Aeolic Odes

Friedrich Hölderlin's Odes are built upon precise syllabic and rhythmic schemes, inspired by poetic forms originating from ancient Greece. In the hope of giving an idea of the music they produce, the present English translations strive to reproduce their metrics. They are speaking to us of a longing for the childhood of humankind, for Greece where the voice of the gods could still be heard, and of the danger lying in trying to find again that too powerful voice which is that of unmitigated reality, re-enchanted and therefore striking like lightning: "For they who lend us the fire of heaven, / The gods, with a holy pain endow us too". But it is in that danger that also lies salvation, however brief: "The savior I then hear in the night, I hear / Him kill, the liberator, and give life too".