Um fiebernd unter jenen,
als zöge er die Laken ihrer Leiber,
andere Zeiten wegzuzerrn.
Bis er ins Flüstern kam; (was war ihm fern?)
Er lobte einen dieser Briefeschreiber,
als sei der Brief an ihn: Wie du mich kennst;
und klopfte lustig auf die Seitenlehnen.
Der Spiegel aber, innen unbegrenzter,
ließ leise einen Vorhang aus, ein Fenster—:
denn dorten stand, fast fertig, das Gespenst.
The Bachelor
A lamp on the abandoned documents,
and night all around, reaching far inside
the wooden shelves. And he could lose himself
in his lineage, which now fused with him;
it seemed to him, the more he read, that he
possessed their pride, though all of them had his.
Haughtily the empty chairs stiffened up
along the wall, and pure self-esteems
stretched out drowsily in the furniture;
from above night poured on the antique clock,
and from its golden mill there streamed
tremblingly, and very finely ground, his time.
He left it there. And feverishly among them,
as if tugging at their bodies’ shrouds,
tore other times away. Till he was
whispering; (what, for him, was distant?)
He praised one of these letter writers,
as if the letter were to him: How well you know me;
and slapped jovially on the chair’s arms.
But the mirror, less limited within,
quietly released a curtain, a window—:
for there, almost ready, stood the specter.
Der Einsame
Nein: ein Turm soll sein aus meinem Herzen
und ich selbst an seinen Rand gestellt:
wo sonst nichts mehr ist, noch einmal Schmerzen
und Unsäglichkeit, noch einmal Welt.
Noch ein Ding allein im Übergroßen,
welches dunkel wird und wieder licht,
noch ein letztes, sehnendes Gesicht
in das Nie-zu-Stillende verstoßen,
noch ein äußerstes Gesicht aus Stein,
willig seinen inneren Gewichten,
das die Weiten, die es still vernichten,
zwingen, immer seliger zu sein.
The Solitary
No: a tower shall rise out of my heart,
and I myself will be placed at its edge;
where nothing else exists, once again pain
and unsayableness, once again world.
Still one thing alone in immensity
growing dark and then light again,
still one last face full of longing
thrust out into the unappeasable,
still one uttermost face made of stone
heeding only its own inner gravity,
while the distances that silently destroy it
force it on to an ever deeper bliss.
Der Leser
Wer kennt ihn, diesen, welcher sein Gesicht
wegsenkte aus dem Sein zu einem zweiten,
das nur das schnelle Wenden voller Seiten
manchmal gewaltsam unterbricht?
Selbst seine Mutter wäre nicht gewiß,
ob er es ist, der da mit seinem Schatten
Getränktes liest. Und wir, die Stunden hatten,
was wissen wir, wieviel ihm hinschwand, bis
er mühsam aufsah: alles auf sich hebend,
was unten in dem Buche sich verhielt,
mit Augen, welche, statt zu nehmen, gebend
anstießen an die fertig-volle Welt:
wie stille Kinder, die allein gespielt,
auf einmal das Vorhandene erfahren;
doch seine Züge, die geordnet waren,
blieben für immer umgestellt.
The Reader
Who knows him, this youth who’s let his face sink down
from his own existence to a second one,
which only the quick turning of full pages
sometimes violently interrupts?
Even his mother would not be sure
it’s he who sits there reading something
saturated with his shadow. And we, who have hours,
how can we know how much of him was lost
before with effort he looked up: raising to himself
all that inhered in the book’s depths,
with eyes which, instead of taking, bumped
givingly into the full-finished world:
the way quiet children, who have played alone,
suddenly experience what’s at hand;
but his features, which were in order,
remained forever recomposed.
Der Apfelgarten
Borgeby-Gård
Komm gleich nach dem Sonnenuntergange,
sieh das Abendgrün des Rasengrunds;
ist es nicht, als hätten wir es lange
angesammelt und erspart in uns,
um es jetzt aus Fühlen und Erinnern,
neuer Hoffnung, halbvergeßnem Freun,
noch vermischt mit Dunkel aus dem Innern,
in Gedanken vor uns hinzustreun
unter Bäume wie von Dürer, die
das Gewicht von hundert Arbeitstagen
in den überfüllten Früchten tragen,
dienend, voll Geduld, versuchend, wie
das, was alle Maße übersteigt,
noch zu heben ist und hinzugeben,
wenn man willig, durch ein langes Leben
nur das Eine will und wächst und schweigt.
The Apple Orchard
Borgeby-Gård
Come just after sunset and behold it,
the evening greenness of the grassy earth;
is it not as if we had for ages
collected and saved it up inside us,
in order now from feeling and remembrance,
new hope, half-forgotten rejoicing,
still mingled with darkness from our depths,
to scatter it in thoughts before us
under trees as if by Dürer, which bear
the weight of a hundred days of labor
in the efflorescence of brimming fruit,
serving, full of patience, trying out
how that which goes beyond all measure
is still to be raised up and sacrificed,
when one willingly, throughout a long life,
wills just one thing and grows and holds one’s peace.
Mohammeds Berufung
Da aber als in sein Versteck der Hohe,
sofort Erkennbare: der Engel, trat,
aufrecht, der lautere und lichterlohe:
da tat er allen Anspruch ab und bat
bleiben zu dürfen der von seinen Reisen
innen verwirrte Kaufmann, der er war;
er hatte nie gelesen—und nun gar
ein solches Wort, zu viel für einen Weisen.
Der Engel aber, herrisch, wies und wies
ihm, was geschrieben stand auf seinem Blatte,
und gab nicht nach und wollte wieder: Lies.
Da las er: so, daß sich der Engel bog.
Und war schon einer, der gelesen hatte
und konnte und gehorchte und vollzog.
Mohammed’s Summoning
But then when the Angel—impossible
to mistake—stepped into his hiding-place,
erect, regal, all purity and blaze:
then he renounced all claims and begged
that he might go on being that merchant
all confused from his travels, which he was;
he had never learned to read—and now
such a word, too much even for a wise man.
But the Angel, imperious, showed and
showed him what was written on his page
and would not give way and once more willed: Read.
Then he read: so deeply, that the Angel bowed.
And was already someone who had read
and was able and obeyed and brought to pass.
Der Berg
Sechsunddreissig Mal und hundert Mal
hat der Maler jenen Berg geschrieben,
weggerissen, wieder hingetrieben
(sechsunddreißig Mal und hundert Mal)
zu dem unbegreiflichen Vulkane,
selig, voll Versuchung, ohne Rat,—
während der mit Umriß Angetane
seiner Herrlichkeit nicht Einhalt tat:
tausendmal aus allen Tagen tauchend,
Nächte ohne gleichen von sich ab
fallen lassend, alle wie zu knapp;
jedes Bild im Augenblick verbrauchend,
von Gestalt gesteigert zu Gestalt,
teilnahmslos und weit und ohne Meinung—,
um auf einmal wissend, wie Erscheinung,
sich zu heben hinter jedem Spalt.
The Mountain
Thirty-six and then a hundred times
the painter wrote that mountain,
torn away, always driven back again
(thirty-six and then a hundred times)
to the incomprehensible volcano,
blissful, wholly tempted, without a clue,—
while that enigma clothed in outline
held back nothing of its majesty;
a thousand times emerging from each day,
letting nights without equal
fall away, all as if too tight;
exhausting every image in an instant,
from shape mounting on to shape,
indifferent and distant and opinionless—,
only to abruptly grow all-knowing,
and rise up ghostlike behind each cleft.
Der Ball
Du Runder, der das Warme aus zwei Händen
im Fliegen, oben, fortgiebt, sorglos wie
sein Eigenes; was in den Gegenständen
nicht bleiben kann, zu unbeschwert für sie,
zu wenig Ding und doch noch Ding genug,
um nicht aus allem draußen Aufgereihten
unsichtbar plötzlich in uns einzugleiten:
das glitt in dich, du zwischen Fall und Flug
noch Unentschlossener: der, wenn er steigt,
als hätte er ihn mit hinaufgehoben,
den Wurf entführt und freiläßt—, und sich neigt
und einhält und den Spielenden von oben
auf einmal eine neue Stelle zeigt,
sie ordnend wie zu einer Tanzfigur,
um dann, erwartet und erwünscht von allen,
rasch, einfach, kunstlos, ganz Natur,
dem Becher hoher Hände zuzufallen.
The Ball
You round one, who take the warmth from two hands
and pass it on in flight, above, blithely
as if it were your own; what’s too unburdened
to remain in objects, not thing enough
and yet sufficiently a thing so that
it doesn’t slip from all the outer grids
and glide invisibly into our being:
it glided into you, you between fall and flight
still the undecided: who, when you rise,
as if you had drawn it up with you,
abduct and liberate the throw—, and bend
and pause and suddenly from above
show those playing a new place,
arranging them as for a dance’s turn,
in order then, awaited and desired by all,
swift, simple, artless, completely nature,
to fall into the cup of upstretched hands.
Das Kind
Unwillkürlich sehn sie seinem Spiel
lange zu; zuweilen tritt das runde
seiende Gesicht aus dem Profil,
klar und ganz wie eine volle Stunde,
welche anhebt und zu Ende schlägt.
Doch die Andern zählen nicht die Schläge,
trüb von Mühsal und vom Leben träge;
und sie merken gar nicht, wie es trägt—,
wie es alles trägt, auch dann, noch immer,
wenn es müde in dem kleinen Kleid
neben ihnen wie im Wartezimmer
sitzt und warten will auf seine Zeit.
The Child
Without meaning to they stand watching
while it plays: occasionally the round
living face emerges from the profile,
clear and whole like some ripened hour
that rises up and chimes unto its end.
But the others don’t keep track of the strokes,
dim from toil and sluggish from life;
and they don’t even notice how it bears—,
how it bears everything, even then, still,
when wearily in its small clothes dressed up
beside them as if in the waiting room
it sits and keeps on waiting for its time.
Der Hund
Da oben wird das Bild von einer Welt
aus Blicken immerfort erneut und gilt.
Nur manchmal, heimlich, kommt ein Ding und stellt
sich neben ihn, wenn er durch dieses Bild
sich drängt, ganz unten, anders, wie er ist;
nicht ausgestoßen und nicht eingereiht,
und wie im Zweifel seine Wirklichkeit
weggebend an das Bild, das er vergißt,
um dennoch immer wieder sein Gesicht
hineinzuhalten, fast mit einem Flehen,
beinah begreifend, nah am Einverstehen
und doch verzichtend: denn er wäre nicht.
The Dog
Up there the image of a world is through
glances constantly subscribed to and renewed.
On occasion, secretly, a thing comes up
and stands beside him, when through that image
he pushes, down below, different, as he is;
not expelled and not assigned a place,
and giving away his reality as if in doubt
on the image that he forgets, only to
stick his face inside again and again,
almost with a pleading, on the verge
of comprehending, close to an agreement
and yet reneging: for he wouldn’t be.
Der Käferstein
Sind nicht Sterne fast in deiner Nähe
und was giebt es, das du nicht umspannst,
da du dieser harten Skarabäe
Karneolkern gar nicht fassen kannst
ohne jenen Raum, der ihre Schilder
niederhält, auf deinem ganzen Blut
mitzutragen; niemals war er milder,
näher, hingegebener. Er ruht
seit Jahrtausenden auf diesen Käfern,
wo ihn keiner braucht und unterbricht;
und die Käfer schließen sich und schläfern
unter seinem wiegenden Gewicht.
The Beetle-Stone
Are not stars almost within your reach
and what is there that you don’t encompass,
since you cannot ever grasp these hard
scarabs’ dense carnelian cores
without bearing too, on all your blood,
that space which holds their wing-shards down.
Never was space gentler, closer, more
self-surrendered. It has rested
for thousands of years upon these beetles,
where no one interrupts or uses it;
and the beetles fold in upon themselves
and sleep beneath its gently rocking weight.
Buddha in der Glorie
Mitte aller Mitten, Kern der Kerne,
Mandel, die sich einschließt und versüßt,—
dieses Alles bis an alle Sterne
ist dein Fruchtfleisch: Sei gegrüßt.
Sieh, du fühlst, wie nichts mehr an dir hängt;
im Unendlichen ist deine Schale,
und dort steht der starke Saft und drängt.
Und von außen hilft ihm ein Gestrahle,
denn ganz oben werden deine Sonnen
voll und glühend umgedreht.
Doch in dir ist schon begonnen,
was die Sonnen übersteht.
Buddha in Glory
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond, that closes in and sweetens,—
this entire world out to all the stars
is your fruit-flesh: we greet you.
Look, you feel how nothing any longer
clings to you; your husk is in infinity,
and there the strong juice stands and presses.
And from outside a radiance assists it,
for high above, your suns in full splendor
have wheeled blazingly around.
Yet already there’s begun inside you
what lasts beyond the suns.
Notes
Introduction
1. Letter to Lou Andreas-Salome, 10 August 1903. For a more elaborate account of Rilke’s project, see my introduction to New Poems (1907), North Point Press, 1984.
2. Letter to Anton Kippenberg, 18 August 1908.
Cretan Artemis
Artemis, virgin huntress and warrior, ancient Greek goddess of both chastity and childbirth. “Cretan” suggests an untamed, pre-Hellenic youthfulness, pairing her perhaps (sister to brother) with the “archaic” Apollo of the previous poem.
Dolphins
presumably the ancient Greeks, with their twin passions for reality and mythological world-making.
lesser sea deities (half man, half fish) of Greek mythology.
an ancient Greek warship or galley with three tiers of oars.
Lament for Antinous
Antinous, young favorite of the Roman emperor Hadrian (A.D. 76–138), drowned while the imperial barge was sailing up the Nile. His death was “clouded” almost from the beginning: it may have been an accident or a suicide or an obscure sacrifice. The historical Hadrian (unlike the reluctant speaker of Rilke’s poem) responded with extravagant acts of mourning, founding the city of Antinoupolis where Antinous drowned, setting up statues of the youth throughout the empire (over 300 representations are known), and crediting his mages’ and courtiers’ theory that the new star he claimed to have sighted was Antinous’s deified spirit.
stillen is “to soothe or placate,” but also “to suckle a child.” Antinous seems to enter a realm of consoling maternal earth deities—as if passing through a chthonic middle realm—on his way in Hadrian’s imagination from death by drowning (and the continued presence of grief) to stellar deification (and the finality of loss).
Lament for Jonathan
II Samuel, i.
Comforting of Elijah
I Kings, xviii–xix.
Saul among the Prophets
I Samuel, xix, 8–24, x, 1–10.
Samuel’s Appearance to Saul
I Samuel, xxviii.
Absalom’s Rebellion
II Samuel, xiv–xviii.
Esther
Esther, iv and v, and Apocrypha.
The Leper King
Not Charles VI of France, the Leper King of Rilke’s Malte Laurids Brigge, but King Uzziah of II Chronicles 16–21, stricken in the temple as the priests whose prerogatives he had usurped look on in amazement.
The King of Münster
John of Leyden, a former Münster tailor who became leader of that city’s Anabaptist uprisings of 1534–35. He was executed in 1536.
Gold
the ruined capital of Ethiopia, fabled as the richest gold-producing region of the ancient world.
The Stylite
Christian ascetic who lived standing on top of a column (Greek stylos). The poem probably refers to the life of the first stylite, Saint Simeon (c. 390–459), who, after being expelled from a monastery for his overly severe mortifications, became a hermit at the foot of Mount Teleanissae, moving after three years to its top, where he began to attract huge crowds. To escape them he erected, in 423, a ten-foot pillar, and spent the rest of his life on successively higher ones. His last pillar measured sixty feet.
The Egyptian Mary
St. Mary of Egypt, whose story is told in the Golden Legend.
Evening Meal
In a letter of 4 October 1907 to his wife Rilke describes the contentment that fills the small shops on the rue de Seine, and imagines the two of them enjoying it with their daughter: “Ah, if only that sufficed: I’ve sometimes had the wish to buy myself a full shop window like that and sit myself down behind it with a dog for twenty years. In the evening there would be light in the back room, in front everything completely dark, and the three of us would sit and eat, behind; I’ve noticed how, seen from the street, that always looks like a Last Supper, so grand and ceremonious through the dark space. (This way, though, one always has to contend with all the worries, the great ones and the small ones.)…”
Roman Campagna
The Appian Way, ancient high road leading from Rome to lower Italy, and eventually entering the Pontine Marshes (hence, probably, the obscure ins Fieber of line 3). The ruins of the magnificent thermae, or baths, of Caracalla, are the last important building it passes before it leaves the city, and tombs line its passage through the countryside.
Nächtliche Fahrt
a large park (lit. “Summer Garden”) belonging to the Czars.
San Marco
lit., a four-in-hand or quadriga. The reference is almost certainly to the four bronze horses of San Marco, treasures of antiquity that stand high over the central porch of the west front of St. Mark’s. They were brought to Venice from Constantinople in 1204, as part of the plunder when that city was taken in the Fourth Crusade.
The Lute
most commentators suggest Tullia d’Aragona, a famous courtesan (as well as poet and musician) of sixteenth-century Italy. But a still more famous “Tullia” is Cicero’s daughter, whose body, according to legend, was found after 1500 years in a monument along the Appian way, with a lamp still burning there, before contact with the air turned both to dust. (Donne alludes to the legend, and to “Tullia” by name, in one of his epithalamiums.) The name should probably be allowed its mystery. It evokes an intimacy and a lived dimension that exclude us; in doing so it underscores the lute’s inaccessibility, both as historical artifact and as Rilkean “thing.”
Falconry
The German Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) and his treatise on falconry, De arte venandi cum avibus.
The Flamingos
Greek courtesan, famed for her beauty; she is supposed to have modelled for the sculptor Praxiteles.
Persian Heliotrope
the Persian nightingale.
The Mountain
The Japanese painter Hokusai (1760–1849) produced two series of colored woodblock prints of scenes unified by the presence of the volcano Fujiyama: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: Southerly Wind and Fine Weather (in a broadsheet format), followed by One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (in three bound volumes).
Translation copyright © 1987 by Edward Snow
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