Consisting of two essays, this text investigates the impact on Holderlin"s poetic imagery of the Homeric metaphor of the golden chain of nature. It contrasts A.O. Lovejoy"s ideas on "the great chain of being" with the results of recent research. It also announces discovery of an unknown source to which Holderlin was indebted: an early 17th-century Jesuit devotional tract. The study considers the full range of the poetic work, including the poems, Hyperion, and Empedokles, and is illustrated with two figures, and concludes with two appendixes of verbal data, a bibliography, and indexes of names and of Holderlin"s works.