Conversely. however. what is "natural" to the Germans. that is. that with which they are endowed as their own, is the clarity of presentation, being able to grasp oneself. the formation of projects, enclosures, and frameworks. They become carried away by the provision of frames and compartments, making divisions and structuring. What is thus "inborn" cannot properly become what is their own for the Germans so long as this ability to grasp has not been made to confront the necessity of grasping the ungraspable and of grasping themselves in the face of what is ungraspable, It is from out of such knowledge of the historicality of the Germans, and only out of such knowledge, that Hölderlin's harsh words at the end of Hyperion are to be thought. (Cf. II. 282ff. ) What the Germans lack, what must therefore first come to be encountered by them as that which is foreign to them. is the "fire from the heavens ... It is this that the Germans must learn to experience so as to be struck by the fire and thereby to be impelled toward the correct appropriation of their own gift for presentation. Otherwise the Germans will remain exposed to the danger and the weakness of suppressing every fire on account of the rashness of their capabilities. and of pursuing for its own sake the ability to grasp and to delimit, and even of taking their delimiting and instituting to be the fire itself. It is therefore the pure self-experiencing of his own poetizing when Hölderlin says of the Germans. as distinct from the Greeks: "whereas the main tendency in the manners of representation in our time <which means: the time of the Germans> is the ability to hit on something, to have destiny [Geschik], since the lack of fate [das Schiksaallose], the δύσμορον, is our weakness." This remark is found in the discussions that Hölderlin provided with his translation of Antigone (V. 258). The law of the historicality of a historical people says that what is "natural'' to any humankind is truly their "nature" only as ··what is historical" in their history. This is why the use of what is naturally "one's own" is that which is most difficult. The foreign is indispensable and is thus in the service of what is most difficult, that is, it is "easier."4
In order to learn how to freely use what is their own. the Germans must be struck by the fire from the heavens. This is why venturing to the southern land is unavoidable for them. This is why the Northeast is the auguring of their poetic destiny. This is why the Northeast is greeted.
Hölderlin is the one who has been struck by the god of light. He is on his return from the journey to the "fire." He is the "languishing besouler."
4. The mention of the "manners of representation in our time" refers in particular to unconditional metaphysics and its 4ueslion concerning absolute knowledge of the absolute. Yet this 4ues1ion in truth cannot he a question, since in accordance with its essence the absolute wills to be "alongside us," us human beings. and knowledge of the absolute through us is merely the ray oft he absolute that touches us. Cf. my interpretation of the "Introduction" to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Gesamtausgabe vol. 5. Holzwege. pp. 115-208).