Rilke, "On Music"

[radiantfracture]

In a literary article that has drifted too far downstream for me to be likely to find it again, I found a quotation from this Rilke poem I had not known before, and was smitten -- I think by the final lines.

I wanted to write a Very Clever comparative analysis of two different versions, but I am tired. Maybe I'll just post the versions and invite comments. Let the analysis be emergent.



Musik: Atem der Statuen. Vielleicht:
Stille der Bilder. Du Sprache wo Sprachen
enden. Du Zeit
die senkrecht steht auf der Richtung
vergehender Herzen.

Gefühle zu wem? O du der Gefühle
Wandlung in was?— in hörbare Landschaft.
Du Fremde: Musik. Du uns entwachsener
Herzraum. Innigstes unser,
das, uns übersteigend, hinausdrängt,—
heiliger Abschied:
da uns das Innre umsteht
als geübteste Ferne, als andre
Seite der Luft:
rein,
riesig
nicht mehr bewohnbar.


(Stephen Mitchell translation)

To Music

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps:
silence of paintings. You language where all language
ends. You time
standing vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.

Feelings for whom? O you the transformation
of feelings into what?—: into audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You heart-space
grown out of us. The deepest space in us,
which, rising above us, forces its way out,—
holy departure:
when the innermost point in us stands
outside, as the most practiced distance, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
boundless,
no longer habitable.

(Scott Horton translation)

To Music

Music. The breathing of statues. Perhaps:
The quiet of images. You, language where
languages end. You, time
standing straight from the direction
of transpiring hearts.

Feelings, for whom? O, you of the feelings
changing into what? — into an audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You chamber of our heart
which has outgrown us. Our inner most self,
transcending, squeezed out, —
holy farewell:
now that the interior surrounds us
the most practiced of distances, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
enormous
no longer habitable.

§rf$

Comments

[sovay]

Let the analysis be emergent.

I don't think I have any analysis beyond "I think it's neat when different translators are differently literal and also when they overlap," but I can offer two versions by the same poet of "Apollo's Archaic Torso," which have stuck with me for yeras.

[radiantfracture]

Ah, this is an excellent tasting menu. Thank you!

Going back and forth between versions creates a pleasurably vertiginous kind of rhyme. I feel it must be a little like what Emily Dickinson felt reading between her versions, the sway of meaning.

Here's the Mitchell version, which you probably know. His title might be a bit archaic itself, but I will say I think he nails the last line.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

* * * * * *

Predator's pelt, lion's mane, wild beast's fur; all three glisten. I think I like the stress in Mitchell the best, but "pelt" is the most luminous word.

[sovay]

Ah, this is an excellent tasting menu. Thank you!

Welcome!

Going back and forth between versions creates a pleasurably vertiginous kind of rhyme. I feel it must be a little like what Emily Dickinson felt reading between her versions, the sway of meaning.

Not having to pick one, enjoying the different angles. The reader can circle the statue as in a museum. In Stutt's two versions, I love her more faithful "incredible head / where the eyes ripened like apples," both because of the way she splits apart the German of Augenäpfel and because her "incredible" doesn't seem colloquial to me at all, it feels like the older sense of difficult to take in, to come to grips with being in the presence of, but I also love her nearly invented "a lump of rock with no vision" because of the way it taps into, not just the formless state of the original stone as flagged by Carol Rumens, but the literal decapitation of the statue which in the ordinary course of things should not make the visitor feel so sleeted through with vision like radiation.

His title might be a bit archaic itself, but I will say I think he nails the last line.

Yes. Also the short, factual run-up of "for here there is no place / that does not see you." It's just the way things are.

Predator's pelt, lion's mane, wild beast's fur; all three glisten. I think I like the stress in Mitchell the best, but "pelt" is the most luminous word.

Agreed. And because it's a word for the fur when it's off the animal as well as on, it sets up the star-bursting of the next line, as if Apollo at any second might shrug off his marble and be something even wilder underneath.

[calimac]

The second translation has more clarified wording where the first one is somewhat opaque, but what really impresses me is how similar they are.

[radiantfracture]

I like that -- where do you find the clarity coming in?

[calimac]

"Our innermost self" is a lot clearer and more natural language than "the deepest space in us," for one. "Chamber of our heart, which has outgrown is" is likewise clearer than the alternative.

[larryhammer]

Both of these, yes. I prefer the clarity of the second.

[larryhammer]

I always imagine that this one is about Schoenberg's "Transfigured Night", despite the dates not lining up.

*checks around a bit*

Okay, scratch that. Apparently this is from 1918, so totally could be about a 1899 work. I thought Schoenberg was later and this was from one of his circa 1900 collections.

[radiantfracture]

What a brilliant connection. What made you hear that in the poem?

[larryhammer]

I’ve no idea — it’s just the impression I’ve always gotten from that poem.