The general theme of this essay is translation as the trial of the foreign. "Trial of the foreign" is the expression that Heidegger uses to define one pole of poetic experience in Hölderlin. Now, in the poet, this trial is essentially enacated by translation, by his version of Sophocles. In his own time, this translation was considered a prime manifestation of his madness. Today it is viewed as one of the great moments of western translation, not only because it gives us rare access to the Greek tragic Word, but because while giving us access to this world, it reveals the veiled essence of every translation.