Duino Elegies (Bilingual Edition)
Reviews
This is the first time I read anything by Rilke, and already I know that this rather small set of elegies are among the most passionate, honest and anguished poems I have ever encountered. While I went into reading this book expecting something profoundly religious and mystical, I think the elegies only conform to such descriptions in the very limited sense of 'angels' being present in them. The pain and catharsis bound in stanzas are grounded in human pain, in mortality and existential angst. At times, Rilke's disquietude surpasses words and echoes in reader's body like a tangible, physical pain. It's such a captivating experience that made me impatient to read more of his poetry, while simultaneously lamenting my ignorance of German. I can only imagine how transcendental these elegies are in their original language.
Loved this! Wonderful translation!
Highlights
And we, who think always of a happiness Ascending, Would be by our emotion quite undone, If one should fall.
Not because happiness exists --- that hasty Profit which betokens a near loss.
We set in order, and it perishes. Order again, and we ourselves do perish.
Do not think that fate means more than the thick wilderness of childhood.
To us. We do not know the shape of feeling,
Only what outwardly determines it.
Who has not sat in fear before the curtain
Of his own heart?
O trees of life, when do you turn to winter?
We are not in agreement. We are not
Initiated, as migrating birds;
But, overtaken, and belated, throng
Precipitately on the winds, and fall
Into a lake that’s callous to our fate.
We are acquainted both with blossoming
And with decay; see both in the same hour;
And somewhere still the lions go to and fro,
Knowing no weakness while their splendour lasts.
Who can hold Those who are beautiful? Incessantly Some cheating semblance of reality Crosses their faces, and again departs.
The beating of our own heart would destroy us.
Lovers most marvellously could descant Thereon, by night, if they could understand it. For it would seem, that all things wrap themselves In secrecy against us. See: the trees Exist; the houses stand, that shelter us. We only, with a light exchange of greeting, pass all things by, and everything conspires Against us, to keep silence; half in shame, Perhaps, and half in hope unspeakable.
Shall not these oldest of all griefs at last bear fruit for us?