Nifty triangle of translations form Rilke, Alison (& I like the way yours
_moves_)
>
>(from the Tenth)
>
>Someday. emerging at last from the violent insight,
>let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.
>Let not 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. How we squander our hours of pain.
>How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
>to see if they have an end. Though they are really
>our winter enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
>_one_ season in our inner year - , not only a season
>in time -, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.
>
>(Stephen Mitchell)
>
>Someday, emerging at last from this terrifying vision,
>may I burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
>May not even one of the clear-struck keys of the heart
>fail to respond through alighting on slack or doubtful
>or rending strings! May a new-found splendour appear
>in my streaming face! May inconspicuous Weeping
>flower! How dear you will be to me then, you Nights
>of Affliction! Oh, why did I not, inconsolable sisters,
>more bendingly kneel to receive you, more loosely surrender
>myself to your loosened hair? 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.
>
>(Leishman/Spender)
>
>
>Sometime, on the way out of this violent vision,
>I'll sing up joy and glory to assenting angels.
>Let none of the clearstruck hammers of my heart
>fail against softening, uncertain or
>rent strings. Let my streaming face
>shine forth; let the plain weeping
>flower. O grieving night, then you become to me
>what love is. Why didn't I kneel before you, inconsolable sisters,
>why not accept you, give my loosening
>within your loosened hair. We, spendthrifts of sorrows.
>How we look away to the sad duration beyond them
>to see if they end. Truly they are but
>our enduring winter leaf, our dark evergreen,
>_one_ of the seasons of the secret year - , not only
>seasons, - are place, settlement, storehouse, ground, home.
>
>(Croggon)
I'm going to add something different here, George Bowering write
_Kerrisdale Elegies_ 'out of' or 'alongside' the Duino ones. He says he
doesn't really like Rilke, especially all that transcendental mubojumbo,
yet he does pay homage in a deeply moving way I think, while also (ego at
work? but in a kind of ego-losing manner) 'translating' the whole into a
representation of his life as lived in Vancouver (Kerrisdale):
here's the opening of his 10:
Est-ce toi, Nomade, qui nous passeras ce soir aux
rives du réel?
If I endure, when this ghastly truth has passed my eyes,
may I raise music to my dead family in the dark.
Lift this light horn and play a song I know but
have never learned,
fingers touching keys I cannot see
through tears I always knew were there.
Remember
when we were kids,
how we wept and secretly
loved our tears?
How wise we were,
children see
where they are going.
How their parents and teachers
mocl them,
drilling, memorizing happy little songs.
Which seems to have very little to do with the original. But see how at the
very beginning, he rids himself of the angels but maintains a lot of what
inheres in teh original anyway:
If I did complain, who among my friends
would hear?
If one of them
amazed me with an embrace
he would find his arms empty, his own face
staring from a mirror.
Beauty is the first prod of fear,
we must
live our lives in.
We reach for her,
we think we love her, because she holds the knife
a knife-edge from our throat.
Every fair heart
is frightful.
Every rose petal
exudes poison in bright sunlight.
Which porves nothig, & maybe says very little to real translators, but I
find the whole book quite an amazing work, bringing something of Rilke into
the mind & heart of a modern Canadian city...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
he said the President said
he would not kill anyone
anymore and the way he would not kill
would be to let the killers kill
and then he would not be a killer
Eli Mandel (circa 1970)
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