Friedrich Hölderlin, Hyperion's Song of Fate (Hyperions Schiksaalslied)
Translated by Steven Willett
Hölderlin by Franz Carl Hiemer, 1792
Note: Hyperion's Song of Fate appeared in the second volume of Hölderlin's novel Hyperion in 1799. It should be clear that the staircase descent of the stanzas is intended to suggest humanity's plunge into an unknown depth.
You walk above in light
Over soft earth, blessed spirits!
Shimmering divine airs
Play gently on you,
Like a girl’s skilled fingers
On holy strings.
Fateless, like a slumbering
Infant, breathe the immortals;
Chastely preserved
In modest buds,
Blooms forever
The spirit within them,
And their blessed eyes
Gaze into calm
Eternal clarity.
But for us it’s given
Never to rest on a foothold,
They wane, they fall
The suffering humans
Blindly from one
Hour to the next
Like water from crag
To crag hurled
Yearlong into uncertain abyss.
Ihr wandelt droben im Licht
Auf weichem Boden, selige Genien!
Glänzende Götterlüfte
Rühren euch leicht,
Wie die Finger der Künstlerin
Heilige Saiten.
Schicksallos, wie der schlafende
Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen;
Keusch bewahrt
In bescheidener Knospe,
Blühet ewig
Ihnen der Geist,
Und die seligen Augen
Blicken in stiller
Ewiger Klarheit.
Doch uns ist gegeben,
Auf keiner Stätte zu ruh'n;
Es schwinden, es fallen
Die leidenden Menschen
Blindlings von einer
Stunde [zur]1 andern,
Wie Wasser von Klippe
Zu Klippe geworfen,
Jahrlang in's Ungewisse hinab.
