Some Rilke translation: its scope and limits

 

"E pero' sappia ciascuno che nulla cosa per legame musaico armonizzata si puo' de la sua loquela in altra transmutare sanza rompere tutta sua dolcezza e armonia" (Dante)


Curtis Faville has got me wondering lately about translation, too. In response to the opening passage from Rilke's "Seventh Elegy" (translated by Edward Snow) that I'd recently posted he'd referred to what he suspects is perhaps the inscrutability of every poem, it's "original grace". Does translation, even the very best, have a chance? To see for myself what had been lost in translation I thought I'd have a go at the first few sections of "The Seventh Elegy" (relying on a very elementary knowledge of German and my old Langenscheidt dictionary). First the German text, then Snow's translation, then mine. I'll end with a few brief comments not just on the quality of Snow's work but, more generally, on the nature of the change I've detected (or perhaps caused) in the transformation of Rilke's poem into a foreign medium.
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Werbung nicht mehr, nicht Werbung, entwachsene Stimme,
sei deines Schreies Natur; zwar schrieest du rein wie der Vogel,
wenn ihn die Jahreszeit aufhebt, die steigende, beinah vergessend,
daß er ein kümmerndes Tier und nicht nur ein einzelnes Herz sei,
das sie ins Heitere wirft, in die innigen Himmel. Wie er, so
würbest du wohl, nicht minder , daß, noch unsichtbar,
dich die Freundin erführ, die stille, in der eine Antwort
langsam erwacht und über dem Hören sich anwärmt,
deinem erkühnten Gefühl die erglühte Gefühlin.

O und der Frühling begriffe , da ist keine Stelle,
die nicht trüge den Ton der Verkündigung. Erst jenen kleinen
fragenden Auflaut, den, mit steigernder Stille,
weithin umschweigt ein reiner bejahender Tag.
Dann die Stufen hinan, Ruf-Stufen hinan, zum geträumten
Tempel der Zukunft ; dann den Triller, Fontäne,
die zu dem drängenden Strahl schon das Fallen zuvornimmt
im versprechlichen Spiel .... Und vor sich, den Sommer.

Nicht nur die Morgen alle des Sommers , nicht nur
wie sie sich wandeln in Tag und strahlen vor Anfang.
Nicht nur die Tage, die zart sind um Blumen, und oben,
um die gestalteten Bäume, stark und gewaltig.
Nicht nur die Andacht dieser entfalteten Kräfte,
nicht nur die Wege, nicht nur die Wiesen im Abend,
nicht nur, nach spätem Gewitter, das atmende Klarsein,
nicht nur der nahende Schlaf und ein Ahnen, abends ...
sondern die Nächte! Sondern die hohen, des Sommers,
Nächte, sondern die Sterne, die Sterne der Erde.
O einst tot sein und sie wissen unendlich,
alle die Sterne: denn wie, wie, wie sie vergessen!
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No longer, voice. No longer let wooing send forth your cry:
you're past that. Even though your cry would be clear as a bird's
when first Spring bears him aloft, almost forgetting
that he's a cautious creature and not an unsheathed heart
being flung into brightness, into passionate skies.
Like him, will all his art, you'd also woo--: invisibly,
so that some silent mate might learn of you, and,
as she listened, a reply would slowly wake and grow warm--
the kindled complement of your own ardent feeling.

O and Spring would understand--, annunciation
would echo everywhere. First those small
questioning notes, which a clear, confident day
would surround with heightening silence.
Then up the calls, up that long flight of steps to the dreamt-of
temple of the future--; then the trill, that fountain,
whose urgent jet is teased by its falling
where promise is foreplay...And on ahead, the summer.

Not only all of summer's dawns--, not only
how they change into day and gleam with genesis.
Not only the days, so tender around flowers, and above,
in the patterned treetops, so forceful and strong.
Not only the calm reverence in these outspread powers,
not only the paths, the meadows as evening deepens,
not only, after late thunderstorms, the pulsing clarity,
not only the onset of sleep and, near dusk, a premonition...
But the nights! Those towering summer
nights! And the stars, the stars of the earth!
O to be dead and to know them endlessly,
all the stars: for how, how, how to forget them!
                                                              (trans. Edward Snow)
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Don't let wooing (never again wooing!) be the form of your cry,
nor ever its originating voice;
indeed, you'd cry pure as the bird
when the season carries him up, up, almost forgetting
that he's a grieving creature and not a solitary heart
cast into very serenity, into heaven's depths. Like him,
you would likewise woo--yes, invisible still,
a young girl would take to the silent you, a reply
slowly awakening and warming to your voice--
her bright feelings venturing your own.

And yes Spring knows it, too--there's no place
where its musical announcement could ever deceive. First
that small inquiring note which, with growing stillness,
a pure affirming day deeply embraces.
Then up ascending steps, the cry-steps, all the way to
the dreamer's temple of tomorrow--: then the trill,
the fountain whose hurrying flash the fall first foresees
in its promised play...And then promised summer.

Not just summer mornings--, not just
how they become day-transformed and emit beginnings.
Not just days sweet on flowers, and overhead,
round patterned tree-blossoms, thick and powerful.
Not only the devotion of these spreading powers,
nor even the paths or evening meadows,
nor the breathing clarity of a late thunderstorm,
nor the nearing dream and its foreboding,  in late evening...
but also nights! The height of summer nights,
and the stars, stars of earth.
Yes, to be dead and know them for ever, the stars:
and how, how would I ever forget them!
                                                     (trans. Conrad DiDiodato)
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Firstly, in Strophe 1 the translator of the original text (Edward Snow) has fractured a complete opening statement (expressed as a wish), leaving the reader with a succession of competing grammatical constructions where Rilke intended only one: as a result the integrity of "Werbung" (wooing), indicated by position and emphasis through repetition, has been broken. There's nothing in the opening lines to accommodate Snow's "you're past that". The reader is now bound to be distracted by imminent 'bird flight' when it's "Werbung" (speaker's anguished wooing) Rilke gives primacy to. Rilke's masterfully juxtaposed the song-bird's cry to a mate's uncertain reply. It is venturesome at best, a case of the invisible wanting badly to take physical shape in the anticipated other;

secondly, tampering too loosely with Rilke's own syntax--which Snow has done a second time (at "Even though your cry...") by substituting a 'fragment' for what is a complete thought in the original-- results in a perhaps too 'romanticized' view of the lyricist's anguished voice desperately trying for release from the bonds of his earthly misery. Precisely that troubling sense of arrested flight needs to be kept and can't be in translation that doesn't respect the form of the original. The bird of poetry simply rises too freely, too untroubled by the causes of the anguished voice;

thirdly, Snow's translation has left us (for the reasons above-stated) with a Rilke the Romantic rather than the more properly Modernist figure that he really is. Heidegger (in "What Are Poets For?")has aptly called Rilke the poet who's given us poetic song that hovers (like the bird's flight and song) over the world's true "destitute land." And that sense is precisely missing in Snow's translation;

fourthly, in Strophe 2 the promise of reply has properly been transmogrified into a uncertain "inquiring" sort of dream-state, and nothing more. "Fragenden" is Rilke's own term. The dream (more certainly the dreamer in bird-song) is called a "temple of tomorrow" (Tempel der Zukunft). The metaphor is inventive and instructive. The long winding steps to the temple opening is reminiscent of Kafka's The Castle; the poem (to this point) is every bit as subtly phantasmagorical, every bit as interminably expectant. Here Snow seems to be more at home in the fragment sentences and remains pretty faithful to Rilke's own language patterning, perhaps sensing like the poet just how "out of joint" is a solitary heart's springtime; and

fifthly, Strophe 3 almost stutters over any intended Romantic (Shelleyan) notion of unity in song. I believe Rilke has left the reader in the end with the sole consolation of sharp illuminations of star-light, "in late evening". Song seems to tire the ear in its repetitiveness just as starry nights bedazzle the eye. Rilke's "Elegy" passages end in twilight where stars (those unforgettable stars) serve as one more distraction from the state of every "grieving creature" and are literally something to die for. One is also reminded of that other sorrowful lover of stars, van Gogh. Snow fails precisely because he gives the poetic heart the most brilliantly imaginative language possible: because he's really never properly registered the troubled nature of all spring "wooing" and failed to take Rilke's poem to its final resting-place, somewhere over the world's true "destitute land".