OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
setting forth. It belongs to the essence of a work, as a work, that it makes, sets forth. But what is it that the work sets forth? We will only discover this by investigating what, in a superficial and everyday sense, is referred to as the making or production of works.
To the work-being belongs the setting up of a world. Thinking of it from within this perspective, what is the nature of that which one usually calls the "work-material"? Because it is determined through usefulness and serviceability, equipment takes that of which it consists into its service. In the manufacture of equipment — for example, an ax — the stone is used and used up. It disappears into usefulness. The less resistance the material puts up to being submerged in the equipmental being of the equipment the more suitable and the better it is. On the other hand, the temple work, in setting up a world, does not let the material disappear; rather, it allows it to come forth for the very first time, to come forth, that is, into the open of the world of the work. The rock comes to bear and to rest and so first becomes rock; the metal comes to glitter and shimmer, the colors to shine, the sounds to ring, the word to speak.a All this comes forth as the work sets itself back into the massiveness and heaviness of the stone, into the firmness and flexibility of the wood, into the hardness and gleam of the ore, into the lightening and darkening of color, into the ringing of sound, and the naming power of the word.
That into which the work sets itself back, and thereby allows to come forth, is what we called "the earth." Earth is the coming-forth-concealing [Hervorkommend-Bergende]. Earth is that which cannot be forced, that which is effortless and untiring. On and in the earth, historical man founds his dwelling in the world. In setting up a world, the work sets forth the earth. "Setting forth [Herstellen]" is to be thought, here, in the strict sense of the word.b The work moves the earth into the open of a world and holds it there. The work letsc the earth be an earth.d
Why, however, must this setting forth of earth happen in such a way that the work sets itself back into it? What is the earth, that it reaches the unconcealed in just this manner? The stone presses downwards and manifests its heaviness. But while this heaviness weighs down on us, at the same time, it denies us any penetration into it. If we attempt such penetration by
a Reclam edition, 1960. Saying something [verlauten], speaking.
b Reclam edition, 1960. Inadequate.
c Reclam edition, 1960. This means? Compare "The Thing": the fourfold [Ge-viert].
d Reclam edition, 1960. The Event.
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