He allows only one hope to glimmer through, formed in scanty words:
"He wakes the dead;
They who are not enchained and bound,
They who are not unwrought.
. . . And if the Heavenly Ones
Now, as I believe, love me—
. . . Silent is his sign[14]
In the dusky sky. And one stands under it
His whole life long—for Christ still lives."
But, as once Gilgamesh, bringing back the magic herb from the west land, was robbed of his treasure by the demon serpent, so does Hölderlin's poem die away in a painful lament, which betrays to us that no victorious resurrection will follow his descent to the shadows:
". . . Ignominiously
A power tears our heart away,
For sacrifices the heavenly ones demand."
This recognition, that man must sacrifice the retrogressive longing (the incestuous libido) before the "heavenly ones" tear away the sacrifice, and at the same time the entire libido, came too late to the poet. Therefore, I take it to be a wise counsel which the unconscious gives our author, to sacrifice the infantile hero. This sacrifice is best accomplished, as is shown by the most obvious meaning, through a complete devotion to life, in which all the libido unconsciously bound up in familial bonds, must be brought outside into human contact. For it is necessary for the well-being of the adult individual,
