We’ve been approaching Hölderlin’s talk of gods and their abandoning in an essential way, not merely relying on Hölderlin’s text nor secondary literature on Hölderlin. What is demanded, rather is orienteering through the depths of our own existence to let Hölderlin’s signposts point us to what is to be found there or what could be. Heidegger comments:

And because, instead of reading the works of poets and thinkers, it has become the custom merely to read books “about” them, or even excerpts from such books, there is the even more acute danger of the opinion setting in that the gods in Hölderlin’s poetry could be ascertained and discussed via literary means (Heidegger, The Ister, 32).”

In this regard, taking a framework of pre-existing concepts and definitions like psychoanalysis or Marxism or feminism and overlaying the framework onto the text is of no avail here. Hölderlin is not pointing to truth as “the correct,” but the great truths of the human condition. And so, Hölderlin writes:

Radiant the gods’ mild breezes/Gently play on you/As the girl artist’s fingers/On holy strings. – Fateless the Heavenly breathe/Like an unweaned infant asleep;/Chastely preserved/In modest bud/For even their minds/Are in flower/And their blissful eyes/Eternally tranquil gaze/Etemally clear. – But we are fated/to find no foothold, no rest,/ And suffering mortals/ Dwindle and fall/ Headlong from one/ Hour to the next/Hurled like water/From ledge to ledge/Downward for years to the vague abyss. (cited in Heidegger, Heraclitus Seminar, 101)

Heidegger and Fink, commenting on the meaning of the passage, say the following, “the gods wander without destiny, their spirit eternally in bloom, while humans lead a restless life and fall into the cataract of time and disappear.” (HS, 101)

A psychoanalytic framework can produce a completely “possible” lens for a “correct” psychoanalytic interpretation, but it does not demand us to see the poem through the deepest truths of our existence, let alone indicate new possibilities for the “human condition,” or better the “human destiny.”.