Výklad básně [1989]

[strojový, neredigovaný přepis – model Gemini 3 (flash/pro) – únor 2026]

--- (1989-06-12 Theo de Boer – Výklad básně (1)_s1_cleaned.flac) ---

Jiný hlas: ...climbing on the Mount Carmel and there's a whole passage on tears. On importance of tears as a sign of something in human being that makes you free for acceptance of... and they also use the term gift of tears.

Hejdánek: That's I think the term is used very often. That's the importance of... in my family I know mystics. Here again you see the importance of a family.

Jiný hlas: But I think Láďa is absolutely right that this tradition has nothing extraordinary in it. That's something very essential for human being regardless if one is mystic or not, religious or not, to accept the experience of tears. And that's the materialization of something that is really... when one weeps and feels tears in his eyes, that's the sign that the tension that has been in him is calmed or appeased. That's I think the gift of tears.

The relief.

Hejdánek: The relief. And now we should apply this human, basically human experience, to the sky god. If this sky god is weeping, then it must have also in a sense a purgatory or, I don't know if it is a good... purification or... očistný... a purgatory effect within the god himself. It means that and if these tears are believed to be the basis of the world, the basis of the creation, then creation is interpreted as a gift for the god. God himself gave himself the creation for solving some inner problems of the god.

Jiný hlas: Perhaps inner problems or...

Hejdánek: Of course. But solitude was the inner problem. The inner problem was the solitude. It is not only... it isn't anything good for man to be alone, but even for the god it isn't good.

Jiný hlas: But I think still there are two possibilities. When one feels some inner tension: to attack somebody, to hit somebody or to start to cry. And that's I think when you are full of tension, full of energy, you feel that you should perhaps hit something or...

Hejdánek: But if you have nothing to hit and nobody to hit, then you have to start to cry. You are crying and nobody is listening.

Jiný hlas: Perhaps when you start to cry, somebody is going to listen.

Hejdánek: Well, you are creating somebody who is listening. That's right. That's also... it can create a breakthrough in human relations.

Jiný hlas: Pojďte už dovnitř, pojďte, tady už někteří by nám mohli namlít. Nebo můžeme už se odvážit diskutovat, aniž by se to překládalo? Já jsem čekal, že po čtyřech, po pěti letech už začne mluvit.

Hejdánek: Nestalo se.

Jiný hlas: Dovolte mně, má se to překládat?

Není třeba.

Hejdánek: Děkuji, výborně. Thanks God. Příště všechno budeme dělat anglicky, páč kdekdo už umí anglicky.

Jiný hlas: Well, we shall not translate it. They decided we shall speak English only. Everybody enjoys this, so we can further meditate on this. It's very interesting. But also... have you had a question?

I have only a problem more, perhaps, but I also thought about the text of Paul. Paul speaks somewhere in his letters about lupe tou theou. Lupe is sorrow, pain. Lupe tou theou. Lupe, sorrow, pain, suffering, suffering of god? Or what is it, lupe? Lupe is not [nesrozumitelné] pain... lupe, pain, suffering. Lupe tou theou, but in the translation it is always translated as genitivus obiectivus, if you understand me. So it is not a feeling of god, in the translation perhaps it would be too dangerous, our feeling to god. Yes, our feeling to god is described as lupe. And in some translation it is translated by a desire, a sorrowful desire, or something like that. A sorrowful desire after god.

But I don't understand this text... This text is very popular in some, in this case Protestant pietist circles. In also these circles you meet the idea that you have to weep about your sins and your desire after god, this lupe is translated by desire... it's a troev, we say in Dutch. It's between desire and sorrow. But it's not a desire which enjoys me, but is a desire which makes me... painful desire. Painful desire.

Hejdánek: But therefore not Eros. Not Eros, the Greek Eros. It was a joyful desire. It is not Eros, like in Plato, it's lupe.

Jiný hlas: By the way, I think it's very similar to the effect that Aristotle wants from performing of tragedies. Because the goal of author of tragedy is to evoke the compassion of spectators. That's it in Poetics. That's the only thing that is to be achieved by the performance of tragedy: the compassion of audience with what was happening on stage. To set the souls of people around to certain kind of movement. And this kind of movement, when it is to be described, is described in terms of perhaps tears, compassion, something like sorrow, etc. Catharsis. The catharsis. I think the tears have a cathartic effect. Eleos, phobos and catharsis.

Jiný hlas: So, that's also that the god who is weeping is not a pure spectator involved in what's going on.

Hejdánek: That's a sign of involvement, that's of taking part in what is presented. That's not the joy of spectator, but that's something different.

Jiný hlas: Now I interrupted you. I have some problems. You are much more the right people to understand these religious symbols and you have not up till now said anything about the possibility of the meaning of tears in connection with the difference between this world and coming or promised world of the god. I think the weeping and the tears are or can be understood as understanding and being sorry of this sinful world and looking forward some better world of god. Is it possible for...

Hejdánek: But that was something quite strange for the tears.

Jiný hlas: But you have started to answer my question by saying well, it is something like in the mysticism and so on. So I would like first to be ready with this straightforward and first sight meaning of tears. So I mean it like this. Somebody weeps because he sees that something is bad and he is sorry for that. Isn't it possible to understand it so in Christian symbolics?

Yes. Well, and then the second step. Is this possible to use for the... and I'm afraid that it is not quite possible to use it, this big explanation of this symbol of tears. And if not, then what meaning it has here?

Hejdánek: Yeah, you have to answer it yourself.

Jiný hlas: Well, I have tried. It's not... that's my opinion that you can relate it to...

Hejdánek: But why not? Why I mean that it is not quite suitable?

Jiný hlas: Yes.

Hejdánek: So, the god, the sky god is weeping, being sorry for his solitude. So well, we can leave why the solitude of this god was not quite good, yes? Okay, he creates the world by this weeping. So what kind of world is it? Is it this religious or Christian world which is made insane by the Adam and Eva, or what kind of world is it?

Jiný hlas: Cosmos.

Hejdánek: Cosmos.

Jiný hlas: Cosmos, but if it is cosmos, then there is no reason to weep about it. Cosmos is something fine and nice and...

Hejdánek: Well, but here it is a cosmos based on tears. All life...

Jiný hlas: All life.

Hejdánek: It is a cosmology, cosmogenesis from...

Jiný hlas: But the cosmos is something...

Hejdánek: In the Greek, but not in this poem. This poem is spoken of life, all life sprang from these tears.

Jiný hlas: Well, so that's my problem why this Christian symbolics is not quite suitable for me in this connection.

Hejdánek: Yeah, why not?

Jiný hlas: Because it is not clear why the god creates the world where it is necessary to weep and to be sorry for that terrible world.

Hejdánek: Yeah, he's not sorry for the terrible world, he's sorry for his loneliness. That's the reason of his sorrow.

Jiný hlas: The god, yes. But why he creates by this being sorry for his loneliness the world where it is necessary to weep? That's provoking, isn't it?

Hejdánek: Oh, it is necessary to weep because of his solitude, his great sorrow. But then it is... that it's not said here that the world is bad, that you have to weep about the world. The only thing that you can read there is that he wept only by the idea that he would be as lonely as the god of metaphysics, only in the world, etc.

Jiný hlas: But nevertheless this weeping is substance for this world, as it is possible to understand it. All, every officer should weep...

Hejdánek: Yeah, that's...

Jiný hlas: ...the weeping is something essential.

Hejdánek: Okay, there's something essential, but the way you have the... the poem speaks about the reason of weeping and the consequences of weeping.

Jiný hlas: Yes, but the weeping of the god and the weeping of the man is the same?

Hejdánek: Yes, it resembles, it has the same reason. Because the persons who are presumed to hold office run also the risk of being alone. When you are holding an office, you are alone. Your risk and the danger of isolation.

So in this sense you are in the same situation. Man is an image of god. And so when the officer has to weep, it has the same reason like god wept, because... had the same reason. To use an expression of the same poem, it is the charm, it's a sort of Zauberspruch. It is... you can prevent by it the dangers of loneliness and especially the loneliness of governors.

Jiný hlas: But I am weeping for the future.

Hejdánek: No, not for the future, but the origin is weeping. Everything originates in weeping. That's the thought behind it. And the consequences, the consequences is that all life sprang from that. So it is... the reason is the danger of solitude and the sorrow for it. The consequence is that something is created. So I think the thought behind it is that weeping is a creative principle. As mercy is. You can find it in Shakespeare.

Jiný hlas: That's the very Shakespearean point, I think it's King Lear. The King Lear, when he is isolated, he says many times that the gift of tears. That's Shakespearean symbolism of tears.

Hejdánek: Yes, I was thinking on The Merchant of Venice. I have at home I think the famous passage on mercy in Shakespeare and when he says that the mightiest, says Shakespeare, that the mightiest are most near to God when they are merciful. I can say, alas I cannot cite it, the whole passage.

Jiný hlas: You know what, I think it's a very strange idea to see in the weeping and in tears the beginning of something. Normally one would expect that tears are consequence of something what happened before. But now we are told that the weeps are to be in the beginning. This I think is the point. The beginning is the weeping. Yes, that's the point. Not in the word, not in the...

Beginning for what? For nothing that was before that?

Yeah, yeah. It is so. If I may, I can suggest the Heideggerian interpretation of conscience, because it seems to me that it is the only consequent possibility to explain this text. I mean it so that you can be weeping because of starting to understand some basic, some basic inadequacy within your own person. Heidegger says being guilty, yes, for being full of negativity, which brings from that you in one way are not beginning of your own being and on the other hand you have to take it over, to be responsible for it.

Hejdánek: For your own being, yes. As you were not creator of it. Yes. So to be guilty in this way brings one to understanding his proper, his proper possibilities and that would be this what you are speaking about as being created as a new things, as a new himself. How the weeping is creative principle. It creates by understanding of one's being guilty a new proper self. And the same for the God.

Jiný hlas: And then how can he be guilty?

Hejdánek: Yeah, he is in his solitude guilty. Yes, in solitude, that's something bad.

Jiný hlas: That's the Heideggerian concept of guilt.

Hejdánek: But in the poem it is written like this: he weeps because of his solitude, so the solitude then must be something bad for himself. Or guilt. Guilty? Well, in the Heideggerian sense, of course. The God is then consequently understood not as the God of metaphysics, as you said, it means not as the almighty and eternal, not eternal, almighty and endless, absolute being...

Jiný hlas: Unchangeable.

Hejdánek: Or unchangeable also, but endless, absolute being, but some being within the world.

Jiný hlas: Not within the world, but at least he creates the world first, but in the end... [nesrozumitelné]

Cože?

Hejdánek: Alespoň poeticky konečný.

Jiný hlas: Finite, finite.

Hejdánek: Finite. It must be a finite God because he can be confronted with something, something which is inadequate in himself, yes. His solitude. His solitude is something wrong for himself, in himself. And he is weeping to understand and accept this guilt for this guilt of being simply alone, by weeping and therefore creating the other. It means the world and the people.

Jiný hlas: Is that something about that this was wrong or good?

Hejdánek: But he is weeping. Well, but it's all, it's weeping, but it's not said that it's bad or good.

Jiný hlas: It's a state of misery, it's a state of... not guilt, it's not guilt, it's misery. There's also nothing about the bad and good. I think it's only for the sake of... When I say guilty, it is exactly Heideggerian notion, we needn't use it at all. We can speak without this word which provokes you. So it is enough to say the God, this God is alone and this being alone is something which he accepts and accepts it as something not quite good and is weeping because of that. And by this weeping he also comes to understand his proper, his proper inner constitution or something, something proper. And this leads with necessity to the other, with the world and with the people. So in this way it would be possible to understand why he creates the world and people by weeping.

Jiný hlas: Oh, perhaps I understand, okay, then there is not so much difference between what you are saying and I have said. But completely different from the Christian notion of world, for example.

Hejdánek: Yeah, but what do you mean by a Christian notion? I think this is the Christian notion, as explained in this poem. At least.

Jiný hlas: Then the world is not something which is so wrong that you have to weep in front of it and look for some other, better world. This world is just created by the God as this world, not as a wrong world. It is created as a world which is good.

Hejdánek: Yeah, but in Christian conception also the world is created as good.

Jiný hlas: But corrupted by...

Hejdánek: ...solitude, yeah, for instance.

Jiný hlas: Yeah, but the creation in itself was good. And the corruption comes in, in this poem, corruption comes in by presumption. That's a sin, which happens to people, to be presumptuous, when they refuse to communicate. And public leaders for their presumption, yeah, so presumption is something bad and solitude is something bad, but the creation is not bad.

Hejdánek: But I think that here is said, from salt is the tears which God wept after he dreamt his solitude was endless. He hasn't experienced something, he only... it was the result of a dream.

Jiný hlas: And that's only said that there was something what made him weep.

Hejdánek: It was his loneliness. But his state of loneliness was something what wasn't experienced at all, what was only the dream.

Jiný hlas: How is it possible to dream about such a terrible thing only if he once was really...

Hejdánek: Yeah, but that's an unpoetic... You know, I think in the context of a poem, that the God he dreamt his solitude was endless. It's not said that he was in an awakened state or before that or he made some explicit decisions, good or bad or whatever. If you understand it in this way, then you at the same time express that this world was created during the dreaming and sleeping, you know, of the God. Only because he was dreaming and because he was sleeping this world was created. It is only a deed of a sleeping God.

Jiný hlas: No, no, no, he wept when he awaked. He wept not in his dream. After his dream, he wept after his dreaming.

Hejdánek: Yeah, after the dream.

Jiný hlas: And he only dreamt his solitude was endless.

Hejdánek: Because in the dream he saw the truth.

Jiný hlas: He dreamt during his sleep.

Hejdánek: I think it was no further reason why to weep after he was awake.

Jiný hlas: No, he was not awoken.

But what it means that he dreamt that his solitude would be endless. So it means that before he had this dream he already understood that his solitude is something not pleasant, perhaps even bad. But then he dreamt that this bad situation would be endless, then it is something terrible. This dream only [nesrozumitelné] escalates this badness which is there already before the dream. Do you remember what Shakespeare says in Hamlet about dreams? To die, to sleep, no more, to sleep, perhaps to dream. Ay, there's the rub. The dreams are very unpleasant, especially in connection with the conscience because in the dream you are confronted with the truth.

So it is quite clear that this solitude was something bad for the God.

Hejdánek: Yes, of course.

Jiný hlas: But you said guilt, you said guilt. It was bad even before the world was there.

That some very special notion of the finite God. But it's very difficult to think what was in the world before God. That's the famous question of Augustine, what was God doing before he created the world.

Jiný hlas: Oh, I think the answer is that he was creating the hell for people who pose such a question.

Jiný hlas: Yes, he said that, but he says then it's permitted to make a joke. Not his serious answer.

Jiný hlas: Dreaming as meaning connected with the myth of creation. Because he was a God even before this dreaming. And our acceptance of this myth, this understanding of he was dreaming and he was created after it, is something what is acceptable for us as his creations. But I'm not sure whether I am correct, what I am guessing, that there are some elements of his understanding God as the metaphysical God too. Because he was God, we understand in the myth he was dreaming and he created us after it, but he is all the time long a God, the same. This dream, this myth, as the communication of the sense of creation and of our lives is just something for us. But the elements of his Godness are there involved too. I'm not sure whether my opinion is correct, but I only think.

Hejdánek: I am not sure if I understand every element of your point, but what are you missing in this, the importance of the significance of his Godness?

Jiný hlas: I like the elements of his metaphysical quality as God. That it is without sense to say he existed before dreaming. Yes, but to communicate us that he has created, the deed of creation, there should be the fact of the dream as the element beginning or opening our existence, our life here. That he was God, so-called before, without at the same time without this deed of creation, but also under the law of creation, of the meaning of creation, but for us also.

Hejdánek: Yeah, we have here to do with poetical imagination. This is already the second time you underline it, but we are philosophers. If we should work only with poetical imagery, then we are no more philosophers. But I think that in this point I am of the opinion that poetry is more important than philosophy. And that the poet has possibilities the philosopher doesn't have. And I can defend my opinion with the famous philosopher Kant, when he says in his Kritik der Urteilskraft, Critique of Judgment, he has an important passage where he says that the poet speaks in terms which gives to think to us. The famous expression of Ricoeur is from this passage: symbols make me think. And then the poet, says Kant, makes me think and the poet expresses something in the form of images, not in thoughts, and in these images is something expressed which we can try to analyze in our philosophy but we will never come to an end. The poem is an object of endless [nesrozumitelné] explanation because the poet has the possibility of giving a view on the totality which is impossible in concepts. That's the idea behind it. So I think in rather in very difficult matters, we have here the most difficult problem perhaps in the world, that you're speaking about creation. In very difficult matters it's reasonable for filosofy to follow poets, I think, because they have something to say and in principle we as filosofové have also our own means of and our own capacity to explore the world is our intuition. That's the basic faculty. And now the poet is expressing his intuition in images and we do it in concepts. And now I think that when we do it in concepts, it's always a little poor. We make it poor, we are obliged to do it and I find this discussion is very helpful to understand this difficult line. We have spoken about Shakespeare and the literature and all these things can help to understand. But these lines remain staying as stimulating, stimulating our filosofické thinking.

Jiný hlas: May I express something polemical?

Hejdánek: Yes, you may.

Jiný hlas: Well, I think first, I'm afraid that if a filosofická reflection of any poem, a good poem, does that, then not because of the endless or endless richness within the poem, but because any filosofická reflection remains always without end. Second, therefore, if the filosofové don't end, don't stop their reflecting, then it has more to do with their own profession than with the subject they are reflecting. Second, not only poems, but even myths are endless, as Patočka expressed, endless in their meaning.

Hejdánek: Yes, okay, for myths, that's true also.

Jiný hlas: This is a sort of best poem is a myth, a sort of myth. Yes, for the best poems, I think that poems are a certain relict of old myth in our not modern, even pre-modern and modern and postmodern time.

Hejdánek: I hope that they will remain us as such relics, but I don't think that they are more than science, more than semeia, more than...

Jiný hlas: About poems, we can speak with the words of Heracleitus that Apollo, the master of Delphi, doesn't speak or doesn't tell us, oute legei oute kryptei alla sēmainei.

Hejdánek: Yes.

Jiný hlas: And the profession, the professional aim, or not only aim but certain vocation of filosofie, of any filosof, is to interpret this sēmainei of the poet. And therefore, he cannot stop with reflecting it, with analyzing it, to base this stopping on underlining that it is necessary to understand that it is a poem. It is a poem which is important for a filosof only in as far the filosof will reflect it by his own means and not reciting...

Hejdánek: No, yes, but I have an argument, because poems are more rich than filosofické texts. Because the poet can use imagery. And an image can have different meanings. So a poem has always different layers of meanings. It has a literal meaning and for instance the word we use, a woman in customs. It has the meaning of accustomed, the meaning of habits, and it's also the meaning in German, Zoll.

Jiný hlas: Zoll, Zollabfertigung.

Zoll, Zollabfertigung, Zoll.

Celní, celní odbavení, odbavení.

Celní odbavení, odbavení.

Hejdánek: So and then it is also in a poem, you have also the phenomenon that the different meanings...

--- (1989-06-12 Theo de Boer – Výklad básně (1)_s2_cleaned.flac) ---

Jiný hlas: ...the thunderstorm, the sea water, salt, the boat, the weeping of the officers and the weeping at the end of the sky god. So you cannot write such a text as a filosofický text. In filosofii, you have to attain conceptual clarity. Filosofické concepts are not allowed to be ambiguous. In a poem, it's a virtue when it is ambiguous.

Hejdánek: If I reflected as a filosof, in my reflecting, couldn't be anything dubious? In my reflecting, I cannot accept any ambiguity.

Jiný hlas: Yet that's exactly the reason why your thinking is poor.

Hejdánek: Yes, but I have to think.

Jiný hlas: Yes, you are just like that. That's your duty. And therefore it is not possible to underline... The comment on a poem is not itself poetry. Of course.

But I think if the filosofie would be what now was said, a lot of texts that are accepted as a part of the treasure of filosofických texts would have to be taken out. For instance, all Nietzsche or a lot of texts of Nietzsche wouldn't fit to the filosofické standards. But for instance, and this text has reminded me, and that was my question, the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon. That was also the wake there and back to some island, to some kind of republic that perhaps when one reads the description of life there from our point of view would doubt if it's ideal to be followed. But anyway, I think a lot of filosofů were forced by something to use such a metaphors to express something. And now question can be why? Why they were not able and why were forced as a filosofové to use such a things, such an instruments, means to express something? Why didn't they...

Hejdánek: But it's a feebleness of their filosofie, of course. Of course it's a feeble filosofie. Plato is a special thinker who has no system, no of his own. We don't know what Plato meant, even through his letters, and it's not quite sure, because he speaks only through other persons.

Jiný hlas: That's why he's the biggest filosof at all.

Hejdánek: Biggest filosof, well maybe, but not big enough. Not as big as Socrates perhaps. Yes, in case of Plato I agree. Thank God that he wasn't better. He was a poet. At the same time he expelled the poets from his republic.

Jiný hlas: But the bad poets.

Hejdánek: No, no, he didn't say bad poets. He said the poets. The kitsch poets. But he didn't mention... No, no, he accepted only kitsch poets. State poets. State poets and theologians who control old women educating people, other state poets in Plato. Only state poets are allowed. Official poets.

Jiný hlas: It would be very interesting question, is the Plato's Politeia something like Republic of Conscience? I very doubt it. I think that the Plato's Politeia is not a republic at all.

Hejdánek: No republic, exactly. And the only one man about whom can be spoke as a man with a conscience is a filosof who rules, who is ruling. And he is alone. And it's not a really conscience because it's his professional duty. Professional duty exercised, in my view, by the state, by the politeia, not by the truth. But if the filosof should be quite consequent to his philein, to his philia, then he should remain in the nearest place of the truth or of the god, Good or of the beauté, krása, beauty. And not go back. Only the polis makes him go back and then he perhaps with tears in his eyes will start to rule. But his tears would be the tears of a hypocrite.

Jiný hlas: It's the Republic of Science in Plato. Not state of science. Epistémé must be first.

But I think we can compare now the various filosofické dreams or various dreams about that are sometimes dreamed. Bacon or Plato and here the poet about the something what is called your Republic of Conscience. Here it's clear that the god wept after he dreamt his solitude was endless. That's something very different from the attitude to this experience by Plato and by Bacon. Have these experiences something in common or not? Is there some common denominator of all this or not?

Hejdánek: It is in opposition to the tradition. To the tradition of filosofie and of political filosofie. It's a very critical poem.

Jiný hlas: I think there is some tradition perhaps even in filosofii which is similar to this. Perhaps in Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes where he speaks about the accepting of the other in the second part. I think that we can read that first strophe of second part in... Of course, I agree with a lot of interpretations which were given here, but I would offer now much more simple interpretation, perhaps as some kind of minimal interpretation above which, of course, can be built more ambitious constructions. But the minimal interpretation I think can be this...

Jiný hlas: the whole poem is about communication, I think we can agree with this. And when the communication starts? Well, of course, at the moment when one accepts the other as the other. As something in its own... or when he accepts him as the other. And in our experience, when we come to that hermeneutic of our plasticity and of our growing and education, I think that we, of course, can remember that temptation to not accept the others as the others, as people which are worth to communication in that strict sense of the word. And that one very strong moment of breaking this temptation is weeping. And the child, of course, accepts their parents because it is so weak and unable to... and it cries because it has nothing to eat and so on. And in this sense it feels deeply its dependence on the others. And again in that Hegel's scene of the fight of two people, that who accepts the other, the other one, is that who loses the fight and who cries because he lost. And in this sense he understands he has to accept the other as the other. This parallel is perhaps not very convincing. I think that it should be elaborated deeper, when one would say that there is some universal scheme which fits to all these moments. But I think that weeping can be understood in this context as the moment which opens one person to the real communication with the others.

And in this sense it is what makes not the world, there is I think no word about creation of the world, there is only speaking about that from which life sprang, that means from which emerges the real other beings with whom we can communicate. Factually, they could be all the time around, but I was blind to them and through crying and weeping I opened myself to this communication, this possibility.

Jiný hlas: About the context itself, it seems to me that the God of solitude was not solved by the creator of the world.

Jiný hlas: Sure, sure.

Jiný hlas: That was just as an analogy to the public leader, for example. The God felt the solitude not because of being alone, but because of being the most superior.

Jiný hlas: Perhaps. But one thing is true, I believe, what you are saying, that it is the source of life, all life sprang. And I also believe that it must be understood as real life. For instance, in the tale of the Prodigal Son, the father said at the end: „My son was dead and now he is alive.“ But he was not dead in a literal sense.

Jiný hlas: Yes, that's a good idea, I think that's helpful. In this sense is also in this tale of Jesus the forgiving creative principle. Was dead and now is alive. I don't know if Hegel uses the word weeping.

Jiný hlas: I think not. I think he doesn't use it.

Jiný hlas: But in this, the slave is winning, you could say. The slave is winning, not the lord, not the master.

Hejdánek: I am very sorry, or I would be very sorry if we should stop with a phenomenological interpretation of the poem. Therefore, perhaps you will excuse me for a, I hope, very short interpretation in a cosmological way. I think the basic wrong thing is to speak about God with the idea in our thinking of all the tradition about God and so on. If we shall conceive God as a non-objective reality, excuse me, in English actuality is nothing for this purpose, and reality is from res, well. Then in the traditional interpretation non-objective reality is nothing. We shall start with nothingness.

The nothingness wept because it dreamed that it will remain nothingness forever. But the tears changed the situation. Because from nothingness tears developed, the first change of nothingness. And what does it mean: change nothingness? Somethingness. Therefore, already the tears represent the start of the real world, the start of the real cosmos, not only the phenomenon of a meaningful world, but the real world. And the tears, it was the Big Bang, say. Březina, our Czech poet, speaks about... ostříkly se, jak to tam bylo v té básni? Well, not about tears, but something like that. And therefore, and it's quite a cosmological in his poem. Therefore I think we can hold this. Of course, if we have a new filosofie, we shall no more speak about nothingness. It's only a negative notion, negative concept of the old metaphysics. The modernism is in situation of a corrupted or destroyed metaphysics and nothing else could be found. Therefore, of course. But it has a good meaning if we stop for a while to speak about God, because the term is connected with connotations which have, in my view, nothing to do with this poem. It is a polemic not only oriented against the philosophical tradition, but against the old ontotheological tradition, I think. And then it has a good meaning.

Jiný hlas: But speaking like a poet now, you have confirmed the thesis that was said before, that the poetry is much more rich than the filosofie, because what was told now by you, I think it's not the reflection, it's a very nice cosmogony and I fully agree with you. But was it filosofie or not?

Hejdánek: Filosofie, of course.

Jiný hlas: But new filosofie!

Hejdánek: So as long as we don't have it, poets are useful. When the poet says: „Nothing will come out of nothing.“

Jiný hlas: Oh, that's a nonsense, it's a metaphysical...