82 ELUCIDATIONS OF HOLDERLIN'S POETRY

domain of reality "above" them. Nature is higher than "the" gods. She, "the
powerful;' is still capable of something other than the gods: as the
clearing, in her everything can frst be present. Holderlin names nature
the holy because she is "older than the ages and above the gods;' Thus,
"holiness" is in no way a property borrowed from a determinate god. The
holy is not holy because it is divine; rather the divine is divine because in
its way it is "holy"; for Holderlin also call-<?s" "holy" in this stanza.
The holy is the essence of naturcbreakingd;na-fir unveils her
essence in awakening.
And from high aether down to the abyss,
According to frm law, as once, begotten out of holy Chaos,
Inspiration, the all-creative,
Again feels herself anew.
This "and" which follows "awakening" does not lead to anything else
that would perhaps take place outside of the awakening, for instance, as its
consequence. The "and" initiates an essential unveiling of nature as what
is awakening. In awakening, nature comes to herself. Inspired, she feels
herself anew, "the all-creative;' And that is now the name for all-present
nature. The clear lets everything emerge into its appearance and illumina
tion, so that everything real, set afame by it, will stand in its own contour
and measure. Thus distinguished in its own essence, all that appears is
irradiated by spirit: in-spired. As the all-present, all-creative one, nature
in-spires everything. She herself is inspiration. She can in-spire only
because she is "spirit." SpiritlQids_,': as the sober, thogl_daring, set
ting-apart-frome-another which sets everythin that comes to pres
ence into the well-delineated boundaries and structures of its presence.
Such a setting apart is essential thinking. The unique elements "of the
spirit" are the "thoughts" through which everything, even what is set apart
from one another, precisely belongs together. Spirit is the unifying unity.
This unity lets the togetherness of everything real appear in its collected
ness. The spirit is therefore essentially, in its "thoughts," the "communal
spirit." The "communal spirit" is the spirit in the fashion of inspiration,
'}5 When On a Holiday ... "
which embraces all that appears in the unity of the all-present. The all
present herself has in her inspiration the kind of presence that arises and
awakens. In awakening, nature comes to herself and is in harmony with
herself. Since nature is herself primordial and prior to everything, she feels
primordially, that is, feels herself "anew;'
The open in which everything has its coming to presence and
enduring towers over the realm of all domains. That is why the awakening
holds sway "fom high aether down to the abyss." "Aether" ishenaxnefr
thefHh'!the all-enli:!ingnil1g_aymeans the
all-enclosing which is b;n-oy"mother earth." ''ethe;' and "abyss" espe
c.lY th-iost extreme d(iains6fre but also the supreme
dlties.1othareihoroughly spirifualized by inspiration. Inspiration
does not stray, like a blind intoxicatiOn, into arbitrariness. It is
According to frm law, as once, begotten out of holy Chaos
Everything that is real is joined together by nature into its main essen
tial lines. The fundamental traits of the Al unfold themselves, in tat
"spirit" appears in the real, and what is spiritual is refected in spirit. In
addition, immortals and mortals must meet; both must always maintain
their relation to the real in their own way. Any individual actuality in all
its connections is possible only if before all else nature grants the open,
within which immortals and mortals and all things are able to encounter
each other. TQe open mediates the connections between all actual things.
These latter are nsnttilylec'ause-ofuchmediation, n(Care thr
fore mediated. \'at is mediated in that way only is by virtue of mediat
edness. Thus, mediatedness must be present in all. The open itself, how
ever, though it frst gives the region for all belonging-to and -with each
;
other, does not arise fom any mediation. The open itself is the imme-
'diate. Nothing mediated, be it a god or a man, is ever capable of directly
attaining . Ie,_irmediate. Glacing into c-seaal.i -
H8rdlirecognizes fehis thought the signifcance of an early frag
ment by Pindar (Schroder no. 169):