to saying (sagen), from saying to poetic saying (Dichten), from Dichten to song (Singen, Gesang), to the accord of consonance (Einklang), from this to the hymn and thus to praise. I am not here pointing to an order of logical consequences, nor to the necessity to regress from one meaning to another. It is merely a question of pointing to a problematic in which I cannot get involved here ( I try to do so elsewhere : see "Comment ne pas parler," in Psyché, pp. 570ff.) and in which these meanings appear indissociable for Heidegger. The hymn exceeds the ontological, theoretical or constative utterance. It calls to praise, it sings praise beyond what is, and perhaps even—we'll come back to this later—beyond that form of "piety" of thought that Heidegger one day called the question, questioning (Fragen). In this text, Heidegger entrusts his whole interpretation, at decisive moments, to the place of and listening to a tone, a word which carries the Grundton, and this is the stressed (betont) word: "one," Ein in "Ein Geschlecht ...." (Dieses betonte "Ein Geschlecht" birgt den Grundton ....) p. 78. He ceaselessly appeals to listen to what the poem says insofar as it sings it in a Gesang. This word is sometimes translated as hymn but Heidegger also insists on the value of gathering. The Gesang is all at once (in einem), he says, "Lied, tragedy, and epos" (p. 65)). A few years later, Heidegger specifies further this link between the song (Lied) and the hymn (the act of honoring, praising, laudare, singing the praises). Praise is always sung. On Das Lied, by Stefan George: "Thinking—assembling—loving, such is the saying: peacefully incline oneself in the happiness of joyfulness, venerate in jubilation (ein jubelndes Verehren), celebrate (ein Preisen), sing the praise (ein Loben): laudare. Laudes is the Latin word for songs (Laudes lautet der lateinische Name für die Lieder). Saying songs means singing (Leider sagen heisst: singen). Plainsong (der Gesang) is the gathering of song (die Versammlung des Sagens in das lied). ("Das Wort," in Unterwegs ..., p. 229 [148]. See too "Der Weg zur Sprache" [1959], this time on Hölderlin, on Gespräch and Gesang, in Unterwegs ..., p. 226 [135].)
3. Pp. 59, 77 [175, 194]. See too "Hölderlins Erde und Himmel," in Erläuterung zu Hölderlin Dichtung, 5th ed. (Frankfurt : Klostermann, 1981), pp. 152-81 (p. 153). For everything we are discussing here, see too pp. 43-46, 50, 56-60, 64-68, 84-94, 120-23, 175, and passim.