Dirk Johnson writes that German is less like Greek than English is like German. Did I get that right? But what about all those Germans who insist that their language is the poetic successor to Greek? This view informs much of Martin Heidegger's project, ultimately serving as a sufficient defense, in the eyes of his admirers, for a mystagogical approach to existence. Having a smattering of both German and Greek I disagree with the post-Schliermacher viewpoint. Figure that the Germans have never become comfortable with the magpie habits of English. English the great bawd of tongues, using any sounds and sense she can find elsewhere, among Wends and Alemands as much as Portugeesers and Frenchies. English rejoices in its impurities, unlike German and Greek. A farrago of borrowed terms and shameless about debauching meanings in the service of poetic craft. As Pound did, I think, when he ransacked the classics. The earliest Cantos are versions of versions of versions, yet unlike a bad Xerox copy they have startlingly more life than their originals. Stephen van Beek