One of the defining moments in Celan’s signature poem “Tübingen, Jänner” is its focus on the Hölderlinian trope of “origin.” Drawing upon Hölderlin’s hymn, “Der Rhein”, and the opening line of stanza four—“A riddle is what is purely originated” (v. 16)—Celan undermines and compromises the very conceit of an origin as an Ursprung, an arche, or a pure beginning. For Celan, origin itself functions as a metonymy for the sense of something lost; it is nothing other than a fiction. Within Hölderlin’s poem, the source or Quelle of the Rhine offers the poet an occasion on which to reflect on the enigmatic origin of all that springs forth purely form nature. But even as this vision unfolds, the poet is, at the same time, confronted by the river as demi-god, a curious blend and opposition of both human and godly elements—hence, not “pure” in any simplistic sense.