenly

In fresh a glow, mysterious

In the golden haze, quickly emerging

In the steps of the sun,

With the fragrance of a thousand peaks,

Asia rose before me, and dazzled

I searched for something

Familiar, since the broad alleyways

Were unknown to me: where the gold-ornamented

Patoklos comes rushing down from Tmolus,

Where Taurus is to be found, and Messogis,

And the gardens are full of flowers,

Like a quiet fire. Up above

In the light the silver snow

Blooms, and ivy grows from ancient

Times on the inapproachable walls,

Like a witness to immortal life,

While the joyous, the god-built palaces

Are borne by living columns

Of cypress, cedar and laurel.

But around Asia’s gates

Swish pulling here and there

At an uncertain sea level

With enough unshaded straits,

Though the sailor knows these islands.

And when I heard,

that one of these close by

Was Patmos, I wanted very much

To put in there, to enter

The dark grotto. For unlike

Cyprus, rich with springs,

Or any of the others, Patmos

Is housed on earth poorly,

But nevertheless is hospitable

And if a stranger should come to her,

Sent by shipwrecked or longing for

His home or for a departed friend,

She’ll gladly listen, and her

Offspring as well, the voices

In the hot grove, so that where sands blow

and heat cracks the tops of the fields,

They hear him, these voices,

And lovingly sound the man’s grief.

Thus she once looked after

The seer who was loved by god,

Who in his holy youth

Had walked together inseparably

With the Son of the Highest,

Because the Bringer-of-Storms loved

The simplicity of this disciple.

Thus did that attentive man observe

The countenance of the god precisely,

There at the mystery of the grapevine,

Where they sat together at the hour

Of the Last Supper, when the Lord with

His great spirit quietly envisioning His

Own death, and forespoke it and also

His final act of love, for He always

Had words of kindness to speak,

Even then in His prescience,

To soften the violence and wildness of the world.

For all is good. Then He died. Much

Could be said about it. At the end

His friends recognized how filled with joy

He appeared, how victorious.

And yet the men grieved, now that evening

Had come, and were taken by surprise,

Since they were full of great intentions,

And loved living under the sun,

And didn’t want to leave the countenance

Of the Lord, and of their home.

It penetrated them like fire into iron,

And the One they love walked beside them

Like a shadow. Therefore He sent

The Spirit upon them, and the house

Shook and God’s house and weather rolled

Over their heads, filled with anticipation, while

They were gathered with heavy hearts,

Like heroes whose death approached,

Then once more He appeared to them

At his departure. For now

The royal day of the sun

Was extinguished, as he cast

The shining scepter from himself,

With godlike suffering, but knowing

He would come again at the right time.

It would have been wrong

To cut off disloyally His work

The work of humankind, since now it brought Him joy

To live on in loving night, to preserve

Before simple eyes, unrelated

The depths of wisdom. Deep in the

Mountains grew also living images,

Yet it is terrible how God here and there

Scatters the living, and how very far they are flung.

And how fearsome it was to leave

The sight of dear friends and walk off

Alone far over the mountains, where

The Holy Spirit was twice

Recognized, in unity.

It hadn’t been prophesied to them:

Rather it seized them right by the hair

Just at the moment when the God

Who had turned from them, looked back, and they called out to Him

To stop, and they reached their hands to

One another as if bound by a golden cord,

And called it evil —

But when He dies —He about whom beauty hangs

Loved most of all, so that a miracle

Surrounded him, and he was the

Elect of the heavens —

And when those who lived together

Thereafter in His memory, became

Perplexed and no longer understood

One another; and when floods carry off

The sand and willows and temples,

And when the fame of the demi-god

And His disciples is blown away

And even the Highest turns aside his

Countenance, so that nothing

Immortal can be seen either

In heaven or upon the green earth —

What meaning must we take from all of this?

It is the cast of the sower, as he seizes

Wheat with his shovel

Throwing it into the clear air,

Swinging it across the threshing floor.

The chaff falls to his feet, but

The grain emerges in the end.

It’s not bad if some of it gets lost,

Or if the sounds of His living speech

Fade away. For the divine work

resembles our own:

The Highest doesn’t want all to be

Accomplished at once.

As mines yield iron,

And Ætna its glowing haze,

Then I’d have wealth sufficient

To form a picture of Him and see

What he was, the Christ.

But if somebody spurred himself on

Along the road and, speaking sadly,

Fell upon me and surprised me, so that

Like a servant I’d make an image of the God —

Once I saw the lords

Of heaven visibly angered, not

That I wanted to become something different,

But that I wanted to learn something more.

The lords are kind, but while they reign

They hate falsehood most, when humans become

Inhuman. For not they, but undying Fate

It is that rules, and their work

Transforms itself and quickly reaches an end.

When the heavenly triumph proceeds higher.

Then the joyful Son of the Highest

Is called like the sun by the strong,

As a watchword, like the staff of a song

That points downwards,

For nothing is ordinary. It awakens

The dead, those raised incorruptible.

And many are waiting whose eyes are

Still too shy to see the light directly.

They wouldn’t do well in the sharp

Ray: a golden bridle

Holds back their courage.

But when quiet radiance falls

From the Holy Scripture, with

The world forgotten and their eyes

Swollen, then they may enjoy that grace,

And study the quiet image.

And if the heavens love me,

As I now believe,

Then how much more

Do they love you.

For I know one thing:

That the will of the eternal Father

Concerns you greatly.

Under a thundering sky

His sign is silent.

And there is One who stands

Beneath it all his life.

For Christ still lives.

But the heroes, all his sons

Have come, and the Holy Scriptures

Concerning Him and the lightening,

Explain the deeds of the Earth up to this day,

Like a footrace that knows no end.

And He is with us too, for his works and all

Known to Him from the very beginning.

For far too long

The honor of the heavens

Has gone unseen.

They practically have to

Guide our fingers as we write,

And with embarrassment the power

Is ripped from our hearts.

For every heavenly being

Expects a sacrifice,

And when this is neglected,

Nothing good can come of it.

Without awareness we’ve served at the feet of

Our Mother Earth, and the Light

Of the Sun as well, but what our Father

Who reigns over everything wants most

Is that the established Word be

Caringly attended, and that

Which endures be construed well.

German song must accord with this.

–S.H. transl. Text follows: Friedrich Hölderlin, Patmos in: Sämtliche Werke und Briefe, vol. 1, p. 379-385 (Hanser ed. 1970).