Hyperion to Bellarmin... Friedrich Hölderlin & CG Jung

CG Jung's Red Book

Do you know how Plato and his Stella loved each other?
So I loved, so I was loved. Oh, I was a fortunate lad! It is pleasant when like and like meet in friendship; but it is divine when a great man draws littler men up to him.

A gracious word from a valiant heart, a smile under which the searing glory of the spirit hides itself, is little and is much, is like a magical password that conceals death and life in its simple syllable, is like living water that comes welling from the inmost recesses of the mountains, imparting the secret strength of the earth to us in its every crystal drop.

But how I hate all the barbarians who imagine that they are wise because there is no more heart left in them! All the self-important monstrosities who slay and desecrate beautiful youth a thousand times over with their dwarfing, meaningless discipline!

I had grown up like a grapevine without a prop, the wild shoots trailed aimlessly over the ground. You know how many a noble power perishes in us because it is unused. I wandered like a will-o'-the-wisp, caught at everything, was caught by everything, but only for a moment; and my unskilled powers wore themselves out for nothing. I felt that everything failed me everywhere, yet I could not find any goal. Such was I when he found me.

He had long applied all his patience and his art to his material, the so-called cultivated world; but his material had been and remained stone and wood, even if under compulsion it outwardly assumed the noble form of man; but that meant nothing to my Adamas.

for the gods are displeased if a person doesn't compose and spare himself...

Mnemosyne

The fruits are ripe, dipped in fire, 

Cooked and sampled on earth. And there's a law,

That things crawl off in the manner of snakes,

Prophetically, dreaming on the hills of heaven.

And there is much that needs to be retained,

Like a load of wood on the shoulders.

But the pathways are dangerous.

The captured elements and ancient laws of earth

Run astray like horses. There is a constant yearning

For all that is unconfined. But much needs

To be retained. And loyalty is required.

Yet we mustn't look forwards or backwards.

We should let ourselves be cradled

As if on a boat rocking on a lake.

But what about things that we love?

We see sun shining on the ground, and the dry dust,

And at home the forests deep with shadows,

And smoke flowering from the rooftops,

Peacefully, near the ancient crowning towers.

These signs of daily life are good,

Even when by contrast something divine

Has injured the soul.

For snow sparkles on an alpine meadow,

Half-covered with green, signifying generosity

Of spirit in all situations, like flowers in May —

A wanderer walks up above on a high trail

And speaks irritably to a friend about a cross

He sees in the distance, set for someone

Who died on the path... what does it mean?

My Achilles

Died near a fig tree,

And Ajax lies in the caves of the sea

Near the streams of Skamandros —

Great Ajax died abroad

Following Salamis' inflexible customs,

A rushing sound at his temples —

But Patroclus died in the King's armor.

Many others died as well.

But Eleutherai, the city

Of Mnemosyne, once stood upon

Mount Kithaeron. Evening

Loosened her hair, after the god

Had removed his coat.

For the gods are displeased

If a person doesn't compose

And spare himself. 

But one has to do it, 

And grief is soon gone. 

Friedrich Hölderlin