"But to us is given In no place to rest": Hyperion's Song of Fate by Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843)

You wander above in the light
On smooth ground, blessed genii!
Gleaming airs of heaven
Touch you softly
As the girl-player’s fingers
Touch holy strings.

Fateless, like the sleeping
Infant, breathe the heaven-dwellers;
Chastely guarded
In modest bud
Everlastingly
Blooms their spirit,
And their blessed eyes
Gaze in tranquil
Eternal clarity.

But to us is given
In no place to rest;
Suffering mankind
Vanishes, falls
Blindly from one
Hour to the next,
Like water hurtled
From rapid to rapid,
Yearslong into uncertainty down.

(translation Jay Macphers)


You wander above in the light
on soft ground, blessed genies!
Blazing, divine breezes
brush by you as lightly
as the fingers of the player
on her holy strings.

Fateless, like sleeping
infants, the divine beings breathe,
chastely protected
in modest buds,
blooming eternally
their spirits,
and their blissful eyes
gazing in mute,
eternal clarity.

Yet there is granted us
no place to rest;
we vanish, we fall -
the suffering humans -
blind from one
hour to another,
like water thrown from cliff
to cliff,
for years into the unknown depths.

(Translation Emily Dust. Translation copyright © by Emily Ezust,
from The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive -- http://www.lieder.net/)

Ye wander there in the light
On flower-soft fields, ye blest immortal Spirits.
Radiant godlike zephyrs
Touch you as gently
As the hand of a master might
Touch the awed lute-string.

Free of fate as the slumbering
Infant, breathe the divine ones.
Guarded well
In the firm-sheathed bud
Blooms eternal
Each happy soul;
And their rapture-lit eyes
Shine with a tranquil
Unchanging lustre.

But we, ’tis our portion,
We never may be at rest.
They stumble, they vanish,
The suffering mortals,
Hurtling from one hard
Hour to another,
Like waves that are driven
From cliff-side to cliff-side,
Endlessly down the uncertain abyss.

(Translated by Charles Wharton Stork)

Ihr wandelt droben im Licht
Auf weichem Boden, selige Genien!
Glänzende Götterlüfte
Rühren Euch leicht,
Wie die Finger der Künstlerin
Heilige Saiten.

Schicksallos, wie der schlafende
Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen;
Keusch bewahrt
in bescheidener Knospe,
Blühet ewig
Ihnen der Geist,
Und die seligen Augen
Blicken in stiller
Ewiger Klarheit.

Doch uns ist gegeben,
Auf keiner Stätte zu ruhn;
Es schwinden, es fallen
Die leidenden Menschen
Blindlings von einer
Stunde [zur] andern,
Wie Wasser von Klippe
Zu Klippe geworfen,
Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab.

Hyperion's Song of Fate


Friedrich Hölderlin -- Hyperions Schicksalslied


J. Brahms - "Schicksalslied" (Song of Fate) Op. 54 for mixed choir and orchestra