Click on title for German original

The Shoe of Empedocles

After Empedocles, the Agrigentian  
Had won the honors of his fellow citizens
And was suffering the ravages of age
He decided to die. Since he did
Love some of them, by whom he too was loved
He did not want to come undone before them, but
Preferred to turn into nothing.  
He invited  them to an outing, not all,
Leaving out this one or that one, to bring the element
Of chance into the selection of
The total undertaking. .
They climbed Mt. Etna
The effort of the climb
Made for silence.  No one missed
Wise words.  Far up
They paused to breath, let the pulse return to normal
Preoccupied with the view, happy to be at their goal.
Unnoticed the Teacher left them.
When they began to talk again, they still did not
Notice, until a bit on after word or two seemed  missing,
They looked about for him.
But he had already gone past the knoll on the final hill
Not in such a great hurry.  Once
He stood still, and heard
How in the distance far below the knoll
The conversation had started. He could not
Make out the words: he had begun to die.
As he stood at the crater
With his face turned away, not wanting to know anything further
That did not concern him, the old man bent down slowly
Carefully undid his shoe from his foot and, smiling, threw it
A few paces to the side, so that it would not be found
Too soon, but still in time, namely
Before it rotted to pieces. Only then
Did he approach the crater.  When his friends
Came back from looking for him
His dying gradually began, the way he had wanted it to.  Some of them
Were still waiting for him, while others
Had given him up for dead.  Some were still putting
Of their questions until he returned, while others were
Trying to solve theirs by themselves.


Slowly, the way clouds
Grow distant in the sky, unchanged, simply growing smaller
Giving way in the sky, when one doesn’t look at them, more distant
When one looks for them again, perhaps already mingled with others
He removed himself from their habitual ways, the ordinary way.
Then a rumor sprang up. He had not died, since he was not mortal, it was said.
Secrecy surrounded him. It was held possible
That other worldly beings were different, that the course of human existence
Was changeable for some individuals: such claptrap arose.
But about that time, his shoe was found, made of leather
Tangible, worn, the earthly one left back for those, who
If they do not see, begin to evoke belief
The end of his days was once again simply natural.  He had died like any other man.



2.
Yet again, some others describe the process
Differently: Said Empedocles was really
Trying to secure god-like honors for himself
And found a saga by his secretive disappearance,
By means of his clever unwitnessed plunge into Etna’s crater, that he
Was not a mere mortal, and thus not subject to
To the laws of decay.
In the act though
His shoe played a trick on him by falling into human hands
(Some even say that the crater itself, angry
About such an attempt, simply spit out the shoe of this
Depraved man.) But what we would rather believe
Is that if he hadn’t taken off the shoe, he would have
Much sooner forgotten our stupidity and not considered how quickly
Our capacity for making dark things even darker, and our preference to believe
The absurd rather than look for an adequate reason.
And then the mountain would have -
And not because it was outraged about such negligence or even believing
That he had wanted to deceive us in order to garner divine honors.
(For the mountain believes nothing and is not concerned with us.)
But simply spewing fire as it always did - would have thrown
The shoe back at us, and thus the pupils -
Already busy since getting wind of a powerful secret -
Suddenly, visibly distressed, received the shoe of the teacher into their hands,
The very tangible, well worn, mundane shoe.  


(1935)