8. The Myth of Heracles
GA 87/1901-12-28/p025
·1901-12-28
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Auch wenn die Mitschrift noch nicht die später übliche Genauigkeit aufweist» (Even though the transcript does not yet have the accuracy usual later). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 87), which calls the cycle the earliest of which a listener's transcript exists. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
[Fifth:] The cleansing work of the stable of Augeas. Those who sought admission to the Mysteries had to undergo a kind of purification, a baptism. This fifth work can be accomplished by those who have completed the first. It is not an actual work, it comes to man of its own accord. It is not an actual work of Heracles. The second and fifth labors cannot really be considered Heracles labors. The second leads too early to the eternal, and the fifth is something that comes to him of its own accord. They are therefore a kind of intermediate stages.
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