2) ... was
glänzt ist für den Augenblick
geboren ...
DICHTER:
POET.
Was glänzt,
ist für den Augenblick geboren,
Das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.
What gleams is born but for
the moment's pages;
The true remains, unlost to after-ages.
This is evidently true and above all true for a literary
work. It is always difficult to say, if a literary piece
is valuable or not. Iif you asked ten people for their
opinion about a piece, it is very likely to get ten different
opinions. But the history is a very precise filter and
that, what survives is valuable. What makes
it valuable is actually not the spectacle, but what remains
in our hearts from it. The spectacle consumes our attention
in the moment we experience it, but quite often we forget
soon enough. The authentic demands an effort to understand
it, but it also changes our way of seeing the world. That
what gleams, fascinates us, but it does not change us.
