“None of the Living Was Closed from His Soul”: A Translation of, and Commentary on, Hölderlin’s Poem “To My Venerable Grandmother. On Her 72nd Birthday”

Abstract

Amidst Hölderlin’s many well-known odes, elegies, and hymns, it is perhaps not surprising that Hölderlin’s occasional poem “To my Venerable Grandmother. On her 72nd Birthday” (Meiner verehrungswürdigen Grosmutter. Zu ihrem 72sten Geburtstag) has been translated into English only once and in an obscure self-published edition. Yet the poem is rich in Hölderlin’s distinctive diction and syntax, it reveals much about Hölderlin’s aspirations for himself, and it contains one of his deepest sets of reflections on Christ. Still, the poem is often overlooked. But once one reflects on its content, with its multiple attempts to name Christ, including his friendship to the earth and his knowing no strangers, one can readily see why Pope Francis elevated this poem as one of his favorite literary works. This publication presents the first accessible translation of the poem (I), after which I offer some commentary on its form, individual lines, and the translation (II). I then turn to the period of his writing the poem (III). I conclude with a few additional thoughts on Hölderlin and religion (IV).

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) is one of the greatest of German poets. He wrote a beautiful and complex epistolary novel Hyperion (1797–99), an ambitious tragedy fragment Empedokles (written 1797–1800), and various philosophical and poetological essays. He also undertook translations, primarily from Pindar and Sophocles. But Hölderlin is known above all for his poems, including odes, elegies, and hymns, some in classical meters and others in free rhythms. They are lyrical, philosophical, and often elusive; a dominant motif is the longing for harmony, which is not always achieved. Only in the 20th century did his reputation rise to the highest levels. What sets him apart are several things, including the remarkable beauty and complexity of his language, both diction and syntax; the existential depth of his poems; and their deeply complex religious and philosophical layers.

Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of translations of his poetry. But there is at least one poem for which no translation can be found in easily obtainable editions.1 The work is even omitted from at least one edition of Hölderlin’s Gesammelte Werke (Hölderlin 2008). At the end of 1798, an important time for Hölderlin, the poet wrote an occasional poem (Gelegenheitsgedicht) for his grandmother “To my Venerable Grandmother. On her 72nd Birthday” (Meiner verehrungswürdigen Grosmutter. Zu ihrem 72sten Geburtstag). Only one English translation of the work exists, composed by Emery George and published with George’s personal publishing house, Kylix Press (George 2012, p. 181). According to WorldCat, fewer than a dozen U.S. libraries own the work.

This relatively neglected poem is rich in Hölderlin’s distinctive diction and syntax, it reveals much about Hölderlin’s aspirations for himself, and it contains one of the poet’s deeper reflections on Christ. Still, the poem is often overlooked. But once one reflects on its content, with its multiple attempts to name Christ, including his befriending the earth and knowing no strangers, one can readily see why Pope Francis elevated the poem in 2013 as one of his favorite literary works (Spadaro 2013). In an interview conducted the year of his election, Pope Francis lifted up Hölderlin and this very poem: “I have really loved a diverse array of authors. I love very much Dostoevsky and Hölderlin. I remember Hölderlin for that poem written for the birthday of his grandmother that is very beautiful and was spiritually very enriching for me. The poem ends with the verse, ‘May the man hold fast to what the child has promised.’ I was also impressed because I loved my grandmother Rosa, and in that poem Hölderlin compares his grandmother to the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, the friend of the earth who did not consider anybody a foreigner”.

Hölderlin’s poem for his grandmother has not been analyzed in depth, even by those who focus on Hölderlin and his family or on Hölderlin and Christ.2 Beyond its religious dimensions, the poem contains a self-reflection by a cerebral and sensitive poet. Indeed, Hölderlin wrote it around the time he wrote two of his most meaningful and longest letters. I present the poem here, in German (Sämtliche Werke 1.1:272–73), and then in translation (I), after which I offer some commentary on its form, individual lines, and the translation (II). I then turn to the period of his writing the poem (III). I conclude with a few additional thoughts on Hölderlin and religion (IV).

I

• Meiner verehrungswürdigen Grosmutter
• Zu ihrem 72sten Geburtstag

• 1      Vieles hast du erlebt, du theure Mutter! und ruhst nun
•                Glüklich, von Fernen und Nah’n liebend beim Namen genannt,
•         Mir auch herzlich geehrt in des Alters silberner Krone
•                Unter den Kindern, die dir reifen und wachsen und blühn.
• 5      Langes Leben hat dir die sanfte Seele gewonnen
•                Und die Hoffnung, die dich freundlich in Leiden geführt.
•         Denn zufrieden bist du und fromm, wie die Mutter, die einst den
•                Besten der Menschen, den Freund unserer Erde, gebar. --
•         Ach! sie wissen es nicht, wie der Hohe wandelt im Volke,
• 10           Und vergessen ist fast, was der Lebendige war.
•         Wenige kennen ihn doch und oft erscheinet erheiternd
•                Mitten in stürmischer Zeit ihnen das himmlische Bild.
•         Allversöhnend und still mit den armen Sterblichen gieng er,
•                Dieser einzige Mann, göttlich im Geiste, dahin.
• 15    Keines der Lebenden war aus seiner Seele geschlossen
•                Und die Leiden der Welt trug er an liebender Brust.
•         Mit dem Tode befreundet er sich, im Nahmen der andern
•                Gieng er aus Schmerzen und Müh’ siegend zum Vater zurük.
•         Und du kennest ihn auch, du theure Mutter! und wandelst
• 20            Glaubend und duldend und still ihm, dem Erhabenen, nach.
•         Sieh! es haben mich selbst verjüngt die kindlichen Worte,
•                Und es rinnen, wie einst, Thränen vom Auge mir noch;
•         Und ich denke zurük an längst vergangene Tage,
•                Und die Heimath erfreut wieder mein einsam Gemüth,
• 25    Und das Haus, wo ich einst bei deinen Seegnungen aufwuchs,
•                Wo, von Liebe genährt, schneller der Knabe gedieh.
•         Ach! wie dacht’ ich dann oft, du solltest meiner dich freuen,
•                Wann ich ferne mich sah wirkend in offener Welt.
•         Manches hab’ ich versucht und geträumt und habe die Brust mir
• 30             Wund gerungen indeß, aber ihr heilet sie mir,
•        O ihr Lieben! und lange, wie du, o Mutter! zu leben
•                 Will ich lernen; es ist ruhig das Alter und fromm.
•         Kommen will ich zu dir; dann seegne den Enkel noch Einmal,
•                  Daß dir halte der Mann, was er, als Knabe, gelobt.

• To my Venerable Grandmother on her 72nd Birthday

• 1      You have experienced much, you, dear mother! And now you rest
•                Happy, from those near and far lovingly called by name,
•         I, too, warmly honor you in the silver crown of age
•                Among the children who ripen and grow and blossom for you.
• 5      Long life has won you the gentle soul
•                And the hope that led you graciously in suffering.
•         For you are content and pious, like the mother who once bore the
•                Best of humans, the friend of our earth. -
•         Alas! They know not how the High One walked among the people,
• 10           And almost forgotten is what the Living One was.
•         Few know him, but, often in the midst of stormy times
•                Appears breathtakingly to them the heavenly image.
•         All-reconciling and peacefully with the poor mortals he walked,
•                This singular man, divine in spirit.
• 15    None of the living was closed from his soul,
•                And the sufferings of the world he bore on his loving breast.
•         He befriended death, in the name of others,
•                From pain and toil he went back to the Father victorious.
•         And you know him, too, you, dear mother! And walk
• 20         Believing and suffering and peacefully following him, the Exalted One.
•         See! I myself have been rejuvenated by the childlike words,
•                And tears, as before, still flow from my eyes;
•         And I think back to days long past,
•                And home again delights my lonely mind,
• 25    And the house where I once grew up among your blessings,
•                Where, healed by love, the boy grew more quickly.
•         Oh! how I often thought then, you should rejoice in me,
•                When I saw myself active far beyond in the open world.
•         Many a thing have I tried and dreamt and in the process
• 30    Wrung my wounded breast, but you heal it for me,
•         O dear ones! And to live long, like you, O mother!
•                I want to learn; old age is tranquil and pious.
•         I want to come to you; then bless the grandson once more,
•                That the man may keep for you, what he, as a boy, vowed.

II

Hölderlin’s poem can be divided into three parts. The first six lines salute the grandmother for her long life. Line 7 begins a transition to the grandmother being like Mary, which leads to the second part, 13 lines that evoke the divinity and humanity of Christ. The very middle line of the poem, line 17 out of 34, recalls Christ’s death on behalf of humanity. The poem then transitions back to the grandmother, whose recognition of Christ is uncommon. Thus begin the final 14 lines, which turn more directly to the poet, whose struggles are recalled, and to the poet’s promise, inspired and guided by the grandmother, who knows Christ.

The poem consists of elegiac distichs. The first line of each couplet is a dactylic hexameter, which involves six feet of dactyls. Dactyls consist of one long and two short syllables (in Greek or Latin) or a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (in German or English). In the original Greek and Latin hexameter, any of the first four of the six dactyls could be replaced by spondees. The substitution of a dactyl by a spondee, with the original long syllable followed by another long syllable, was deemed equal in length to a dactyl, as one long syllable was equivalent to two short syllables. In German, however, where metrics rely on stress rather than vowel length (unlike in Greek and Latin) and where spondees are more challenging to construct, trochees are often used in place of spondees. In line three, both a spondee (“Mir auch”) and a trochee (“Alters”) appear. These substitution options provide poets with flexibility and offer readers metrical variety. Each hexameter ends with a catalectic dactyl, a shortened dactyl consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.

The second indented line of every couplet tends to be called a dactylic pentameter. However, the term is misleading, as the second line of the distich actually contains six dactylic feet like the hexameter. The appearance of a pentameter comes from the third and sixth feet being programmatically catalectic, featuring single stressed syllables. As with the hexameter, the first two dactyls in the pentameter can be replaced with spondees or trochees. The third dactyl, being catalectic, stands next to the fourth complete dactyl. The break between the two stressed syllables is known as a diaeresis or separation and is more loosely referred to as a caesura. The twofold stress, broken by the short pause, gives the line a rhythm that differs from the more fluid hexameter. Moreover, in each case the pause allows for emphasis, tension, or in some cases a reflective, searching, elegiac pause. The metrical pattern is visible, for example, in lines 2 and 4, with the stresses in these lines placed in bold, and the diaeresis marked by two vertical lines:

Vieles hast du erlebt, du theure Mutter! und ruhst nun

    Glüklich, von Fernen und Nah’n||liebend beim Namen genannt,

Mir auch herzlich geehrt in des Alters silberner Krone

    Unter den Kindern die dir||reifen und wachsen und blühn.

The reader feels a slight pause at the diaresis after “Nah’n” and after “dir”. The pause adds weight and meaning to the word before the pause and in some cases also the word after the pause, as is strongly the case in line 2, with liebend (lovingly). The second line of the couplet ends, via the catalexis, with a single stressed syllable.

The standard metrical pattern then, is, as follows, whereby stresses are marked by a horizontal bar, unstressed syllables by a u, and feet by a vertical line. The parentheses indicate the option for truncation into trochees, although spondees can be used as well.

– u(u)|– u(u)|– u(u)|– u(u)|– uu|– u

– u(u)|– u(u)|–|| – uu|– uu|–

Greek and Latin epic poetry was composed in dactylic hexameter, but this meter is used in other genres as well, for example, in philosophical poetry, as in Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura) and in Roman satire. The form is uncommon in English, a rare exception being Longfellow’s “Evangeline”. Many more examples exist in the German language, including Klopstock’s “Messiah” (Der Messias), Schiller’s “The Walk” (Der Spaziergang), and Goethe’s “Euphrosone”.3 Hölderlin uses elegiac distichs often, including, for example, in “Menon’s Lament for Diotima” (Menons Klagen um Diotima) and “Bread and Wine” (Brod und Wein). In 1828, long before Hölderlin would gain wider reception, the Romantic writer Achim von Arnim described Hölderlin as “the greatest of all German elegiac poets” ([den] größten aller elegischen Dichter der Deutschen) (Arnim 1828, p. 123).

Hölderlin’s love of antiquity and his use of ancient forms is a mark of classicism, but Hölderlin is not truly classic, nor is he truly romantic, though, like many romantic writers, his works are often marked by alienation and longing. The elegiac form is particularly fitting for this poem. First, the life expectancy for Hölderlin’s grandmother would have been no more than 40 years (Imhof 1990, p. 209). Hölderlin is looking back at a life coming to an end. Second, the poem is elegiac in Schiller’s distinctive sense of the term. In 1795, just a few years earlier, Schiller had published On Naive and Sentimental Poetry (Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung), which strongly influenced Hölderlin. Schiller’s categories of the naive and the sentimental (and within the sentimental the elegiac, satiric, and idyllic) animate the structure of Hölderlin’s novel, Hyperion, which appeared in two volumes in 1797 and 1799 (Dynamic Stillness, Roche 1987, pp. 63–139). Schiller notes two primary modes of the sentimental: the elegiac, with its mourning for a distant past or longing for an idealized future, and the satiric, which stresses the inadequacies of the real in relation to an implicit ideal. In this poem we see moments of both. This is not bitter satire, as we see in Juvenal, but it is nonetheless a lament over the inadequacy of reality. Finally, accentuated by a dominance of dactyls and trochees, the elegiac gives the reader a sense of sadness, loss, lament. The grandmother’s past is coming to an end, and the poet’s future promise is longed for, but not yet realized.

Here are some additional notes and commentary. The numbers correspond to lines in the poem:

1.

The grandmother is praised as having earned rest or repose, terms associated with old age, though they also have substantial religious resonance. Ruhe or stillness has a long and deep history in Christianity, especially in mysticism and pietism (Langen 1968). Hölderlin speaks elsewhere of “heilige Ruhe” (sacred stillness) and “göttlicher Friede” (divine peace) (Sämtliche Werke 3:8; 3:51). For Hölderlin quietude is a presupposition for nearness to God. The idea of repose will surface again toward the end of the poem.

2.

The allusion to “near and far” is typical of Hölderlin’s fondness for dichotomies and their higher union. The act of naming, in this case of the grandmother, has special resonance for the poet Hölderlin, as I outline below, especially in my commentary on line 20.

4.

The language of development draws on metaphors from nature, which are common in Hölderlin, whose love of nature ranges from the existential to the philosophical (Spinoza was one of his favorite philosophers), and it permeates his poetry. On Hölderlin’s reception of Spinoza, see for example, Roche, Dynamic Stillness (Roche 1987, pp. 93–95) and Wegenast (1990).

6.

“Suffering” and “hope” give readers another dichotomy, one that is softened by the adverb “friendly”.

7.

Here begins the parallel between the grandmother and Mary, the Mother of God. The comparison not only elevates the grandmother, it brings Mary down to earth. Hölderlin had a deep sense of the presence of God in this world, even when humans neglect to recognize the divine.

8.

Here commence the various attempts to name Christ, beginning with the “best of humans” and “the friend of the earth”. The singularity of Christ is evident in the double stress in the pentameter: den||Freund (the friend). The expression “friend of the earth” has at least three dimensions. First, God is not removed from this life, but here, among us, on earth. “Heaven and earth” is a frequent combination of Hölderlin’s (Otto Horch 1992, Wörterbuch 1:138–41; 2:113–16), and in the incarnation the two are bridged. Second, in identifying with the lowliest of the low, Christ is humbled. A link exists between incarnation and humilis (Auerbach 1952, p. 317). Having been born as a lowly servant was central to Christ’s identity (Phil. 2:7–8). The word “humility” comes from the Latin “humus”, meaning “ground”, “earth”, or “soil”. Finally, for Hölderlin, God is a friend of nature and the earth, which is itself imbued with the divine. Hyperion, for example, experiences on behalf of Hölderlin a religious awe for reality, which is interpreted as manifesting transcendent values and so participating in the divine. The divine presence in reality, especially nature, is evident in such expressions as “sacred earth” (heilige Erde), “sacred sea” (heiliges Meer), “sacred mountain heights” (heilige Bergeshöhe), “sacred days” (heilige Tage), “sacred stars” (heilige Sterne), “sacred light” (heiliges Licht), “sacred air” (heilige Luft), “the sacred forest” (das heilige Wald), “sacred sun” (heilige Sonne), “sacred flora” (heilige Pflanzenwelt), “sacred nature” (heilige Natur), “divine world” (göttliche Welt), and repeatedly “divine nature” (göttliche Natur), including also the Spinozistic expression “in the arms of our divinity, nature” (in den Armen unserer Gottheit, der Natur).4 This elevation of nature is also prominent in the poem “When I was a Boy…” (Da ich ein Knabe war…), which Hölderlin had just completed before writing the poem for his grandmother. Hölderlin elevates nature as an end in itself, and he offers us a poetic animation of the world, adopting from Greek antiquity a version of polytheism that sees God present all around us as well as in diverse concepts. The poet’s sense of religion has, then, a mythological and poetic dimension: each of these are windows onto divinity and its unfolding in this world. The interweaving of realms helps to explain Hölderlin’s deeply religious experience and elevation of nature, which is not unrelated to, even if it is not reducible to, Hölderlin’s reception of Spinoza, whom Hölderlin had read already in the early 1790s. Nature, like art, religion (both ancient and Christian), and philosophy, is a mode in which the divine can be experienced (Roche, “Die unverwechselbare Auffassung”). Hölderlin is open to these various moments of potential divinity without being overly concerned about theological orthodoxy.

9.

“Ach!” (“Ah”, “Alas”, or “Oh”) is an elegiac sigh. Hölderlin quickly moves from the real presence of Christ to our inability to recognize the divine among us. George notes that the repetition of “Ach!” in lines 9 and 27 divides the poem into 8 + 18 + 8 lines (851). The repetition certainly provides symmetrical markers, though the thematic breaks are elsewhere. These occur already in line 7 (where the change is linguistically subtle), as we transition to the grandmother being like Mary, which leads to 13 lines that evoke the divinity and humanity of Christ. This middle section again ends with the grandmother, whose recognition of Christ is uncommon. At line 21, with the dramatic “Sieh!” (See!), we formally transition to the final 14 lines, which focus on the poet.

10.

In our dispersion, we have forgotten the essence of Christ’s vibrant and meaningful presence on earth; here the satiric, with its lamentation of reality, the flip side of the elegiac, becomes manifest. One can see here, too, why Martin Heidegger, who lamented our forgetting the most fundamental questions, above all, the question of Being, was preoccupied with Hölderlin, who throughout his poetry reflects on our not seeing what is most important. “Bread and Wine” is infused with the themes of forgetfulness and unawareness. The present age, one of sadness and loss, lies between the joy of the Greeks and the possible recovery of a sense of the divine in this world. See Schmidt, Hölderlins Elegie.

11.

Few know Christ, but some, like the grandmother do, and in difficult times, Christ appears to them. The drama of this vision is accentuated by the enjambment between lines 11 and 12.

13.

The concept “allversöhnend” or “all-reconciling” animates much of Hölderlin, who lamented that his contemporaries were driven by narrowness, forgetfulness, and strife. Hölderlin, in contrast, celebrates openness and unity, as it was manifest in Christ. This does not mean the erasure of difference. Hölderlin is deeply attentive to unity as a complex concept that allows for and even embraces internal distinctions. The word “still” is here directly associated with Christ, whose presence is with human beings, not above them, for Christ walked among human beings.

14.

“This singular man, divine in spirit” (Dieser einzige Mann,||göttlich im Geiste) is a powerful line, accentuated by the double stress before and after the caesura: Mann||göttlich. It is furthermore packed with religious significance, for the phrase captures the singularity of Christ, as a human being and among the gods; it alludes to the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Christ; and, with its emphasis on spirit (Geist), it underscores the pneumatic concept of God that appealed to Hölderlin and the other idealists, above all his friend Hegel.

15.

Hölderlin’s conception of Christ—“None of the living was closed from his soul” (Keines der Lebenden war aus seiner Seele geschlossen)—accentuates inclusiveness, a concept distant from competing images of God as exclusive to this or that faith. Here all of life (irrespective of religious affiliation) is embraced by Christ’s expansive soul. I noted above Pope Francis’s elevation of this poem (Francis 2025). The present line is not far from Francis’s critique of the U.S. treatment of migrants in 2025, where he wrote: “Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception” (para. 3)

16.

The idea of carrying the sufferings of the world in his loving breast is a metaphor for, and an allusion to, Christ’s carrying the cross, with the cross symbolic of the sins of the world, which are to be relieved by Christ’s death.

17.

The allusion to Christ’s death–and not just his death, but his death in the name of others–occurs in the very middle line of the poem. Christ unifies all, just as this line unites the two elements of the poem, Christ and those whose lives he affects. As Mark Ogden notes (p. 113), Christ’s dying for others is in harmony with (or a continuation of) his living with and for others.

18.

The double stress in the pentameter winds together human pain and divine glory: Ging er aus Schmerzen und Müh’||siegend zum Vater zurük (From pain and toil he went back to the Father victorious). The portrayal of Christ ends here with his return to God the Father.

19.

The grandmother is one of those who knows Christ. The connection is reinforced by the verb “walk” (wandeln), which is applied to both Christ (l. 9) and the grandmother (l. 19). Walking and the related concepts of wandering and embarking on a journey are common elegiac motifs.

20.

Christ is described as the sublime or exalted one, the final of six nouns or phrases employed to name Christ: “the/best of humans” (den/Besten der Menschen); “the friend of our earth” (den Freund unserer Erde); “the High One” (der Hohe); “the Living One” (der Lebendige); “this singular man, divine in spirit” (dieser einzige Mann, göttlich im Geiste); and finally, “the Exalted One” (dem Erhabenen). This complex effort at multivalent naming is a practice that Hölderlin liked for at least two reasons: (1) Christ was too complex and rich to be captured by any single category; and (2) naming is a distinctive poetic task, and through these diverse names the poet seeks to call Christ to our consciousness; the poet has a mediating role in announcing the presence of the divine on earth and in bringing the divine to our consciousness. The existential and poetic act of naming is central in Hölderlin’s poetry, for example, in the recently completed “When I was a Boy…” (Da ich ein Knabe war …), where he writes: “To be sure, at that time I did not yet/Call you [the gods] by name, nor did you/Call me by name, as humans do, as if they knew each other” (Zwar damals rief ich noch nicht/Euch mit Namen, auch ihr/Nanntet mich nie, wie die Menschen sich nennen,/Als kennten sie sich). We also see the motif in “Germanien”, where Hölderlin adopts a gesture of hesitant naming: “Three times you rewrite it,/But also unsaid, as it is,/Innocent, it must remain” (Dreifach umschreibe du es,/Doch ungesprochen auch, wie es da ist,/Unschuldige, muß es bleiben). Naming is especially prominent in the case of Christ, for, as already the Catholic theologian Romano Guardini noted (Guardini 1955, p. 495), Hölderlin does not adopt standard contemporary notions, neither accepted Christian understandings of Christ nor Enlightenment conceptions of God as reason or of Christ as an ethical genius.5 The early gesturing to naming the grandmother helps prepare for this elevation of naming and indirectly connects, on yet another, subtle level, the grandmother and Christ.

21.

The imperative “See!” has deeper meaning. The poet has opened the reader’s eyes to be able to see Christ more fully. In the Gospel of Mark, for example, Christ is constantly urging the apostles and through them the reader to see and understand. The poet sees here and feels rejuvenated by the memory of how Christ lived and died and the poet’s reminiscence of how the loving grandmother resembles Christ. The allusions to rejuvenation (verjüngen) and childlikeness (kindlich) evoke renewal or baptism. To see as a child is central to the Gospels.

22.

The resolved dichotomy involves present and past, which brings the poet to tears. The double stress in the middle beautifully accentuates the moment: Und es rinnen, wie einst,||Thränen vom Auge mir noch (And tears, as before, still flow from my eyes).

23.

Here through line 26, the poem integrates one element of the elegiac, the happiness of the childhood home, which has religious resonance in the allusions to love and blessings. The joy of childhood is contrasted with the loneliness of the present. Similar sentiments are evoked in the aforementioned “Da ich ein Knabe war …”

26.

The Stuttgarter Ausgabe describes nähren, literally nurture, as having for Hölderlin still the broader meaning of healing or saving, which had been common in the middle ages (Middle High German nern) (Sämtliche Werke 1.2:592).

27.

After the reflection on childhood, we encounter the second elegiac “Ach!” It introduces here and in the next line the complex temporal structure of the poet’s having reflected in his youth how the grandmother might one day become proud of what had become of the young boy.

29.

Here, and through line 31, we see an allusion to Hölderlin working hard to find his path in life, which included, alas, various pursuits that brought wounds. The existential import of these lines is accentuated by the most striking enjambment in the poem, lines 29–30: “und habe die Brust mir/Wund gerungen indeß” (and in the process/Wrung my wounded breast).

32.

After wanting to live long and meaningfully, like the grandmother, the poet then celebrates old age with two religious words, “ruhig” and “fromm”, once again elevating the grandmother’s piety while more generally celebrating old age. In Hyperion Hölderlin follows Sophocles: the novel reverses the choral ode from Oedipus at Colonus, which includes disparagement of old age. See Roche, “Die unverwechselbare Auffassung”, pp. 73–74.

33.

Here and in the final line, the poem concludes with the future. The poet wants to receive a blessing that he has fulfilled the promise he had for himself as a child, an elegiac longing for future fulfillment.

Turning now to my translation, I began by preparing as literal and poetic a translation as I could. I then made a modest number of adjustments in diction and word order, so as to have as many dactyls and trochees as possible without losing meaning or disrupting the flow of the poem. These adjustments were designed to accentuate the poem’s elegiac mood. In some cases, I simply worked in dactyls, though the number of feet was shorter. For example, in line 15—None of the living was closed from his soul—I employed three dactyls and a catalectic dactyl, so only four feet. In a smaller number of cases, spondees worked well, for example, “Long life” (line 5), “High One” (line 9), “See! I” (line 21), and “still flow” (line 22).

Dactyls and trochees are in their mood soft, thoughtful, and elegiac. That is the dominant mood of the poem. In Hölderlin’s original, the odd-numbered lines end with unstressed syllables, as one expects with dactyls. But these oscillate with the even-numbered lines that end with stressed syllables, insofar as Hölderlin turns to catalectic dactyls. In their impact on the reader, these stressed final syllables more closely resemble the tension and anticipation associated with iambs (u-), the foot used for German (and English) classical drama, than the soft, quiet tone we recognize in dactyls. In this sense, the poem is a combination of elegiac musing and resolve to action. Christ is resolved in his mission, and the poet wishes to fulfill the promises he made as a child.

This combination of resolve and emphasis on the final syllable is most pronounced in two lines: line 16, the poem’s evocation, just before the middle, with its gesture to resurrection, of Christ’s death, where “Brust”, and in the translation “breast”, receives an emphasis; and line 34, the poem’s last line, where the poet hopes for fulfillment of the earlier promise, and where I have tried to capture this resolve by using a spondee (“boy vowed”). A continuity of a final stressed syllable and conceptual determination is also visible in lines 8 (“gebar”, a reference to the incarnation), 12 (“das himmlische Bild”, the appearance of the divine), 22 (“noch”, the continuing impact of childhood on the poet), and 32 (“fromm”, with its emphasis on the grandmother’s piety). Each of these lines is interwoven with religion: Christ, the heavenly image, the grandmother’s piety, and the continuing impact of that piety on the poet.

I had already translated the poem before encountering George’s version. After reading his translation, I was not motivated to make further changes. On average, English uses fewer words than German to express the same idea. Whenever I translate my own prose from English to German, my text expands, and whenever I translate my own work from German to English, my text contracts. Above I gave as an example my use of four dactylic feet to translate the six feet of line 15. This difference between German and English was one of the reasons why, unlike George, I chose not to craft an English translation that exactly mirrors Hölderlin’s meter. Such an imitation tends to result in extraneous words and awkwardness. In my view George uses a number of unfortunate expressions, such as “walked in the people” (l. 9) and “what that Alive Being was” (l. 10). In addition, by seeking to recreate the original meter, he falls prey to wordiness. Note the following examples: “theure Mutter” becomes not “dear mother”, but “dear good Mother”; “Hoffnung” becomes not “hope”, but “good hope”; and “dieser einzige Mann” becomes not “this singular man”, but “this man, the One and Unique”. Lines 17–18 give us an example of George’s sometimes cumbersome and awkward language: “Even with death he made friends; in the name of those numerous others/Going from suffering, toil, back to the Father: he won”. The final two words, moreover, are quite distant from the original, which is simply “siegend” (victorious).

Because George seeks to preserve Hölderlin’s meter and syntax, the value of his translation is not fluidity or beauty, nor does his translation in my eyes succeed in embodying the spirit of Hölderlin’s poetry. George misses the mark on each of these. Instead, his adherence to the original makes his translation useful (and in its own way admirable) for readers with limited German who wish to be aided by (in most cases) a more literal translation.6 I would liken George’s translations of Hölderlin to Richmond Lattimore’s deeply useful mimetic translations of Homer (Lattimore 1951, 1965), which, however, in terms of the spirit of Homer have long since been surpassed by the less literal but beautiful, engaging, and fluid translations of Robert Fagles and others (Fagles 1998, 1999).

III

Although Hölderlin successfully completed his studies in theology, he had grown to doubt his calling as a minister and worked instead as a private tutor at various locations in Germany, Switzerland, and France. By 1802 he began to show signs of mental illness; in 1807 he was entrusted to the care of an admirer Ernst Zimmer, at whose home in Tübingen Hölderlin resided until his death 36 years later.

Hölderlin struggled to find a place in society when simply being a poet could hardly provide him with a living. “To my Venerable Grandmother. On her 72nd Birthday” was written in the final days of 1798, when Hölderlin was going through a difficult time and immersed in considerable self-reflection. He had worked since 10 January 1796 in Frankfurt as a tutor in the Gontard family. While there, he had fallen in love with Susette Gontard, whom he called Diotima. She was the mother of his pupil and the wife of a banker. After Herr Gontard developed suspicions, Hölderlin’s appointment was terminated, on or around 25 September 1798, about three months before Hölderlin composed the poem to his grandmother. After losing his position, Hölderlin settled in nearby Homburg, where he was in the company of his friend Isaac von Sinclair. For some time Hölderlin and Susette secretly corresponded and occasionally met.

Two of Hölderlin’s longest and most engaging letters stem from the period when Hölderlin was living in Homburg and created the poem for his grandmother. On 1 January 1799, Hölderlin wrote to his half-brother concerning the poem his mother requested for the birthday of his maternal grandmother, Johanna Rosina Heyn, the widow of his mother’s father, the pastor Johann Andreas Heyn (1712–1772). The grandmother was born in 1725 and lived as part of the Hölderlin household after Hölderlin’s stepfather died when Hölderlin was only nine years old (Hayden-Roy 2011, “Sparta et Martha”, p. 200).7 Not surprisingly, Hölderlin was attached to his grandmother; indeed, he thanks her in his early poem “Die Meinige” (Mine) (Sämtliche Werke 1.1:15–20, v. 153–164). The mother’s request did acknowledge to some degree Hölderlin’s poetic talents, even though the mother had preferred that he take a position in ministry (Doering 2022, pp. 112–13). In November 1796 and again in January 1797 Hölderlin had rejected two such opportunities.

Concerning the poem and the request, Hölderlin wrote to his brother:

Auch hat mich dieser Tage ein Brief von unserer lieben Mutter, wo sie ihre Freude über meine Religiosität äußerte, und mich unter anderm bat, unserer theuren 72jährigen Grosmutter ein Gedicht zu ihrem Geburtstage zu machen, und noch manches andere, in dem unaussprechlich rührenden Briefe so ergriffen, daß ich die Zeit, wo ich vieleicht an Dich geschrieben hätte, meist mit Gedanken an sie und euch Lieben überhaupt zubrachte. Ich habe auch denselben Abend noch, da ich den Brief bekommen, ein Gedicht für die l. Grosmutter angefangen, und bin in der Nacht beinahe damit fertig geworden. Ich dachte, es müßte die guten Mütter freuen, wenn ich gleich den Tag darauf einen Brief und das Gedicht abschikte.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:305–06)

Also these days I have been preoccupied by a letter from our dear mother in which she expressed her joy at my religiosity and, among other things, asked me to write a poem for our dear grandmother’s 72nd birthday. I was so moved by this and many other things in her unspeakably touching letter that I spent most of the time, when I might have written to you, with thoughts of her and the rest of you dear ones. On the same evening that I received the letter, I also started a poem for our dear grandmother and almost finished it that night. I thought it would please the good mothers if I sent a letter and the poem the next day.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 122).8

Hölderlin continues, and here he underscores the depth of meaning he discovered in creating this work:

Aber die Töne, die ich da berührte, klangen so mächtig in mir wieder, die Verwandlungen meines Gemüths und Geistes, die ich seit meiner Jugend erfuhr, die Vergangenheit und Gegenwart meines Lebens wurde mir dabei so fühlbar, daß ich den Schlaf nachher nicht finden konnte, und den andern Tag Mühe hatte, mich wieder zu sammeln. So bin ich.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:306)

But the tones that I touched there resonated so powerfully within me, the transformations of my mind and spirit that I have experienced since my youth, the past and present of my life became so tangible to me that I could not find sleep afterwards, and the next day I had trouble collecting myself again.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 122)

Hölderlin then interweaves the existential import of the verses with a humbler, more self-effacing gesture:

Du wirst Dich wundern, wenn Du die poëtisch so unbedeutenden Verse zu Gesicht bekommst, wie mir dabei so wunderbar zu Muthe seyn konnte. Aber ich habe gar wenig von dem gesagt, was ich dabei empfunden habe. Es gehet mir überhaupt manchmal so, daß ich meine lebendigste Seele in sehr flachen Worten hingebe, daß kein Mensch weiß, was sie eigentlich sagen wollen, als ich.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:306)

You will be surprised, when you see the poetically so insignificant verses, that I could be so wonderfully encouraged. But I have said very little of what I felt at the time. It sometimes happens to me that I express my most vivid soul in very flat words, such that no one apart from me knows what they actually seek to say.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 122)

The poem is placed into an undated letter that Hölderlin sent to his mother in January 1799:

Liebste Mutter!/Ich muß mich schämen, daß ich Ihren 1. Brief, der mir indessen so viele innigglükliche Stunden und Augenblike gemacht hat, so lange nicht beantwortet habe. Noch denselben Abend, da ich ihn erhalten hatte, schrieb ich gröstentheils das nieder, was ich Ihnen für meine theure ehrwürdige Grosmutter beilege, und ich habe es Ihnen recht von Herzen bei mir selber gedankt, daß Sie mich von diesem mir heiligen Geburtstage benachrichtiget haben. Der Brief an Sie sollte Tags darauf geschrieben werden, und es wäre mir selber eine Freude gewesen, wenn ich das, was ich beim Empfang des Ihrigen fühlte, Ihnen so bald wie möglich hätte sagen können. Ich wurde aber indessen auf mancherlei Art verhindert. Zeit hätte ich wohl gehabt, aber ich mag Ihnen gerne mit ungestörter Seele schreiben. […]/Leben Sie nun wohl, liebste Mutter! bitten Sie die liebe Frau Grosmamma, das Blatt als einen kleinen Theil von den frohen und ernsten Empfindungen zu nehmen, mit denen ich im Herzen den ehrwürdigen Geburtstag gefeiert habe.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:306, 6.1:314)

Dearest Mother! I am ashamed that for so long I did not answer your lovely letter, which has given me in the meantime so many deeply happy hours and moments. On the very evening I received it, I wrote down most of what I enclose for my dear, venerable grandmother, and I thanked you in my own mind and from the bottom of my heart for notifying me of this birthday, which is sacred to me. I had intended to write to you the next day, and it would have given me great joy to tell you as soon as possible how I felt on receiving your letter. But I was prevented from doing so in all kinds of ways. I would certainly have had the time, but I prefer to write you with an untroubled soul […] Now, dearest mother, farewell! Ask dear grandma to take the enclosed page as a small part of the joyful and earnest feelings with which in my heart I celebrated her venerable birthday.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, pp. 124, 129–30).

The poem is certainly occasional, but it is also more, given its existential, poetic, and religious dimensions.

These letters to the half-brother and the mother are even for Hölderlin extraordinarily long, each about seven pages in the Stuttgarter Ausgabe and among the two or three longest letters Hölderlin apparently ever wrote. They deal with many issues, but one can elevate in this context three. The first involves identity. Partly this is related to Hölderlin’s own identity, partly it concerns his understanding of the Germans’ collective identity. To his brother he writes of his personal struggles, including his hard work in seeking to manage these struggles (Sämtliche Werke 6.1:302; Hölderlin 2009, pp. 118–19). In the same letter Hölderlin laments the collective identity of the Germans, writing of their “insular domesticity” (bornierte Häuslichkeit) (Sämtliche Werke 6.1:303; cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 119). He elaborates:

Jeder ist nur in dem zu Hauße, worinn er geboren ist, und kann und mag mit seinem Interesse und seinen Begriffen nur selten darüber hinaus. Daher jener Mangel an Elasticität, an Trieb, an mannigfaltiger Entwiklung der Kräfte, daher die finstere, wegwerfende Scheue oder auch die furchtsame unterwürfig blinde Andacht, womit sie alles aufnehmen, was außer ihrer ängstlich engen Sphäre liegt; daher auch diese Gefühllosigkeit für gemeinschaftliche Ehre und gemeinschaftliches Eigentum, die freilich bei den modernen Völkern sehr allgemein, aber meines Erachtens unter den Deutschen in eminentem Grade vorhanden ist. Und wie nur der in seiner Stube sich gefällt, der auch im freien Felde lebt, so kann ohne Allgemeinsinn und offnen Blik in die Welt auch das individuelle, jedem eigene Leben nicht bestehen.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:303)

Everyone is only at home where they were born and only rarely do their interests and ways of thinking give them the ability or desire to transcend that sphere. Hence the lack of elasticity, of drive, of multifaceted development of the faculties, hence the dark, dismissive shyness or even the timid, submissive, blind devotion with which they receive everything that lies outside their own anxiously narrow sphere; hence also this insensitivity to communal honor and communal property, which, of course, is very widespread among modern peoples, but, in my view, is present to an eminent degree among Germans. And just as only those who are at peace in the open field can be at peace in their own four walls, so too can the individual life, which is unique to each of us, not survive without a sense of the universal and an openness to the world”

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 120).

To his mother he laments his suffering and his errors. He then writes: “Ich kenne kein größer Glük, als bescheidenes Wirken und Hoffen. Das kann aber bei einem leicht gekränkten Sinne nicht bestehen” (I know of no greater happiness than to work away modestly and in hope. But that cannot exist with an easily offended sensibility) (Sämtliche Werke 6.1:309; cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 125). The synergy of individual and collective identity is reinforced when he writes that an “increase in knowledge of the world” (Zuwachs an Weltkenntniß) is “the only compensation” (die einzige Entschädigung) that his current situation gives him, adding that “knowledge of the German people is especially necessary for anyone who wants to become a German writer, just as knowledge of the soil is necessary for a gardener” (die Kenntniß des deutschen Volks ist befonders jedem, der ein deutscher Schriftsteller werden will, so nothwendig, wie dem Gärtner die Kenntniß des Bodens) (Sämtliche Werke 6.1:313; cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 128). His poetry is one way of writing himself into health and ideally of awakening the Germans to their higher capacities.

The second topic, religion, is not unrelated. Hölderlin is willing at some point in the future, as he writes to his mother, to accept a ministerial position, preferably for him in a quiet, rural area, but he is in any case not at all pleased with the current theological climate, and he grasps that the role of minister is not his ultimate calling. He speaks disparagingly of the contemporary theological climate:

die Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer unserer Zeit, die aus der heiligen lieben Bibel ein kaltes, geist- und herztödtendes Geschwäz machen, die mag ich freilich nicht zu Zeugen meines innigen, lebendigen Glaubens haben.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:309).

I definitely don’t want the scribes and Pharisees of our time, who turn the Holy Bible into cold, empty drivel that kills the heart and soul, as witnesses of my intimate, living faith.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 125).

He adds that these figures are unappealing, because they reduce the “word to its letter and make him, the living one, into an empty idol” (sein Wort zum Buchstaben, und ihn, den Lebendigen, zum leeren Gözenbilde machen) (Sämtliche Werke 6.1:309; cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 125). But Hölderlin is not without hope:

Aber gerade wie nach dem Winter der Frühling kömmt, so kam auch immer nach dem Geistestode der Menschen neues Leben, und das Heilige bleibt immer heilig, wenn es auch die Menschen nicht achten.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:310).

But just as spring comes after winter, so new life always came after the spiritual death of humanity, and the sacred always remains sacred, even if people do not respect it.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, p. 125).

His appellation of Christ as the living one and his critique of contemporaries for not recognizing what is sacred find poetic expression in the poem itself. One understands that with his poetry Hölderlin is not engaged in an idle poetic exercise but is seeking to understand his contemporaries and the nature of the divine.

Finally, and also not unrelated, Hölderlin talks passionately about poetry as giving him an equanimity of spirit and as offering the nation an opportunity for development. One recognizes here both echoes of, and differences with, Schiller’s ideas on aesthetic education (Roche 1987). Hölderlin laments that just as contemporaries ignore the true message of Christ, so, too, do they misunderstand poetry and art, not reflecting on poetry’s essence and certainly not recognizing its value for the unity of self and society:

Man hielt sich blos an ihre anspruchlose Außenseite, die freilich von ihrem Wesen unzertrennlich ist, aber nichts weniger, als den ganzen Karakter derselben ausmacht; man nahm sie für Spiel, weil sie in der bescheidenen Gestalt des Spiels erscheint, und so konnte sich auch vernünftiger weise keine andere Wirkung von ihr ergeben, als die des Spiels, nemlich Zerstreuung, beinahe das gerade Gegentheil von dem, was sie wirket, wo sie in ihrer wahren Natur vorhanden ist. Denn alsdann sammelt sich der Mensch bei ihr, und sie giebt ihm Ruhe, nicht die leere, sondern die lebendige Ruhe, wo alle Kräfte regsam sind, und nur wegen ihrer innigen Harmonie nicht als thätig erkannt werden. Sie nähert die Menschen, und bringt sie zusammen, nicht wie das Spiel, wo sie nur dadurch vereiniget sind, daß jeder sich vergißt und die lebendige Eigenthümlichkeit von keinem zum Vorschein kömmt.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:305)

People confined themselves to its [poetry’s] unassuming exterior, which is, of course, inseparable from its essence, but hardly exhausts its full character; it was taken for play because it appears in the modest guise of play, and so, reasonably, no other effect could be expected to arise from it than that of play, namely, diversion, almost the exact opposite of what it accomplishes when it is available in its true nature. There, in its presence, a person gathers himself together, and it gives him repose, not empty repose, but vital repose, in which all the faculties are active, and only because of their intimate harmony are not recognized as such. It brings people closer together and unites them, not like play, in which they find unity only by forgetting themselves, and the vital distinction of each is held back.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, pp. 121–22)

After commenting on the poem for the grandmother, he returns to this theme of poetry as a unifying force:

Ich will nun sehen, ob ich noch etwas von dem, was ich Dir neulich über Poësie sagen wollte, herausbringen kann. Nicht, wie das Spiel, vereinige die Poësie die Menschen, sagt’ ich; sie vereinigt sie nemlich, wenn sie ächt ist und ächt wirkt, mit all dem mannigfachen Laid und Glük und Streben und Hoffen und Fürchten, mit all ihren Meinungen und Fehlern, all ihren Tugenden und Ideen, mit allem Großen und Kleinen, das unter ihnen ist, immer mehr, zu einem lebendigen taufendfach gegliederten innigen Ganzen, denn eben diß soll die Poësie selber seyn.

(Sämtliche Werke 6.1:306)

I will now see if I can still bring out something of what I wanted to tell you about poetry last time. Not like play, poetry unites people, I said; for it unites them, if it is genuine and has a genuine effect, with all the manifold sorrow and happiness and striving and hoping and fearing, with all their opinions and errors, all their virtues and ideas, with all the great and small that is among them, ever more, into a living, thousandfold intricately structured, intimate whole, for this is what poetry itself should be.

(cf. Hölderlin 2009, pp. 122–23)

As the allusion to the elegiac suggests, Hölderlin’s poem works with the dialectic of the real and the ideal. This dialectic combines, as so often for Hölderlin, the existential and the theological. The ideal is evoked in Christ, Mary, and the grandmother, and is extended to the childhood experience of home, which also carries religious meaning. The real is evoked by our forgetting Christ and our not finding peace or a meaningful, expansive home in the world.

IV

I turn now to a few lingering reflections on Hölderlin and religion. Hölderlin’s distinctive vision of the divine interweaves an unusually wide range of spheres, from traditional Christianity and a poetic sensibility for the presence of the divine in reality, which includes echoes of a transfigured Greek polytheism, to a recognition of the divinity of nature and an array of conceptual categories that together seek to circumscribe the divine. Hölderlin interweaves his reception of Christianity with his interest in idealist philosophy, to which he himself contributed, as well as his elevation of the beauty of nature and his love of Greek antiquity. The advent of historical biblical criticism in Germany and its unsettling effect on theological thinking along with Hölderlin’s engagement with philosophy and the Greeks and his own poetic sensibility helped make possible this unorthodox interweaving. The diverse realms are integrated with a common thread and tremendous finesse. The various realms are also not without overlap. For example, a distinguishing element of Christianity is the idea of one God for all persons, which can be linked with the conceptual elevation of unity: “an all-encompassing deity” (eine allumfassende Gottheit) (Sämtliche Werke 3:90). In a letter from 1798, Hölderlin writes of the hope that our beliefs move forward “to the feeling of the living Divinity in which we live and are, to the true sense of Christ, that we and the Father are one” (zum Gefühle der lebendigen Gottheit, in der wir leben und sind, zu dem ächten Christusgefühle, daß wir und der Vater eins sind) (Sämtliche Werke 6.1:261).9

Christ plays a prominent role in Hölderlin’s writings. Ogden sees in Hyperion a latent Christology, in particular an account of the incarnation and the trinity (pp. 58–88). The death of the divine person (in this case, Diotima) releases divinity from its specific embodiment so that it can infuse the wider spiritual community. Empedocles, too, has aspects of a self-sacrificial Christ figure, and the drama contains clear biblical references, for example, to Christ’s preparations for his departure (John 13; 15:11–15; and 16:22). For Hölderlin Christ’s suffering is at once the death of the divine (it must pass out of existence) as well as its fulfillment (such temporality is the condition of its appearance in history). Further, the death of the divine releases divinity from its specific embodiment so that it can infuse the wider spiritual community. Thus Christ’s death makes possible the mother’s piety and the poet’s aspirations, indeed Hölderlin’s very poem.

Many of Hölderlin’s later poems struggle with the role of Christianity in an enlightened age. Prominent examples include the elegy “Bread and Wine” (Brod und Wein), written 1800–01; and the hymns “Celebration of Peace” (Friedensfeier), “The Only One” (Der Einzige), and “Patmos”, all written between 1801 and 1803. In these poems Christ is present, but not as the exclusive god who mediates between God and world, as in 2 Corinthians 5:18; instead, Christ mediates, on the one hand, between God the Father and humanity and, on the other hand, between the various gods. The gifts of God come from the Greek gods and Christ. “Patmos” is layered with references to chapter 4 of the Gospel of John, culminating in the idea of God as spirit. Jesus’ death is the turning point from a sensuous concept of divinity to a pneumatic one. For such speculative “abysses of wisdom” (Abgründe der Weisheit) Hölderlin alludes indirectly to 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:16 (“Patmos”, v. 119).

The relatively early poem we are analyzing has few of these speculative elements. It is much more oriented to the earth and to the social realm, such that its attraction for Francis is not surprising. As Detlev Lüders notes in the commentary to his edition, the portrayal of Christ in this poem occurs just as Hölderlin begins to reintroduce Christ to his more prominent elegies and hymns (Hölderlin 1970, 2:159–60). In the middle of the poem we find the various names Hölderlin gives to Christ: “the/best of humans”; “the friend of our earth”; “the High One”; “the Living One”; “this singular man, divine in spirit”; and finally, “the Exalted One”. Hölderlin winds together, on the one hand, the modesty of the negative theological tradition, which was reinforced by his own Protestant heritage, in being unsure how one could even try to name or describe Christ, with, on the other hand, his own poetic confidence in seeking to circumscribe Christ by giving him multiple names, which also allows him to view Christ as one god among others, the greatest, to be sure, but not foreclosing other semblances of the divine among us, from the gods of other traditions to elements of nature and the language of the poets. Much as for Christ none of the living was closed from his soul, so, too, for Hölderlin, Christ’s presence on earth, among us, was not exclusive of the semblance of the divine in this world, even if such moments could hardly exhaust all that the divine entails.10