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 The Best of Rainer Maria RilkeRilke is the supreme poet of refined and sophisticated manner, with great sensibility almost too painful in its intellectual and emotional subtletis. His Duino Elegies and the rest of his great works has been translated in most of the languages. English perhaps more than any other. |
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The Panther Of bars that it no longer makes a bond. Around, a thousand bars seem to be flashing, And in their flashing show no world beyond. The lissom stpes which round out and re-enter The tighest circuit of their turning drill Are like a dance of strength about a center Wherein there stands benumbed a mighty will. Only from time to time the pupil's shutter will draw apart; an image enters then, To travel through the tauntened body's utter Stillness---and in the heart to the end. Rilke. From New Poems ( 1907-1908 ) |
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Translations of The Panther Here are some comparisons and reviewing one by one with the lapses of taste that remove them out of aesthetic recognition of the original. J. B. Leishman His gaze those bars keep passing is so misted with tiredness, it can take in nothing more. Line 2: defect in German; nichts mehr "nothing any more" translated as if it were nicht mehr "no more (of something)". The idea is not that the gaze can't take in anything but bars any more ,but that it can't take in ANYTHING. Also meter spoilt by "nothing more",for say " no more " Macintyre. His sight form ever gazing through the bars has grown so blunt that it sees nothing more. Line 2: The usual American error of "nothing more' for "nothing any more." Jessie Lemont His weary glance, from passng by the bars, Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare; It seems to him there are a thousands bars And out beyond those bars that empty air. Stephen Mitchell His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in crampled circles,over and over, the movementof his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralzed. Only a times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly---. An image enrers in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone. This translation of S. Mitchell is one my favorites and I believe he captures the essence of The Panther. Line 4 is great: ' a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world." On my next post, I will talk more about this particular translation by Mitchell. |
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Mitchell's view Second stanza: the first line has turned trohaic, the panther is already in slow movement of dancing motion. Third stanza: Mitchell talks about an image that enters in and plunges into the heart. A mystrious one! |
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Gravestone of a Young Girl Must be back one morning, it would seem. like a tree upon the citrus shore, Your unweighing little breast you bore Deep into his blood's onrushing stream: His off all the gods. It was the slender Fugitive, to women fondly tender; Sweet and incandescent, like your mind, Overshadowing your girlish loin And inclining like your eyebrows' camber. |
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Elegy for Marina Tsvetaeva We don't eke them out, wherever we rush the accure To which star! In the sum, all has long since been forereckoned, Nor does the falling star diminish the sanctified number. Every resigning plunge, flung to the origin, heals. |
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1875 |
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ukip 15-Nov-07, 07:30 |
Deleted by ukip on 19-Nov-07, 09:26.
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Death poem |
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Early Apollo From striking us with all but deadly hill, There is no shadow yet about his eyes, Too cool for laurels is his temple still, And only later from those brows will rise |
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The Suicide Song Why do they always ruin my rope With their cuts? I felt so ready the other day, Had a real foretaste of eternity In my guts. |
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Letters to a young Poet |
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Loneliness It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains; from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs to heaven, which is its old abode. And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city. |
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coopershawk 01-Oct-10, 21:23 |
patience ". . have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves . . . Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." |
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Letters to a Young Poet just waiting to see us just once being beautiful and courageous |
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The Book of Hours A collection of poems. Dedicated to Lou Andrea's Salome. |
