e) The Time That Is Essentially Long
For Hölderlin the gods are “nothing other than time,” and ‘the heavenly quickly passes by.’2 Into this time of the gods tower the peaks of time as the times of the peoples. These times have their own measure.
. . . Lang ist
Die Zeit, es ereignet sich aber
Das Wahre.
. . . Long is
The time, yet what is true
Comes to pass.
(“Mnemosyne,” IV, 225, lines 17ff.)
Which time is long? It is “the time” of the everyday and the time on the peaks, yet each in a different way. Everyday time is “long” [lang] in boredom [Langeweile], where time holds us in limbo and in so doing leaves us empty, where we hurriedly and indiscriminately reach for whatever makes the long time pass or makes for diversion [kurzweilig macht].[4] The time of the peaks is long, because on the peaks reigns a persistent waiting for and awaiting the event [Ereignis], not boredom or diversion. There is no passing or even killing of time there, but a struggle for the duration and fullness of time that is preserved in awaiting. The time on the peaks is essentially long; for a making ready for the true that shall once come to pass [sich ereignen] does not happen overnight or to order, but consumes many human lives and even ‘generations.’ This ‘long time’ remains closed to all those who are overcome with boredom and have no intimation of their own boringness. This long time, however, “once” lets the true—the becoming manifest of beyng—come to pass. (Cf. “Germania,” line 93: “Something true must once appear.”)
f) The Creators’ Knowing When It Is Not the Time for the True to Come to Pass
Who we are, we do not know, so long as we do not know our time. Our time, however, is that of the people between the peoples. Who knows this time? No one knows it in such a way that he could indicate it or ‘date’ it. Even those creators who dwell on the peaks of time do not know it. They know one thing only: namely, when it is not the time for the true to come to pass. Hölderlin says this at the beginning of the poem “The Titans” (IV, 208):
2. “Conciliator, you who never believed . . . ,” IV, 163f., lines 49f.