All distances in time and space are shrinking. Man now rcachesovernight,
by plane, places which formerly took weeks and months of
travel. He now receives instant information, by radio, of events
which he formerly learned about only years later, if at all. The germination
and growth of plants, which remained hidden rhroughout
the seasons, is now exhibited publicly in 'a: minute, on film.
Distant sites of the most ancient cultures are shown on film as if
they stood this very moment amidst today's street traffic. Moreover,
the film attests to what it shows by presenting also the camera
and its operators at work. The peak of this abolition of every possibility
of remoteness is reached by television, which will soon pervade
and dominate the whole machinery of communication.
Man puts the longest distances behind him in the shortest
time. He puts the greatest distances behind himself and thus puts
everyhng before himself at the shortest range.
Yet the frantic abolition ofall distances brings no nearness; for
nearness does not consist in shortness of distance. What is least
remote from us in point of distance, by virtue of its picture on 6lrn
or its sound on the radio, can remain far from us. What is incalculably
far from us in point of distance can be near to us. Short distance
is not in itself nearness. Nor is great distance remoteness.
What is nearness if it fails to come about despite the reduction
of the longest distances to the shortest intervals? What is nearness
164 Poetry, Language, Thought T h e Thing $J 165
if it is even repelled by the restless abolition of distances?What is
nearness if, along with its failure to appear, remoteness also
remains absent?
What is happening here when, as a result of the abolition of
great distances, everything is equally far and equally near? What is
this uniformity in which everydung is neither far nor near-is, as it
were, without distance?
Everything gets lumped together into uniform distancelessness.
How? Is not this merging of everything into the distanceless
more unearthly than everydung bursting apart?
Man stares at what the explosion of the atom bomb could
bring with it. H e does not see that the atom bomb and its explosion
are the mere final emission of what has long since taken place,
has already happened. Not to mention the single hydrogen bomb,
whose triggering, thought through to its utmost potential, might
be enough to snuff out all life on earth. What is this helpless anxiety
still waiting for, if the terrible has already happened?
The terrifying is unsettling; it places everything outside its
own nature. What is it that unsettles and thus terrifies? It shows
itself and hides itself in the way in which everything presences,
namely, in the fact that despite all conquest of distances the nearness
of things remains absent.
What about nearness? How can we come to know its nature?
Nearness, it seems, cannot be encountered directly. We succeed in
reaching it rather by attending to what is near. Near to us are what
we usually call things. But what is a thing?Man has so far given no
more thought to the thing as a thing than he has to nearness. The
jug is a thing. What is the jug? We say: a vessel, something of the
kind that holds something else within it. The jug's holding is done
by its base and sides. This container itself can again be held by the
handle. As a vessel the jug is something self-sustained, something
that stands on its own. This standing on its own characterizes the
jug as somethmg that is self-supporting, or independent. As the
self-supporting independence of something independent, the jug
differs from an object. An independent, self-supporting thing may
become an object if we place it before us, whether in immediate
perception or by bringing it to mind in a recollective re-presentation,
However, the thingly character of the thing does not consist in its
being a represented object, nor can it be defined in any way in
terms of the objectness, the over-againstness, of the object.
The jug remains a vessel whether we represent it in our minds ,
or not. As a vessel the jug stands on its own as self-supporting. But
what does it mean to say that the container stands on its own?
Does the vessel's self-support alone define the jug as a thing?
Clearly the jug stands as a vessel only because it has been brought
to a stand. This happened during, and happens by means of, a
process of setting, of setting forth, namely, by producing the jug.
The potter makes the earthen jug out of earth that he has specially
chosen and prepared for it. The jug consists of that earth. By virtue
of what the jug consists of, it too can stand on the earth, either
immediately or through the mediation of table and bench. What
exists by such producing is what stands on its own, is self-supporting.
When we take the jug as a made vessel, then Surely we are apprehending
it-so it seems-as a thing and never as a mere object.
Or do we even now still take the jug as an object? Indeed. It
is, to be sure, no longer considered only an object of a mere act of
representation, but in return it is an object which a process of making
has set up before and against us. Its self-support seems to mark
the jug as a thing. But in truth we are thinking of dus self-support
in terms of the making process. Self-support is what the making
aims at. But even so, the self-support is still thought of in terms of
objectness, even though the over-againstness of what has been put
forth is no longer grounded in mere representation, in the mere
putting it before our minds. But horn the objectness of the object,
and from the product's self-support, there is n o way that leads to
the thingness of the thing.
What in the thing is thingly? What is the thing in itself? We
shall not reach the thing in itself until our dunking has first reached
166 Poetry, Language, Thought
T h e Thing 167
l n e jug 1s a t u g as a vessel-it can hold something. TO be
sure, this container has to bc made. But its being made by the
potter in no way constitutes what is peculiar and proper to the jug
insofar as it is qua jug. The jug is not a vessel because it was made;
rather, the jug had to be made because it is this holding vessel.
The making, it is true, lets the jug come into its own. But that
which in-the jug's nature is its own is never brought about by its
making. Now released from the making process, the self-supporting
jug has to gather itself for the task of containing. In the process of
its making, of course, the jug must first show its outward appearance
to the maker. But what shows itself here, the aspect (the eidos,
the idea), characterizes the jug solely in the respect in which the
vessel stands over against the maker as something to be made.
But what the vessel of this aspect is as this jug, what and how
the jug is as this jug-thing, something we can never learn-let
alone dunk properly-by looking at the outward appearance, the
idea. That is why Plato, who conceives of the presence of what is
present iri'terms of the outward appearance, had no more understanding
of the nature of the thing that did Aristotle and all subsequent
thinkers. Rather, Plato experienced (decisively, indeed, for
the sequel) everything present as an object of making. Instead of
"objectw-as that which stands before, over against, opposite
us-we use the more precise expression "what stands forth." In
the 111 nature of what stands forth, a twofold standing prevails.
First, standing forth has the sense of stemming from somewhere,
whether this be a process of self-making or of being made by
another. Secondly, standing forth has the sense of the made thing's
standing forth into the unconcealedness of what is already present.
Nevertheless, no representation of what is present, in the
sense of what stands forth and of what stands over against as an
object, ever reaches to the thing qua thing. The jug's dungness
resides in its being qua vessel. We become aware of the vessel's
holding nature when we fill the jug. The jug's bottom and sides
obviously take on the task of holding. But not so fast! When we
iitl the jug with wine, do we pour the wine into the sides and
bottom? At most, we pour the wine between the sides and over
the bottom. Sides and bottom are, to be sure, what is impermeable
in the vessel. But what is impermeable is not yet what does the
holding. When we fill the jug, the pouring that fills it flows into
the empty jug. The emptiness, the void, is what does the vessel's
holding. The empty space, this nothlng of the jug, is what the jug
is as the holding vessel.
But the jug does consist of sides and bottom. By that of whlch
the jug consists, it stands. What would a jug be that did not stand?
At least a jug manqui, hence a jug still-namely, one that would
indeed hold but that, constantly falling over, would empty itself of
what it holds. Only a vessel, however, can empty itself.
Sides and bottom, of which the jug consists and by which it
stands, are not really what does the holdng. But if the holding is
done by the jug's void, then the potter who forms sides and bottom
on his wheel does not, strictly speaking, make the jug. He
only shapes the clay. No-he shapes the void. For it, in it, and out
of it, he forms the clay into the form. From start to finish the
porter takes hold of the impalpable void and brings it forth as the
container in the shape of a containing vessel. The jug's void determines
all the handling in the process of malung the vessel. The
vessel's thingness does not lie at all in the material of which it
consists, but in the void that holds.
And yet, is the jug really empty?
Physical science assures us that the jug is filled with air and
with everything that goes to make up the air's mixture. We allowed
ourselves to be misled by a semipoetic way of looking at h g s
when we pointed to the void of the jug in order to define its acting
as a container.
But as soon as we agree to study the actual jug scientifically,
in regard to its redty, the facts turn out Ifferently. When we pour
wine into the jug, the air that already fills the jug is simply displaced
by a liquid. Considered scientifically, to fill a jug means to
exchange one filling for another.
These statements of physics are correct. By means of them,
168 Poetry, Language, T h o u g h t
science represents something real, by whch it is objectively controlled.
But-is this reality the jug? No. Science always encounters
only what its kind of representation has admitted beforehand as an
object possible for science.
It is said that scientific knowledge is compelling. Certainly.
But what does its compulsion consist in? In our instance it consists
in the compulsion to relinquish the wine-filled jug and to put in
its place a hollow within which a liquid spreads. Science makes the
jug-thing into a nonentity in not permitting things to be the standard
for what is real.
Science's knowledge, which is compelling within its own
sphere, the sphere of objects, already had annihilated things as
things long before the atom bomb exploded. The bomb's explosion
is only the grossest of all gross confirmations of the longsince-accomplished
annihilation of the thing: the confirmation
that the thing as a thing remains nil.The thingness of the thing
:, remains concealed, forgotten. The nature of the thing never comes
to light, that is, it never gets a hearing. This is the meaning of our
4 talk about the annihdation of the thing. That annihilation is so
0
weird because it carries before it a twofold delusion: first, the
notion that science is superior to all other experience in reaching
the real in its reahty, and second, the illusion that, notwithstanding
the scientific investigation of reality, things could still be things,
which would presuppose that they had once been in full possession
of their thinghood. But if dungs ever had already shown themselves
qua things in their thingness, then the thing's thingness
would have become manifest and would have laid claim to
thought. In truth, however, the thtng as thing remains proscribed,
nil, and in that sense annihilated. This has happened and continues
to happen so essentially that not only are things no longer admitted
as things, but they have never yet at all been able to appear to
thinking as things.
To what is the nonappearance of the thing as thing due? Is it
simply that man has neglected to represent the thing as thing to
lumself? Man can neglect only what has already been assigned to
170 (& P o e t r y , L a n g u a g e , T h o u g h t
T h e T h i n g $j 169
him. Man can represent, no matter how, only what has previously
come to light of its own accord and has shown itself to him in the
light it brought with it.
What, then, is the thlng as thing, that its essential nature has
never yet been able to appear?
Has the thing never yet come near enough for man to learn '
how to attend sufficiently to the thing as thing? What is nearness?
We have already asked this question before. To learn what nearness
is, we examined the jug near by.
In what does the jug-character of the jug consist?We suddenly
lost sight of it-at the moment, in fact, when the illusion intruded
itself that science could reveal to us the reality of the jug. We represented
the effective feature of the vessel, that whlch does its holding,
the void, as a hollow filled with air. Conceived in terms of
physical science, that is what the void really is; but it is not the
jug's void. We did not let the jug's void be its own void. We paid
no heed to that in the vessel which does the containing. We have
given no thought to how the containing itself goes on. Accordingly,
even what the jug contains was bound to escape us. In the
scientific view, the wine became a liquid, and liquidity in turn
became one of the states of aggregation of matter, possible everywhere.
We failed to give thought to what the jug holds and how it
holds.
How does the jug's void hold? It holds by taking what is
poured in. It holds by keeping and retaining what it took in. The
void holds in a twofold manner: taking and keeping. The word
"hold" is therefore ambiguous. Nevertheless, the takmg of what
is poured in and the keeping of what was poured belong together.
But their unity is determined by the outpouring for which the jug
is fitted as a jug. The twofold holding of the void rests on the
outpouring. In the outpouring, the holding is authentically how it
is. To pour from the jug is to gyve. The holding of the vessel occurs
in the giving of the outpouring. Holding needs the void as that
which holds. The nature of the holding void is gathered in the
giving. But giving is richer than a mere pouring out. The giving,
--T
T h e Thing $) 171
I t - .whereby the jug is a jug, gathers in the twofold holdinu-in thp :" ..- J - - .
whereby the jug is a jug, gathers in the twofold holding-in the
ourpouring, We call the gathering of the twofold holding into the
outpouring, which, as a being together, first constitutes the full
presence of giving: the poured gift. The jug's jug-character consists
in the poured gift of the pouring out. Even the empty jug
retains its nature by virtue of the poured gift, even though the
empty jug does not admit of a giving out. But this nonadmission
belongs to the jug and to it alone. A scythe, by contrast, or a
hammer is capable of a nonadmission of this giving.
The giving of the outpouring can be a drink. The outpouring
gives water, it gives wine to drink.
The spring stays on in the water of the gift. In the spring the
rock dwells, and in the rock dwells the dark slumber of the earth,
which receives the rain and dew of the sky. In the water of the
spring dwells the marriage of sky and earth. It stays in the wine
given by the f n ~ i tof the vine, the fnlit in which the earth's nourishment
and the sky's sun are betrothed to one another. In the gift of
water, in thi'gifi of wine, sky and earth dwell. But the gift of the
outpouring is what makes the jug a jug. In the jugness of the jug,
sky and earth dwell.
The gift of the pouring out is drink for mortals. It quenches
their thirst. It refreshes their leisure. It enlivens their conviviality.
But the jug's gift is at times also given for consecration. If the
pouring is for consecration, then it does not still a thirst. It stills
and elevates the celebration of the feast. The gift of the pouring
now is neither given in an inn nor is the poured gift a drink for
mortals. The outpouring is the libation poured out for the immortal
gods. The gifi of the outpouring as libation is the authentic
gift. In giving the consecrated libation, the pouring jug occurs as
the giving gift. The consecrated libation is what our word for a
strong outpouring flow, "gush," really designates: gifi and sacrifice.
"Gush," Mddle English guschen, gosshen-cf. German Guss,
giessen-is the Greek cheein, the Indoeuropean ghu. It means to
offer in sacrifice. To pour a gush, when it is achieved in its essence,
thought through with sufficient generosity, and genuinely uttered,
I h c T h i n g ;B) 1 7 1
is to donate, to offer in sacrifice, and hence to give. It is only for
this reason that the pouring of the gush, once its nature withers,
can become a mere pouring in and pouring out, until it finally
decays into the dispensing of liquor at the bar. Pouring the outpour
is not a mere filling and decanting.
In the gift of the outpouring that is drink, mortals stay in their
own way. In the gift of the outpouring that is a libation, the divinities
stay in their own way, they who receive back the gift of giving
as the gift of the donation. In the gift of the outpouring, mortals
and divinities each dwell in their different ways. Earth and sky
dwell in the gift of the outpouring. In the gift of the outpouring
earth and sky, divinities and mortals dwell together all at once.
These four, at one because of what they themselves are, belong
together. Preceding everything that is present, they are enfolded
into a single fourfold.
In the gift of the outpouring dwells the simple singlefoldness
of the four.*
The gift of the outpouring is a gift because it stays earth and
sky, divinities and mortals. Yet staying is now no longer the mere
persisting of something that is here. Staying appropriates. It brings
the four into the light of their mutual belonging. From out of
staying's simple onefoldness they are betrorhed, entrusted to one
another. At one in thus being entrusted to one another, they are
unconcealed. The gift of the outpouring stays the onefold of the
fourfold of the four, And in the poured gift the jug presences as
jug. The gift gathers what belongs to giving: the twofold containing,
the container, the void, and the ourpouring as donation. What
is gathered in the gift gathers itself in appropriately staying the
fourfold. This manifold-simple gathering is the jug's presencing.
Our language denotes what a gathering is by an ancient word.
That word is: thing. The jug's presencing is the pure, giving gathering
of the onefold fourfold into a single time-space, a single stay.
The jug presences as a thing. The jug is the jug as a thing. But
'The German Einfalt means simplicity, literally oncfoldcdness. -TR.
172 @ Poetry, Language, Thought The Thing 173
how does the thing presence?The thing thmgs. Thinging gathers. then, here and elsewhere, is not that our thinking feeds on etymolAppropriating
the fo~lrfold,it gathers the fourfold's stay, its while, ogy, but rather that etymology has the standing mandate first to
into sometbulg that stays for a while: into this thing, that thlng. give thought to the essential content involved in what dictionary
The jug's essential nature, its presencing, so experienced and words, as words, denote by implication.
thought of in these terms, is what we call thing. We are now think- The Roman word yes designates that which concerns someing
this word by way of the gathering-appropriating staying of the body, an affair, a contested matter, a case at law. The Romans also
fourfold. At the same time we recall the Old High German word use for it the word causa. In its authentic and original sense, this
thin&.This rebrence to the history of language could easily tempt word in no way signifies "cause"; causa means the case and hence
us to misunderstand the way in which we are now thinking of the also that which is the case, in the sense that something comes to
nature of the thng. It might look as though the nature of the pass and becomes due. Only because causa, almost synonymously
thing as we are now thinking of it had been, so to speak, thought- with yes, means the case, can the word causa later come to mean
lessly poked out of the accidentally encountered meaning of the cause, in the sense of the causality of an effect. The Old German
Old High German thing. The suspicion arises that the understand- word thing or dinc, with its meaning of a gathering specifically for
ing of the nature of the thingness that we are here uying to reach the purpose of dealing with a case or matter, is suited as no other
may be based on the accidents of an etymological game. The word to translate properly the Roman word yes, that which is pertinotion
becomes established and is already current that, instead of nent, which has a bearing. From that word of the Roman langiving
thought to essential matters, we are here merely using the guage, which there corresponds to the word yes-from the word
dictionary. causa in the sense of case, affair, matter of pertinence-there
The opposite is true. To be sure, the Old High German word develop in turn the Romance la cosa and the French la chose; we
4
thin8 means a gathering, and specifically a gathering to deliberate say, "the thing." In English "thing" has still preserved the full
on a matter under dscussion, a contested matter. In consequence, sematltic power of the Roman word: "He knows his things," he
the Old German words thing and dtnc become the names for an understands the matters that have a bearing on him; "He knows
&air or matter of pertinence. They denote anything that in any how to handle things," he knows how to go about dealing with
way bears upon men, concerns them, and that accordingly is a affairs, that is, with what matters from case to case; "That's a great
matter for discourse. The Romans called a matter for discourse thing," that is somethii~ggrand (fine, tren~endous,splendid),
yes. The Greek eiro (vhetos, vhetra, vhema) means to speak about something that comes of itself and bears upon man.
;ornething, to deliberate on it. Res publica means, not the state, But the decisive point now is not at all the short semantic
3ut that which, known to everyone, concerns everybody and is history here given of the words yes, Ding,causa, cosa, chose, and
herefore deliberated in public. thing, but something altogether different, to which n o thought
Only because res means what concerns men are the combina- whatever has hitherto been given. The Roman word res denotes
ions yes adversae, res secundae possible. The first is what affects or what pertains to man, concerns him and hls interests in any way or
)ears on man adversely, the second what attends man favorably. manner. That which concerns man is what is real in yes. The
!'he dictionaries, to be sure, translate res adversae correctly as bad Roman experience of the realitas of yes is that of a bearing-upon,
ortune, res secundae as good fortune; but dictionaries have little a concern. But the Romans never properly thought through the
o report about what words, spoken thoughtfully, say. The truth, nature of what they thus experienced. Rather, the Roman realitas
T h e Thing & 175
174 @ Poetry, Language, Thought 1
I 174 a P o e c r y , L a n g u a g e , T h o u g h t
of res is conceived in terms of the meaning of on which they took
over from the Greek philosophy; on, Latin ens, means that which
is present in the sense ofstandmg forth here. Res becomes ens, that
which is present in the sense of what is put here, put before us,
presented. The peculiar renlitas of res as originally experienced by
I the Romans, a bearing-upon or concern, i.e., the very nature of
that which is present, remains buried. Conversely, in later times,
especially m the Middle Ages, the term resserves to designate every
ens qua ens, that is, everything present in any way whatever, even
if it stands forth and presences only in mental representation as an
ens rationis.The same happens wirh the corresponding term thing
or dinc; for these words denote anything whatever that is in any
way. Accordingly Meister Eckhart uses the word thing (dinc) for
God as well as for the soul. God is for him the "highest and uppermost
thing." The soul is a "great thing." This master of dunking
in no way means to say that God and the soul are something like a
rock: a material object. Thing is here the cautious and abstemious
name for something that is at all. Thus Meister Eckhart says,
adopting an expression of Dionysius the Areopagite: diu minne ist
der natur, daz si den menschen wandelt in die dinc, di ev minnetlove
is of such a nature that it changes man into the things he
loves.
Because the word thing as used in Western metaphysics
denotes that which is at all and is something in some way or other,
the meaning of the name "thing" varies with the interpretation of
that which is-of entities. Kant talks about things in the same way
as Meister Eckhart and means by this term something that is. But
for Kant, that which is becomes the object of a representing that
runs its course in the self-consciousness of the human ego. The
thing-in-itself means for Kant: the object-in-itself. To Kant, the
character of the "in-itself" signifies that the object is an object in
itselfwithout reference to the human act of representing it, that is,
without the opposing "ob-" by which it is first of all put before
this representing act. "Thing-in-itself," thought in a rigorously
Kantian way, means an object that is no object for us, because it is
.........._
P
T h e T h n n g 1 7 5
supposed to stand, stay put, without a possible before: for the
human representational act that encounters it.
Neither the general, long outworn meaning of the term
"thing," as used in philosophy, nor the Old High German meaning
of the word thing, however, are of the least help to us in our
pressing need to discover and give adequate thought to the essential
source of what we are now saying about the nature of the jug.
However, one semantic factor in the old usage of the word thin&,
namely "gathering," does speak to the nature of the jug as we
earlier had it in mind.
The jug is a thing neither in the sense of the Roman res, nor
in the sense of the medieval ens, let alone in the modern sense of
object. The jug is a thing insofar as it things. The presence of
something present such as the jug comes into its own, appropriatively
manifests and determines itself, onlv from the thinging of
the thing.
Today everything present is equally near and equally far. The
distanceless prevails. But no abridging or abolishing,of &stances
brings nearness. What is nearness?To discover the nature of nearness,
we gave thought to the jug near by. We have sought the
nature of nearness and found the nature of the jug as a dung. But
in this discovery we also catch sight of the nature of nearness. The
thing h n g s . In thinging, it stays earth and sky, divinities and mortals.
Staying, the thing brings the four, in their remoteness, near
to one another. This bringing-near is nearing. Nearing is the presencing
of nearness. Nearness brings near-draws nigh to one
another-the far and, indeed, as the far. Nearness preserves farness.
Preserving Carness, nearness presences nearness in nearing
that farness. Bringing near in this way, nearness conceals its own
self and remains, in its own way, nearest of all.
The thing is not "in" nearness, "in" proxinlity, as if nearness
were a container. Nearness is at work in bringing near, as the
thinging of the thing.
Thinging, the thing stays the united four, earth and sky, dvin-
I 176 & Poetry, Language, Thought
ities and mol-tds, in the simple onefold of their self-unified four-
fold.
Earth is the building bearer, nourishing with its fruits, tendng
water and rock, plant and animal.
When we say earth, we are already thinking of the other three
along with it by way of the simple oneness of the four.
The sky is the sun's path, the course of the moon, the glitter
of the stars, the year's seasons, the light and dusk of day, the gloom
and glow of night, the clemency and inclemency of the weather,
the drifting clouds and blue depth of the ether.
When we say sky, we are already thlnking of the other three
along with it by way of the simple oneness of the four.
The divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead.
Out of the hdden sway of the divinities the god emerges as what
he is, whch removes hlm from any comparison with beings that
are present.
When we speak of the dvinities, we are already thinking of
the other three,along with them by way of the simple oneness of
the four.
4 The mortals are human beings. They are called mortals
because they can die. To die means to be capable of death as death.
Only man des. The animal perishes. It has death neither ahead of
itself nor behind it. Death is the shrine of Nothing, that is, of that
which in every respect is never something that merely exists, but
which nevertheless presences, even as the mystery of Being itself.
As the shrine of Nothing, death harbors within itself the presencing
of Being. As the shrine of Nothing, death is the shelter of
Being. We now call mortals mortals-not because their earthly life
comes to an end, but because they are capable of death as death.
Mortals are who they are, as mortals, present in the shelter of
Being. They are the presencing relation to Being as Being.
Metaphysics, by contrast, thinks of man as animal, as a living
being. Even when ratio pervades animalitas, man's being remains
defined by life and life-experience, Rational living beings must first
become mortals.
The T h i n g 177
When we say mortals, we are then thlnlung of the other three
along with them by way of the simple oneness of the four.
Earth and sky, divinities and mortals-being at one with one
another of their own accord-belong together by way of the sim- .
pleness of the united fourfold. Each of the four mirrors in its own
way the presence of the others. Each therewith reflects itself in its
own way into its own, within the simpleness of the four. This rnirroring
does not portray a likeness. The mirroring, lightening each
of the four, appropriates their own presencing into simple belonging
to one another. Mirroring in this appropriating-lightening
way, each of the four plays to each of the others. The appropriative
mirroring sets each of the four free into its own, but it binds these
free ones into the simplicity of their essential being toward one
another.
The mirroring that binds into freedom is the play that
betroths each of the four to each through d ~ eenfolding clasp of
their mutual appropriation. None of the four insists on its own
separate particularity. Rather, each is expropriated,. within their
mutual appropriation, into its own being. This expropriative
appropriating is the mirror-play of the fourfold. Out of the fourfold,
the simple onefold of the four is ventured.
This appropriating mirror-play of the simple onefold of earth
and sky, divinities and mortals, we call the world. The world presences
by worlding. That means: the world's worlding cannot be
explained by anythlng else nor can it be fathomed through anything
else. This impossibility does not lie in the inability of our
human thinking to explain and fathom in this way. Rather, the
inexplicable and unfathomable character of the world's worlding
lies in this, that causes and grounds remain unsuitable for the
world's worldng. As soon as human cognition here calls for an
explanation, it fails to transcend the world's nature, and falls short
of it. The human will to explain just does not reach to the simpleness
of the simple onefold of worlding. The united four are already
strangled in their essential nature when we think of them only as
178 @ Poetry, Language, T h o u g h t
separate realities, which are to be grounded in and explained by
one another.
The unity of the fourfold is the fouring. But the fouring does
not come about in such a way that it encompasses the four and
only afterward is added to them as that compass. Nor does the
fouring exhaust itself in this, that the four, once they are there,
stand side by side singly.
The fouring, the unity of the four, presences as the appropriating
mirror-play of the betrothed, each to the other in simple
oneness. The fouring presences as the worlding of world. The
mirror-play of world is the round dance of appropriating. Therefore,
the round dance does not encompass the four like a hoop.
The round dance is the ring that joins while it plays as mirroring.
Appropriating, it lightens the four into the radiance of their simple
oneness. Radiantly, the ring joins the four, everywhere open to the
riddle of their presence. The gathered presence of the mirror-play
of the world, joining in this way, is the ringing. In the ringing of
the mirror-playing ring, the four nestle into their unifying presence,
in which each one retains its own nature. So nestling, they
join together, worldmg, the world.
Nestling, malleable, pliant, compliant, nimble-in Old German
these are called ringandgering. The mirror-play of the worlding
world, as the ringing of the ring, wrests fiee the united four
into their own compliancy, the circling compliancy of their presence.
Out of the ringing mirror-play the thinging of the thing takes
place.
The thing stays-gathers and unites-the fourfold. The thing
things world. Each thing stays the fourfold into a happening of the
simple onehood of world.
If we let the thing be present in its thinging from out of the
worlding world, then we are thinking of the thing as thing. Taking
thought,in this way, we let ourselves be concerned by the thing's
worlding being. Thinking in this way, we are called by the thing as
the thing. In the strict sense of the German word bedingt, we are
T h e Thing a 179
the be-thlnged, the conditioned ones. We have left behind us the
presumption of all unconditionedness.
If we think of the thing as thing, then we spare and protect the
thing's presence in the region from which it presences. Thinging is
the nearing of world. Nearing is the nature of nearness. As we
preserve the thing qua thing we inhabit nearness. The nearing of
nearness is the true and sole dimension of the mirror-play of the
world.
The failure of nearness to materialize in consequence of the
' abolition of all distances has brought the distanceless to dominance.
In the default of nearness the thing remains annihilated as
/ a thing in our sense. But when and in what way do things exist as
things?This is the question we raise in the midst of the dominance
of the distanceless.
When and in what way do thlngs appear as things? They d o
not appear by means of human malung. But neither do they appear
without the vigilance of mortals. The first step toward such vigii
lance is the step back from the thinking that merely represents:
that is, explains-to the thinking that responds and recalls.
The step back from the one thinlung to the other is no nlere
i shift of attitude. It can never be any such thing for this reason
'
alone: that all attitudes, including the ways in which they shift,
, remain committed to the precincts of representational thinking.
'
The step back does, indeed, depart from the sphere of mere attitudes.
The step back takes up its residence in a co-responding
which, appealed to in the world's being by the world's being,
answers within itself to that appeal. A mere shift of attitude is powerless
to bring about the advent of the thing as thing, just as nothing
that stands today as an object in the &stanceless can ever be
simply switched over into a thing. Nor d o things as things ever
come about if we merely avoid objects and recollect former objects
which perhaps were once on the way to becoming things and even
i
to actually presencing as things.
Whatever becomes a thing occurs out of the ringing of the
world's mirror-play. Only when-all of a sudden, presumably-i
180 @ Poetry, Language, Thought
world worlds as a world, only then does the ring shine forth, the
joining from which the ringing of earth and heaven, divinities and
mortals, wrests itself free for that compliancy of simple oneness.
In accordance with this ring thinging itself is unpretentious,
and each present thing, modestly compliant, fits into its own
being. Inconspicuously compliant is the thing: the jug and the
bench, the footbridge and the plow. But tree and pond, too, brook
and hill, are things, each in its own way. Things, each thinging
born time to time in its own way, are heron and roe, deer, horse
and bull. Things, each thinging and each staying in its own way,
are mirror and clasp, book and picture, crown and cross.
R,,? eL;nmc ,,P,=, .-.I*- .----I:--* - - A ---I--- '
I
- U L Uu116., L u l ~ ~ t ) ~ l ~ ~ ~ ~~ I L U LLIUUCSL in numuer, compared
with the countless objects everywhere of equal value, cornpared
with the measureless mass of men as living beings.
Men alone, as mortals, by dwelling attain to the world as
I
world. Only what conjoins itself out of world becomes a thing.
Epilogue
@
A Letter to a Young.Student
Freiburg r. BY.,18.Jutie 1950
DEARMR. BUCHNER:
Thank you for your letter. Your questions are impor-
18,
tant and your argumentation is correct. Nevertheless it i
remains to consider whether they touch on what is decisive.
4
You ask: whence does t h i k n g about Being receive (to
speak concisely) its directive?
1
Here you are not considering "Being" as an object, 3
nor thinking as the mere activity of a subject. Thinking,
ii
such as lies at the basis of the lecture ("The Thing"), is no
1
mere representing of some existent. "Being" is in no way 1identical with reality or with a precisely determined actual- ;c
ity. Nor is Being in any way opposed to being-no-longer
1and being-not-yet; these two belong themselves to the ~i
essential nature of Being. Even metaphysics already had, to
l
a certain extent, an intimation of this fact in its doctrine of
the modahties-which, to be sure, has hardly been under- i
I
stood-accordmg to which possibility belongs to Being just
as much as do actuality and necessity. 5
In thinking of Being, it is never the case that only
somethtng actual is represented in our minds and then given
out as that whch alone is true. To h n k "Being" means: to
180 Poetry, Language, T h o ~ ~ g h t
world w,orlds as a world, only then does the ring shine forth, the
joining from which the ringing of earth and heaven, divinities and
mortals, wrests itself free for that compliancy of simple oneness.
In accordance with this ring thinging itself is unpretentious,
and each present thing, rn-compliant, fits into its own
'being. Inconspicuously compliant is the thing: the jug and the
bench, the footbridge and the plow. But tree and pond, too, brook
and hill, are things, each in its own way. Things, each thinging
from time to time in its own way, are heron and roe, deer, horse
and bull. Things, each thillging and each staying in its own way,
are mirror and clasp, book and picture, crown and cross.
But things are also compliant and modest in number, compared
with the countless objects everywhere of equal value, compared
with the measureless mass of men as living beings.
Men alone, as mortals, by dwelling attain t o the world as
world. Only what conjoins itself out of world becomes a thing.
Epilogue
@
A Letter to a Young Student
Fyeibur~i. By., 18.Jztne 1950
L>EAR MR. BUCHNER:
Thank you for your letter. Your questions are i m p ~ r tant
and your argumentatioll is correct. Nevertheless it
remains to consider whether they touch on what is decisive.
You ask: whence does thinking about Being receive (to
speak concisely) its directive?
Here you are not considering "Being" as an object,
nor thinking as the mere activity of a subject. Thinking,
such as lies at the basis of the lecture ("The Thing"), is no
mere representing of some existent. "Being" is in no way
identical with reality or with a precisely determined actuality.
Nor is Being in any way opposed to being-no-longer
and being-not-yet; these two belong themselves to the
essential nature of Being. Even nietaphysics already had, to
a certain extent, an intimation of this fact in its doctrine of
the modalities-which, to be sure, has hardly been understood-according
to n~hiclipossibility belongs to Being just
as much as do actuality and necessity.
In thinki~lgof Being, it is never the case that only
something actual is represented in our minds and then given
I respond to the appeal of its presencing. The response stems'
,i IJ c
from the appeal and releases itself toward that appeal. The
~ r , ' '+responding is a giving way before the appeal and in this way
an entering into its speech. But to the appeal of Being there t.
also bclongs the early uncovered has-been (aletheia, logos,
phusis) as well as the veiled advent of what announces itself
in the possible turnabout of the oblivion of Being (in the
keeping of its nature). The responding must take into
account all of this, on the strength of long concentration
and in constant testing of its hearing, if it is to hear an appeal
of Being. But precisely here the response may hear wrongly.
In this thinking, the chance of going astray is greatest. This
thinking can never show credentials such as mathematical
knowledge can. But it is just as little a matter of arbitrariness;
rather, it is rooted in the essential destiny of Being,
though itself never compelling as a proposition. On the contrary,
it is only a possible occasion to follow the path of
responding, and indeed to follow it in the complete concentration
of care and caution toward Being that language has
already come to.
The default of God and the divinities is absence. But
absence is not nothing; rather it is precisely the presence,
ness, which heeds the directive that lies in the manner in
which Being makes its appeal. In the destiny of Being there
is never a mere sequence of things one after another: now
frame, then world and thing; rather, there is always a passing
by and simultaneity of the early and late. In Hegel's Phenomenology
of Spirit, aletheia presences, though transmuted.
As a response, thinking of Being is a highly errant and
in addition a very destitute matter. Thinking is perhaps,
after all, an unavoidable path, which refi~sesto be a path of
salvation and brings no newTwisdom. The path is at most a
field path, a path across fields, which does not just speak of
renunciation but already has renounced, namely, renounced
the claim to a binding doctrine and a valid cultural achievement
or a deed of the spirit. Everything depends on the step
back, fraught with error, into the thoughtful reflection that
attends the turnabout of the oblivion of Being, the turnabout
that is prefigured in the destiny of Being. The step
back from the representational thinking of metaphysics does
not reject such thinking, but opens the distant to the appeal
of the trueness of Being in which the responding always
takes place.
It has happened to me more than once, and indeed
which must first be appropriated, of the hidden fullness and precisely with people close to me, that they listen gladly and
wealth ofwhat has been and what, thus gathered, is presenc- attentively to the presentation of the jug's nature, but
ing, of the divine in the world of the Greeks, in prophetic immediately stop listening when the discussion turns to
Judaism, in the preaching of Jesus. This no-longer is in itself objectness, the standing forth and coming forth of produci
a not-yet of the veiled arrival of its inexhaustible nature. tion-when it turns to framing. But all this is necessarily
I Since Being is never the merely precisely actual, to guard part of thinlung of the thing, a thinking that thinks about
Being can never be equated with the task of a guard who the possible advent of world, and keeping it thus in mind
protects from burglars a treasure stored in a building. perhaps helps, in the humblest and inconspicuous matters,
Guardianship of Being is not fixated upon something exis- such an advent to reach the opened-up realm of man's
tent. The exiting thing, taken for itself, never contains an nature as man.
appeal of Being. Guardianship is vigilance, watchfulness for Among the curious experiences I have had with my lecthe
has-been and coming destiny of Being, a vigilance that ture is also this, that someone raises the question as to
issues from a long and ever-renewed thoughthl deliberate- whence my thinking gets its directive, as though this ques-