RILKE | March: Mountain Spring
RILKE | March: Mountain Spring
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"And yet everything which touches us, you
and me, takes us together like a single bow, drawing out from two strings but one voice." "...Here, among the disappearing, be, in the realm / of decline, be the ringing glass that shatters even as it sounds." from Love Song and Sonnet XIII (Sonnets to Orpheus), by Rainer Maria Rilke This week, an image called 1000 Diamond Spring. Also: four new translations from the German.
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The guest poems for this week are four new English
translations from the work of the German
language poet,
Rainer
Maria Rilke (from the
Rilke website, a concise hyperlinked biography).
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Liebes-Lied Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen? Ach gerne möchte ich sie bei irgendetwas Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen. Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich, nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich, die aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht. Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt? Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand? O süßes Lied. (c. 1907) |
Love Song How shall I hold on to my soul, so that it does not touch yours? How shall I gently lift it up over you on to other things? I would so very much like to tuck it away among long lost objects in the dark, in some quiet, unknown place, somewhere which remains motionless when your depths resound. And yet everything which touches us, you and me, takes us together like a single bow, drawing out from two strings but one voice. On which instrument are we strung? And which violinist holds us in his hand? O sweetest of songs. |
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Am Rande der Nacht Meine Stube und diese Weite, wach über nachtendem Land,— ist Eines. Ich bin eine Saite, über rauschende breite Resonanzen gespannt. Die Dinge sind Geigenleiber, von murrendem Dunkel voll; drin träumt das Weinen der Weiber, drin rührt sich im Schlafe der Groll ganzer Geschlechte . . . Ich soll silbern erzittern: dann wird alles unter mir leben, und was in den Dingen irrt, wird nach dem Lichte streben, das von meinem tanzenden Tone, um welchen der Himmel wellt, durch schmale, schmachtende Spalten in die alten Abgründe ohne Ende fällt . . . (c. 1905) |
At the Edge of
Night My room and these distances, awake over the darkening land,— are one. I am a string, stretched over rushing wide resonances. All things are the bodies of violins, full of murmuring darkness; inside dreams the weeping of women, inside stirs in sleep the resentment of whole generations . . . I shall tremble silver: then everything under me shall come to life, and that which errs in things shall strive towards the light that from my dancing tone, welling up into the heavens, through narrow, languishing crevasses in the old Abysses, falls without end . . . |
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Die
Liebende Das ist mein Fenster. Eben bin ich so sanft erwacht. Ich dachte, ich würde schweben. Bis wohin reicht mein Leben, und wo beginnt die Nacht? Ich könnte meinen, alles wäre noch Ich ringsum; durchsichtig wie eines Kristalles Tiefe, verdunkelt, stumm. Ich könnte auch noch die Sterne fassen in mir; so groß scheint mir mein Herz; so gerne ließ es ihn wieder los den ich vielleicht zu lieben, vielleicht zu halten begann. Fremd, wie niebeschrieben sieht mich mein Schiksal an. Was bin ich unter diese Unendlichkeit gelegt, duftend wie eine Wiese, hin und her bewegt, rufend zugleich und bange, daß einer den Ruf vernimmt, und zum Untergange in einem Andern bestimmt. (c. 1907) |
A Woman in Love That is my window. I just awoke so gently. I thought, I'm floating. How far does my life reach, and where does the night begin? I could think that everything around me is me; like the transparent depth of a crystal, darkened and mute. I think I could bring the stars inside of me, so large does my heart seem; so very much does it want to let go of him whom I have perhaps begun to love, perhaps to hold. So strange, so uncharted does my fate appear. Who am I who lies here under this endless sky, as the sweet scent of a meadow, moving back and forth, at once calling out and anxious, that someone might hear my call, destined to vanish in another. |
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XIII (ZWEITER TEIL) Sei allem Abschied voran, als wäre er hinter dir, wie der Winter, der eben geht. Denn unter Wintern ist einer so endlos Winter, daß, überwinternd, dein Herz überhaupt übersteht. Sei immer tot in Eurydike—, singender steiger, preisender steige zurück in den reinen Bezug. Hier, unter Schwindenden, sei, im Reiche der / Neige, sei ein klingendes Glas, das sich im Klang schon / zerschlug.
Sei—und wisse zugleich des Nicht-Seins
Bedingung, |
XIII
(SECOND PART) Be ahead of all departure, as if it were already behind you, like the winter which is almost over. For among winters there is one so endlessly winter, that, wintering through it, may your heart survive. Be forever dead in Eurydice—, singing ascent, praising ascent, returning to pure relation. Here, among the disappearing, be, in the realm / of decline, be the ringing glass that shatters even as it sounds. Be—and yet know Not-being's condition, the infinite ground of your innermost movement, that you may bring it to completion but this one time. To that which is used-up, as to nature's abundant dumb and mute supply, the unsayable sums, joyfully add yourself and the result destroy. (all tr. Cliff Crego) |
| view / print
Picture/Poem
Poster: Love Song (86 K) | or
download
as PDF |
| see also
the Rilke
Posters |
| listen to other recordings in English and German of twelve poems from
The Book of Images at
The Rilke
Download Page (# Includes
instructions) |
See other recent additions of new English translations of
Rilke's poetry,
together with
featured photographs at:
(23) February: After Storm, New Snow—clearing
(22) January: Winter Fountains
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See also another website by Cliff Crego: The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke |
a presentation of 80 of the best poems of Rilke in both German and new English translations: biography, links, posters |
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See also: new |
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"Straight
roads, Slow rivers, Deep clay." |
A collection of contemporary Dutch poetry in English translation, with commentary and photographs by Cliff Crego |
