there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.
Norton.
Be in advance of all parting, as though it were behind you like the winter that is just going. For among winters one is so endlessly winter that, overwintering, your heart once for all will hold out.
This is one of the great sonnets, one of the most typically Rilkean in theme, too, one of the most moving—Epictetus might have penned it—and a poem quite impossible to translate. There is first of all the contrast between “ahead” and “behind,” which MacIntyre and Poulin retain, but at their peril because the idea is really best expressed simply as Leishman does: “Anticipate all farewells.” Four “winters” follow, and in the last line, three über s. All five of our contestantsput in every one of these winters, some more smoothly than others (Poulin is clearly first), but Leishman, always fearless, forces two “outs” into the final line of the quatrain, though the strain is such that the poem sweats. No Sweat is clearly Poulin’s motto, and for the Sonnets it is clearly a good one. His thought is clean and direct, and the positive poetry of that thought is simply allowed to have its effect. MacIntyre bungles things badly, arriving at a rhyme with a line so long it circles the moon, reducing his rhythms to those of poor prose, and badly bollixing the meaning. It is high time we closed the book on him.
“Be dead forever in Eurydice—” the following quatrain begins. What can that mean? Possibly: since you looked back and cost her her chance at resurrection, then you ought to “Remain with Eurydice in the realm of death.” Mitchell interprets the lines plausibly: “Be forever dead in Eurydice—more gladly arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song,” although that’s not exactly Rilke’s wording. What to do?
Anticipate all farewells, as if they were behind you
like the winter that’s just past, for among winters
there will be one so relentlessly winter
that in overwintering it your heart will be readied to last.
Remain with Eurydice in the realm of death—rise there
singing, praising, to realize the harmony in your strings.
Here—among pale shades in a fading world—
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
Be—but nonetheless know why nothingness
is the unending source of your most fervent vibration,
so that this once you may give it your full affirmation.
To the store of copious Nature’s used-up, cast-off,
speechless creatures—an unsayable amount—
jubilantly join yourself and cancel the count. 6
I hate “vibration/affirmation” but, so far, I haven’t been able to improve on it. This triplet is tough to render in reasonably uninflated English.
For every poet we attempt to translate, certain adjustments will have to be made, equivalences found, sacrifices accepted; and we shall have to decide in each instance (whether the poet is Valéry or Hölderlin, Vallejo or Montale—whether the issue is rhythm, verse form, figures, sound, or wordplay—ambiguity, syntax, idea, or tone—diction, subject, weight, ambition—secret grief, overmastering obsession) just what element is so essential that a literal transcription must be aimed at; what we dare to seek certain equivalences for instead; when we can afford to settle for similar general impressions and effect; how to unpack the overly compacted; and what must be let go, unless luck is with us, in order to achieve the rest—that rest which must add up to greatness; and in the case of Rilke, I think, the poetry of idea must come first, the metaphors he makes out of the very edge and absence of meaning, the intense metaphysical quality of his vision (as unphilosophically developed as it yet is); while tone and overall effect would be next—in the Elegies that prophetic grandeur some of his translators are not convinced of—Rilke’s hubristic ambition, the vanity of “the seer”—and in the Sonnets the quick hot
Norton.
Be in advance of all parting, as though it were behind you like the winter that is just going. For among winters one is so endlessly winter that, overwintering, your heart once for all will hold out.
This is one of the great sonnets, one of the most typically Rilkean in theme, too, one of the most moving—Epictetus might have penned it—and a poem quite impossible to translate. There is first of all the contrast between “ahead” and “behind,” which MacIntyre and Poulin retain, but at their peril because the idea is really best expressed simply as Leishman does: “Anticipate all farewells.” Four “winters” follow, and in the last line, three über s. All five of our contestantsput in every one of these winters, some more smoothly than others (Poulin is clearly first), but Leishman, always fearless, forces two “outs” into the final line of the quatrain, though the strain is such that the poem sweats. No Sweat is clearly Poulin’s motto, and for the Sonnets it is clearly a good one. His thought is clean and direct, and the positive poetry of that thought is simply allowed to have its effect. MacIntyre bungles things badly, arriving at a rhyme with a line so long it circles the moon, reducing his rhythms to those of poor prose, and badly bollixing the meaning. It is high time we closed the book on him.
“Be dead forever in Eurydice—” the following quatrain begins. What can that mean? Possibly: since you looked back and cost her her chance at resurrection, then you ought to “Remain with Eurydice in the realm of death.” Mitchell interprets the lines plausibly: “Be forever dead in Eurydice—more gladly arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song,” although that’s not exactly Rilke’s wording. What to do?
Anticipate all farewells, as if they were behind you
like the winter that’s just past, for among winters
there will be one so relentlessly winter
that in overwintering it your heart will be readied to last.
Remain with Eurydice in the realm of death—rise there
singing, praising, to realize the harmony in your strings.
Here—among pale shades in a fading world—
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
Be—but nonetheless know why nothingness
is the unending source of your most fervent vibration,
so that this once you may give it your full affirmation.
To the store of copious Nature’s used-up, cast-off,
speechless creatures—an unsayable amount—
jubilantly join yourself and cancel the count. 6
I hate “vibration/affirmation” but, so far, I haven’t been able to improve on it. This triplet is tough to render in reasonably uninflated English.
For every poet we attempt to translate, certain adjustments will have to be made, equivalences found, sacrifices accepted; and we shall have to decide in each instance (whether the poet is Valéry or Hölderlin, Vallejo or Montale—whether the issue is rhythm, verse form, figures, sound, or wordplay—ambiguity, syntax, idea, or tone—diction, subject, weight, ambition—secret grief, overmastering obsession) just what element is so essential that a literal transcription must be aimed at; what we dare to seek certain equivalences for instead; when we can afford to settle for similar general impressions and effect; how to unpack the overly compacted; and what must be let go, unless luck is with us, in order to achieve the rest—that rest which must add up to greatness; and in the case of Rilke, I think, the poetry of idea must come first, the metaphors he makes out of the very edge and absence of meaning, the intense metaphysical quality of his vision (as unphilosophically developed as it yet is); while tone and overall effect would be next—in the Elegies that prophetic grandeur some of his translators are not convinced of—Rilke’s hubristic ambition, the vanity of “the seer”—and in the Sonnets the quick hot
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