The SCHERE project got stuck for a while because the translators on the List
have fallen silent. However, when I asked Gary Kern whether he was willing to
take over the burden of translation he was ready to do so if I provided him with
a rough translation of EJ's text beforehand. The posted translation is what came
out of this collaboration. In this way we hope to make by our efforts DIE SCHERE
more easily accessible and to win some more friends for this fascinating work
and its author. Guenter Rebing
So here we go:
Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #37: Text
Gestalten, die in der Geschichte tiefe Spuren hinterlassen, werden auch Legenden
zugeschrieben, die zu beachten sind. Sie weisen auf eine Potenz hin, der Werke
und Taten, wie groß auch immer, nicht genügten; man traut ihr Wunderkräfte zu.
Es muß Gründe geben, aus denen Harun auch ins Märchen eingegangen ist. Ein König
wurde durch Erdichtung zu beständigeren Ehren promoviert. Der Alte Fritz braucht
nur auf die Hosen zu klopfen, dann läuft die Reichsarmee davon. Wo Tauben sind,
da fliegen Tauben zu. Das gilt für die homerischen Helden insgesamt.
Auch von Antonius, dem Vater der Eremiten, wird Fabelhaftes berichtet - bis in
die Neuzeit mehren Künstler wie Caillot und Dichter wie Flaubert seinen Ruhm.
Die Biographie, die Athanasius als Freund und Bewunderer dem Heiligen widmete,
läßt triftige Gründe vermuten, aus denen schon die Zeitgenossen dem Antonius
Wunderkraft zuschrieben. Gut belegt ist seine Vorausschau; oft sagte er die
Ankunft von Besuchern tage- und wochenlang vorher.
Man darf daraus schließen, daß ihn eine weit verbreitete Form der Wahrnehmung in
hochsensitivem Maß auszeichnete. Ähnliches hat jeder erfahren oder von anderen
gehört. Wir sitzen im D-Zug, und es fällt uns ein Bekannter ein, an den wir seit
Jahren nicht gedacht haben. Dann sehen wir ihn im Gang vorbeikommen. Auch
Briefboten und Anrufen geht eine Aura voraus. Wie häufig sie bemerkt wird, ließe
sich durch Umfragen belegen - doch gerade auf Grenzgebieten wird die Statistik
absurd.
Auch die "Versuchungen", mit denen Antonius' Name fast untrennbar verknüpft ist,
sind Regionen der befahrbaren Welt. Sie passen in die Opiumnacht sowohl eines
Analphabeten wie eines Belesenen. Dem Eremiten genügten die Wüste und
Enthaltsamkeit. Zwar blieb ihm der Schmerz nicht erspart, doch forderte die
vorweggenommene Zeit nicht ihren Tribut ein wie in der Vergreisung oder dem
Delirium eines Süchtigen. Antonius überschritt in geistiger Frische sein
hundertstes Jahr.
DIE SCHERE #37: Translation by Gary Kern and Günter Rebing
Figures who have left deep traces in history also have legends
ascribed to them that are worthy of note. These legends point
to a potential that the works and deeds, great as they were, did
not satisfy; one believes in their wondrous powers. There must
be reasons why Harun stepped into the fairy tale. [1] A king was
promoted through fictionalization to honors of a more permanent
kind. Old Fritz had only to slap on his pants to make the
entire Imperial Army run away. [2] The bigger
you are, the bigger you get. The same applies to the
Homeric heroes.
Likewise the fabulous is reported of Saint Anthony, father of the
hermits--up to modern times artists like Callot and poets like
Flaubert augmented his fame. [3] The biography that Athanasius
as friend and admirer dedicated to the saint provides weighty
reasons why Anthony's contemporaries attributed wondrous power
to him. Well attested was his ability to see ahead; often he
foretold the arrival of visitors days and weeks in advance.
One should conclude from this that he was distinguished by a
high degree of sensitivity in a widely distributed form of
perception. Everyone has experienced something similar or heard
of it from others. We are sitting on the express
train and we happen to recall an acquaintance we have not
thought of for years. Then we see him go by in the aisle.
Likewise an aura precedes the mailman and calls on the phone.
How frequently it is noticed can be established by ques-
tionnaires--but then in the borderline areas statistics will be
absurd.
Even the "temptations", which are virtually inseparable from the
name of Anthony, are regions of the accessible world. They fit
the opium night of the literate and illiterateh as well. Sufficient to
the hermit were the wilderness and his self-denial. Granted, he was not
spared pain, but the foretold time did not exact its tribute as in the premature
greying or the delirium of an addict. Anthony strode on beyond his
hundredth year in spiritual freshness.
NOTES
1. Harun = Harun al-Rashid (763-809), Caliph of Bagdad, who became a personage
of the Arabian Nights.
2. Old Fritz = Frederick the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia from 1740 till
1786, called "the Wonder of the World." The Reichsarmee was the token army
(40,000 men on paper, but in battle not more than 10,000) granted to the
emperors of the Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation. It was never of any
great tactical importance; "Die Reichsarmee als solche hat nie etwas Tüchtiges
geleistet." (Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1897). In the Seven Years' War
(1756-1763) the Reichsarmee was part of the armed forces of Empress Maria
Theresia of Austria, Frederick's main adversary. The popular saying about the
revered Alte Fritz EJ quotes here probably refers to Frederick's resounding
victory in that war at Rossbach (1757) over the united forces of France and the
Reichsarmee. Here the Reichsarmee did not have a chance to fire a single shot
before it started running.
3. Antonius = St. Anthony of Thebes (c.251-356), founder of
Christian monasticism; he renounced all his possessions at the
age of 20 and lived in a tomb, then retired to the wilderness at
age 35, where he experienced the famous temptations.
Die Schere #37: Notes by Günter Rebing
The line of argument in this aphorism seems not easy to follow because each
sentence tends to stand isolated. I read that line as follows:
1) General statement: It is worthwhile to take note of the legends which have
sprung up around important historical figures. People were not content with just
retelling the great deeds of the great. They felt those great were endowed with
miraculous powers, and to demonstrate this they told fabulous stories - fairy
tales, legends (Sagen) - about them.
2) Examples: Harun al-Rashid, Frederick the Great, Homer's heroes.
3) Summary (in form of a popular saying): Where there exists a particular
quality more of it will accumulate ("Wo Tauben sind, da fliegen Tauben zu")
4) Only now we learn that all this has been mere introductory matter. There is a
particular instance of fame accruing an aura of the miraculous that captured
EJ's interest. It is the figure of Saint Anthony (ca. 251-356 A.D.), the first
of the eremites, who lived his solitary years in the Thebais desert in Upper
Egypt near the Red Sea. Why? It may be that he saw in Anthony a kindred spirit,
someone like himself who approached the age of one hundred in excellent
intellectual health, and likewise, as I assume, also someone who had the gift of
'moderate' second sight like himself. (I hasten to add that I have no direct
evidence from EJs writings for that assumption, but rather surmise that in his
numerous accounts of his dreams he wisely omitted any details that might be
understood as second sight.)
Even 2000 years later, artists like Jacques Callot (1592-1636) (1) and Flaubert
(2), contributed to Anthony's fame. But even during Anthony's lifetime his
contemporaries, among them his friend and biographer Athanasius, believed he had
miraculous powers. Contrary to the tradition of the Anthony legend EJ maintains
that the basis for that belief was less Anthony's power to resist the famous
tempations he was exposed to in the desert. To EJ, it was rather Anthony's
capability of foreseeing days and weeks beforehand events like the arrival of
visitors, admittedly events of no great historical impact.
EJ proceeds to claim that the sensitivity Anthony was gifted with nearly
everybody, though to a lesser degree, has or knows about. A poll might even
prove that sensitivity to be quite widespread - but EJ quickly adds that it
would be absurd to apply statistics in this area bordering on the occult.
He insists that as well as Anthony's gift of foreseeing certain events the
temptations he is famous for belong to this world of ours. They are no glimpses
into the beyond. They are of the same ontological order as the wild dreams of an
illiterate or of an highly educated opium eater. With Anthony, though, it was
not opium but just the desert and his ascetic way of life which triggered the
visions of his legendary temptations.
Markup © John King, 2008. Web archive generated Tue, 21st August 2007.