ELEGY IX
Warum, wenn es angeht, also die Frist des Daseins
hinzubringen, als Lorbeer, ein wenig dunkler als alles
andere Grün, mit kleinen Wellen an jedem
Blattrand (wie eines Windes Lächeln) –: warum dann
Menschliches müssen – und, Schicksal vermeidend,
sich sehnen nach Schicksal?…
Varying line lengths and sustained alliteration support a carefully crafted interrogation of a self that is close to (if not quite securely in) the realm of achievement. The tone of the stanza is quizzical but insistent, and underscored by the anaphoric use of “warum”. Why should we continue to think of life as achievement (“Lorbeer”)? Why should we remain human (or should that be “human”?), when we possess no surety of disposition either in ourselves or with regard to our destiny? Translations include: “Why, when this span of life might be fleeted away / as laurel, a little darker than all / the surrounding green, with tiny waves on the border / of every leaf (like the smile of a wind): – oh, why / have to be human, and, shunning Destiny, / long for Destiny? … (L/S), “Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely / in the form of a laurel, slightly darker than all / other green, with tiny waves on the edges / of every leaf (like the smile of a breeze) – : why then / have to be human – and escaping from fate, / keep longing for fate? … (M), “Why, when we could live out our span of existence / adequately in the form of a laurel: a little darker than / all other green, with miniature waves round the edges / of every leaf (like a wind, smiling) – why, then, / have to be human – and, bent on avoiding destiny, / long for its presence? … (R/S), “Why, if this span of existence, when it reaches us, can / be brought forward as a laurel, a bit darker than all other / green, with tiny waves on the edges of each / leaf (like the smile of a breeze) –: why then must we be / human beings – and, ever avoiding our destiny, / keep on longing for destiny? … (R).
The initial words of the stanza are cryptic, and there are wide divergences in translating them. The opening line: “Warum, wenn es angeht, die Frist des Daseins hinzubringen” in particular, is difficult, but that does not explain why “angeht” is left untranslated by some. Its normal figurative sense in German is “to concern” or “to effect” someone. “Might be”, “can be” and “could” communicate some of the sense of the word, but “when it reaches us” is a literal translation that has lost the figurative sense of the original. An alternative translation is “when we are concerned”. The object of this sentence is “Frist des Daseins”. “Dasein” is a weighty word in Rilke’s vocabulary, appearing in the first, third, sixth and seventh Elegies to mean “existence”, “being” or simply “life”, in all cases it is the context that determines which of these translations is the most appropriate. In the lines cited above, “Dasein” is linked to “Frist”, the latter referring to a period of time or, more commonly, a deadline. The preferred translation is “span”, in which case “life” rather than “existence” as a translation of “Dasein” seems more logical, since life unfolds over time whereas existence, as with Being, is experienced in the existential moment of the now. Translating “hinzubringen” is also diffciult. The word is a new coinage formed from the common German word “bringen” (“to bring’), which is here adjoined to the prefix “hin”. The latter typically communicates a movement towards or up to something, but also the completion of an act. “Hinbringen”, when connected with time (as here), communicates the sense of to “live out” or “spend” a period of time. The enigmatic “Lorbeer” can only be translated as “laurel” (meaning the laurel of achievement), and there is general agreement on how to describe its properties. “Warum dann / Menschliches müssen” is more problematic. A simple grammatical formation without a subject and with a modal verb used in place of a main verb, it condenses a typically Rilkean query. The preferred translation is the most literal (“why, then, / have to be human” (which is to retain the abstract notion of the “human” rather than introduce “human beings”), but “why, then, / the need to be human” is an alternative.
An alternative translation:
Why, when we are concerned to while away
the span of life as laurel,
a little darker than all other greens, with small waves
on each leaf (like the smile of a breeze) – why, then,
the need to be human – and, evading fate,
to long for fate? …
Does this postponement of resolution lead to happiness? The short second stanza answers that question in the negative:
O, nicht, weil Glück ist,
dieser voreilige Vorteil eines nahen Verlusts.
Nicht aus Neugier, oder zur Übung des Herzens,
das auch im Lorbeer wäre…..
Rilke’s discursive voice dominates the stanza. Familiar conjunctions and adverbial phrases frame two short sentences made up from characteristically Rilkean images of suggestion and ambivalence. Translations include: “Not because happiness really / exists, that precipitate profit of imminent loss. / Not out of curiosity, not just to practise the heart, / that could still be in laurel …..” (L/S), “Oh not because happiness exists, / that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss. / Not out of curiosity, not as practice for the heart, which / would exist in the laurel too …..” (M), “Oh, not because pleasure is, / that over-precipitate gain before oncoming loss. / Not from curiosity, nor as heart-beat practice / for the heart that may live in the laurel …..” (R/S), “Oh, not because happiness exists, / that hasty profit we snatch from impending loss. / Not for curiosity’s sake, nor as practice for the heart, / which could as well exist in laurel …..” (MC), “Oh, not because happiness is, / that rashly snatched advantage in approaching loss. / Not out of curiosity, and not as practice for the heart, / which would be in the laurel too ……” (R).
The immediate difference between the translators consists in a matter upon which they normally concur: Rilke’s use of italics. Some translators reproduce them all; one chooses not to reproduce any. It is a matter of personal preference, but italics are a consistent part of Rilke’s style, used whenever he wishes to emphasise (normally) a single word. Attempts to circumvent them and communicate this emphasis through adverbial qualifications such as “really” or “truly” lose the emphatic orthographic quality of Rilke’s writing. The text then further defines this happiness that is: it is a “voreilige Vorteil eines nahen Verlusts”. It is a wonderfully compact phrase (with a characteristic balance of two qualified substantives), and for that reason difficult to translate. The general sense of the lines is that happiness represents our attempt to draw some gain from “impending” (MC) loss, but that this attempt is premature, for it either grabs something that is not there, or, is there, but is of unlasting value.
The preferred translation of “voreilig” is “snatched”, but that leaves the act in a positive mode, as if something has been won in the face of adversity. To emphasise the sense of an action that is inopportune and without permanence, we perhaps should qualify the action with “temporary”.
An alternative translation:
Oh, not because happiness is,
that temporary bounty hastily snatched from imminent loss.
Not out of curiosity, nor for the practice of the heart,
for that too would be laurel …
The third stanza is an assertive testimony to the singular imminence of earthly experience, a testimony that repeats itself, repeatedly:
Aber weil Hiersein viel ist, und weil uns scheinbar
alles das Hiesige braucht, dieses Schwindende, das
seltsam uns angeht. Uns, die Schwindendsten. Ein Mal
jedes, nur ein Mal. Ein Mal und nicht mehr. Und wir auch
ein Mal. Nie wieder. Aber dieses
ein Mal gewesen zu sein, wenn auch nur ein Mal:
irdisch gewesen zu sein, scheint nicht widerrufbar.
The rhetorical configuration of the anaphora provides the repetitive structure of this stanza, whose key terms are emphasised (almost to the point of possible self-caricature) through italics. The stanza is interposed with caesuras and chiasmi, which further enhance both its assertiveness and its determined placement of the narrative subject, the “we”, in the eternal “now”. The tight formal structure of the text frames the insistence that although we have belonged to the world but once, that belonging cannot be undone (although this positive absolute statement is immediately relativised, in a characteristically Rilkean manner, with “scheint”, “or so it appears”).
Translations include: “But because being here is much, and because all this / that’s here, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely / concerns us. Us the most fleeting of all. Just once, / everything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, / too, / once. And never again. But this / having been once, though only once, / having been once on earth – can it ever be cancelled?” (L/S), “But because truly being here is so much; because everything here / apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way / keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all. / Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too, / just once. And never again. But to have been / this once, completely, even if only once: / to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing” (M), “But because life here is much, because seemingly / everything in this fleeting world of ours needs us, / strangely concerns us. Us, the most fleeting of all. / Everything just once. Once and no more. And we too / once. And then not again. However, / that we have been, even though only once: / that we have been of the earth seems irreversible” (R/S), “But truly because being here is so much – / because everything in this fleeting world seems to need us, / calls to us strangely. Us – the most fleeting of all. / Just once for each thing. Once and no more. / And we too, just once. And never again. Yet to have been / this once, and so utterly, even if only once, / our having been on this earth can never be undone” (MC).
Differences in translation centre, once again, on “Hiersein”, a neologistic formation that provided one of the defining terms in the seventh Elegy, where we encountered it in the uncompromising fashion of “Hiersein ist herrlich”, a phrase that is a vital expression of existential euphoria. In this Elegy, “Hiersein” is without the predicate “ist herrlich” (“is marvellous” or “is majestic”), and for this reason the literal translation “being here” seems appropriate. There is general agreement on how to translate the repetitively assertive lines that follow, but the final line generates a host of diverging translations. The “irdisch” in “irdisch gewesen zu sein” is an adverb meaning “earthly” or “of this world”. All translators prefer to return the word to its noun status, “Erde” (“earth”), and provide it with a preposition, but this leads to individual readings such as “at one with the earth” and “of the earth”. The sense of the words is “to have belonged to the earth”, which is captured in the more neutral “on earth”. This belonging (even though it was just once) is “unwiderrufbar” (or it appears that way). If we wished to retain the “rufen” component of the word then “irrevocable” might be the alternative translation, but all translators convert the term into its figurative meaning to describe something that “can never be undone” (MC).
An alternative translation:
But because Being-here is much, and
because it seems that all that is here needs us,
this fleeting-all, which strangely concerns us.
Us, the most fleeting. Just once, everything,
only just once. Just once, and no more than that.
And we also just once. And never again. But to have been this just once,
if only just once: to have been on earth; this, it seems, cannot be undone.
What cannot be undone (even that which only seems that it cannot be undone) is sufficient to inspire us to make further contact with the world, as the fourth stanza makes clear:
Und so drängen wir uns und wollen es leisten,
wollens enthalten in unsern einfachen Händen,
im überfüllteren Blick und im sprachlosen Herzen.
Wollen es werden. – Wem es geben? Am liebsten
alles behalten für immer… Ach, in den andern Bezug,
wehe, was nimmt man hinüber? Nicht das Anschaun, das hier
langsam erlernte, und kein hier Ereignetes. Keins.
Also die Schmerzen. Also vor allem das Schwersein,
also der Liebe lange Erfahrung, – also
lauter Unsägliches. Aber später,
unter den Sternen, was solls: die sind besser unsäglich.
Once again, the rhetorical technique of the anaphora is used to sustain the argument of the text and, once again, the discursive trajectory of the stanza (its forceful exposition of its themes) is sustained by frequent caesuras and ellipsis, most notably in the central part, which separates a vignette of human aspiration from a meditation on what can and cannot be felt, what can and cannot be said by those who are on the point of making the final journey. Translations include: “And so we keep pressing on and trying to perform it, / trying to contain it within our simple hands, / in the more and more crowded gaze, in the speechless / heart. / Trying to become it. To give it to whom? We’d rather / hold on to it all for ever … But into the other relation, / what, alas! do we carry across? Not the beholding we’ve / here / slowly acquired, and no here occurrence. Not one. / Sufferings, then. Above all, the hardness of life, / the long experience of love; in fact, / purely untellable things. But later, / under the stars, what use? the more deeply untellable / stars?” (L/S), “And so we keep pressing on, trying to achieve it, / trying to hold it firmly in our simple hands, / in our overcrowded gaze, in our speechless heart. / Trying to become it. – Whom can we give it to? We would / hold on to it all, forever … Ah, but what can we take along / into that other realm? Not the art of looking, / which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing. / The sufferings, then. And, above all, the heaviness, / and the long experience of love, – just what is wholly / unsayable. But later, among the stars, / what good is it – they are better as they are: unsayable” (M), “And so we press on and we try to achieve it, / trying with our simple hands to encompass it, / in our over-brimming gaze, in our speechless heart. / Trying to become it – who can we give it to? / We would hold on to it all forever … Ah, but what / can we carry over into that other relationship? / Not the way of seeing that has so slowly been learned / and nothing that has happened here. Nothing. / The suffering, then. And above all, the heavy weight / and the long experience of love – just those things / that are inexpressible. But later, standing / beneath the stars, what is the use? They are better left unspoken” (MC), “And so we press ahead and want to achieve it, / wanting to hold it firmly in our simple hands, / in the overflowing gaze and in the speechless heart. / Wanting to become it. – To whom does it give? / We’d hold it forever … Ah, but what can one carry over, / alas, into that other relation? Not the power of looking, that was / learned so slowly here, and nothing eventful here. Nothing. / The sufferings, then. And before everything the heaviness, / and the long experience of being in love, – just / what is wholly unsayable. But later, / among the stars, what yields: they are better unsayable” (R).
The opening line of the stanza reads: “Und so drängen wir uns und wollen es leisten”. One dictionary definition of “leisten” is “to achieve”, and that is the preferred translation, although it is difficult to see what “to achieve” refers to. The word, however, enjoys a broader range of meanings that suggest the completion of an act, such as “to perform” and “to manage” to do something. An alternative translation of the line is “And so we keep pressing on, and want to get there”. There is general agreement on how to translate the lines that follow, and which involve simple substantives of personhood (and all related to the body) that are qualified by adjectives of more complex meaning. Translating “Bezug” has, however, proved more difficult. The word possesses a variety of meanings (including a “covering” of furniture) but “connection”, or one of its cognates, is its most likely meaning here. The cited translations choose “relation”, “realm”, and “relationship”, and a yet further translation uses “dimension” (R/S). As the latter observe in their annotations of these lines, Rilke is almost certainly referring to death here, a reading that is supported by the verb that follows, “hinübernehmen”, “to carry over” or “to take over”, possibly to the other side of life. If this is the case, then “realm” or “dimension” are appropriate, although technically neither are contained in the word “Bezug”. “Place of contact” is an alternative translation. The text then speculates on what we might or might not carry over to the other side: not “Anschaun”, “the art of looking” (M), but certainly the experience of suffering and, above all, the state of “Schwersein”. The latter is, once again, a typical Rilkean portmanteau word, combining “heavy” with “being”. Most translators collapse “being” into “heavy” as in “the heavy weight” (MC), but it is essential to retain the “sein” component because it links up with the use of the word in the other Elegies, where it communicates an existential quality of living. “Heaviness of being” is an alternative translation.
The difficulties we have in translating “Schwersein” may well lie in the fact that it is “unsäglich”. This is translated by some as “unsayable”, although this term is becoming archaic in modern English. “Unsäglich” does, however, have a poetic weight that alternatives such as “inexpressible” lack. The word is used twice in the final lines of the stanza: “also / lauter Unsägliches. Aber später, / unter den Sternen, was solls: die sind besser unsäglich”, which is a characteristic concluding Rilkean strophe, the equivalent of the (unrhymed) philosophic couplet. What touches us deeply cannot be put into words: so “was solls”, “what good is it” (M), “what is the use” (MC), or, alternatively, “what is the point”?
An alternative translation:
And so we keep pressing on, and want to get there,
want to hold it in our simple hands, in our more
and more crowded gaze, and in the speechlessness
of our hearts. Trying to become it. To give to whom?
It would be best to hold on to it forever … But into
that other place of contact, what do we carry over to it?
Not that perspective, which was slowly learnt here, and nothing
that happened here. None of that. Sufferings, then. Above all,
then, the heaviness of being, the long experience of loving, –
the pure unsayable, then. But later, among the stars, what is
the point? They are better left unsayable.
In the second section of the stanza, the homelessness of the human subject becomes explicit (although even that is qualified). The traveller comes down from the hills to the flatland; we are already there:
Bringt doch der Wanderer auch vom Hange des Bergrands
nicht eine Hand voll Erde ins Tal, die Allen unsägliche, sondern
ein erworbenes Wort, reines, den gelben und blaun
Enzian. Sind wir vielleicht hier, um zu sagen: Haus,
Brücke, Brunnen, Tor, Krug, Obstbaum, Fenster, –
höchstens: Säule, Turm…. aber zu sagen, verstehs,
oh zu sagen so, wie selber die Dinge niemals
innig meinten zu sein. Ist nicht die heimliche List
dieser verschwiegenen Erde, wenn sie die Liebenden drängt,
daß sich in ihrem Gefühl jedes und jedes entzückt?
Schwelle: was ists für zwei
Liebende, daß sie die eigne ältere Schwelle der Tür
ein wenig verbrauchen, auch sie, nach den vielen vorher
und vor den Künftigen …., leicht.
In a series of flowing enjambments, Rilke sketches out a narrative in which we are brought to name the world in its material facticity. Lovers come into play, and for once they have a positive role, as they stand on a threshold that retrieves from the past to give to the future. Translations include: “Yet the wanderer too doesn’t bring from mountain to valley / a handful of earth, of for all untellable earth, but only / a word he has won, pure, the yellow and blue / gentian. Are we, perhaps, here just for saying: House, / Bridge, Fountain, Gate, Jug, Fruit tree, Window, – / possibly: Pillar, Tower? … but for saying, remember, / oh, for such saying as never the things themselves / hoped so intensely to be. Is not the secret purpose / of this sly Earth, in urging a pair of lovers, / just to make everything leap with ecstasy in them? / Threshold: what does it mean / to a pair of lovers, that they should be wearing their own / worn threshold a little, they too, after the many before, / before the many to come, … as a matter of course!” (L/S), “For when the traveller returns from the mountain-slopes into the valley, / he brings, not a handful of earth, unsayable to others, but instead / some word he has gained, some pure word, the yellow and blue / gentian. Perhaps we are here in order to say: house, / bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window – / at most: column, tower …. But to say them, you must understand, / oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves / ever dreamed of existing. Isn’t the secret intent / of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together, / that inside their boundless emotion all things may shudder with joy? / Threshold: what it means for two lovers / to be wearing down, imperceptibly, the ancient threshold of their door – / they too, after the many who came before them / and before those to come …., lightly” (M), “For when the traveller comes / from the mountain to the valley, he brings not a handful / of the earth – inexpressible to others – but brings / rather a word he has won, a pure word, the yellow / and blue gentian. Perhaps we are here to say: house, / bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit tree, window – / at most: column, tower … But to speak them, / you understand, oh, you are to say them / with more intensity than things themselves ever / dreamed they would be. Is this not the sly intent / of this secretive world when it urges lovers together – / that each thing should shudder with joy in their passion? / Threshold: what it is for two lovers, little by little, / wearing away the ancient threshold of the door, / in their turn following others who went before / and still others closing behind … lightly” MC).
There is general agreement on how to translate this section of the stanza. In the lines “Haus, / Brücke, Brunnen, Tor, Krug, Obstbaum, Fenster, –höchstens: Säule, Turm”, Rilke simply lists the object world in a mundane fashion, because it is only in this fashion that this world can retain its independence from our appropriation of it, remain free from any allocated function. Rilke puts some of these words in their plural form (largely I suspect for metrical reasons), but casting them in the singular gives them a quality of monumentality, and that is how most translators reproduce them. Differences in translation emerge, however, with “wie selber die Dinge niemals / innig meinten zu sein.” “Meinen” means “to reckon”, “to opine”, “to be of the opinion”, and “innig” refers to an inner experience or emotion that is “deep”, “intimate” or “heartfelt”. The sense of the line is that we should say (or describe) things with an intensity that these things never thought of possessing in themselves. “Dreamed of” is the preferred translation of “meinten”, but for Rilke dreams represented tangible ways to the otherness of identity, and this import is lost in the colloquial “dreamt of”. “Intended” is the more prosaic but perhaps more appropriate alternative.
The stanza concludes with the lines, “Schwelle: was ists für zwei / Liebende, daß sie die eigne ältere Schwelle der Tür / ein wenig verbrauchen, auch sie, nach den vielen vorher / und vor den Künftigen …., leicht”. The lovers are wearing down the ancient threshold of the door. The “wenig” in the German qualifies this action, and is best translated with the literal “a little” (rather than “imperceptibly”, which introduces a theme that is not there in the text). The lovers have not been the first to cross this threshold (an enigmatic image, pointing perhaps to the acceptance or non-acceptance of love, the demarcation between commitment to the other and a refusal to commit). Others have gone before them, and still others will come later (and we are told) “leicht”. The word in German commonly means “lightly”, but L/S with their “as a matter of course!” see something rather more portentous here. Whatever is used to replace “lightly” will involve an interpretation, but the alternative “softly” has the merit of suggesting a certain amount of intent (which has already been implied in the behaviour of the lovers) behind the “leicht”.
An alternative translation:
When the traveller comes down from the mountain to the valley,
he brings not a handful of earth (which can be said to no one),
but simply a word he has won, pure, the yellow and blue
gentian. Perhaps we are indeed here to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, beaker,
fruit tree, window, – at the most, column, tower … but to say
(you understand), and oh, to say them so, and so much more deeply
than the things themselves ever intended to be. Is this not
the secret cunning of this world of silence,
when it so urges lovers that in their feelings
each should shudder with joy? Threshold:
what is it for a pair of lovers that they should slowly wear away
their own ageing threshold to the door,
and those who have gone before and will come after …
softly?
In the preceding stanza, we came close to saying what the world is (by naming things). In the next stanza, description turns into exhortation. We should continue to praise the world in the face of a destitution brought about by vacuous activity that surrounds us but is without vision (“Bild”):
Hier ist des Säglichen Zeit, hier seine Heimat.
Sprich und bekenn. Mehr als je
fallen die Dinge dahin, die erlebbaren, denn,
was sie verdrängend ersetzt, ist ein Tun ohne Bild.
Tun unter Krusten, die willig zerspringen, sobald
innen das Handeln entwächst und sich anders begrenzt.
Zwischen den Hämmern besteht
unser Herz, wie die Zunge
zwischen den Zähnen, die doch,
dennoch, die preisende bleibt.
The assertive “hier” introduces a vignette of a world that has fallen apart both within and without. The tone verges upon the apocalyptic, and it is sustained by language that is wilfully non-poetical. Standard poetic techniques are not found until the final extended line, where alliteration is used to communicate the determination of a heart that sings, in spite of the enclosures within and beyond it. Translations include: “Here is the time for the Tellable, here is its home. / Speak and proclaim. More than ever / things we can live with are falling away, for that / which is oustingly taking their place is an imageless act. / Act under crusts, that will readily split as soon / as the doing within outgrows them and takes a new outline. / Between the hammers lives on / our heart, as between the teeth / the tongue, which, in spite of all, / still continues to praise” (L/S), “Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland. / Speak and bear witness. More than ever / the Things that we might experience are vanishing, for / what crowds them out and replaces them is an imageless act. / An act under a shell, which easily cracks open as soon as / the business inside outgrows it and seeks new limits. / Between the hammers our heart / endures, just as the tongue does / between the teeth and, despite that, / still is able to praise” (M), “Here is the time of the sayable, here its homeland. / Speak and bear witness. More than ever, / Things we might experience are falling away, / for what forcefully takes their place are acts without symbol, / crusted acts, whose casing soon breaks open, / outgrown by the working inside that explores new limits. / Constrained between hammers, the heart / lives on, like our tongue, / pent between teeth but for all that / still the glad speaker of praise” (R/S), “Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland. / Speak and proclaim. More than ever / the things we can experience are vanishing, and / what pushes them aside is an act without an image. / An act beneath a crust, easily shattered as soon as / activity within outgrows it and seeks for itself new limits. / Our heart survives between the / hammers, like the tongue / between the teeth, and still, it / somehow remains praising” (R).
Differences in translation centre on the absolutely pivotal phrase, “Sprich und bekenn”. “Bekennen” means in German “to avow” or “to profess”. Two translators use “proclaim”, which “bekennen” also means in the sense of “to announce” or “make public”, but this lacks that sense of inwardness of “bear witness”, which is the preferred translation. If we wish to retain the notion of something being made public, then “speak out” is a possible alternative to “speak”. What we are being asked to bear witness to is the degeneration of culture (and perhaps spiritual values) in the age of modernity, which can provide nothing more than a “Tun ohne Bild”. The literal translation of “Bild” is “image” or “picture”, but R/S are surely right in seeing something deeper here. The modern “bedeutete” (“interpreted” or “prescribed”) world is, in fact, replete with imagery. What it lacks are “symbols” that might point beyond the crass materialism that immediately surrounds us to something higher, “vision”, and this is an alternative interpretation. In the place of vision, we are given a “Tun unter Krusten”. The tone of the poem at this point is one of high solemnity and, while elsewhere in the Elegies Rilke often deflates grandiose expressions of high sentiment, it is certain that here he wishes his rejection of this culture to be taken at face value. “Krusten” does indeed mean “crusts”, but that is a trivialising term. In geological terms, “Krusten” also refers to a carapace or shell, and this is an alternative translation.
An alternative translation:
Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland.
Speak out and bear witness. More than ever
things fall apart, those that we experienced, and
what has brutally replaced them is an act without vision.
An act beneath a shell that is easily shattered as soon
as it outgrows its activity and sets itself new limits.
Our heart survives amidst the hammering, like a tongue
between teeth, and still it somehow
continues praising.
This (for Rilke) uncharacteristically positive tone continues, and the angel is invoked to bear witness to the simple achievements of humankind. Once again, syntactic complexity gives way to the simpler imperative grammar of exhortation:
Preise dem Engel die Welt, nicht die unsägliche, ihm
kannst du nicht großtun mit herrlich Erfühltem; im Weltall,
wo er fühlender fühlt, bist du ein Neuling. Drum zeig
ihm das Einfache, das, von Geschlecht zu Geschlechtern gestaltet,
als ein Unsriges lebt, neben der Hand und im Blick.
The tone is portentous, the opening exhortation leading to two flowing enjambments of varying line lengths and metre, but with sentiment that is constant. This section of the stanza is, once again, informed by a forceful voice promoting the virtues of the material here and now, whose celebration does not require the expression of emotional (but spurious) depth. Translations include: “Praise this world to the angel, not the untellable: you / can’t impress him with the splendour you’ve felt; in the / cosmos / where he more feelingly feels you’re only a novice. So show / him / some simple thing, refashioned by age after age, / till it lives in our hands and eyes as a part of ourselves. Tell him things.” (L/S), “Praise this world to the angel, not the unsayable one, / you can’t impress him with glorious emotion; in the universe / where he feels more powerfully, you are a novice. So show him / something simple which, formed over generations, / lives as our own, near our hand and within our gaze. Tell him of Things” (M), “Praise this world, not the untold world, to the Angel: bragging / our / glorious emotions will not affect him; in the cosmos, / where he feels the more feelingly, you are a novice. So show him / that which is simple, shaped over generations, at home here, / truly our own, near at hand, in our range of vision. Tell him Things” (R/S), “Praise this world to the angel, not some / inexpressible other, because you cannot impress him / with sublimity in a universe where he knows / such wealth of feeling and you are a novice. / So show him something simple, something shaped / by generations, by lives like our own, near at hand, / within our sight. Tell him – things.” (MC).
The sense of these lines is that we must praise this world to the angel not some other world that we cannot explain or describe, and we should praise it simply, for “ihm / kannst du nicht großtun mit herrlich Erfühltem”. “Großtun” means “to boast” or “to brag” about something. It does not mean “to impress”, although that is often the effect that is desired. “Erfühltem” is a neologism with a prefix added to the past tense of “fühlen”, “to feel”. “Glorious emotion” is hyperbolic, whereas “sublimity” involves a particular reading of the text. “Splendour you have felt” is an alternative translation. Instead of attempting to impress the angel with our depth of feeling, we should let the angel see the everyday things and experiences that have come down through the generations “als ein Unsriges lebt, neben der Hand und im Blick.” The latter is a qualifying clause that, both in its sentiment and grammar, is as uncomplicated as the “simple” that we wish to show the angel. “Unsriges” is a noun formed from the possessive pronoun, “unserig”, meaning “ours”. Most translators retain the word in its substantive form as “our own”, although the simple “ours” would be an alternative translation. “Neben der Hand und im Blick” is a succinct tactile phrase made up from two common physical attributes preceded by two common prepositions. Because of that, “near at hand, / within our sight” is possibly more appropriate than “near at hand, in our range of vision”.
An alternative translation:
To the angel praise this world, not the unsayable one.
You cannot impress him with the splendour you have felt;
in the world space where he feels with deeper feelings,
you are a novice. Show him, therefore, what is simple,
that formed from generation to generation,
which we have experienced as our own, close
to hand and within sight. Tell him – things.
In the ensuing section of the stanza, we confront the angel with examples of what we have achieved: things, and human attributes that look like things: suffering and innocence. Once again, the tone is imperious, the narrative voice authoritative, as it draws out of history a lesson for the present:
Sag ihm die Dinge. Er wird staunender stehn; wie du standest
bei dem Seiler in Rom, oder beim Töpfer am Nil.
Zeig ihm, wie glücklich ein Ding sein kann, wie schuldlos und unser,
wie selbst das klagende Leid rein zur Gestalt sich entschließt,
dient als ein Ding, oder stirbt in ein Ding –, und jenseits
selig der Geige entgeht. – Und diese, von Hingang
lebenden Dinge verstehn, daß du sie rühmst; vergänglich,
traun sie ein Rettendes uns, den Vergänglichsten, zu.
Wollen, wir sollen sie ganz im unsichtbarn Herzen verwandeln
in – o unendlich – in uns! Wer wir am Ende auch seien.
Translations include: “He’ll stand more astonished: as you did / beside the roper in Rome or the potter in Egypt. / Show him how happy a thing can be, how guileless and / ours; / how even the moaning of grief purely determines on / form, / serves as a thing, or dies into a thing, – to escape / to a bliss beyond the fiddle. These things that live on / departure / understand when you praise them: fleeting, they look for / rescue through something in us, the most fleeting of all. / Want us to change them entirely, within our invisible / hearts, / into – oh, endlessly – into ourselves! Whosoever we are.” (L/S), “He will stand astonished; as you stood / by the rope-maker in Rome or the potter along the Nile. / Show him how happy a Thing can be, how innocent and ours, / how even lamenting grief purely decides to take form, / serves as a Thing, or dies into a Thing –, and blissfully / escapes far beyond the violin. – And these Things, / which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient, / they look to us for deliverance: us, the most transient of all. / They want us to change them, utterly, in our invisible heart, / within – oh endlessly – within us! Whoever we may be at last.” (M), “He will stand in amazement as you stood beside / the rope-maker in Rome, or the potter by the Nile. / Show him how happy a thing can be, how innocent / and how much ours, how even the keening of sorrow / can find its pure form and becomes a thing or dies / into a thing, or happily outstrips itself in the violin. / And these things, which live by passing away, acknowledge your praise of them, as they vanish, / they look to us to deliver them, we, the most / fleeting of all. They long for us to change them, / utterly, in our invisible hearts – oh, endlessly, / to be within us – whoever, at last, we may be.” (MC).
There are minor differences of translation throughout (“guileless” or “innocent”, “moaning” or “lamenting”?), but the major difference comes with the lines, “Und diese, von Hingang / lebenden Dinge verstehn, daß du sie rühmst; vergänglich, / traun sie ein Rettendes uns, den Vergänglichsten, zu”. “Hingang” is difficult to translate. It is a noun formed from “hingehen”, which literally means “to go there” but is often used as a circumlocution for dying, and this is its sense here, a sense that is not captured in “Departure”. That word also does reflect the antimony (or paradox) of things that continue living through death. “lebenden Dinge verstehn, daß du sie rühmst”. “Verstehen” simply means “to understand”; whether they also “acknowledge” is not clear from the text. These things look to us for a “Rettendes”. A noun formed from the verb “retten”, “to rescue” it might be translated literally as “rescue”. But the cognate word “Rettung” in German has a deeper meaning connoting the saving of souls. Hence “deliverance” is possibly the more resonant term with “salvation” being an alternative.
An alternative translation:
He will stand in amazement, just as you stood
beside the rope-maker in Rome or the potter
on the Nile. Show him how happy a thing
can be, how innocent and ours, how even
mourning grief can find its pure form,
and can serve as a thing – and blissfully soar
far beyond the violin – And these things,
which live in their demise, understand that you
are praising them; ephemeral, they look for their
salvation to us: the most ephemeral of all. They want
us to change them, totally, in our hidden hearts, in –
oh, for an eternity – in us!
Whoever, ultimately, we may be.
In the next stanza, we return to the subject of the earth, but this time what was in the earlier stanzas laudably tactile and ontologically solid now seeks to transform itself into something more ethereal, without discernible presence:
Erde, ist es nicht dies, was du willst: unsichtbar
in uns erstehn? – Ist es dein Traum nicht,
einmal unsichtbar zu sein? – Erde! unsichtbar!
Was, wenn Verwandlung nicht, ist dein drängender Auftrag?
Erde, du liebe, ich will. Oh glaub, es bedürfte
nicht deiner Frühlinge mehr, mich dir zu gewinnen –, einer,
ach, ein einziger ist schon dem Blute zu viel.
Namenlos bin ich zu dir entschlossen, von weit her.
Immer warst du im Recht, und dein heiliger Einfall
ist der vertrauliche Tod.
The earth is invoked in lines that are emphatically discursive in their tone and vocabulary. Frequent queries and apostrophising map out our place (now positive, now negative) in this scheme of earthly things. Translations include: “Earth, isn’t this what you want: to arise within us, / invisible? Isn’t it your dream / to be wholly invisible someday? – O Earth: invisible! / What, if not transformation, is your urgent command? / Earth, my dearest, I will. Oh believe me, you no longer / need your springtimes to win me over – one of them, / ah, even one, is already too much for my blood. / Unspeakably I have belonged to you, from the first. / You were always right, and our holiest inspiration / is our intimate companion, Death.” (M), “Earth, is not this your desire: to arise within us, / invisible? And not your dream: that of being, / some day, invisible? O Earth! No longer visible! / What, if not to transform, is your urgent command? / Earth, my dearest, I will. Believe me, there would be / no more need of your springs to win you my love: one of them, / ah, one spring, is already too much for the blood. / From the beginning I have been yours, inexpressibly. / Always you were in the right, and your holy idea, / Death, is our friend and companion.” (R/S), “Earth, is it not this you want: to arise / in our invisible sphere? – Is not this your dream, / one day to be invisible? – Earth, invisible! / What is your urgent command, if it is not for / transformation? Darling, earth – I will! / Oh, believe me, there is no need for the persuasion / of your spring-times – one, oh! a single one / is more than my blood can take. Without a name, / I belonged to you from the start – you were always right, / your holiest inspiration is our familiar, death.” (MC).
There is general agreement on how to translate these lines, but disagreements emerge with “Erde, du liebe, ich will”. The German “will” is simply the first person present of “wollen” meaning “to want”. It is true that the modal “I will” in English contains something of this sense, but its use here, connected with “du Liebe”, turns a simple act of volition into a gesture of romantic betrothal (as emerges most clearly in “Darling earth – I will!). It is more likely that the “ich will” looks back to the preceding line and “Auftrag” (“command” or “task”). If that is the case, then the more sober “Earth, dearest one, I want this” is an alternative translation.
There is, however, no disputing that the poetic subject has committed itself to the earth, for we are told, “Namenlos bin ich zu dir entschlossen”. “Namenlos” literally means “without a name”, and in other non-poetic contexts “anonymous” would be the obvious translation. The translators wish, however, to avoid the arid overtones of that word, but “unspeakably” and “inexpressibly” add an alien dimension to the text. The simple “without a name” is perhaps the most appropriate. Rilke ends the stanza with a characteristic strophic conclusion: the positive tone of the text so far has lulled us into a benign perception of earth and its relationship to the human (we were even, for some translators, on the point of marriage). The concluding words now quite succinctly undermine this perception, for “dein heiliger Einfall / ist der vertrauliche Tod”. “Einfall” describes an idea that has suddenly occurred to one, a “realisation”, and hence is more immediate than “idea”. The preferred translation is “inspiration”, but this has connotations of something unambiguously positive (and, indeed, if we are intending to promote the shock effect of what flows in the line, this translation is appropriate). An alternative is the more neutral “conception”.
An alternative translation:
Earth, is it not this that you want,
to arise within us, invisible – Is it not your
dream, for once to become invisible? –
Earth! Invisible! What, if not transformation, is your
pressing task? Earth, dearest one, I want this. Oh,
don’t believe that I should need your spring times
to win me over. One, just one, would be already
too much for my blood. I came from afar,
without name, already resolved to be yours. You
were always right, and the holiest of your conceptions is
death, my companion.
Having been a companion to death, the lyrical subject now in the final stanza reverses that fateful equation, and embraces life in tones that are unambiguously euphoric:
Siehe, ich lebe. Woraus? Weder Kindheit noch Zukunft
werden weniger ……. Überzähliges Dasein
entspringt mir im Herzen.
The grammar is almost provocatively simple. A testimony to life is confidently asserted by the lyrical subject, and is followed by two short sentences (separated by a pregnant ellipsis) stating its vital position. Translations include: “Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor / future / are growing less ….. Supernumerous existence / wells up in my heart.” (L/S), “Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future /grows any smaller ….. Superabundant being / wells up in my heart.” (M), “Look, I live. But on what? Neither childhood nor future, / for neither diminishes ….. Superabundant being / wells up in my heart.” (R/S), “Look! I am alive! On what? Neither childhood / nor the future is diminished … Being, in abundance, / whelms up in my heart.” (MC), “Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor / future shrinks ….. Overflowing being / springs forth in my heart” (R).
The German language does not possess the continuous present as a verb form, so “ich lebe” can mean “I live” or “I am living”. The former is the assertion of a fact; the latter indicates a continuing process. The preferred translation of “Woraus?” is “On what”, but the phrase “living on” normally suggests material and even financial support. “From what” is an alternative translation. Being in the world is excessive, and so is the being that springs from the heart: “Überzähliges Dasein / entspringt mir im Herzen”. “Überzähliges” is a noun formed from the adjective “überzählig” meaning “supernumerary”, “excessive” (and also in certain contexts, but not in this one, “redundant”). “Superabundant” is an alternative translation that captures some of the magnificent excess of the original German. The preferred translation of “entspringt” is “welled up”, but “springs forth” retains more of the dynamic verve of the original German.
An alternative translation:
Look: I am living. From what? Neither childhood nor future
are diminishing … superabundant being
springs from my heart.
ELEGY X
Daß ich dereinst, an dem Ausgang der grimmigen Einsicht,
Jubel und Ruhm aufsinge zustimmenden Engeln.
Daß von den klar geschlagenen Hämmern des Herzens
keiner versage an weichen, zweifelnden oder
reißenden Saiten. Daß mich mein strömendes Antlitz
glänzender mache; daß das unscheinbare Weinen
blühe. O wie werdet ihr dann, Nächte, mir lieb sein,
gehärmte. Daß ich euch knieender nicht, untröstliche Schwestern,
hinnahm, nicht in euer gelöstes
Haar mich gelöster ergab.
A series of subordinating clauses, cast largely in the subjunctive-optative mood, outline a state of being in which the lyrical subject opens itself to self-enquiry. The tone is magisterial in its cultivation of the Romantic discourse of interiority. Alliteration provides the principal structuring medium in this stanza. The text moves forward through a combination of dactylic and shorted catalectic feet (effectively trochees) that allow emphasis to fall exactly where it is needed. And all is propelled by the insistent voice of a lyrical subject, which hovers between muted pathos and a curious assertion of selfhood that comes out of that same pathos.
Translations include “Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight, / let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels. / Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart / fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful, / or a broken string. Let my joyfully streaming face / make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise / and blossom. How dear you will be to me then / you nights of anguish. Why didn’t I kneel more deeply to accept you, / inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself / in your loosened hair” (M), “Some day, when I emerge from the fiercest of insights, / let me sing out in paeans of rejoicing to assenting / Angels. Let not a single clear-struck hammer’s beat / of my heart fail, finding a string that is slack or weak / or about to break. May the tears of my streaming face / illumine me, and my latent weeping flower. / Oh, then how dear you will be to me, grief-wracked nights. If only, / inconsolable sisters, accepting you, I had knelt deeper, / lost myself and surrendered myself / into your loosed hair” (R/S), “One day, at the close of this fierce inspection – / that I might sing out in celebration and glory / to affirming angels – that none of the clear-struck / hammers of my heart might fail to sound on slack, / doubtful, or broken strings – that my streaming face / be more radiant, these inconspicuous tears bloom. / Oh, then you will be dear to me, you nights / of grieving, though I did not then kneel more deeply, / more willingly in surrender, nor lose myself / in your loosened hair” (MC).
Differences of translation centre on “Ausgang der grimmigen Einsicht”. “Einsicht” means “insight” in German. “Introspection” is also a possible translation, although this means something different: “insight” is a momentary act; “introspection” is a mental state, and the word normally requires a noun determiner in front of it such as “period” of or “state” of. The dictionary offers two diverging meanings for “grimmig”, one that stresses a direct confrontation with someone or something, such as “fierce” or “violent”, and one that suggests a disposition that belongs to the bleakness of self, as in “grim”. Both are possible here, and it is likely that Rilke wishes us to hear both meanings of the word in his text. The lyrical subject is determined to win a positive experience out of its state of grim or violent introspection, “daß das unscheinbare Weinen / blühe”. “Unscheinbar” is the opposite of “scheinbar”, which means “seeming” or “apparent”. “Hidden” suggests a deliberate act of obfuscation; “latent” points to a potential that they have but which is not as yet manifest; and “inconspicuous” relegated them to something of little value. An alternative translation is the simple “unseen”.
The stanza continues with an enigmatic and syntactically complex sentence made up from a single extended subordinating clause cast in the conditional mode: “Daß ich euch knieender nicht, untröstliche Schwestern, / hinnahm, nicht in euer gelöstes / Haar mich gelöster ergab”. The form of the passage follows the imagined genuflection executed by the lyrical subject, as it regrets that it did not give itself over to the “untröstliche Schwestern” (“inconsolable sisters”, a phrase omitted by MC). The key verbs are “hinnehmen”, “sich ergeben” and “lösen”, the last being used twice. “Hinnehmen” means “to surrender” or “to resign” oneself rather than simply “to accept” something (although this is the preferred translation). “Accept”, however, does not quite capture the sense of a giving-over that the “hin” of the verb denotes. “Sich ergeben” has a number of meanings in German, but is here clearly being used as a synonym for “hinnhemen”, in which case “surrender” is the appropriate translation. “Lösen” means “to dissolve” and “to loosen”, and Rilke uses the word in both ways here, initially with reference to the loosened hair of the sisters, and then to describe the immersion of the lyrical subject into that hair. The repetition of “lösen” cannot be retained in English, and “lose” is the preferred solution, although it lacks the force of dissolution in the original text.
An alternative translation:
That I, one day, when grim insight is no more,
might sing in celebration and glory to affirming angels.
That no unsure, untuned or tearing string should spoil
the clear-sounding hammers of my heart.
That my face of streaming tears should be more radiant,
that my unseen sobbing might bloom.
Oh, how dear to me will you be then, you
nights of anguish. Would that I had knelt even lower
to you, you inconsolable sisters, had lost myself
even more in your loosened hair
The stanza continues by emphasising that pain is something that defines who we are, and we should welcome it as an experience:
Wir, Vergeuder der Schmerzen.
Wie wir sie absehn voraus, in die traurige Dauer,
ob sie nicht enden vielleicht. Sie aber sind ja
unser winterwähriges Laub, unser dunkeles Sinngrün,
eine der Zeiten des heimlichen Jahre –, nicht nur
Zeit –, sind Stelle, Siedelung, Lager, Boden, Wohnort.
Rilke’s discursive voice, evident in the assertive first-person plural and the short substantive-driven lines, dominates this final section of the stanza. The text revolves around a paradox: we waste the sufferings that life forces upon us; do not see that such sufferings are constitutive of our selfhood and provide for us a home. Irregular line lengths support short statements, in which nouns are adjectivally qualified by semantically audacious metaphors, which give way in the final line to simply nominal assertion. Translations include: “We wasters of sorrows! / How we stare away into sad endurance beyond them, / trying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else / than our winter foliage, our sombre evergreen, one / of the seasons of our interior year, – not only / season – they’re also place, settlement, camp, soil, dwelling” (L/S), “We are squanderers of our sorrows. / How we predict them, into the sad long term, / to tell if perhaps they may end. But they are our dark, lasting, / winter-green leaves of the mind, one of the seasons / of our interior year – and not just time: / place and settlement to us, site and foundation and hearth” (R/S), “How we squander our pains. / How we gaze beyond them into the miserable / distance to see if there is not, perhaps, an end. / Yet they are winter leaves, our dark evergreen, / one season of our secret year – not only a season, / but a site, settlement, camp, soil and resting place” (MC), and “We, the ones who waste our pains. / How we glance beyond them, into woeful duration, / perhaps hoping for an end. But they truly are / our preserving winter leaves, our dark sense of green, / one season of the familiar year –, not only a stretch / of time – but place, settlement, camp, soil and dwelling” (R).
Differences of translation are generated by “Wir, Vergeuder der Schmerzen. / Wie wir sie absehn voraus, in die traurige Dauer”. “Absehen” means “to forsee” in German, and here it is linked to the adverb “voraus” (“ahead”). It is tempting to translate this verbal phrase as if it were a form of “vorausehen”, meaning “to predict” (R/S). But “absehen” also means “to look away” from something and that is more in keeping with the sense of the text, which is that we waste our pains by wishing them to come to an end, gazing “beyond them into the miserable / distance” (MC). This is a “waste” because pain is constitutive of who we are, an essential part of our open experience of life. They are “eine der Zeiten des heimlichen Jahre”. “Zeit” means “time” and a period of time in German. It does not normally translate as “season”, which is the preferred translation here, but that is in keeping with the other tropes drawn from nature in this stanza. “Heimlich” means “secret”, “private”, “surreptitious”, but the preferred translation is “interior”, which corresponds to the theme of an inner life that is set in motion through pain, a correspondence not quite captured by “familiar” or “secret”. “Inner” is an alternative translation. The experience of pain roots us both in time and place, and Rilke ends the stanza with a succinct topographical enumeratio: “Stelle, Siedelung, Lager, Boden, Wohnort”. “Stelle” means “place”; “Siedlung” (metrically extended here to “Siedelung”) is a “settlement”; “Lager” is a “camp”; “Boden” is “land” (not “soil”); and “Wohnort” literally means a place where we live above the ground, and hence is best translated as “dwelling” but not a “resting place” (that refers to where we live beneath the ground).
An alternative translation:
The wasters of sorrows: that is us.
How we stare into their future, into their
sad permanence, looking for their end.
But they are our constant winter foliage, our dark
sense of green, one of the seasons of our inner year –,
and not only a season, but place, settlement, camp, land, dwelling.
The second stanza transports us to the abject commercialised world of the marketplace, where inauthenticity and moral turpitude are on sale:
Freilich, wehe, wie fremd sind die Gassen der Leid – Stadt,
wo in der falschen, aus Übertönung gemachten
Stille, stark, aus der Gußform des Leeren der Ausguß
prahlt: der vergoldete Lärm, das platzende Denkmal.
O, wie spurlos zerträte ein Engel ihnen den Trostmarkt,
den die Kirche begrenzt, ihre fertig gekaufte:
reinlich und zu und enttäuscht wie ein Postamt am Sonntag.
This is a bleak vignette formed from aggressive images (often stated in blank apposition) that are intended to foreground the salient features of a world of negative excess. Poetic language give way here to the prosaic, the lack of any consistent syntax and the frequent caesuras, which constantly interrupt the phrasing, reflecting a world of formless anomie. Translations include: “Strange, though, alas! Are the streets of the City of Pain, / where, in the pseudo-silence of drowned commotion, / loudly swaggers the casting cast form vacuity’s / mould: the begilded ado, the bursting memorial. / How an Angel would trample it down beyond trace, their / market of comfort, / with the church alongside, bought ready for use: as clean / and disenchanted and shut as the Post on a Sunday! (L/S), “But how alien, alas, are the streets of the city of grief, / where, in the false silence formed of continual uproar, / the figure cast from the mold of emptiness stoutly / swaggers: the gilded noise, the bursting memorial. / Oh how completely an angel would stamp out their market of solace, / bounded by the church with its ready-made consolations: / clean and disenchanted and shut as a post-office on Sunday.” (M), “Alas, but how alien the streets of Mourning’s capital. / There, in the false lull left by an uproar, sheer / excess poured from the mould of emptiness swaggers / brawnily: gilded blare and the cracked memorial. / Oh, an Angel would utterly trample their marketed comforts, / ready-made and restricted by a Church/ tidy, shut down and diminished as the Post on Sundays” (R/S), “Of course, the by-ways of Grief-City are strange, / where, in the false silence born of too much noise, / swagger the plumped-up dregs from the casting / mould of emptiness: the gilded racket, / the splintering memorial. Oh, how an angel would / crush this market of consolation without trace / and the church alongside it, bought ready-made, clean, closed, disappointing as a Post Office on Sunday” (MC).
Differences in the translations centre on “Freilich, wehe, wie fremd sind die Gassen der Leid-Stadt”. “Leid” means “suffering”, not “pain” or “grief”, although the terms are clearly related. Most translators put “Leid-Stadt” in the upper case, which gives the construction a certain allegorical weight, as if it were an entity in a medieval mystery play. But this has the effect of reifying it and distancing it from ordinary human suffering. We are then told, “in der falschen, aus Übertönung gemachten / Stille, stark, aus der Gußform des Leeren der Ausguß / prahlt: der vergoldete Lärm, das platzende Denkmal”. The line “Gußform des Leeren der Ausguß” establishes a striking dialectic between plenitude (established through the repetition of “guß” and sterile and false emptiness (“des Leeren”) of that plenitude. It is difficult to capture this effect in English, but a formulation involving “pour” or “pour out” would come close. In the marketplace, even the spirit can be bought, as is indicated in the final lines of this section of the stanza: “die Kirche begrenzt, ihre fertig gekaufte: /reinlich und zu und enttäuscht wie ein Postamt am Sonntag”. An object (for “gekaufte”) seems missing from the initial line, prompting one translator to add “consolations”. But leaving the referent open is effective, leaving a space that the reader might fill with “redemption” or “salvation”. The epithet “enttäuscht” further enhances the vacuity of the church. The world simply means “disappointed” in German, and this is regarded by most translators as insufficiently suggestive, who prefer “disenchanted” or “diminished”. “Enttäuscht” can indeed mean “disenchanted”, but normally only when preceded by “ganz” (“entirely”). “Disappointed” is the literal translation (a mundane word that reflects the mode of anthropomorphised banality that dominates the stanza), but it is possible that Rilke wishes us to read “enttäuscht” as “ent-täuscht”, as divested of its illusions, in which case, “disillusioned” is an alternative translation.
.
An alternative translation:
Indeed, how foreign to us alas are the alleyways of the city
of suffering, where in a false quiet formed from imposed commotion,
poured out from the mould of emptiness, there loudly swaggers:
gilded noise, the bursting memorial. Oh, how an angel would
crush all of this under foot, this market
of ready-made consolations, bordered by a church, neat and tidy,
selling its ready-made goods, but as disillusioned as
a post office on Sunday.
We progress further into (quite literally) the viscerals of urban life, and encounter a fun fair, where the baser human emotions are on display. Once again, Rilke’s language is uncompromisingly discursive: we are as far from the poetic as it is possible to be:
Draußen aber kräuseln sich immer die Ränder von Jahrmarkt.
Schaukeln der Freiheit! Taucher und Gaukler des Eifers!
Und des behübschten Glücks figürliche Schießstatt,
wo es zappelt von Ziel und sich blechern benimmt,
wenn ein Geschickterer trifft. Von Beifall zu Zufall
taumelt er weiter; denn Buden jeglicher Neugier
werben, trommeln und plärrn. Für Erwachsene aber
ist noch besonders zu sehn, wie das Geld sich vermehrt, anatomisch,
nicht zur Belustigung nur: der Geschlechtsteil des Gelds,
alles, das Ganze, der Vorgang –, das unterrichtet und macht
fruchtbar ………
In a suburb of the city of suffering is a showground or amusement park. The attractions that it offers are packed with an artificial energy, whose essential emptiness is foregrounded both thematically (in the pointless games of chance and thrill acts that draw the customers in) but syntactically by the prosaic adverbs of time and manner and functional conjunctions that frame these activities. The central lines are made up of free-flowing enjambments that create the impression of excitement, but is the excitement of an intensified banality and, as the concluding lines show, an obscene banality as well.
Translations include: “Outside, though, there’s always the billowing edge of the / fair. / Swings of Freedom! Divers and Jugglers of Zeal! / And the figured shooting-range of bedizened Happiness: / targets / tumbling in tinny contortions whenever some better shot / happens to hit one. Cheer-struck, on he goes reeling / after his luck. For booths that can please / the most curious tastes are drumming and bawling. / Especially / worth seeing (for adults only): the breeding of Money! / Anatomy made amusing! Money’s organs on view! / Nothing concealed! Instructive, and guaranteed / to increase fertility! …….” (L/S), “Father out, though, the city’s edges are curling with carnival. / Swings of freedom! Divers and jugglers of zeal! / And the shooting-gallery’s targets of prettified happiness, / which jump and kick back with a tinny sound / when hit by some better marksman. From cheers to chance / he goes staggering on, as booths with all sorts of attractions / are wooing, drumming, and bawling. For adults only / there is something special to see: how money multiplies, naked, / right there on stage, money’s genitals, nothing concealed, / the whole action –, educational, and guaranteed / to increase your potency …….” (M), and “Further out, the frill and flounce of the fair. / Freedom’s swing-boats! Enthusiasm’s jugglers / and divers! The prettified good luck figures / from the shooting gallery that wriggle and ring / tinnily with the shot of some better marksman. / So – from cheers to chancing it, he stumbles on / as stalls with all kinds of curiosities flaunt / and drum and bawl. There is – for adults only – / something special to see: how money multiplies! / in the raw! not just entertainment! money’s / genitalia! the lot! The business! uncut – educational /and it will improve your performance …” (MC).
Differences in translation centre on the opening lines “Draußen aber kräuseln sich immer die Ränder von Jahrmarkt. / Schaukeln der Freiheit! Taucher und Gaukler des Eifers!” “Kräuseln” means (depending on the context) “to ripple”, “to frill” or “to crimp”, all fussy words in English as “kräuseln” is in German. All of them speak of a finesse of energy that is about to be undermined by brute facticity. What these crimpled edges are framing (amongst other things) are “Schaukeln der Freiheit! Taucher und Gaukler des Eifers!” The preferred translations are the most literal, but certain translators are surely correct in wishing to push the fabricated hyperbole and absurd anthropomorphism of these lines a little further, as in “/ Freedom’s swing-boats! Enthusiasm’s jugglers / and divers!”. An alternative translation might push them further still, as in “Freedom has a go on the swings! And some dive into enthusiasm or juggle with it!”.
There is general agreement on how to translate the central lines of this section of the stanza, but diverging opinions regarding the final lines: “besonders zu sehn, wie das Geld sich vermehrt, anatomisch, / nicht zur Belustigung nur: der Geschlechtsteil des Gelds, / alles, das Ganze, der Vorgang –, das unterrichtet und macht / fruchtbar ………”. The tone is overtly colloquial and the language quasi-pornographic in its description of the (re)productive urges of capitalism. “Sich vermehren” is to “reproduce”, “to breed”. The translators largely agree, with differences related simply to the explicitness of the actions and certain colloquialisms such as “alles, das Ganze, der Vorgang”. The most successful translation will be the most gross, and exploit the linguistic register of the gutter. Thus “nothing concealed” is simply too neutral, and must give way to the vulgar exuberance of “the lot! The business! uncut”.
An alternative translation:
But just beyond all of this, the edges of the city bristle with the annual fare.
Freedom has a go on the swings. And some dive into enthusiasm or juggle with it.
And the shooting gallery, bedecked with figures of happiness,
twitching targets which give off a tinny sound
when they are hit by one of the better shots. From applause to chance,
he goes on tumbling, as booths with all sorts of attractions
entice him, drumming and bawling. For adults, however,
there is something special to see: how money reproduces itself,
in the flesh: the genitalia of money, all, the lot,
doing it on display – a sight that is not only for amusement
but is instructional and good for fertility …
We then look behind the booths of false pleasure to see what the text describes as “wirklich” (“real”). But nothing is “wirklich” in Rilke’s Elegies, and we should not overlook the possibility that what is “wirklich” is also a false pleasure. Even when children are playing, lovers are loving, and dogs are doing what they must, this is simply a backdrop for an allegorical depiction of “Klage”, of “sorrow” or “lament”:
…. Oh aber gleich darüber hinaus,
hinter der letzten Planke, beklebt mit Plakaten des »Todlos«,
jenes bitteren Biers, das den Trinkenden süß scheint,
wenn sie immer dazu frische Zerstreuungen kaun…,
gleich im Rücken der Planke, gleich dahinter, ists wirklich.
Kinder spielen, und Liebende halten einander, – abseits,
ernst, im ärmlichen Gras, und Hunde haben Natur.
Weiter noch zieht es den Jüngling; vielleicht, daß er eine junge
Klage liebt….. Hinter ihr her kommt er in Wiesen. Sie sagt:
– Weit. Wir wohnen dort draußen…. Wo? Und der Jüngling
folgt. Ihn rührt ihre Haltung. Die Schulter, der Hals –, vielleicht
ist sie von herrlicher Herkunft. Aber er läßt sie, kehrt um,
wendet sich, winkt… Was solls? Sie ist eine Klage.
This is a carefully posed vignette, in which “real” things happen only to be immediately relativised by the non-real. Rilke’s language is a combination of grammatical consequentiality and simple adverbs of place, and everyday imagery whose familiarity is dramatically undermined by the mysterious designation of the female in the final line.
Translations include: “…. Oh, but a little farther, / beyond the last of the billboards, plastered with signs for ‘Deathless,’ / that bitter beer which seems so sweet to its drinkers /as long as they chew fresh distractions in between sips …, / just in back of the billboard, just behind, the view becomes real. / Children are playing, and lovers are holding hands, to the side, / solemnly in the meager grass, and dogs are doing what is natural. / The young man is drawn on, farther; perhaps he is in love with a young / Lament ….. He comes out behind her, into the meadows. She says: – It’s a long walk. We live way out there …. / Where? And the youth / follows. He is touched by her manner. Her shoulders, her neck –, perhaps / she is of noble descent. But he leaves her, turns around, / looks back, waves … What’s the use? She is Lament” (M), “…. Oh, and a little way further on, / when you have passed the last hoarding, covered with posters / for ‘Deathless’, / that bitter beer that tastes sweet enough to drinkers / as long as they munch new distractions with it … just here, / behind, / just at the back of the hoarding, it all becomes real! / Children are playing, lovers are holding each other – apart, / solemn in threadbare grass, and dogs are doing what they do. / The young man is drawn further on; perhaps he has fallen lovesick / for a young Grief ….. In her footsteps, he reaches meadows. / She says: / – Some distance. We live out that way …. / Where? And the young man / follows. He is moved by her bearing. The shoulder, the neck – / perhaps / she is of noble descent. But he leaves her, turns round again, / looks back and waves … but what use? She is one of the Grieving.” (R/S), and “… Oh, but just beyond that, / behind the last board plastered with posters for / Neversaydie bitter that tastes so sweet to drinkers / as long as they chew fresh distractions with it … / immediately beyond the board, right behind it, / it gets real. Children play and lovers / hold each other seriously, out of the way, / in the sparse grass, and dogs obey their nature. / The young man is drawn further on – perhaps / he is in love with a young Keening … ? / Trailing her, he comes out into the meadows. / She says, ‘It’s far off. We live way out there …’ / ‘Where?’ And the young man follows. / He is moved by her manner. Her shoulder – / her neck – perhaps she is of noble origin? / But he abandons her, turns about, looks back, / waves … What’s the use? She is a Keening.” (MC).
The differences between the translators emerges right from the beginning with “Todlos”. It is a neologistic formation that literally means “deathless”, which is the preferred translation. This form of the word (which is left standing in the line without qualification) is, however, overly cryptic. For that reason, it is tempting to unpack its meaning with a more extensive paraphrase such as “Neversaydie” (MC) or with the alternative translation “No death here”, both of which attempt to capture the spurious (and possibly commercial) exploitation of a promise of a life without end. Behind this scene of the false utopia of the everlasting is a world that seems to be more “normal” and which the text designates as “wirklich”. The simple translation “it is real” is rejected by all translators in favour of paraphrases such as “the view becomes real”, “it all becomes real” and “it gets real”. But for Rilke, reality was a simple condition of being; it does not require its viewing or its getting. “The real is there” is an alternative translation.
And then we are told: “Weiter noch zieht es den Jüngling; vielleicht, daß er eine junge / Klage liebt…..”. There is general agreement on how to translate these lines. A youth has become enamoured of a young woman. As a figure she will progress to dominate the remaining stanzas of this Elegy (acquiring an increasing density of personification), and with whom the youth, now alive, now dead and, at times, possibly both, develops a fateful bond. “Klage” has been variously translated as “Lament” (L/S and M), “plaint” (SW), “Grief” and “Grieving” (R/S) and “Keening” (MC). It soon becomes clear that this is a family name (and hence the use of the upper case is appropriate here, as the use of the indefinite article), so “she is a Lament” may be more suitable than “she is Lament”.
An alternative translation:
Oh, but at the same time over there,
behind those end billboards plastered with placards saying
“No death here”, that bitter beer that seems to
drinkers so sweet, only as long as they can continue chewing
on fresh distractions …
Just at the rear of the billboards, right at the back, the real is there.
Children are playing, and lovers clutch one another –
just to one side, deeply, in the meagre grass, and dogs are doing
what they always do. The young man is drawn on further.
Perhaps he is in love with young Lament. He follows
her into the meadows. She says: – it is still quite far.
We live out there … Where? And the young man
follows. He is attracted by her bearing, her shoulders,
her neck – perhaps she is of aristocratic lineage.
But he leaves her, turns around, looks back, gives a wave …
What is the use? She is a Lament.
In the third stanza, the young man turns away from the girl. She must find her companion from a quite different source: the young dead, and from amongst girls, to whom she displays her jewels of pain and her veils of sufferance. Once again, in the absence of conventional poetic techniques, Rilke holds his text together through forceful phrasing and the assertive (if quasi-Surreal) logic of his exposition:
Nur die jungen Toten, im ersten Zustand
zeitlosen Gleichmuts, dem der Entwöhnung,
folgen ihr liebend. Mädchen
wartet sie ab und befreundet sie. Zeigt ihnen leise,
was sie an sich hat. Perlen des Leids und die feinen
Schleier der Duldung. – Mit Jünglingen geht sie
schweigend.
Translations include: “Only the youthfully-dead, in their first condition / of timeless serenity, that of being weaned, / follow her lovingly. Girls / she awaits and befriends. Gently, she shows them / what she is wearing. Pearls of Pain and the fine-spun / Veils of Endurance. – Youths / she walks with in silence” (L/S), “Only those who died young, in their first condition / of timeless equanimity, while they are being weaned, / follow her lovingly. She waits / for girls and befriends them. Shows them, gently, / what she is wearing. Pearls of grief and the fine-spun / veils of patience. – With young men she walks / in silence” (M), “Only those who die young, those in their first state / of timeless serenity, still being weaned, / follow her lovingly. She waits for the girls / and befriends them, gently reveals to them / what she is wearing – her pearls of sorrow, / the fine-spun veils of patience. With young men, / she walks in silence” (MC), and “Only those who died young, in the first state / of timeless equanimity, while still in weaning, / follow her lovingly. She waits / for maidens and befriends them. She shows them, / tenderly, what she has on. Pearls of grief and the fine / veils of patience, – With young men she treads in / silence” (R).
There is general agreement on how to translate these lines. We are told that “nur die jungen Toten” accompany the female Lament. Rilke has throughout the Elegies fused tropes of death with those of youth and nurturing, as if to demonstrate the interpenetration of the two states, the irrevocable presence (indeed, the uplifting, transfiguring) presence of death within life. These young dead are “im ersten Zustand / zeitlosen Gleichmuts”. “Gleichmut” can mean both “serenity” and “equanimity”, the former word stressing peace of mind, the latter balance and composure. The female Lament befriends girls, and shows them her dress apparel: “Perlen des Leids und die feinen / Schleier der Duldung”, which is another example of the Rilkean combination of the inanimate and the animate. “Leid” normally means “suffering”, but “pain” and “grief” are appropriate synonyms here. “Duldung” enjoys a broad range of meanings, such as “toleration”, “acquiescence” and “acceptance”. The preferred translation “patience” may be included in such dispositions (although that would, strictly speaking, be “Geduld”) but “Duldung” is a rather deeper emotion, involving a certain stoicism of attitude. “Sufferance” might be an alternative translation.
An alternative translation:
Only those who have died young,
in a primal state of timeless serenity,
in their weening, follow her lovingly.
She waits for girls to come and befriends them.
Shows them, tenderly, what she is wearing:
pearls of pain and the delicate veil of sufferance.
With young men, she walks in silence.
It becomes clear in the fourth stanza that the young Lament was a member of an aristocratic family who once owned mines, from which both pain and anger were quarried:
Aber dort, wo sie wohnen, im Tal, der Älteren eine, der Klagen,
nimmt sich des Jünglinges an, wenn er fragt: – Wir waren,
sagt sie, ein Großes Geschlecht, einmal, wir Klagen. Die Väter
trieben den Bergbau dort in dem großen Gebirg; bei Menschen
findest du manchmal ein Stück geschliffenes Ur-Leid
oder, aus altem Vulkan, schlackig versteinerten Zorn.
Ja, das stammte von dort. Einst waren wir reich. –
The text sketches a narrative in language that is functional but whose logic is “Märchen”-like, depicting a natural world that possesses not only emotions but extreme emotions. Translations include: “But there, where they live, in the valley, one of the elder / Laments / takes to the youth when he questions her –: we were once, / she says, a great family, we Lamentations. Our fathers / worked the mines in that mountain-range: among men / you’ll find a lump, now and then, of polished original / pain, / or of drossy petrified rage from some old volcano. / Yes, that came from there. We used to be rich.” (L/S), “But there, in the valley, where they live, one of the elder Laments / answers the youth when he questions her: – Long ago, / she says, we Laments were a powerful race. Our forefathers worked / the mines, up there in the mountain-range; sometimes even / among men you can find a polished nugget of primal grief / or a chunk of petrified rage from the slag of an ancient volcano. / Yes, that came from up there. We used to be rich. –” (M), “But there, in the valley where they live, one of the elder Grieving / turns to a questioning youth: In our day / we were a powerful race, she explains. Our ancestors / worked the mines over there in the mountains. You occasionally / find, / among men, lumps of polished original Grief-stone, / or anger-glass from the slag of an old volcano. / Yes, that’s where it came from. In those days we were rich. –” (R/S), and “But there, in the valley which they inhabit, / one of the Keening elder answers the youth / when he questions her. ‘We were once a great race,’ / she says to him. ‘The Keening people. Our ancestors / worked the mines, up there in the mountain range. / Among men, sometimes you still find polished lumps / of original grief or – erupted from an ancient volcano – / a petrified clinker of rage. Yes. That came / from up there. Once, we were rich in such things …’. (MC).
There is general agreement amongst the translators. Minor points of difference centre on “großes Geschlecht”. “Geschlecht” does, indeed, mean “race”, but it also means “family”, as in the lineage of a family, and the latter is more appropriate as a translation in the context of the text because what is being referred to is the aristocratic family of the Laments who were once rich and owned mines. “Family” also avoids the racial overtones of the former translation. The youth questions Lament about her family, who worked mines, and she answers, “bei Menschen / findest du manchmal ein Stück geschliffenes Ur-Leid / oder, aus altem Vulkan, schlackig versteinerten Zorn”. It is, once again, a fantastic personification of nature, where the mundane and the supernatural infuse one another. There is general agreement on how to translate these lines, but the “Ur” of “Ur-leid” causes difficulties. The word has no equivalent in English. In German, it often acts as a prefix to substantives, where it connotes “ancient”, “originary”, “primitive” the temporal source of something as in “Urwald” (“virgin forest”, meaning unspoilt, still in its original form). Here the preferred translation is “original” but “primal” communicates the depth of the pain more effectively. To this primal pain is added “Zorn” (“anger”), that has been left over in petrified form from the slag of a volcano.
An alternative translation:
But there, where they live, in the valley,
one of the older Laments answers the youth
when he questions her, saying: we were
once a great family, we Laments. Our fathers
worked the mines, up there in the high mountains.
And some people still have a piece of polished pure pain,
Or a chunk of petrified anger from a defunct volcano.
Yes, it came from up there.
We used to be rich.
The youth is led by Lament in the next stanza through a landscape, a landscape made up from conventional symbols of a classically elevated world, and something more: an anthropomorphised nature that finds itself in mourning. The bird sees a cry, and writes this cry into its own mourning:
Und sie leitet ihn leicht durch die weite Landschaft der Klagen,
zeigt ihm die Säulen der Tempel oder die Trümmer
jener Burgen, von wo Klage-Fürsten das Land
einstens weise beherrscht. Zeigt ihm die hohen
Tränenbäume und Felder blühender Wehmut,
(Lebendige kennen sie nur als sanftes Blattwerk);
zeigt ihm die Tiere der Trauer, weidend, – und manchmal
schreckt ein Vogel und zieht, flach ihnen fliegend durchs Aufschaun,
weithin das schriftliche Bild seines vereinsamten Schreis. –
The assertive conjunction “Und” introduces a carefully poised narrative constructed around the repeated use of “zeigt” (“shows”). The metre is consistently dactylic, but the line lengths are irregular and broken by caesuras.
Translations include: “And lightly she leads him on through the spacious land- / scape / of Lamentation, shows him the temple columns, the ruins / of towers from which, long ago, Lords of the House of / Lament / wisely governed the land. Shows him the tall / Tear trees, shows him the fields of flowering Sadness (only as tender foliage known to the living); / shows him the pasturing herds of Grief, – and, at times, / startled, a bird will draw, flush-flying through their / uplook, / far into distance, the script form of its solitary cry. –” (L/S), “And gently she guides him through the vast landscape of Lament, / shows him the pillars of the temples, and the ruined walls / of those castles from which, long ago, the princes of Lament / wisely ruled the land. Shows him the tall / trees of tears and the fields of blossoming grief / (the living know it just as a mild green shrub); / shows him the herds of sorrow, grazing, – and sometimes / a startled bird, flying low through their upward gaze, / far away traces the image of its solitary cry. –” (M), “And gently she guides him through the vast / Keening landscape, shows him temple columns, / ruins of castles from which the Keening princes / once wisely governed the land. She shows him / the towering trees of tears, the fields of melancholy / in bloom (the living know this only in gentle leaf). / And she shows him grazing herds of mourning / and sometimes a startled bird draws far off / and scrawls flatly across their upturned gaze / and flies an image of its solitary cry.” (MC).
There are no major differences between the translators. Rilke sketches a landscape that is quite material in its physiognomy but unreal in its anthropomorphised features. In the final lines, however, a bird is startled and “zieht, flach ihnen fliegend durchs Aufschaun, / weithin das schriftliche Bild seines vereinsamten Schreis. –”. It is a complex line, both because of its sense and because its key components are placed in syntactically angular positions to each other. The sense is that a bird is startled and flies, as it looks upwards, towards the young man and Lament, drawing as it does so a written image of its lonely cry. The only main verb is “zieht” which governs the main object of the “Bild” (“image”). It is tempting to translate it as “draws” or “scrawls”, as if it is a cognate of “zeichnen”, but none of the standard meanings of “ziehen” allow for this possibility. The “zieht” must refer to the flight of the bird rather than to an act of inscription; or rather, the latter can only be seen as a function of the former.
An alternative translation:
And she leads him through the broad landscape
of the Laments, shows him the pillars of the temples and
the ruins of the castles from which the princes so
wisely once governed the land. Shows him the tall trees of tears
and the fields of ripe melancholy
(the living see them only as fresh foliage);
shows him the grazing herds of grief. Now and then,
a bird is startled and, as it wings directly towards them
and their upturned gaze, it draws in broad strokes
behind it a written image of a lonely cry.
Lament and the dead youth continue through this landscape, and encounter symbols of knowledge glimpsed as premonition:
Abends führt sie ihn hin zu den Gräbern der Alten
aus dem Klage-Geschlecht, den Sibyllen und Warn-Herrn.
Naht aber Nacht, so wandeln sie leiser, und bald
mondets empor, das über Alles
wachende Grab-Mal. Brüderlich jenem am Nil,
der erhabene Sphinx –: der verschwiegenen Kammer Antlitz.
Und sie staunen dem krönlichen Haupt, das für immer,
schweigend, der Menschen Gesicht
auf die Waage der Sterne gelegt.
The language of the concluding section of this stanza is descriptive, its narrative held together through alliteration and a consequential syntax, grouped around a series of enigmatic images. Translations include: “At evening she leads him on to the graves of the longest- / lived of the House of Lament, the sibyls and warners. / But, night approaching, they move more gently, and soon / moon-like emerges, the all- / guarding sepulchral stone. Twin-brother to that on the / Nile, / the lofty Sphinx, the taciturn chamber’s gaze. / And they start at the regal head that has silently poised, / for ever, the human face / on the scale of the stars.” (L/S), “In the twilight she leads him out to the graves of the elders / who gave warning to the race of Laments, the sibyls and prophets. / But as night approaches, they move more softly, and soon / the sepulchre rises up / like a moon, watching over everything. Brother to the one on the Nile, / the lofty Sphinx –: the taciturn chamber’s / countenance. / And they look in wonder at the regal head that has silently / lifted the human face / to the scale of the stars, forever.” (M), “At evening she leads him out to the graves of the elders / among the race of the Grieving, sibyls and seers. / Night draws on, and they move more softly; soon / watcher of all things, the sepulchre / moon-rises upwards. Brother to that by the Nile: / Sphinx, the majestic – the still inner chamber’s / countenance. / And they stare awed at the regal head / that has laid the face of mankind for all time / in the balancing-pans of the stars” (R/S), and “At evening she leads him to graves of Keening ancestors, / the sibyls and the seers. But when night comes, / they go more carefully and soon, as the moon rises, / there is a sepulchre overlooking everything, / twin brother to one on the Nile, the tall Sphinx, / with its concealing chamber and outward / face. / And they are astonished at the way its royal head / has silently positioned the human face, forever / on the scale of the stars” (MC).
There is general agreement on how to translate these lines. Minor differences centre on a small number of terms such as “Warn-Herrn”, a neologistic formation that literally means “warning-men”. Since it accompanies a reference to the sibyls in the text (who were female) it is necessary when translating it to retain the gender inflexion with “prophet” (since the term “prophetess” also exists) rather than the neutral “seer”. An alternative translation is “masters of warning”. The young man and his female guide wander through the night, through a landscape that is illuminated by the moon. Rilke uses the idiosyncratic “mondets” to refer to the latter. The translators differ on whether to find an equally idiosyncratic English equivalent, as in “moon-rises” or standardise the phenomenon as in “like a moon”. The moon casts light on a Sphinx, “brother to the one on the Nile” (M). The couple look in admiration at its noble countenance, which “schweigend, der Menschen Gesicht / auf die Waage der Sterne gelegt”, the sense being that the face of the Sphinx, because it is a human face, has made human features immortal. The translators agree on all details except one, “gelegt”, which attracts “poised”, “lifted” and “positioned”, where the simple alternative, “laid”, might be more in keeping with the silent dignity of the monument.
An alternative translation:
In the evening, she leads him to the graves of the Lament
elders, the sibyls and the masters of prophesy.
As night approaches, the two stroll more softly, and soon
it is moon-like above the sepulchre that watches over all:
brother to that on the Nile, the sublime Sphinx, with
a countenance that speaks of silent treasures. And they stand
in admiration of the regal head which, in silence, has
carefully laid our human face onto the measuring scales of the stars.
The sixth stanza opens with a death motif: the youth has left this world, hurrying into an early death, unable to either see it clearly or understand it. But the female Lament has understood it, and startles an owl who puts its imprint into the book of early-death’s hearing:
Nicht erfaßt es sein Blick, im Frühtod
schwindelnd. Aber ihr Schaun,
hinter dem Pschent-Rand hervor, scheucht es die Eule. Und sie,
streifend im langsamen Abstrich die Wange entlang,
jene der reifesten Rundung,
zeichnet weich in das neue
Totengehör, über ein doppelt
aufgeschlagenes Blatt, den unbeschreiblichen Umriß.
The lines are syntactically complex and frame a series of events that push the borders of comprehension. Translations include: “His sight, still dizzy with early death, / can’t take it in. But her gaze / frightens an owl from behind the pschent. And the bird, / brushing, in slow down-skimming, along the cheek, / the one with the ripest curve, / faintly inscribes on the new / death-born hearing, as though on the double / page of an opened book, the indescribable outline.” (L/S), “Still dizzy from recent death, his sight / cannot grasp it. But her gaze / frightens an owl from behind the rim of the crown. And the bird, / with slow downstrokes, brushes along the cheek, / the one with the fuller curve, / and faintly, in the dead youth’s new / sense of hearing, as upon a double / unfolded page, it sketches the indescribable outline.” (M), “Dizzied in early death, his sight / fails to grasp it. Her eyes / frighten an owl from behind the rim of the crown. And / the bird’s / slow downstroke brushes along the fully / ripened rounded cheek, / and writes lightly into / death’s young hearing, as on a double- / page spread, lying open, the indescribable outline” (R/S), “Dizzied still by his early death, the youth’s eyes / can hardly grasp it. But her gaze frightens / an owl from the crown’s brim so it brushes / slow strokes downwards on the cheek – the one / with the fullest curve – and faintly, / in death’s newly sharpened sense of hearing, / as on a doubled and unfolded page, / it sketches for him the indescribable outline” (MC) and “Giddy from an early death, his sight can’t / grasp it. And yet her gaze / frightens an owl behind the rim of the crown. And the bird / brushes by the cheek with slow downstrokes, / the one with the ripest curve, / and sketches faintly in the newly / dead’s hearing, as on a double / unfolded page, some indescribable outline” (R).
Differences in translation centre on “Nicht erfaßt es sein Blick, im Frühtod / schwindelnd.” Is this mortal condition referring to the youth’s sight or his person? The preferred translation is to identify it with the former, but the latter option is also possible. The same decision has to be made regarding “das neue / Totengehör”. “Gehör” means “hearing” or “sense of hearing” in German, but is it the hearing that is dead or the human subject who possesses that hearing? The possibilities are “the new / death-born hearing” (L/S), “the dead youth’s new sense of hearing” (M), “death’s young hearing” (R/S), “death’s newly sharpened sense of hearing” (MC) and “the newly / dead’s hearing” (R). Since the dead youth will accompany the Lament a wandering through the spectral landscape of the following stanzas, it is perhaps appropriate to assume that the hearing referred to in these lines is that of the dead youth, and make that explicit in translation, as in the alternative “the hearing of the newly-dead”. Finally, “Pschent” refers to a double crown worn by the pharaohs in ancient Egypt. It is an obscure term and it is tempting to translate it as “crown”, but that loses the Egyptian connection and the sense of duality. The obscurity of the term may be intended.
An alternative translation:
His gaze remains unfocused, unsteady
in his early death. But her gaze, coming from behind
the rim of her pschent, startles an owl.
And the bird, skimming with slow strokes
along her cheek, the one with the fuller curve, delicately
sketches into the hearing of the newly dead,
as upon a double page spread open,
an indescribable outline.
In the next stanza, the Lament sees her lament written in the stars, which she names, before arriving at one final celestial visitation, a single letter representing motherhood:
Und höher, die Sterne. Neue. Die Sterne des Leidlands.
Langsam nennt sie die Klage; – Hier,
siehe: den Reiter, den Stab, und das vollere Sternbild
nennen sie: Fruchtkranz. Dann, weiter, dem Pol zu:
Wiege; Weg; Das Brennende Buch; Puppe; Fenster.
Aber im südlichen Himmel, rein wie im Innern
einer gesegneten Hand, das klar erglänzende »M«,
das die Mütter bedeutet …… –
The language is simple, definitional, formed within longer line lengths with frequent caesuras and variable metre. The focus is on a series of strong images drawn from a fictionalised grid of the stars. Translations include: “And, higher, the stars. New ones. Stars of the Land of Pain. / Slowly she names name: ‘There, / look: the Rider, the Staff, and that fuller constellation / they call Fruitgarland. Then, further, towards the Pole: / Cradle; Way; The Burning Book; Doll; Window. / But up in the southern sky, pure as within the palm / of a consecrated hand, the clearly-resplendent M, / standing for Mothers …..’ ” (L/S), “And higher, the stars. The new stars of the land of grief. / Slowly the Lament names them: – Look, there: / the Rider, the Staff, and the larger constellation called Garland of Fruit. Then, farther up toward the Pole: / Cradle; Path; The Burning Book; Puppet; Window. / But there, in the southern sky, pure as the lines / on the palm of a blessed hand, the clear sparkling M / that stands for Mothers” (M), “And higher, the stars. New. Stars of the sad lands. / And slowly the Keening names them. ‘See, there, the Rider, the Staff, and that more dense / constellation is called The Wreath of Fruits. / Then, further up towards the Pole: / the Cradle, Pathway, / The Burning Book, Puppet, Window… / But in the southern sky, showing pure as the palm / of a blessed hand, the clear-shining M / that stands for Mothers …’ ” (MC), and “And higher, the stars in the land of grief. / Slowly the Lament names them: – Here, / look: the Rider, the Staff, and the fuller constellation she / names: Garland of Fruit. Then, further, toward the Pole: / Cradle; Path; The Burning Book; Puppet; Window. / But in the southern sky, pure as an inscription / on a favored hand, the clear and sparkling M, / that signifies Mothers …….–” (R).
There are no major translating differences here. “Die Sterne des Leidlands” are the stars of the land of “pain” or “grief”. They are called “new” stars because they are not the familiar stars of the cosmos, but the stars of the Duino Elegies, and look back to the trope of the puppets, the window and the pathway, which are all part of the burning book. Rilke names them but takes his description no further here. All find their consummation in the mother.
An alternative translation:
And higher up. The stars. The new ones: stars from
the land of suffering. And slowly the Lament names
them: the Rider, the Staff, and that greater star image
that they call Garland of Fruit. Then, further towards the
Pole: the Cradle, the Pathway, the Burning Book, the Puppet,
the Window. But in the southern sky, pure like the palm
of a blessed hand, the clearly glowing “M”,
signifying “Mothers”.
In the eighth stanza, the youth who first appeared in the second stanza, and continued his presence in the third, fourth and fifth to experience an early death in the sixth stanza, now returns as a central figure . The female Lament brings the dead youth to the edge of a gorge, the source of joy and home to a roaring river that sweeps all before it:
Doch der Tote muß fort, und schweigend bringt ihn die ältere
Klage bis an die Talschlucht,
wo es schimmert im Mondschein:
die Quelle der Freude. In Ehrfurcht
nennt sie sie, sagt; – Bei den Menschen
ist sie ein tragender Strom. –
A quiet scene of nocturnal contemplation is sketched in one single sentence of run-on lines. The simplicity of the language helps produce the almost sacerdotal mood of the stanza. Translations include: “But the dead must go on, and, in silence, the elder / Lament / brings him as far as the gorge / where it gleams in the moonlight, – / there, the source of Joy. With awe / she names it, says ‘Among men / it’s a carrying stream’. ” (L/S), “But the dead youth must go on by himself, and silently the elder Lament / takes him as far as the ravine, / where shimmering in the moonlight / is the fountainhead of joy. With reverence / she names it and says:– Among men / it is a mighty stream.” (M), “Yet the dead youth must go on, and in silence the elder Grief / brings him as far as the gorge, / where, moonlit and shimmering, / the joy-spring rises. Reverently / she names it, and says: Among men / this is a stream of great power. – ” (R/S), “But the dead must push on, and the elder Keening / silently brings him to the foot of a ravine / where there is, shimmering in the moonlight, / the source of joy. In reverence, she names it. / She says, ‘Amongst men, this river is most buoyant’.” (MC), and “But the dead one must advance, and silently the elder Lament brings / him close to the ravine, / where it shimmers in the moonlight: / the very source of joy. With reverence / she names it and says: – amongst humans / it is a supportive stream. – ” (R).
Differences in translation centre on “der Tote”, which means, in general terms, “the dead”, but because it is declined in the masculine form it can also mean “dead man”. From the way this figure is treated in subsequent stanzas, it is clear that this “Tote” is the same youth who first appeared in the second stanza. He is led by Lament to a gorge and to a river, where he is told: “Bei den Menschen / ist sie ein tragender Strom.” As a verb, “tragen” in German means “to carry” or “to bear”, but used as here as an adjectival participle it takes on a greater energy. It is variously translated as “carrying”, “mighty”, “buoyant” and “supportive”. Rather than look for yet another adjectival descriptor, it might be appropriate to move beyond the existing grammar of this phrase and put the “tragen” after the noun (turning the adjective into a verb), as in “a river that bears us along”.
An alternative translation:
But he that is dead must go on and, in silence,
the older Lament brings him to the gorge, which
is gleaming in the light of the moon: the source
of joy. Speaking with awe, she says: amongst mankind
this is a river that bears us along.
But as we discover in the short ninth stanza, even the deceased are capable of affection:
Stehn am Fuß des Gebirgs.
Und da umarmt sie ihn, weinend.
Translations (one of which included the next stanza) include: “They stand at the foot of the range. / And there she embraces him, weeping.” (L/S), “They stand at the foot of the mountain range. / And she embraces him, weeping.” (M), “At the foot of the great peaks they stop. / There she embraces him, weeping” (R/S), “They stand at the foot of the mountain range. / Then she embraces him, weeping. / He climbs alone into the mountains of original grief. / And not once does his step ring on the soundless way.” (MC), “At the foot of the mountain / range, she embraces him, weeping” (R).
There are no major differences in the translations.
An alternative translation:
They stand at the foot of the mountain range,
where, in tears, she embraces him.
The dead one continues his journey in the next stanza, further into the mountains and further into pain:
Einsam steigt er dahin, in die Berge des Ur-Leids.
Und nicht einmal sein Schritt klingt aus dem tonlosen Los.
As Rilke comes to the end of his Elegies, he simplifies his language: grammar and syntax are more regular, line lengths are shorter; and the imagery tends increasingly to simple animistic tropes, in which the human and nature merge. Translations include: “Lone he ascends to the mountains of Primal Pain. / And never once does his step sound from the soundless / fate” (L/S), “Alone, he climbs on, up the mountains of primal grief. / And not once do his footsteps echo from the soundless path” (M), “Alone, he climbs on, into the peaks of Original Grief. / And not an echo rings from his step on the soundless path” (R/S), and “He ascends alone, up the mountains of primal grief. / And not once do his footsteps echo from his soundless lot”. (R).
There is general agreement amongst the translators, differences only emerging with “Und nicht einmal sein Schritt klingt aus dem tonlosen Los”. “Schritt”, meaning “step” or “footsteps” presents no problem, but “Los” is more difficult to translate. Its standard meaning is “lot” or “fate”, but more than one translator wishes to retain the notion of stepping or walking by choosing “path” as a translation, perhaps reading the latter metaphorically as a path through life. As so often in reading the Elegies, it is a matter of individual interpretation.
An alternative translation:
Alone he climbs on, into the mountains of primal pain.
Not even his footfall echoes from his soundless fate.
This final Elegy ends (and hence the Duino Elegies end) with two short stanzas, separated from the preceding stanzas by an asterisk. The stanzas broach themes that have constituted a recurring focus in the Elegies: death and the tenuous nature (perhaps even the impossibility) of earthly happiness. The initial stanza looks back to the eternal dead, and what they might teach us: should they awaken in us a “Gleichnis”, some image of a higher meaning, it would be one that would speak of the fertility of nature.
Aber erweckten sie uns, die unendlich Toten, ein Gleichnis,
siehe, sie zeigten vielleicht auf die Kätzchen der leeren
Hasel, die hängenden, oder
meinten den Regen, der fällt auf dunkles Erdreich im Frühjahr. –
The second of these two short stanzas warns us about the perils of happiness:
Und wir, die an steigendes Glück
denken, empfänden die Rührung,
die uns beinah bestürzt,
wenn ein Glückliches fällt
Translations of these two short concluding stanzas include: “And yet, were they waking a symbol within us, the end- / lessly dead, / look, they’d be pointing, perhaps, to the catkins, hanging / from empty hazels, or else / to the rain downfalling on dark soil-bed in early Spring. – // And we, who think of ascending / happiness, then would feel / the emotion that almost startles / when happiness falls.” (L/S), “But if the endlessly dead awakened a symbol in us, / perhaps they would point to the catkins hanging from the bare / branches of the hazel-trees, or / would evoke the raindrops that fall onto the dark earth in springtime. – . // And we, who have always thought / of happiness as rising, would feel / the emotion that almost overwhelms us / whenever a happy thing falls.” (M), “But were the eternally dead to prompt us to find a symbol, / consider: they might well point us towards the catkins / that hang in the bare hazel, / or might suggest the rain that falls on the dark spring earth. –. // And we, thinking of happiness / rising, would find our emotion / almost bewildering us, / seeing a happiness fall.” (R/S), “But if they – these endlessly dead – awakened us / to comparison, then see, perhaps they might point / to the yet empty hazel bush, / with its catkins hanging down, / or have us think of rain falling into the dark soil in spring –. // “ and we, who conceive of happiness /as something that must be rising, / find in us feelings almost of dismay / when a happy thing falls” (MC), and “But if the endlessly dead awakened in us a sign and symbol, / look, they’d point perhaps to the catkins hanging from / the empty hazels, or they’d / intend the rain, falling onto the earth’s dark soil in springtime, –. // “And we, who think of happiness / rising, would sense the emotion, / that almost dismays us, when a happy thing falls” (R).
The initial stanza consists of a single conditional sentence, whose themes of death and regeneration are linked by a quiet but apodictic voice. There is general agreement on how to translate these lines, except for “Aber erweckten sie uns, die unendlich Toten, ein Gleichnis”. “The standard dictionary translation of “Gleichnis” is “parable”, but because of its religious connotations that translation is avoided in favour of the preferred translation “symbol”. “Symbol”, however, lacks the hermeneutic weight of “Gleichnis”, which exists in establishing in an act of comparison or resemblance (“gleichen”) a universal meaning in an ordinary act or thing. Communicating this expansiveness of meaning has led some to paraphrase “Gleichnis” as “sign and symbol”, but “allegory” performs the same function, and that is the alternative translation.
In the second stanza, a single sentence, made up from a single enjambment, brings the Duino Elegies to their conclusion. The lines are cryptic, condensed., the line lengths short and metrically varied, compelling the reading eye to dwell over every syllable, preventing thus any single sense of meaning to emerge. The lines offer an image of happiness, which is succinctly evoked but held firmly in the conditional. The main translating problem centres on “empfänden die Rührung, / die uns beinah bestürz” (R). The cited translations are: “would feel / the emotion that almost startles” (L/S), “would feel / the emotion that almost overwhelms us” (M), “, would find our emotion / almost bewildering us” (R/S), “find in us feelings almost of dismay” (MC), and “would sense the emotion, / that almost dismays us” (R). “Bestürzen” means “to upset”, “to dismay”, and “to shock”. It is a word that speaks of turmoil, emotional and mental, hence in translating it we need something stronger than “startle” or even “bewilder”. The sense of something impacting on the entire body is also communicated through “Rührung”, which finds its preferred translation in “emotion”. To emphasise the compelling impact of this experience in yet fuller terms, an alternative translation would be to use the plural form, “emotions”. As with the embrace of the angel in the first Elegy so, here too, to embrace the intensity of experience would destroy us. The heroic pathos of those opening sentiments is here replaced by the bathos of exhaustion, of stoical acceptance. No angel is necessary here to bring home to us the message that the path to earthly bliss is closed for us. In fact (as this circular return to the founding trope of the Elegies suggests) it has never been open.
An alternative translation:
But, should they make us think, these eternally dead, of an
allegory, see, they would point perhaps to the catkins
hanging from the empty hazels, or to the rain that falls
on the dark earth in Spring.
And we, who dream of increasing happiness,
would be by our emotions almost
overwhelmed, should a moment of happiness fall.
Rilke, Elegy 10
Rilke, Duino Elegies Comparing Translations Martin Travers 