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teneur [EtreTemps]

2. ‘Die Neugier wird konstituiert durch ein ungehaltenes Gegenwärtigen, das, nur gegenwärtigend, damit ständig dem Gewärtigen, darin es doch ungehalten “gehalten” ist, zu entlaufen sucht.’ This sentence involves a play on the words ‘Gewärtigen’ and ‘Gegenwärtigen’, ‘gehalten’ and ‘ungehalten’, which is not easily reproduced. While ‘ungehalten’ can mean ‘not held on to’ (as we have often translated it), it can also mean that one can no longer ‘contain’ oneself, and becomes ‘indignant’ or ‘angry’. In the present passage, Heidegger may well have more than one meaning in mind. The point would be that in curiosity we are kept (or ‘held’) awaiting something which we ‘make present’ to ourselves so vividly that we try to go beyond the mere awaiting of it and become irritated or indignant because we are unable to do so. So while we are ‘held’ in our awaiting, we do not ‘hold on to it’. [BTMR:397]