Menon's Lament for Diotima

Friedrich Hölderlin

1 

Daily I go out, and seek another, always. 

All the paths of the land I have asked of her 

There above on the cooling hill, the shadows all I have visited 

And the streams; back and forth the spirit wanders 

Asking for peace; so flees the wounded beast into the forests 

Where otherwise it would rest at midday safe in the darkness 

But never will its green shelter spur its heart 

Crying out and sleepless it is driven forth by the thorn 

Not the warmth of the light, and not the cool of the night will help 

And in vain it immerses its wounds in the waves of the stream. 

And just as in vain the earth will pass to it the joyous healing plant 

And the seething blood will be stilled by none of the Zephyri 

So it is with you, my love! To me as well, will it thus appear, and no one 

Can take the sad dream from my brow? 

2 

Yeah. It does you no credit, you deathgods! When once 

You held him, and had him fast, the defeated and captive man, 

When you, evil ones, took him up into the terrible night, 

There to seek, to flee, to rage with you 

Or patiently but still in fearsome enchantment to live with you 

And with smiles to hear from you the sobering melody. 

If it is so, then forget your healing, and sleep without sound. 

And yet hoping a sound wells up in your breast 

Forever can you not, o my soul! Still you cannot 

Get used to it, and you dream in the middle of iron sleep. 

I have no festival time, and yet I would garland my hair; 

Am I then not alone? From faraway there must be 

Something friendly close to me, and I must smile and be amazed 

How blessed it is to me, also in the midst of pain. 

3 

Light of love! Do you shine to the dead as well, you golden. 

Do you shine pictures of a brighter time at me in the night? 

Lovely gardens be, you evening-red mountains 

Be welcome and you, silent paths of the meadow, 

Beget heavenly happiness and you high-seeing stars 

Who granted me so often then your blessing looks 

You, you lovers also, you lovely children of the Mayday 

Still roses and you lilies, I name you often. 

There the springtimes go forth, a year presses upon the other, 

Changing and conflicting, so does time roil up there 

Above the mortal head, but not before blessed eyes 

And to the loving is another life given 

For they all the days and years of the stars, they were 

Diotima! close around us and eternally united. 

4 

But we, contentedly joined, like the loving swans who 

When they rest upon the lake, or rock upon the waves, 

Look down into the waters, where sliver clouds mirror themselves, 

And ethereal blue moves beneath the shipping 

So upon the earth did we roam. And the north threatened as well 

He, the enemy of lovers, readying accusations, and fell 

The leaf from the branches, and flew the rain in the wind, 

Calmly we smiled, felt our own god 

In trusted conversation; in one soul song 

Completely at peace with ourselves childlike and joyfully alone 

But the house is deserted to me now, and my eyes they have 

Taken from me, myself too I have lost with her. 

Thus I must wander around, and probably, like the shadows, so must I 

Live, and long think senseless what is left to me. 

5 

I want to celebrate; but what for? and sing with others 

But so lonely is every godly absent me 

This is it, this my crime, I know, it paralyzes my curse 

Around the longing, and tosses me where I begin, 

That I sit numb throughout the day, and mute like the children 

Only more often do the tears slip cold from my eyes. 

And the plants of the fields, and the singing of the birds make me dull 

For they are with joy also the messengers of heaven 

But in my shivering breast the inspired sun, 

Darkens to me cool and barren, like the rays of the night. 

Ah, void and empty, like prison walls, the sky 

Hangs a bending weight above my head. 

6 

I knew it differently once! O youth and will prayers 

Not bring you back, you never? Does no path lead me back? 

Is it to become of me as well, as of the godless, who once 

With radiance of eye also sat at the blessed table 

But soon glutted, the rapturing guests, 

Now fell silent, and now, under the song of the air 

Under the blooming earth sleep away, until someday them 

The power of a miracle forces them the sleeping, 

To return and walk upon the greening ground anew. 

Holy breath streams godly through the light shape 

When the festival inspires itself, and the waters of love rain themselves 

And from heaven drunk, the living river roars, 

When down there it resounds, and the night counts her treasures 

And up from the streams the buried gold shines. 

7. 

O but you, who already on the path of parting then 

That I sank down before you pointed comfortingly to the beautiful 

You, the great to see, and more joyfully to sing the gods, 

Quiet like them once silently inspiring taught me 

Child of the Gods! you appear to me, and greet me as before 

Do you speak again, as then, to me of higher things? 

See! I must cry before you, and complain, even now 

Thinking of nobler times, for which the soul shames itself. 

For so long, so long upon the dull paths of the earth 

Have I lived of yours, sought you in error 

Joyful spirit of protection! But in vain, and the years ran out 

Since intimatingly we saw the evenings shine around us. 

8 

Only you, you will your light preserve, o Heroine! In light 

And your patience lovingly keeps, o Kindness, you.; 

And not once will you be alone; playmates are enough 

Where you bloom and rest among the roses of the year. 

And the father, he himself, through softly breathing muses 

Sends the tender lullabies to you . 

Yes! She is still it completely. Still from head to foot 

Silently changing, as before, the Athenian floats before me. 

And as, friendly spirit! from a joyfully-sensing brow 

Blessing and sure your beam falls among the mortals 

So you witnessed it to me, and told me it, that I would to others 

Tell it again, for the others also do not believe it, 

That more undying still, than care and rage, is joy 

And a golden day is daily still at an end. 

9 

Thus I want, you heavenly one! also to thank, and finally 

Breathe from a lighter breast again the singer's prayer. 

And as, when with her I, upon the sunny hill stood with her 

A god speaks to me enlivening from within the temple 

I want life then too! Already it greens. As from a holy lyre 

It calls out from the silver mountains of Apollo. 

Come! It was a dream. The bleeding wings are 

Already healed, the hopes live rejuvenated all 

To find greatness is much, but much is left, and who so 

Did love, goes, he must, goes the road to the gods. 

Accompany us, you hours of consecration! you earnest 

Youthfulness. O stay, holy intimations, you 

Pious requests. And you inspirations and all you 

Good geniuses, who are gladly with lovers 

Stay so long with us, until we on common ground 

There, where the blessed all are ready to return 

There where the eagles are, constellations, the messengers of the father 

There where the muses, from where the heroes and lovers are 

There or also here upon the thousand islands accompany us 

Where Ours blooming first joined together in the garden 

Where the songs true, and the springs are longer beautiful 

And from anew a year of our soul begins.

* * *

A single summer grant me, great powers, and

a single autumn for fully ripened song

that, sated with the sweetness of my

playing, my heart may more willingly die.

The soul that, living, did not attain its divine

right cannot repose in the nether world.

But once what I am bent on, what is

holy, my poetry, is accomplished:

Be welcome then, stillness of the shadows’ world!

I shall be satisfied though my lyre will not

accompany me down there. Once I

lived like the gods, and more is not needed.” 

* * *

“All the fruit is ripe, plunged in fire, cooked,

And they have passed their test on earth, and one law is this:

That everything curls inward, like snakes,

Prophetic, dreaming on

The hills of heaven. And many things

Have to stay on the shoulders like a load

of failure. However the roads

Are bad. For the chained elements,

Like horses, are going off to the side,

And the old

Laws of the earth. And a longing

For disintegration constantly comes. Many things however

Have to stay on the shoulders. Steadiness is essential.

Forwards, however, or backwards we will

Not look. Let us learn to live swaying

As in a rocking boat on the sea.”