February: After Storm, New Snow—clearing
(click on image to enlarge)
After Storm, New Snow—clearing "Six and thirty times and /
   hundred times
the painter tried to capture the /    
   mountain,
tore it up, then pushed on again
(six and thirty times and /
   hundred times)."

from The Mountain,
by Rainer Maria Rilke 


This week, an image called After
Storm, New Snow—claring.
 
Also: four new translations
from the German.




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).



Der Berg

Sechsunddreißig Mal und hundert Mal
hat der Maler jenen Berg geschrieben,
weggerissen, wieder hingetrieben
(sechsunddreißig Mal und hundert Mal)

zu dem unbegreiflichen Vulkane,
selig, voll Versuchung, ohne Rat,—
während der mit Umriß Angetane
seiner Herrlichkeit nicht Einhalt tat:

tausendmal aus allen Tagen tauchend,
Nächte ohne gleichen von sich ab
fallen lassend, alle wie zu knapp;
jedes Bild im Augenblick verbrauchend,
von Gestalt gesteigert zu Gestalt,
teilnahmslos und weit und ohne Meinung—,
um auf einmal wissend, wie Erscheinung,
sich zu heben hinter jedem Spalt.


aus:
Der neuen Gedichte, anderer Teil
The Mountain

Six and thirty times and hundred times
the painter tried to capture the mountain,
tore it up, then pushed on again
(six and thirty times and hundred times)

to the incomprehensible volcanoes,
blissful, full of temptation, without counsel,—
while the outlines of his glory
went on without coming to an end:

Fading a thousand times out of all the days,
nights without comparison from which
dropped, as if they were all too small;
each image at the moment it was needed,
increasing from figure to figure,
not partaking and far and without viewpoint—,
then suddenly knowing, as in a vision,
lifting itself up behind every crevice.


from: New Poems, the other part





| listen to German original; listen to English trnaslation # |




Schwarze Katze

Ein Gespenst ist noch wie eine Stelle,
dran dein Blick mit einem Klange stößt;
aber da an diesem schwarzen Felle
wird dein stärkstes Schauen aufgelöst:

wie ein Tobender, wenn er in vollster
Raserei in Schwarze stampft,
jählings am benehmenden Gepolster
einer Zelle aufhört und verdampft.

Alle Blicke, die sie jemals trafen,
scheint sie also an sich zu verhehlen,
um darüber drohend und verdrossen
zuzuschauern und damit zu schlafen.
Doch auf einmal kehrt sie, wie geweckt,
ihr Gesicht und mitten in das deine:
und da triffst du deinen Blick im geelen
Amber ihrer runden Augensteine
unerwartet wieder: eingeschlossen
wie ein ausgestorbenes Insekt.
Black Cat

A ghost is at least still like a place
against which your gaze bumps with a sound;
but here in this deepest black of furs
even your most intense looking is dissolved:

like one delirious, as in complete
madness he stamps in the darkness,
then suddenly with the agreeable padding
of the cell stops and evaporates.

All the looks that have ever touched it,
it seems to have hidden within itself,
so that from above, threatening and sullen,
it may observe and sleep with them.
Yet all at once, as if awakened, it turns
its face and meets the center of your own:
and there, unexpectedly, you find your image
in the yellow amber of the rounded stones
of her eyes: completely enclosed
like an insect now extinct.




| listen to German original; listen to English trnaslation # |




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.
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.





| listen to German original; listen to English trnaslation # |




Der Leser

Wer kennt ihn, diesen, welcher sein Gesicht
wegsenkte aus dem Sein zu einem zweiten,
das nur das schnelle Wenden voller Seiten
manchmal gewaltsam unterbricht?

Selbst seine Mutter wäre nicht gewiß,
ob er es ist, der da mit seinem Schatten
Getränktes liest. Und wir, die Stunden hatten,
was wissen wir, wieviel ihm hinschwand, bis

er mühsam aufsah: alles auf sich hebend,
was unten in dem Buche sich verhielt,
mit Augen, welche, statt zu nehmen, gebend
anstießen an die fertig-volle Welt:
wie stille Kinder, die allein gespielt,
auf einmal das Vorhandene erfahren;
doch seine Züge, die geordnet waren,
blieben für immer umgestellt.


aus:
Der neuen Gedichte, anderer Teil
The Reader

Who knows him, this one, whose own face
sinks away out of its being into a second one,
that only the quick turning of whole pages
sometimes forcibly interrupts?

Even his own mother would be uncertain
if that were him, who, together with his shadow,
was drenched with reading. And we, hours to spare,
what do we know, how much he fades away, until,

in fatigue, he stops: raising up everything
into himself which has happened in the book below,
with eyes, which, instead of taking, nudge up
against the full and finished world as they give:
like quiet children, who, playing alone,
suddenly experience that which is at hand;
and yet his features, ordered as they were,
remain now forever rearranged.

(all tr. Cliff Crego)




| listen to German original; listen to English trnaslation # |










| view / print Picture/Poem Poster: The Mountain (86 K) |


| 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:

(22) January: Winter Fountains

(21) January: Winter Ribbons

See also a selection of recent Picture/Poem "Rilke in translation" features at the Rilke Archive.


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


See
also:

new
"Straight roads,
Slow rivers,
Deep clay."
A collection of contemporary Dutch poetry
in English translation, with commentary
and photographs
by Cliff Crego


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Photograph/Texts of Translations © 2000-2007 Cliff Crego

(created:
I..28.2001) Comments to crego@picture-poems.com