CAPUT III
73
Tübingen, chalky white sun of madness
which runs as do circles on the morning’s
red plan of projection and mountains
towards the never-ending far future,
it has all in all nothing to do with
eternity, which only opens it
self in the human mind, whose nature is
devotion, love and spirit. Here even
so the great tragedy was enacted:
God like some Deus ex machina or
other fetched consciousness to his own house
and in doing so kissed the forehead and
lips so they were cleansed of the complaint’s oath.
What revolution it was took place here.
74
What revolution it was took place here
can’t be measured in physical cubits
only with the right unit of the spir
it: the communion’s gold bread and wine.
An upheaval in the mind, which does not
mock the material revolution,
but on the contrary which legitim
ises it. A revolt of the spirit
(whose symbol is the enormous vio
let nimbus clouds) and which actually
first justifies the other. What kind of
drama was performed between the props of
reality which finally turned white
and perished once more in so short a time?
75
‘And perished once more in so short a time’
for the heroes of the spirit too can fall
and die although singing and for other
reasons than Teutoburg’s defensive fight.
But ‘to perish’ can also be read in
a different key (as mysterious
and dark as in Matthias Hauer’s blue
Hölderlin lieder) and then signifies:
homecoming in some way or other to
meadows and fields that are green beyond all
comprehension, where light hones its ray on
invisibility’s crystal. The place
that is the great plains of candour itself
we scarcely can fathom, we who just know.
76
We scarcely can fathom, we who just know
dazzled by the glass of reality,
which has abandoned the dimension of
transparence and the spirit’s clear topaz.
We who have gone astray in the mirror
halls of the everyday, the gleaming la
byrinths of reality, we over
look that which is Real (which nobody sees).
We who no longer dare to believe, who
no longer seek to reach out beyond
the fixed forms of tangibility,
how in all the world are we ever go
ing to reach the point where we understand
why beauty seems to call for misfortune?
77
Why beauty seems to call for misfortune
is due completely to the fact that we
have defined the concept of happiness
conversely or rather incorrectly.
We do not dare remember that pover
ty for example or sorrow can lead to
happiness, we who greedily fill the
leaky vessels of reason and refuse
to empty the heart’s. I do not defend
pain and am not saying that you are to
seek to climb up the ivy-garlanded
tower of despair, only that these (with all
reservations) can create your delight.
This too always remains an enigma.
78
This too always remains an enigma:
how mysticism and matter of fact
ness meet in a valid and holy me
taphysics: a white and blossoming rose.
He who represented all of us be
fore God and who justified us ulti
mately sank down at the foot of the stars’
dodechahedron. There his ego perished
and there his soul was etched out by the light,
there it left his body like a shadow.
But what pride are we not seized by on his
account despite the defeat he suffered,
we who otherwise found pride odious,
maybe since spirit is without image.
79
Maybe since spirit is without image
and therefore does not resemble itself
(since it can’t be seen in the mirror’s river)
and is not noctambulous nor is it
detached as huge protuberances be
hind the black silhouette of the body,
perhaps because the spirit is itself
(common or neuter) we daren’t believe in
its arrival in the mind’s evening-blu
ish snow where it does not leave behind im
mortality’s trace of plaster and ash.
Winter’s double crossfire completely blinds
us, because fate’s completely merciless
and we tend always to live in a doze.
80
And we tend always to live in a doze
of conceptions, imitations and il
lusions about the spirit’s images
(pastels of Hölderlin, a pompous wash
drawing of Tübingen at evening time).
But what poetry was it burnt without
an image? – Not the spirit’s image, but
conversely the image’s spirit, cre
ated by it and not just by hand or
intellect. Visions like these we give the
name apparations and in the worst case
call madness or deranged insanity
so as to cover up or veil the truth.
As yet we cannot grasp the full extent.
81
As yet we cannot grasp the full extent
of this great renunciation that reach
es us like a distant echo through the
frosty night, the most despised legacy.
Not that one would recommend that madness
which he actually entered, perhaps
because we called him insane, perhaps be
cause he saw the face of God there at the
edge of space and time (where the emeralds
grow like mighty clusters of siberi
an crab apples), but that madness which we
judged him for out of panic anxie
ty and which therefore became a copy
of this complete and utter withdrawal.
82
Of this complete and utter withdrawal
we can hardly say it is proof of in
congruity between soul and body
only of certain costs for the raising
of the spirit (like a column of mer
cury reaches its zenith or a spark
ler that burns out). And we do not become
better or good human beings in the
process, on the contrary: the price is
often so high that all that remains af
terwards is sulphur and refuse. But we
grow closer to God, get in contact with
what is Holy in this communion,
and this absolute act of negation.
83
And this absolute act of negation
is intolerable, cannot be borne
on one’s own, but leads to a personal
destruction, for no human being can
completely contain that which is divine
without exploding like a wine-glass which
is filled by its own note (as utterly
shrill and fateful as Henze’s white chamber
music which was written in honour of
Hölderlin). So when you raise your own glass
which is full of white rose petals towards
the sky for a blessing, a connection
must thereby exist to the very life
which he lived out in his lonely tower room
84
Which he lived out in his lonely tower room
with his head almost in the heavens and
with the white winter clouds of madness whirl
ing around him stammering forth infin
itely beautiful, apparently mean
ingless fragments, protuberances from
a sun now extinguished. This is how we
most often remember him, drugged with cur
iosity and so-called tangibi
lity, because in that way we can best
get rid of him as a case of illness.
He who as in the tarok card flings him
self from his tower so as to gain the truth
rather than the lies and the abjectness.
85
Rather than the lies and the abjectness
which trickle down like black stearin in
its silver candlestick, he asserted
the flame. To die for his opinions and
ideas is something but not every
thing. Death is not a proof, is not a witness
for the truth, nor is it the red blood of
life. It could be that the fire fascinate
ed him, because it simply lights up the
darkness, the clearest ideology.
But there the spirit does not blaze any
longer over smoking cities and the
hidden passion of the tallest church towers,
out there in the grey, German nation.
86
Out there in the grey German nation
there is no hope of a revolution.
The black, red, golden flag of rebellion
now flutters over power and prestige.
The population has been manipu
lated so as to vote for manipu
lation and for its own suppression. The
spirit prospers best at blue hospitals
and in cemeteries that are fringed by
woodland, the strangest of places and years.
It is not the spirit that succumbs but
humanity which suffers a defeat
during this time of high solar solstice.
Tübingen, chalky white sun of madness
87
Tübingen, chalky white sun of madness
what revolution it was took place here
and perished once more in so short a time
we scarcely can fathom, we who just know.
Why beauty seems to call for misfortune
this too always remains an enigma.
Maybe since spirit is without image
and we tend always to live in a doze.
As yet we cannot grasp the full extent
of this complete and utter withdrawal,
and this absolute act of negation
which he lived out in his lonely tower room
rather than the lies and the abjectness
out there in the grey, German nation.
