Hyperion to Diotima
I’m now in the middle of the Peloponnese. I’m spending tonight in the same hut where once I stayed when, barely more than a boy, I roamed through these parts with Adamas. How happily I sat then on the bench before the house and listened to the tinkling bells of the caravan, coming from afar, and the plash of the nearby fountain, pouring its silvery waters into the basin beneath blossoming acacias.
Now I’m happy again. I wander through this land as through Dodona’s grove, where the oaks resounded with oracles prophesying glory. I see nothing but deeds, past ones, future ones, even when I wander from morning till evening under the open sky. Believe me, anyone travelling through this land who still can thole a yoke upon his neck, who doesn’t become another Pelopidas, that man is empty of heart or lacking in sense.
So long this land has slept — so long has time dragged by, like the river of hell, drumbly and dumb, in desolate idleness?
And yet everything lies ready. The mountain folk hereabout are full of vengeful energies, couched there like a silent thundercloud that waits only to be driven by the storm-wind. Diotima! let me breathe the
breath of God among them, let me speak to them a word from the heart, Diotima. Have no fear! They won’t be so savage. I know raw nature. It scorns reason, but it’s in league with inspiration. Whoever works with all his soul will never go astray. He has no need for overthought, for no force is against him.