Hölderlin: "Reif sind..." (Ripe are the fruits)

.

Pinax of Persephone and Hades on the throne, found in the holy shrine of Persephone at Locri in the district Mannella. Locri was part of Magna Graecia and is situated on the coast of the Ionian Sea in Calabria, Italy: image by AlMare, September 2002 (Museo Nazionale Archeologico, Reggio Di Calabria, Italy)

Ripe are, dipped in fire, cooked

The fruits and proved upon the earth and an Order it is

That all must enter in, as snakes,

Prophetic, dreaming upon

The hills of heaven. And much

As on the bent shoulders

A load of logs

Must be retained. But evil are

The ways. For errantly

Like wild horses, run the constrained

Elements and the ancient

Orders of the earth. And always

Toward unboundedness goes out longing. Much however must

Be retained. And fidelity is required.

Forward however nor back will

We look. And allow ourselves to be rocked, like

A light boat at sea.

Pinax of Persephone opening the "Liknon Mystikon", found and in the holy shrine of Persephone at Locri in the district Mannella. Locri was part of Magna Graecia and is situated on the coast of the Ionian Sea in Calabria, Italy: image by AlMare, September 2002 (Museo Nazionale Archeologico, Reggio Di Calabria, Italy)

While... Hölderlin's technique, which is tempered by Greek, is not lacking in boldly formed hypotactic constructions, still the parataxes are striking -- artificial disturbances that evade the logical hierarchy of a subordinating syntax. Hölderlin is irresistibly drawn to such constructions. The transformation of language into a serial order whose elements are linked differently than in the judgment is musiclike.

-- Theodor Adorno: Parataxis: On Hölderlin's Late Poetry, a talk given at the annual conference of the Hölderlin-Gesellschaft, Berlin, 7 June 1963; revised version first published in Die Neue Rundschau, 1964; translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen in Theodor Adorno: Notes to Literature, Volume Two, 1992

Friedrich Hölderlin: "Reif sind..." (Ripe are the fruits), Hymnal Draft for Mnemosyne (Third Version), 1803 or 1805/1806 [?], trans. by TC