[1.] The phrase “poetizes over and beyond” here translates the German verb überdichten, which conveys the sense of an excess that is poetized in the poet’s word. The poet’s word “overpoetizes” or “outpoetizes” the poet, we might say.
[2.] Heidegger here uses gestoppt as an instance of the “Americanization” of German.
[3.] This section presents particular difficulty for any attempt to translate it into English. In German, das Wort can mean either the individual word, regarded as an item of vocabulary, or it can mean “the word” in the sense of what is properly said or meant in and through particular words (as in “the Word of God”). In English, the word bears the same ambiguity. In German, however, these different senses are differently marked in the plural: when das Wort is intended in the first sense (as a grammatical unit), it is pluralized as die Wörter; when intended in the second sense (what is meant or intended), the plural is die Worte. English has no equivalent way of marking the distinction in the plural. Thus, in the present translation, we have for the most part resorted to simply rendering die Worte as “the word” while indicating the German plural noun in brackets. Where the plural “words” is used, it always refers to die Wörter, unless otherwise indicated.
[4.] The German here cites “the word” in both singular and plural: Aber Sprache selbst gibt es nur, wo Worte sind, wo das Wort ist.
[5.] This elegy is also known under the title “Das Gasthaus” (“The Guest House”), dedicated to the poet’s friend Landauer.
[6.] The reference is to Austrian writer, poet, and painter Adalbert Stifter (1805–1868), also referred to in §36, and whose concept of “the gentle law” (das sanfte Gesetz) is outlined in the preface to his 1853 collection of stories, Bunte Steine (Colorful Stones).
[7.] “Coming to encounter” should here be understood not in the experiential sense of coming upon someone or something, but in the more literal sense of en-countering: coming toward, over and against, or counter to one another. This is suggested by the German gegen (toward, over against, counter) in Entgegenkommen (“coming to encounter”). Such reciprocity in coming to encounter is implicit within the “encountering,” Entgegnung, which in German carries the sense of a reply or retort to an address.
[8.] Dieses Stimmende durchstimmt und bestimmt alles als eine lautlose Stimme. Heidegger here appeals to the relation of stimmen (to tune or attune), durchstimmen (to pervasively attune), and bestimmen (to determine, but also to call, in the sense of a calling or vocation: die Bestimmung) to the root Stimme, “voice.”
[9.] Trauerspiel is another word for “tragedy,” Tragödie, in German, but one that explicitly invokes Trauer, mourning or mournfulness. A Trauerspiel is thus literally a “mourning play.” Notably, Heidegger uses both terms here, shifting from Tragödie to Trauerspiel so as to highlight the fundamental attunement of mourning. On the latter, see especially part 1, chapter 2, of Heidegger’s first Hölderlin lecture course, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein.” Gesamtausgabe Bd. 39. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1980. Translated as Hölderlin’s Hymns “Germania” and “The Rhine” by William McNeill and Julia Ireland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014.
[10.] Both “fate” (Schicksal) and “that which is fitting” (das Schickliche) in German derive from the verb schicken, to send. The reflexive form sich schicken could mean to send or fit oneself. The difficulty of rendering the present section into English reflects the complexity with which Heidegger interweaves these senses of fitting and sending, senses that are also present in the term Geschick (destiny), which appears in the next section.
[11.] “Träume sind Schäume.” The alliteration is lost in English.
[12.] “The real” here renders das Wirkliche. The Geman noun, however, derives from the verb wirken, to “effect” or to be actively “at work,” as Heidegger proceeds to indicate. Moreover, das Wirkliche also means “the actual,” particularly when contrasted with das Mögliche, “the possible,” a contrast that Heidegger will shortly pursue. Thus, we have sometimes translated das Wirkliche as “the actually real” or “the actual and real,” or simply “the actual,” where this contrast with the possible is in play.
[13.] The German for “awe” here, Scheu, also means “shyness”—as in the friends’ being “shy” to go to the source, in line 39 of the hymn. This sense of Scheu will be analysed by Heidegger in §58.
[14.] “Land of evening” and “land of morning” translate Abendland and Morgenland respectively. The Abendland or “land of evening” is the Western world or Occident; the Morgenland or “land of morning” is a designation for the East or Orient.
[15.] On Gemüt (conventionally translated as “mind”), the root Mut (“courage,” but also “cheer”), and its many cognates, which Heidegger unfolds especially in this section and also in §54 (though Großmut, “magnanimity” and Langmut, “forbearance,” are foreshadowed already in §44), see translators’ note 16 in our translation of the lecture course that follows on “Remembrance,” Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister.” Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, 173.