Die Schere #31 - TF's translation and comments

["Thomas Friese" <tfriese@intergate.bc.ca>]

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From: owner-ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
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Wahe@aol.com
Sent: February 13, 1999 12:58 PM
To: ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Subject: DIE SCHERE #31 - Text, Translation


Ernst Juenger, Die Schere

> 31
>
>  Ein Begräbnis, das sich noch nicht ereignet hatte, aber ereignen würde,
>  wurde »geschaut«. Damit bekam dieses Begräbnis eine Vergangenheit. Wenn
>  nun die Uhrzeit vorrückt, wird diese Vergangenheit nicht mehr geschaut,
>  sondern erlebt. Das in der Schau Vorgegangene wird von der Gegenwart
>  eingeholt. Daß sich Schau und Wirklichkeit bis in die Einzelheiten
>  decken, ruft sowohl Erstaunen wie Betroffenheit hervor.
>  Ein Schotte, dessen Bruder vermißt wurde, sah ihn als Leichnam in einem
>  Weiher liegen und versuchte, ihn herauszuziehen. Dabei fiel ihm eine
>  Forelle auf, die neben dem Toten schwamm. Das war im Wahrtraum gewesen;
>  als er am nächsten Morgen den Teich aufsuchte, wiederholte sich das
>  Bild, selbst die Forelle stand an ihrem Ort.
>  So Schopenhauer nach einem Zeitungsbericht. Es wäre nun irrig,
>  anzunehmen, daß die Forelle zum Leichnam geschwommen wäre—gewissermaßen,
>  um die Vorschau zu bestätigen. Es war vielmehr dieselbe Forelle, die in
>  der Schau und dann in der Wirklichkeit gegenwärtig geworden war. Es war
>  auch derselbe Schotte, der sie gesehen hatte—jetzt tätig, wie zuvor in
>  der Potenz.


31
A funeral, that hadn't yet taken place but would occur, was "beheld". The
funeral thereby acquired a past. As the hour now advances, this past will no
longer be seen, but lived. The present catches up with the foreseen past.
The congruency of vision and reality arouses astonishment and bewilderment.

A Scotsman, whose brother was missing, saw his corpse in a pond and tried to
pull it out. In doing so, he noticed a trout swimming near the dead person.
This was all in a premonitory dream; when he searched for the corpse the
next morning, the scene repeated itself with even the trout in its place.

Schopenhauer quotes as much from a newspaper article. It would be an error
to suppose that the trout swam to the corpse in order to confirm the vision.
Rather, it was the very same trout, apparent in the vision and then in the
reality. It was also the same Scot, who had seen it - active now, as it was
potential before.


Comments: What is interesting here is the idea of potential. In common
English usage, "potential" suggests something that may not,in fact, be
realized: "He has the potential to become a great football star". If the
future is actually the inescapable realization of a past "plan", wherein
lies the "potentiality" of the sequence described above?  I guess Junger is
not intending "in der Potenz" in this sense. The commentator speculating on
the future of the football star has no Wahrtraum to allow him to use
potential in the strong sense. When we think something has future
"potential" it is pure guess work - with the vision, it is just a matter of
arriving at the destined moment. It is in this sense, I believe, that
suicide will usually be a "sin". In Italian, sin is "peccato" and Italians
say "che peccato" for "what a shame" i.e when something doesn't fulfill the
expectation for it. Suicide is "shameful" because it interferes with the
sacred work of the Shears. It leaps from hands of the Fates even as the
Shears are closing. On the other hand, it is also the Anarch's ace in the
hole, when things really do go "off-track". I wonder if Junger will deal
with suicide in this book...?