which is strengthened to an evenmore heroic character, in the key of antique warrior-love—by battles and vigils and camp-life together. In the naval conflict at Tschesme, Hyperion is dangerously wounded. He lies several days in unconsciousness, until he opens his eyes to find Alabanda caring for him:
"With tears of joy he stood there before me, so grand a figure to me. I held out my hand, and he, that stately being, kissed it with all the transports of love. "He lives!" he exclaimed,—"O Nature thou saviour! thou kind and all healing one! Wandering pair that we two are, now without even a fatherland, thou dost not desert us!"[1]
But the two friends must part for good and all, presently. Alabanda is subject to the orders of a mysterious political society, such as abounded in Greece at the time. He is already in peril of death, as a punishment for his love for young Hyperion, which has more or less drawn him aside from certain political services. The story concludes with Hyperion returning to Germany; lingering there alone henceforth, ever rancorous in his hatred of Teutonism in temperament and social culture. Hölderlin expresses constantly his ideals and personality during the story; especially when he sums up the German race as "—barbarians through all the ages, made only more barbarous by their diligence their and science and even their religion; wholly incapable of any high emotions, spoiled to the marrow for any felicitous sense of what the Graces bestow; insulting every refined nature by their exaggerations and their deficiences; dull and tuneless as castaway barrel-staves! A hard judgment, and yet I write—for it is true!"
August von
Platen.
A special study in this book concerns August von Platen-Hallermund, the lyric poet and satirical dramatist, whose heart-story is a long series of homosexual loves. For the most part unhappy
- ↑ Transl. X. M.
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