I read a lot of poetry in my late teens. I've already mentioned my chance find of a battered volume of Apollinaire in a second-hand bookshop. Another writer who interested me at that time was the young Second World War poet Sidney Keyes.
I realise that may sound like rather a surprising choice. Most people, if they've heard of him at all, probably remember Keyes as the somewhat stuck-up co-editor of Eight Oxford Poets (1941) who refused to include a contribution by an even younger Philip Larkin.
Or, at any rate, that was Larkin's rather bitter recollection, set down some twenty years later. He referred sardonically to Keyes as someone who:
... could talk to history as some people talk to porters, and the mention of names like Schiller and Rilke and Gilles de Retz made me wish I were reading something more demanding than English Language and Literature.But it was the Keyes who wrote the following elegy for his dead grandfather who appealed to me. There was something very poignant, too, in the fact that he was killed in a random skirmish in North Africa before he could publish more than a couple of short books of his own verse:- Philip Larkin, Preface to The North Ship (1966)
Larkin was right about one thing, though: Keyes was always on about Rilke. His polyglot friend Michael Meyer, who edited his posthumous Collected Poems, claimed that Keyes didn't really understand Rilke - or at any rate the Sonnets to Orpheus he referred to so glibly. Be that as it may, it made me determined to check out this Rilke - whom I knew next to nothing about at the time.It is a year again since they poured The dumb ground into your mouth: And yet we know, by some recurring word Or look caught unawares, that you still drive Our thoughts like the smart cobs of your youth – When you and the world were alive.
Since the Auckland University Library was at my disposal, it was easy enough to find volume after volume of his work, mostly in dual-text translations by the indefatigable J. B. Leishman - alone, or in company with luminaries such as Stephen Spender. (As it turns out, J. B. Leishman was also the Oxford tutor of my late mentor Prof. Don Smith, so perhaps it's true that there are tendrils of connection everywhere - a very Rilkean thought ...)
Which reminds me of yet another link. I picked up a tattered little 1940s volume of Stephen Spender's Selected Poems back in the late 70s. The first poem in it - probably my favourite amongst all of his poems, in fact - was called "Cadet Cornelius Rilke":
When I collected it later in a little anthology of favourites, I said of this poem:Rolled over on Europe: the sharp dew frozen to stars Below us; above our heads, the night Frozen again to stars; the stars In pools between our coats, and that charmed moon. Ah, what supports? What cross draws out our arms, Heaves up our bodies towards the wind And hammers us between the mirrored lights? Only my body is real; which wolves Are free to oppress and gnaw. Only this rose My friend laid on my breast, and these few lines written from home, are real.
... it might be my taste for incantatory eloquence which made it stand out for me among Spender's early poems. It wasn't till later that I realised it was made up of phrases culled from Rilke's impressionistic early short story "Cadet Cornelius Rilke". It's hard to say if that makes it a translation or an original poem. Can that be regarded as a real distinction anymore, in fact?Not only did I not know that it came from Rilke's own short story, I didn't know who Rilke was at the time I first read it. Or that this was an accurate-as-he-could-make-it account of the last days of an ancestor of his. Mind you, I can't claim to be alone in this state of ignorance. My search for an online text of the poem came up with the following bland reassurances from Google's AI Overview:
Based on the search results, there is no widely recognized poem titled "Cadet Cornelius Rilke" by Stephen Spender.So there you go. It doesn't exist! Or, rather, it isn't "widely recognised." The fact that it's included in all Spender's collected (and most of the selected) editions is neither here nor there. Viva the digital revolution!
But let's get back to Rilke, and J. B. Leishman, and the crazed enthusiasm with which I embraced his work - while simultaneously deploring the clumsiness of most of the English versions. Whatever else he is, he isn't an easy poet. Stephen Spender seemed to do him best: The Duino Elegies, which he polished extensively from Leishman's draft version: also the beautiful early poem "Herbsttag", from Das Buch der Bilder [The Book of Pictures] (1902):
Herbsttag Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gieb ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben und wird in den Alleen hin und her unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. - Rainer Maria Rilke (1902)• Lord, it is time. The summer was so huge. Now lay your shadows on the sundials. And across the floor let the winds loose. Command the last fruits to be fine; Give to them two southerly days more; Drive all their ripeness in and pour The last sweet drop into the heavy wine. Who now no home has, builds himself none more. Who now alone is, he will stay so, long, He will watch, read, write letters that are long And through the avenues here and there When the leaves run, restlessly wander.
- trans. Stephen Spender (1933)
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Spender was a tireless reviser of his own work, and you can find a later, perhaps more polished version of this translation here. For myself, I prefer the 1930s text.
Here's my own attempt at it, from my first book of poems City of Strange Brunettes:
Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. Lord: it is time. The summer was so gross Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, Hang your shadows from car-aerials und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. … And over asphalt let dust-devils loose Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. Whoso no house hath, will not build it now Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben … Whoso’s alone, long will remain that way Lord, it is time – the summer was so gross. Hang your shadows from car aerials, and over asphalt let dust-devils loose. Tell the last girls to cover up their breasts – no more sunbathing on the eastern shore – button up trousers, blouses, coats; no more blood-sweetness from the wine-dark flesh. Whoso no house has, will not build it now. Whoso’s alone, long will remain that way: walk, read a little, tap-tap every day long letters – wander listlessly fall alleys, where the dead leaves stray.
- trans. Jack Ross (15/10/97)
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In my defence, I wasn't aware at the time just how many other translations of this poem were already out there. You can sample no fewer than twelve others at the link here.
"Herbsttag" does have a couple of rivals for most-translated Rilke poem, though. One is "Archaïscher Torso Apollos" [Archaic torso of Apollo], from Rilke's book Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil [New Poems: The Second Part]. Here it is, with a literal translation included below.
Archaïscher Torso Apollos Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt, darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber, in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt, sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug. Sonst stünde dieser Stein enstellt und kurz unter der Shultern durchsichtigem Sturz und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle; und brächte nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. - Rainer Maria Rilke (1908)• We never knew his unheard-of head where the eyeballs ripened. But his torso still glows like a candelabra in which his gaze, only half-illuminated holds and dazzles. Otherwise the bow of the breast wouldn’t join in, and the light twist of the loins couldn’t lend a smile to that centre, which holds fertility. Otherwise this stone would be shut and cut short under the shoulders’ transparent fall and would not flicker like a predator’s skin; and would not burst out on all sides like a star: since there’s no part which doesn’t see you. You must change your life.
- Literal version by Jack Ross (2019)
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I'm betting you've heard that phrase "You must change your life", even if the rest of the sonnet is less familiar.
At the time of the Christchurch Mosque Massacre in 2019, I found myself adapting these words of Rilke's for my own purposes, whether justifiably or not. Feelings were running very high here at the time, and I felt that I had to say something about the tragic events, whether others thought it opportune or not:
Du mußt dein Leben ändern – Rainer Maria Rilke Do we have to feel that pixilated head burning behind our eyes? the media keep broadcasting a manacled muscular torso signalling triumph over the dead his fingers cocked to a smirk the score perhaps Jacinda Ardern’s face caught in a rictus of grief can’t quite displace the bluntness of his semaphore on this darkest of days it feels like our worst fears were always justified our impotence out in the open for all to see our pain trumped by the old familiar reptile brain but scrolling down those flowers those faces those tears I can’t see them as nothing aren’t they us?
- Jack Ross (19/3/19-12/3/20)
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Once again, there are numerous much more faithful translations of Rilke's original poem. You can find some of the best-known ones here. I particularly recommend Sarah Stutt's wonderfully adroit dual version, chosen as the Guardian's Poem of the week on 15 Nov 2010.
There's a risk, unfortunately, of seeing some of Rilke's more portentous maxims as tantamount to the cookie-cutter clichés of the wellness industry, which long ago tapped him as a fruitful source of material. The huge popularity of his Letters to a Young Poet - far greater than any of his actual books of poems - certainly speaks to that.
Nor was his lifestyle entirely above reproach. In particular, his propensity for living off immensely wealthy female aristocrats did not go unnoticed. But the truth is that he never really found a place to settle: either physically or intellectually. His last home in Switzerland proved as provisional as any of the others. He died there of leukemia in 1926. He was only 51.
As for his own beliefs, they shifted with the times. He was immensely ashamed (in retrospect) of having written some bellicose "War Hymns" [Fünf Gesänge] in August 1914, celebrating the onset of World War I. He repudiated them almost at once - the moment, in fact, he became aware of the true nature of this most destructive of conflicts, but it didn't prevent him from continuing to dabble in politics:
Rilke supported the Russian Revolution in 1917 as well as the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He became friends with Ernst Toller and mourned the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg, Kurt Eisner, and Karl Liebknecht. He confided that of the five or six newspapers he read daily, those on the far left came closest to his own opinions. He developed a reputation for supporting left-wing causes and thus, out of fear for his own safety, became more reticent ... after the Bavarian Republic was crushed by the right-wing Freikorps.What would have been his attitude to Hitler and the Nazis, had he lived to see them rise to power? It's hard to know for sure.
In January and February 1926, Rilke wrote three letters to the Mussolini-adversary Aurelia Gallarati Scotti in which he praised Benito Mussolini and described fascism as a healing agent.A temporary enthusiasm for Mussolini - who initially billed himself as a revolutionary socialist - was, however, something shared by many prominent European politicians and men of letters (including figures as diverse as George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill). There's certainly no reason to see it as prophetic of future admiration for the Führer.
As far as the Nazis themselves were concerned, Rilke's works constituted just one more example of "un-German" cosmopolitan decadence. They were duly incinerated in the first mass book-burnings after Hitler assumed power in 1933, along with those of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, and - somewhat less predictably - Helen Keller.
Rilke was fluent in French and German, and composed poetry in both languages, though it's undoubtedly as a German-language author that he achieved fame. Born in Prague as a citizen of the ramshackle Austro-Hungarian Empire, he never really able to consider himself - especially after the First World War - as anything but a citizen of Europe.
He may have been happiest in pre-revolutionary Russia, which he called his "spiritual fatherland." He toured it extensively with his lover Lou Andreas-Salomé in 1899-1900. She taught him Russian, her native language, so he could read Pushkin and Tolstoy in the original. He met the latter both in Moscow and at his estate in Yasnaya Polyana, and was greatly taken with his ideas of universal brotherhood.
The friendships Rilke made then bore strange fruit in his last days, in an unexpected correspondence with two young Russian poets, Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetayeva, whom he welcomed as his poetic heirs. Boris was the son of Rilke's old friend, the painter Leonid Pasternak, so they'd first met while Boris was still a boy. It's probably fair to say that Rilke had far more meaningful friendships with artists than writers throughout the course of his life, in fact.
Starting with the German sculptor Clara Westhoff, whom he met at an artists' colony at Worpswede, and married in 1901, his subsequent friends and mentors included both Auguste Rodin and Paul Cézanne:
For a time, he acted as Rodin's secretary, also lecturing and writing a long essay on Rodin and his work. Rodin taught him the value of objective observation and, under this influence, Rilke dramatically transformed his poetic style from the subjective and sometimes incantatory language of his earlier work into something quite new in European literature. The result was the Neue Gedichte [New Poems], famous for the "thing-poems" expressing Rilke's rejuvenated artistic vision.The best known of these poems is undoubtedly Der Panther [The Panther], an attempt to record - more in the manner of a painter's sketch than a poetic portrait - the living essence of an imprisoned animal in the Paris Zoo.
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Der Panther
- The Panther Jardin des Plantes, Paris
- The Panther
- The Panther
- The Panther
- The Panther
- The Panther In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris
- The Panther in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris
Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris
- Rainer Maria Rilke (1903)
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht. Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille - und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
- trans. J. B. Leishman (1964)
His gaze those bars keep passing is so misted with tiredness, it can take in nothing more. He feels as though a thousand bars existed, and no more world beyond them than before. Those supply-powerful paddongs, turning there in tiniest of circles, well might be the dance of forces round a circle where some mighty will stands paralyticly. Just now and then the pupil's noiseless shutter is lifted. - Then an image will indart, down through the limbs' intensive stillness flutter, and end its being in the heart.
- trans. Robert Bly (1981)
From seeing the bars, his seeing is so exhausted that it no longer holds anything anymore. To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand bars, and behind the bars, nothing. The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride which circles down to the tiniest hub is like a dance of energy around a point in which a great will stands stunned and numb. Only at times the curtains of the pupil rise without a sound . . . then a shape enters, slips though the tightened silence of the shoulders, reaches the heart, and dies.
- trans. Stephen Mitchell (1982)
His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly--. An image enters in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.
- trans. A. S. Kline (2004)
His gaze is so wearied from the bars Passing by, that it can hold no more. It’s as if a thousand bars were given him: And behind the thousand bars, no world. The soft pace of his powerful, supple stride, That draws him round in tightened circles, Is like the dance of force about a centre, In which a greater will stands paralysed. Only, at times, the curtain of his pupils Silently rises – Then an image enters, Rushes through his tense, arrested limbs, And echoing, inside his heart, is gone.
- trans. Paul Archer (2011)
His eyes have got so weary of the bars going by, they can’t grasp anything else. He feels like there’s a thousand bars, a thousand bars and no world beyond. The soft tread of his strong, supple stride turns him in ever tighter circles, like the dance of force about a centre in which a great will stands, stunned. But now and then, the curtains over his eyes quietly lift … and an image enters, goes through his tense and silent limbs … and dies out in his heart.
- trans. Alex Buckman (2023)
His gaze is from the passing bars so weary That now, within it, nothing more is held. For him there are a thousand bars to see But then behind a thousand bars, no world. His pacing strides wind circles ever smaller, And to the beating of a distant drum, Perform a dance of power ’round a center In which a once-so-mighty will stands numbed. Now and again, the pupil’s curtains part Without a sound. An image enters in, Flows through the hush of tensely coiled limbs, And vanishes within the beating heart.
- trans. Jack Ross (2026)
His eyes have grown so tired of watching bars they can’t see anything beyond them bars a thousand bars no world no rest outside him nothing the narrow circle of his steps carries him around again dancing to the silent beat that pins his will inside this pen once in a while the pupils open take a snapshot pass it through the shuttered stillness of his body to the heart it answers to
Not only Rilke's most famous but his most translated poem: there appear to be no fewer than 37 translations of 'The Panther' included on the "The Panther: An Assemblage of Translations" webpage (1999-2020).
As usual in such cases, there's the struggle between reproducing the strict rhyme-scheme of the original and the precise sense of Rilke's complex syntax. Is it more important to sound good, or to be accurate to his exact meaning - whatever that may be?
J. B. Leishman was in no doubt. As the duly designated copyright holders of the translation rights of Rilke's works, the Hogarth Press had commissioned him to make accurate English duplicates of as much as possible of Rilke's poetry. And that's what he did. The first-time reader may wince at rhymes such as "might be" with "paralyticly" (why not "paralytically" - surely the more common form of the word?), but the fact remains that much of the meaning of Rilke's originals can be teased out by implication from Leishman's clunky versions by those with a little German. And that was a very useful thing in the pre-digital era.
Robert Bly abandons the rhymes, but still retains the basic structure of Rilke's stanzas. His version seems more serviceable as a guide to understanding the poem than Leishman's, but cannot be said to be, in itself, terribly exciting.
Stephen Mitchell, one of the most acclaimed translators of Rilke, switches to half-rhymes on the second and fourth lines of each quatrain. He's at least as accurate as Bly, but there's a poetic effectiveness in his choice of words which makes him the front-runner for many readers.
The remorselessly energetic A. S. Kline, as ever, is content with bald literalism. This is probably one of his more successful translations, however. It closely and accurately reproduces Rilke's actual train of thought, possibly better than any of his predecessors.
Paul Archer's translation is quietly competent. His advantage is that his verses are very easy to follow, without sacrificing (so far as I can tell) any significant aspects of the meaning. That's no mean feat.
Alex Buckman seems determined to match Rilke's rhyme-scheme in English. He's forced to resort to half-rhymes - assonances and consonances - to achieve this, but he does more or less manage to fit it in with the movement of the poem. The final stanza runs ABBA rather than Rilke's ABAB, but that's a small quibble. Certainly he creates a far smoother version than Leishman, though of course the latter never allows himself anything except legitimate, card-carrying, traditional English rhymes - a much more difficult proposition.
Jack Ross not only allows himself dubious half-rhymes such as "anything" with "nothing", but has also reduced the length of each line by switching from pentameters to acccentual tetrameters. He seems more interested in producing a facsimile of the effect of the poem than a faithful, usable crib. He should probably be more ashamed of himself than he is.
It's hard to leave the subject of Rilke without mentioning one more of his poems: "Orpheus. Eurikdike. Hermes" is an extraordinary work which continues to enthral and perplex more than a century after it was written.
Naturally - critics being what they are - a great deal has been written on the subject (some of it, I'm sorry to say, by me), but I do really think that a masterpiece such as this should be allowed to speak for itself.
Here it is, then, in Robert Lowell's astonishing version:
Orpheus. Eurydike. Hermes Das war der Seelen wunderliches Bergwerk. Wie stille Silbererze gingen sie als Adern durch sein Dunkel. Zwischen Wurzeln entsprang das Blut, das fortgeht zu den Menschen, und schwer wie Porphyr sah es aus im Dunkel. Sonst war nichts Rotes. Felsen waren da und wesenlose Wälder. Brücken über Leeres und jener große graue blinde Teich, der über seinem fernen Grunde hing wie Regenhimmel über einer Landschaft. Und zwischen Wiesen, sanft und voller Langmut, erschien des einen Weges blasser Streifen, wie eine lange Bleiche hingelegt. Und dieses einen Weges kamen sie. Voran der schlanke Mann im blauen Mantel, der stumm und ungeduldig vor sich aussah. Ohne zu kauen fraß sein Schritt den Weg in großen Bissen; seine Hände hingen schwer und verschlossen aus dem Fall der Falten und wußten nicht mehr von der leichten Leier, die in die Linke eingewachsen war wie Rosenranken in den Ast des Ölbaums. Und seine Sinne waren wie entzweit: indes der Blick ihm wie ein Hund vorauslief, umkehrte, kam und immer wieder weit und wartend an der nächsten Wendung stand, - blieb sein Gehör wie ein Geruch zurück. Manchmal erschien es ihm als reichte es bis an das Gehen jener beiden andern, die folgen sollten diesen ganzen Aufstieg. Dann wieder wars nur seines Steigens Nachklang und seines Mantels Wind was hinter ihm war. Er aber sagte sich, sie kämen doch; sagte es laut und hörte sich verhallen. Sie kämen doch, nur wärens zwei die furchtbar leise gingen. Dürfte er sich einmal wenden (wäre das Zurückschaun nicht die Zersetzung dieses ganzen Werkes, das erst vollbracht wird), müßte er sie sehen, die beiden Leisen, die ihm schweigend nachgehn: Den Gott des Ganges und der weiten Botschaft, die Reisehaube über hellen Augen, den schlanken Stab hertragend vor dem Leibe und flügelschlagend an den Fußgelenken; und seiner linken Hand gegeben: sie. Die So-geliebte, daß aus einer Leier mehr Klage kam als je aus Klagefrauen; daß eine Welt aus Klage ward, in der alles noch einmal da war: Wald und Tal und Weg und Ortschaft, Feld und Fluß und Tier; und daß um diese Klage-Welt, ganz so wie um die andre Erde, eine Sonne und ein gestirnter stiller Himmel ging, ein Klage-Himmel mit entstellten Sternen - : Diese So-geliebte. Sie aber ging an jenes Gottes Hand, den Schrittbeschränkt von langen Leichenbändern, unsicher, sanft und ohne Ungeduld. Sie war in sich, wie Eine hoher Hoffnung, und dachte nicht des Mannes, der voranging, und nicht des Weges, der ins Leben aufstieg. Sie war in sich. Und ihr Gestorbensein erfüllte sie wie Fülle. Wie eine Frucht von Süßigkeit und Dunkel, so war sie voll von ihrem großen Tode, der also neu war, daß sie nichts begriff. Sie war in einem neuen Mädchentum und unberührbar; ihr Geschlecht war zu wie eine junge Blume gegen Abend, und ihre Hände waren der Vermählung so sehr entwöhnt, daß selbst des leichten Gottes unendlich leise, leitende Berührung sie kränkte wie zu sehr Vertraulichkeit. Sie war schon nicht mehr diese blonde Frau, die in des Dichters Liedern manchmal anklang, nicht mehr des breiten Bettes Duft und Eiland und jenes Mannes Eigentum nicht mehr. Sie war schon aufgelöst wie langes Haar und hingegeben wie gefallner Regen und ausgeteilt wie hundertfacher Vorrat. Sie war schon Wurzel. Und als plötzlich jäh der Gott sie anhielt und mit Schmerz im Ausruf die Worte sprach: Er hat sich umgewendet -, begriff sie nichts und sagte leise: Wer? Fern aber, dunkel vor dem klaren Ausgang, stand irgend jemand, dessen Angesicht nicht zu erkennen war. Er stand und sah, wie auf dem Streifen eines Wiesenpfades mit trauervollem Blick der Gott der Botschaft sich schweigend wandte, der Gestalt zu folgen, die schon zurückging dieses selben Weges, den Schritt beschränkt von langen Leichenbändern, unsicher, sanft und ohne Ungeduld. - Rainer Maria Rilke (1904)• That's the strange regalia of souls. Vibrant as platinum filaments they went, like arteries through their darkness. From the holes of powder beetles, from the otter's bed, from the oak king judging by the royal oak - blood like our own life-blood, sprang. Otherwise nothing was red. The dark was heavier than Caesar's foot. There were canyons there, distracted forests, and bridges over air-pockets; a great gray, blind lake mooned over the background canals, like a bag of winds over the Caucasus. Through terraced highlands, stocked with cattle and patience, streaked the single road. It was unwinding like a bandage. They went on this road. First the willowy man in the blue cloak; he didn't say a thing. He counted his toes. His step ate up the road, a yard at a time, without bruising a thistle. His hands fell, clammy and clenched, as if they feared the folds of his tunic, as if they didn't know a thing about the frail lyre, hooked on his left shoulder, like roses wrestling an olive tree. It was as though his intelligence were cut in two. His outlook worried like a dog behind him, now driving ahead, now romping back, now yawning on its haunches at an elbow of the road. What he heard breathed myrrh behind him, and often it seemed to reach back to them, those two others on oath to follow behind to the finish. Then again there was nothing behind him, only the backring of his heel, and the currents of air in his blue cloak. He said to himself, "For all that, they are there." He spoke aloud and heard his own voice die. "They are coming, but if they are two, how fearfully light their step is!" Couldn't he turn around? (Yet a single back-look would be the ruin of this work so near perfection.) And as a matter of fact, he knew he must now turn to them, those two light ones, who followed and kept their counsel. First the road-god, the messenger man ... His caduceus shadow-bowing behind him, his eye arched, archaic, his ankles feathered like arrows - in his left hand he held her, the one so loved that out of a single lyre more sorrow came than from all women in labor, so that out of this sorrow came the fountain-head of the world: valleys, fields, towns, roads ... acropolis, marble quarries, goats, vineyards. And this sorrow-world circled about her, just as the sun and stern stars circle the earth - a heaven of anxiety ringed by the determined stars ... that's how she was. She leant, however, on the god's arm; her step was delicate from her wound - uncertain, drugged and patient. She was drowned in herself, as in a higher hope, and she didn't give the man in front of her a thought, nor the road climbing to life. She was in herself. Being dead fulfilled her beyond fulfillment. Like an apple full of sugar and darkness, she was full of her decisive death, so green she couldn't bite into it. She was still in her marble maidenhood, untouchable. Her sex had closed house, like a young flower rebuking the night air. Her hands were still ringing and tingling - even the light touch of the god was almost a violation. A woman? She was no longer that blond transcendence so often ornamenting the singer's meters, nor a hanging garden in his double bed. She had wearied of being the hero's one possession. She was as bountiful as uncoiled hair, poured out like rain, shared in a hundred pieces like her wedding cake. She was a root, self-rooted. And when the god suddenly gripped her, and said with pain in his voice, "He is looking back at us," she didn't get through to the words, and answered vaguely, "Who?" Far there, dark against the clear entrance, stood some one, or rather no one you'd ever know. He stood and stared at the one level, inevitable road, as the reproachful god of messengers looking round, pushed off again. His caduceus was like a shotgun on his shoulder.
- trans. Robert Lowell (1961)
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Paula Modersohn-Becker: Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke (1906)René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
[Rainer Maria Rilke]
(1875-1926)
Books I own are marked in bold:
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Poetry:
- Leben und Lieder [Life and Songs] (1894)
- Larenopfer [Offerings to the Lares] (1895)
- Traumgekrönt [Dream-Crowned] (1897)
- Advent (1898)
- Das Stunden-Buch [The Book of Hours]
- Das Buch vom mönchischen Leben [The Book of Monastic Life] (1899)
- Das Buch von der Pilgerschaft [The Book of Pilgrimage] (1901)
- Das Buch von der Armut und vom Tode [The Book of Poverty and Death] (1903)
- Das Buch der Bilder [The Book of Images] (1902–1906)
- Poems from the Book of Hours: The German Text with an English Translation. 1903. Trans Babette Deutsch. 1930. London: Vision Press, 1947.
- Neue Gedichte [New Poems) (1907)
- New Poems: The German Text, with a Translation, Introduction and Notes. 1907 & 1908. Trans. J. B. Leishman. 1964. London: The Hogarth Press, 1979.
- Duineser Elegien [Duino Elegies) (1922)
- Duino Elegies: The German Text, with an English Translation, Introduction and Commentary. Trans. J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender. 1939. London: Chatto & Windus, 1981.
- Sonette an Orpheus [Sonnets to Orpheus) (1922)
- Sonnets to Orpheus: The German Text with English Translations. 1922. Trans. C. F. MacIntyre. Cal 32. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960.
- Gesammelte Gedichte [Collected Poems) (1962)
- Gesammelte Gedichte. Frankfurt: Insel-Verlag, 1962.
- Das Testament [The Testament (& Other Texts)] (1974)
- Geschichten vom Lieben Gott [Stories of God] (1900)
- Auguste Rodin (1903)
- Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (1906)
- Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke. 1899. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1978.
- Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge [The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge] (1910)
- Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge. 1910. 2 vols. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1922.
- The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge. Trans. John Linton. 1930. London: The Hogarth Press, 1950.
- The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge. 1910. Trans John Linton. 1930. Introduction by Stephen Spender. 20th Century Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
- Sämtliche Werke [Complete Works], Ed. Rilke Archive, with Ruth Sieber-Rilke & Ernst Zinn (1955-66)
- Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Rilke Archive, with Ruth Sieber-Rilke & Ernst Zinn. 6 vols. 6 vols. 1955-66. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1982.
- Gedichte, Erster Teil. 1955 (1982)
- Gedichte, Zweiter Teil. 1956 (1982)
- Jugendgedichte 1959 (1982)
- Frühe Erzählungen und Dramen. 1961 (1978)
- Worpswede; Auguste Rodin; Aufsätze. 1965 (1984)
- Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge; Prosa 1906 bis 1926 (1966)
- Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Rilke Archive, with Ruth Sieber-Rilke & Ernst Zinn. 6 vols. 6 vols. 1955-66. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1982.
- Werke [Works (Annotated)]. 4 vols + Supplementary volume. Ed. Manfred Engel, Ulrich Fülleborn, Dorothea Lauterbach, Horst Nalewski and August Stahl (1996 & 2003)
- Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman (1934)
- Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman. 1934. London: The Hogarth Press, 1939.
- Requiem and Other Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman (1935)
- Requiem and Other Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman. 1934 & 1935. London: The Hogarth Press, 1949.
- Poems 1906-1926. Trans. J. B. Leishman (1957)
- Poems 1906-1926. Trans. J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1957.
- The Complete French Poems (1958)
- The Complete French Poems. 1958. Trans. A. Poulin, Jr. Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 1986.
- Selected Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman (1964)
- Selected Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman. 1964. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
- Selected Poems. Ed. G. W. Mackay (1965)
- Selected Poems. Ed. G. W. Mackay. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
- The Selected Poetry. Trans. Stephen Mitchell (1982)
- The Selected Poetry. Ed. & Trans. Stephen Mitchell. Introduction by Robert Hass. 1980-82. Picador Classics. London: Pan Books, 1987.
- Tagebücher aus der Frühzeit (1926)
- Diaries of a Young Poet. 1942. Trans. Edward Snow & Michael Winkler. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
- Briefe an Auguste Rodin (1928)
- Briefe an einen jungen Dichter [Letters to a Young Poet] (1929)
- Briefe an eine junge Frau [Letters to a Young Woman] (1930)
- Briefe an eine junge Frau. Afterword by Carl Sieber. 1930. Wiesbaden: Insel-Verlag, 1951.
- Gesammelte Briefe in sechs Bänden [Collected Letters in Six Volumes]. Ed. Ruth Sieber-Rilke & Carl Sieber (1936–1939)
- Selected Letters: 1902-1926. Trans. R. F. C. Hull & Reginald Snell (1945-1946)
- Selected Letters: 1902-1926. Trans. R. F. C. Hull & Reginald Snell. 1945 & 1946. Introduction by John Bayley. Quartet Encounters. London: Quartet Books, 1988.
- Briefe. 2 vols. Ed. Rilke Archive in Weimar (1950)
- Briefe über Cézanne. Ed. Clara Rilke. Postscript by Heinrich Wiegand Petzet (1952)
- Letters on Cézanne. Ed. Clara Rilke. Trans. Joel Agee (1985)
- Briefwechsel mit Marie von Thurn und Taxis. 2 vols. Ed. Ernst Zinn (1954)
- Briefe in Zwei Bänden. Ed. Horst Nalewski (1991)
- Briefwechsel mit Rolf von Ungern-Sternberg und weitere Dokumente zur Übertragung der Stances von Jean Moréas (2002)
- Briefwechsel mit Thankmar von Münchhausen 1913 bis 1925 (2004)
- The Dark Interval – Letters for the Grieving Heart. Ed. Ulrich C. Baer (2018)
- Heerikhuizen, F. W. van. Rainer Maria Rilke: His Life and Work. 1946. Trans. Fernand G. Renier & Anna Cliff. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1951.
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Letters:
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