Meditations on the philosophy of history

In spite (or because) of the infinity of (the voice, of the boundless myste ry it carries and exhales, of its disembodied traversing and joining, sayin gs follow barely traced courses. They travel along fragile lines of memory, often discontinuous bridges, transpositions into notational forms. They tr avel alone, exposed to corruption, consuming friction repetition--their beg inning and final destination often lost to those who listen to them and sen d them past. In spite of the power of memory and its arts, there are saying s and stories handed down to us in fragments, like decapitated Nike and dis figured Dionysos. There are poems reaching us, race of diggers and preserve rs, through somebody else's reminiscence, recovery, or loving quotation. In turn, our receiving and sending (stretching) forth, our being thus travers ed, shares something with the destiny of these sayings and sculpted deities --being sent, crossing and (un)covering distance, in the fragmented continu ity of dialogues, or what remains of them. The present essay is devoted to a meditation on the question of temporality and history in its epistemologi co-metaphysical implications. It is developed mainly by reference to Aristo tle, after Heidegger.