In a previous lecture,
Sandra Richter
showed some of Rilke's sketches that he continued to make throughout his life.
His drawings are restrained and more meditative than virtuosic. They often
depict landscapes, architecture, gardens, or figures in tranquil poses; they
seem like visual counterparts to his poetry: focused, simplified, directed
toward the essential.
Once again,
Professor Frick
gave us an extraordinary lecture, showing that Rilke viewed drawing as a
distinct form of seeing and contemplation.
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Auguste Rodin in his atelier
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Rilke deepened this approach particularly during his time in Paris, in the
circle of
Auguste Rodin. Close observation, patient work, and engagement with the subject were to
characterize both his drawing and his writing.
While rarely creating illustrations for his own texts, drawing was more
important to him as a means of training his perception. His drawings
provide an intimate insight into Rilke's artistic self-image beyond language.
As a “learnt“ physicist, I was unable to even begin to grasp the depth into
which Prof. Frick drew his audience. I have selected four poems from
Neue Gedichte (1907) and
Neue Gedichte anderer Teil (1908). But
instead of trying to analyze them, I would like to make a few personal
comments.
Given Rilke's eloquence and his powerful use of language,
translating his poems into other languages proves problematic. Red Baron found
translations of three of my selected poems on the Internet. I attempted to
translate the fourth myself.
Rilke's poem
Das Karussell (The
Carousel) brings back memories of my late wife Elisabeth. As a child, she spent
time in France in 1946, after the war, when her father, a high school teacher of
German, French, and English (!), worked as a translator in Vernon.
After
the Americans had already "recruited"
Wernher von Braun, the French had to make do with the second choice of German rocket scientists,
whom they gathered in Vernon. These physicists and engineers naturally did not
speak French.
Elisabeth rode the carousel in the Jardin de Luxembourg
during a trip to Paris at that time, and her father quoted Rilke. She remembered
the line, "And now and then a white elephant," when we took a walk in the Jardin
in 2002.
| Das Karussel |
The Carousel |
Mit einem Dach und seinem Schatten dreht
sich eine kleine Weile der Bestand
von bunten Pferden, alle aus dem Land,
das lange zögert, eh es untergeht.
Zwar manche sind an Wagen angespannt,
doch alle haben Mut in ihren Mienen;
ein böser roter Löwe geht mit ihnen
und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant.
Sogar ein Hirsch ist da, ganz wie im Wald,
nur dass er einen Sattel trägt und drüber
ein kleines blaues Mädchen aufgeschnallt.
Und auf dem Löwen reitet weiß ein Junge
und hält sich mit der kleinen heißen Hand
dieweil der Löwe Zähne zeigt und Zunge.
Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant.
Und auf den Pferden kommen sie vorüber,
auch Mädchen, helle, diesem Pferdesprunge
fast schon entwachsen; mitten in dem Schwunge
schauen sie auf, irgendwohin, herüber –.
Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant.
Und das geht hin und eilt sich, dass es endet,
und kreist und dreht sich nur und hat kein Ziel.
Ein Rot, ein Grün, ein Grau vorbeigesendet,
ein kleines kaum begonnenes Profil –.
Und manchesmal ein Lächeln, hergewendet,
ein seliges, das blendet und verschwendet
an dieses atemlose blinde Spiel ...
*
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Beneath a roof and with its shadow spins
for just a little while the stock
of painted horses—all are from the land
that lingers on before it vanishes.
Though some are hitched to carriages,
they all show fierceness in their faces;
a frightening red lion walks among them
and now and then there's a white elephant.
Even a stag is there, like in the woods,
except he bears a saddle and above it
a little blue girl, firmly fastened.
And on the lion rides a boy in white,
who holds on with a small hot hand;
meanwhile the lion shows his teeth and tongue.
And now and then there's a white elephant.
And on the horses they come passing by,
girls also luminous, almost too grown up
to join this horse ride; in mid-swing
they look up, somewhere, this way -.
And now and then there's a white elephant.
And so it goes and hurries up to finish,
and turns and circles only without aim.
A red, a green, a gray sent gliding by,
a little profile, barely seen and gone -.
And every now and then a smile, turned hither,
enchanted, ravishing, and lavishing
upon this blind and breathless game ...
Translated by Ulrich Fleming
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When Prof. Frick cited Rilke's sonnet "Blaue Hortensie", an image vividly
appeared in my memory.
Last fall, I was walking in Kirchzarten, a small town west of Freiburg,
admiring the flowers in the front yards. Judge for yourself:
| Blaue Hortensie |
Blue Hortensia |
So wie das letzte Grün in Farbentiegeln
sind diese
Blätter, trocken, stumpf und rauh,
hinter den
Blütendolden, die ein Blau
nicht auf sich tragen, nur
von ferne spiegeln.
Sie spiegeln es verweint und
ungenau,
als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren,
und
wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren
ist Gelb in ihnen,
Violett und Grau;
Verwaschenes wie an einer
Kinderschürze,
Nichtmehrgetragenes, dem nichts mehr
geschieht:
wie fühlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kürze.
Doch
plötzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen
in einer
von den Dolden, und man sieht
ein rührend Blaues sich
vor Grünem freuen.
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Like the last green in paint pots
these leaves, dry,
dull, and rough,
behind the flower clusters that do
not
bear a blue, only reflect it from afar.
They
reflect it tearfully and imprecisely,
as if they wanted
to lose it again,
and as in old blue stationery
there
is yellow in them, violet, and gray;
Washed out
like on a child's apron,
No longer worn, nothing
happening to it anymore:
how one feels the brevity of a
small life.
But suddenly the blue seems to renew
itself
in one of the umbels, and one sees
a touching
blue rejoicing before green.
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I had my childhood experiences with wild animals in captivity in the Hamburg
zoo.
At
Hagenbecks Tierpark, animals did not vegetate behind bars, but "lived" in large outdoor
enclosures. Still, I had the feeling that their situation was sad.
I remember how elephants stretched out their trunks across a large ditch to
suck up treats visitors held out to them and then put them in their
mouths.
And now and then, there was a gray elephant that
swung its trunk toward a nearby keeper to give him the
Groschen (penny) that a visitor had slipped under it instead of a
treat.
25 years later, it was still the same scenario when I
visited Hagenbeck Zoo with my children.
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Painters at the Jardin des Plantes (1902)
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DER PANTHER
IM JARDIN DES PLANTES, PARIS
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THE PANTHER
AT THE PARIS BOTANICAL GARDEN |
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf – Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille –
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
*
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His gaze against the sweeping of the bars
has grown so weary that it can hold no more.
To him, there seems to be a thousand bars
and behind those thousand bars, no world.
The soft the supple step and sturdy pace,
that in the smallest of all circles turns,
moves like a dance of strength around a core
in which a mighty will is standing stunned.
Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides
up soundlessly – An image enters then,
goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs —
and in the heart ceases to be.
Translated by Stanley Appelbaum
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Torso of Milet at the Louvre in Paris. Found in 1885.
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| Archaïscher Torso Apollos |
Archaic Torso of Apollo |
Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die
Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein
Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,
sich
hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust
dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte
nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung
trug.
Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und
kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und
flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;
und bräche
nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da
ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein
Leben ändern.
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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 too
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.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
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The torso looks at us, and we don't look at the torso? I couldn't help
thinking of
Brecht's alienation. But Rilke's thoughts go deeper. We should not leave it at
a superficial glance at the torso, but ask ourselves, who are we in the
face of what is looking at us.
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Lettering at the Freiburg Theater
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And as I am now, I am not yet adequate to my life. I must change it.
**
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