The Book of Images by Rainer Maria Rilke
in des Südens spätdämmernden Tagen
so unendliche Schönheit ein,
wie sonst nur selige Lippen sie sagen
seliger Menschen, die zu zwein
eine Welt haben und eine Stimme —
leiser hast du das alles gespürt, —
(o wie hat das unendlich Grimme
deine unendliche Demut berührt).
Deine Briefe kamen von Süden,
warm noch von Sonne, aber verwaist, —
endlich bist du selbst deinen müden
bittenden Briefen nachgereist;
denn du warst nicht gerne im Glanze,
jede Farbe lag auf dir wie Schuld,
und du lebtest in Ungeduld,
denn du wußtest: das ist nicht das Ganze.
Leben ist nur ein Teil … Wovon?
Leben ist nur ein Ton … Worin?
Leben hat Sinn nur, verbunden mit vielen
Kreisen des weithin wachsenden Raumes, —
Leben ist so nur der Traum eines Traumes,
aber Wachsein ist anderswo.
So ließest du’s los.
Groß ließest du’s los.
Und wir kannten dich klein.
Dein war so wenig: ein Lächeln, ein kleines,
ein bißchen melancholisch schon immer,
sehr sanftes Haar und ein kleines Zimmer,
das dir seit dem Tode der Schwester weitwar.
Als ob alles andere nur dein Kleid war
so scheint es mir jetzt, du stilles Gespiel.
Aber sehr viel
warst du. Und wir wußtens manchmal,
wenn du am Abend kamst in den Saal;
wußten manchmal: jetzt müßte man beten;
eine Menge ist eingetreten,
eine Menge, welche dir nachgeht,
weil du den Weg weißt.
Und du hast ihn wissen gemußt
und hast ihn gewußt
gestern …
jüngste der Schwestern.
Sieh her,
dieser Kranz ist so schwer.
Und sie werden ihn auf dich legen,
diesen schweren Kranz.
Kanns dein Sarg aushalten?
Wenn er bricht
unter dem schwarzen Gewicht,
kriecht in die Falten
von deinem Kleid
Efeu.
Weit rankt er hinauf,
rings rankt er dich um,
und der Saft, der sich in seinen Ranken bewegt,
regt dich auf mit seinem Geräusch;
so keusch bist du.
Aber du bist nichtmehr zu.
Langgedehnt bist du und laß.
Deines Leibes Türen sind angelehnt,
und naß
tritt der Efeu ein …
------------
wie Reihn
von Nonnen,
die sich führen
an schwarzem Seil,
weil es dunkel ist in dir, du Bronnen.
In den leeren Gängen
deines Blutes drängen sie zu deinem Herzen;
wo sonst deine sanften Schmerzen
sich begegneten mit bleichen
Freuden und Erinnerungen, —
wandeln sie, wie im Gebet,
in das Herz, das, ganz verklungen,
dunkel, allen offen steht.
Aber dieser Kranz ist schwer
nur im Licht,
nur unter Lebenden, hier bei mir;
und sein Gewicht
ist nicht mehr
wenn ich ihn, zu dir legen werde.
Die Erde ist voller Gleichgewicht,
Deine Erde.
Er ist schwer von meinen Augen, die daran hängen,
schwer von den Gängen,
die ich um ihn getan;
Angste aller, welche ihn sahn,
haften daran.
Nimm ihn zu dir, denn er ist dein
seit er ganz fertig ist.
Nimm ihn von mir.
Laß mich allein! Er ist wie ein Gast …
fast schäm ich mich seiner.
Hast du auch Furcht, Gretel?
Du kannst nicht mehr gehn?
Kannst nicht mehr bei mir in der Stube stehn?
Tun dir die Füße weh?
So bleib wo jetzt alle beisammen sind,
man wird ihn dir morgen bringen, mein Kind,
durch die entlaubte Allee.
Man wird ihn dir bringen, warte getrost, —
man bringt dir morgen noch mehr.
Wenn es auch morgen tobt und tost,
das schadet den Blumen nicht sehr.
Man wird sie dir bringen. Du hast das Recht,
sie sicher zu haben, mein Kind,
und wenn sie auch morgen schwarz und schlecht
und lange vergangen sind.
Sei deshalb nicht bange. Du wirst nicht mehr
unterscheiden, was steigt oder sinkt;
die Farben sind zu und die Töne sind leer,
und du wirst auch gar nicht mehr wissen, wer
dir alle die Blumen bringt.
Jetzt weißt du das Andre, das uns verstößt,
so oft wir’s im Dunkel erfaßt;
von dem, was du sehntest, bist du erlöst
zu etwas, was du hast.
Unter uns warst du von kleiner Gestalt,
vielleicht bist du jetzt ein erwachsener Wald
mit Winden und Stimmen im Laub. —
Glaub mir, Gespiel, dir geschah nicht Gewalt:
Dein Tod war schon alt,
als dein Leben begann;
drum griff er es an,
damit es ihn nicht überlebte.
...............................................
Schwebte etwas um mich?
Trat Nachtwind herein?
Ich bebte nicht.
Ich bin stark und allein. —
Was hab ich heute geschafft?
… Efeulaub holt ich am Abend und wands
und bog es zusammen, bis es ganz gehorchte.
Noch glänzt es mit schwarzem Glanz.
Und meine Kraft
kreist in dem Kranz.
REQUIEM
Dedicated to Clara Westhoff
An hour since, now, there is more on earth
by one thing. More by a wreath.
Earlier it was light leaves … I turned it:
and now this ivy is oddly heavy
and so full of darkness, as if it drank
future nights out of my things.
Now I almost dread the next night
alone with this wreath that I fashioned,
not suspecting that something enters existence
when the tendrils coil around the hoop;
wholly needing to grasp just this:
that something can be no more. As if astray
in never entered thoughts, where marvelous things stand,
which somehow I must have seen before …
… Downstream drift flowers that children tore off in play; out of their open fingers fell one, then another, until the bouquet had lost all shape. Until the remnant they brought home was only fit to burn. Then of course the whole night, when they all think one asleep, one could weep for the broken flowers.
Gretel, from earliest beginning
it was doomed that you should die so early,
die fair.
Long before you were doomed to live.
For that the Lord placed a sister ahead of you
and then a brother,
so that ahead of you would be two near, two pure ones,
who would show dying to you,
show you your own:
your dying.
Your sister and brother were invented
only so that you might get used to it
and by means of two death-bed hours
reconcile yourself to that third
which for millenniums has threatened you.
For your death,
lives came into being;
hands, which tied blossoms,
eyes, which felt ros
and mankind massively,
were fashioned and again destroyed,
and twice the act of dying was performed,
until, aimed at you yourself,
it stepped from the extinguished stage.
… Was its nearing frightful, dearest playmate?
was it your foe?
Did you weep yourself to its heart?
Did it tear you out of the burning pillows
into the flickering night where
no one in the whole house slept…?
How did it look?
You must know …
It was for that you journeyed home.
--------------------
You know
how the almond trees bloom
and that lakes are blue.
Many things that exist only in the feelings
of a woman who has known first love,—
you know. To you Nature kept whispering
in the South’s late-fading days
beauty so infinite
that only the blissful lips
of blissful pairs can speak it, who, as two together,
have one world and one voice—
more subtly you’ve traced all that,—
(O how the infinitely grim
touched your infinite humility).
Your letters arrived from the South,
still warm from the sun, but orphaned,—
at last you yourself followed your
tired beseeching letters;
for you were not happy in all that brilliance,
every color lay on you like guilt,
and you lived in impatience,
for you knew: this is not the whole.
Life is only a part … of what?
Life is only a note … in what?
Life has meaning only joined with many
receding circles of increasing space,—
life is only the dream of a dream,
but waking is elsewhere.
So you let it go.
Greatly you let it go.
And we knew you as someone small.
There was so little of you: a smile, a small one,
a bit melancholy always,
the softest hair and a small room
that since your sister’s death seemed huge to you.
As if all else was just your dress
it now seems to me, you silent playmate.
But how very much
you were. And we knew it sometimes,
when toward evening you came into the room;
knew sometimes: now one must pray;
a multitude has entered,
a multitude that follows you,
because you know the way.
And you had to have known it
and did know it
yesterday …
youngest of the sisters.
See here,
this wreath is so heavy.
And they will lay it down on you,
this heavy wreath.
Can your coffin bear it?
When it breaks
under the black weight,
into the folds of your dress
will creep
ivy.
Far up it will twine,
it will twine up all around you
and the sap that stirs in its tendrils
will arouse you with its noise;
so chaste are you.
But you are closed no longer.
You are stretched out limp and lax.
Your body’s doors are left ajar,
and damply
the ivy enters …
------------
like rows
of nuns
who guide themselves
along a black rope,
since it is dark in you, you well.
Through the empty corridors
of your blood they press on toward your heart;
where once your gentle sorrows
met with pale
joys and remembrances,—
they wander, as if in prayer,
into your heart, which, completely soundless,
darkened, to all stands open.
But this wreath is heavy
only in the light,
only among the living, here with me;
and its weight
will cease
when I place it next to you.
The earth is full of balance,
Your earth.
The wreath is heavy from my eyes, which hang on it,
heavy from the walking
that I did for it;
fears of everyone who saw it
cling to it.
Take it to you, for it is yours
since it is finished now.
Take it away from me.
Let me be alone! It is like a guest …
I’m almost ashamed of it.
Are you afraid too, Gretel?
You can walk no longer?
No longer stand here in my room?
Do your feet hurt you?
Then stay where now all are together,
it will be brought to you tomorrow, my child,
through the leaf-stripped avenue.
It will be brought to you, wait with good cheer,—
you will be brought that and more.
Even if tomorrow it storms and rages,
that won’t harm the flowers much.
They will be brought to you. It is your right
to have them as your own, my child,
and even if tomorrow they are black and ruined
and have been dead a long time.
Don’t let that frighten you: you won’t distinguish
any longer what rises from what sets;
the colors are closed, the sounds are empty,
and you won’t even know any longer
who brings you all the flowers.
Now you know that other, which disowns us
whenever we grasp it in the dark;
from that which you desired, you’ve been released
to something that you have.
Among us you were small of stature,
perhaps you are now a full-grown forest
with winds and voices in your boughs.—
Believe me, playmate, no violence was done to you:
Your death was old already
when your life began;
therefore he attacked it,
lest it outlive him.
...............................................
Did something hover round me?
Did nightwind enter?
I didn’t tremble.
I am steadfast and alone.—
What have I made today?
… I fetched ivy at evening and turned it
and twisted it together, until it utterly obeyed.
It still shines with black light.
And my strength
spirals in the wreath.
SCHLUSZSTÜCK
Der Tod ist groß.
Wir sind die Seinen
lachenden Munds.
Wenn wir uns mitten im Leben meinen,
wagt er zu weinen
mitten in uns.
CLOSING PIECE
Death is great.
We are his completely
with laughing eyes.
When we feel ourselves immersed in life,
he dares to weep
immersed in us.
NOTES
“Entrance.” Untitled in the 1902 edition.
“From an April.” Untitled in the 1902 edition.
“Two Poems to Hans Thomas on His Sixtieth Birthday.” Hans Thomas: a painter and illustrator (1839–1924) popular in his time for his almost childlike depictions of landscapes and human figures. “Mondnacht” probably alludes to a painting by Thomas entitled Der Mondscheingeiger; “Ritter” perhaps to the artist’s Einsamer Ritt.
“Girls.” The two parts are separate and untitled in th
“Initial.” Untitled in the 1902 edition. Listed in the table of contents as “Connecting Piece” (Zwischenstück).
“Pont du Carrousel.” Pont du Carrousel: a bridge over the Seine, to the Place du Carrousel in Paris.
“The Ashanti.” Jardin d’Acclimatation: an amusement park with zoo in the Bois de Bologne, Paris. Ashanti: a region in Africa now part of the Republic of Ghana; here signifying inhabitants of or from that region.
“Apprehension.” Untitled in the 1902 edition.
“Lament.” Untitled in the 1902 edition.
“Storm.” Mazeppa: a cossack leader (“hetman”) who joined his forces with the invading Swedish army led by Charles XII in the Battle of Poltava, fought in the Ukraine in 1709 and won by the Russians under Peter the Great. Regarded by some as a political opportunist and by others as a patriot dedicated to freeing his native Ukraine, he became a charismatic figure in the European imagination. Rilke’s poem shifts abruptly from the Mazeppa of history to the Mazeppa of popular legend to produce its own epiphany. According to one well-known “Byronic” anecdote, Mazeppa was caught in bed with the wife of a Polish nobleman, and as punishment was strapped naked to the back of a wild horse and sent galloping off into the steppe.
“Evening in Skåne.” Skåne: southern region of Sweden, where Rilke stayed for a time as guest of Hanna Larsson and her fiancé (the artist and writer Ernst Norlind) at her country estate at Borgeby Gård.
“Initial.” Untitled in the 1902 edition. Listed as “Connecting Piece” (Zwischenstück) in the table of contents.
“In the Certosa.” Certosa: Carthusian monastery. La Stanca: It., “the tired one.” Pietrabianca: It., “white stone,” here used as a place name.
“Charles the Twelfth of Sweden Rides in the Ukraine.” The first part (“Kings in legends…”) is separate and untitled in the 1902 edition. Charles the Twelfth: king of Sweden from 1682 to 1718. His defeat at the Battle of Poltava (1709) marked the turning point in the long “Northern War” between Russia and Sweden (1700–1721). Geschlagen in line 2 of the main section of Rilke’s poem can mean “beaten,” “struck” or “smitten” (in the biblical sense), or “killed.” The narrative plays among these meanings.
“The Son.” The second part (“… Thus we became…”) is separate and untitled in the 1902 edition.
“The Tsars: A Poem Cycle (1899 and 1906).” All these poems except the third belong to the period between Rilke’s two Russian journeys (April 25–June 18, 1899, and May 7–August 24, 1900). The third (which indeed feels very different in spirit) dates from early February 1906. The second, fifth, and sixth were revised during that same period. For much of the information in the following notes I am indebted to Patricia Pollock Brodsky, Russia in the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984), 88–95.
“That was in days when the mountains came.” The subject of this and the following poem is Ilya Muromets, a legendary figure from the Russian medieval epics, the byliny. Ilya of Muron, the only son of a well-to-do farmer, was crippled and somnolent from birth. One day when his parents were at work in the field, two pilgrims entered the hut where he slept and offered him a drink. Suddenly he could stand erect, and felt himself infused with superhuman strength. Following the pilgrims’ orders, he went out into the field to help his parents, then bought a suit of armor and a gray stallion, and embarked on a series of adventures that led him to the court of Prince Vladimir of Kiev, the tenth-century Christianizer of Russia.