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found it,
First Elegy
Rainer Maria Rilke
verses 38-53
Italian version:
Canta di loro, delle abbandonate,
German version:
Jene, du neidest sie fast, Verlassenen, die du
so viel liebender fandst als die Gestillten.
>>
Thanks, Anny.
... and in English:
***
But nature, exhausted
takes lovers
back into herself
as if she couldn't accomplish
that kind of vitality twice.
Have you thought
of Gaspara Stampa
hard enough?
dwelt on her
so that a girl
whose lover has disappeared
can feel
from that tremendous
example of love
'Make me like her'?
Shouldn't these ancient
sufferings of ours
finally start to bear fruit?
Isn't it time
that in love
we freed ourselves
from the loved one
and, trembling,
endured ...
***
[... the Douglas Young English translation, metrically reverse-engineered
from WCW's "Asphodel, that dreamy flower ..." Frankly, this does my head
in -- I can't be doing with Carlos Williams's triple-dropped line, so I only
manage to get it via Douglas Young lite.
Also I don't read German.
Ho, hum ... ]
Robin
{Oh sod it -- quoting that amount of text prolly buggers copyright.
:-(
CP3O}
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