Paradiso

I have finally taken to reading Rilke’s poetry in German, by no means an easy task, as I am still very much in the infancy of learning the language. Nevertheless, having studied German for long enough to be able to read Kafka and Mann, and being fortunate of having a partner whose mother language is German, I have long thought I would have to “transition”, as it were, to one of my favourite German poets in Rilke, with whom, so far, I have only had the pleasure of reading through the dirty window of translation.

I am currently reading my way through Rilke’s “Neue Gedichte“/”New Poems” which has accurately, but also inaccurately, been called Rilke’s project of objectivity. A rather idiosyncratic and possibly difficult notion, yet as a mild generalisation of Rilke’s poetic project, as it pertains to his extensive focus on “things” and the intentional leaving-out of the self, it might just work. I must, however, stress that in many cases in which it has been observed, by literary scholars, that Rilke is distancing/detaching himself, the scholar in question is critically misreading Rilke. Rather, Rilke in his meditations in Neue Gedichte is showing us (almost Husserlian) a delicate interweaving or merging of the self with the object or “thing” in question. It is the process of alienation through which the “Beschauer”, or the poet, finds his or her relation with what’s “beobachtet”. It is akin to Hegel’s “fürsichsein“, the act of constant tension between something and its negation (see my essay on Walt Whitman). An example of this, on which I hope I can elaborate in a future essay, is in Rilke’s subtle triumph “Die Parke II“, and the exuberant sequence when the poet “einem Male” steps into the “shattigen Wasserschale.” (stanza 2, l. 3). A superb section from which—unfortunately—much poor and much garbled criticism have been conceived, obscuring Rilke’s poetic project.

The dispelling of the Rilkean lemmings, however, must wait for now, as in this essay I will focus on a short, albeit profound poem that from the first reading made a great impression on me. The original title in German is “Lied vom Meer” which translates to “Song of the Sea.” It is in many respects a gloomy and sombre Whitman-looking meditation, but in soul more akin to the indifference that can be so poignantly prevalent in the poetry of Dickinson or Baudelaire. And like Dickinson—or apropos Dickinson—on whom I have written extensively (see 1,2,3,4), Rilke, like the myth of Amherst, proves to be able to pack more into a short poem, in this case a mere 14 lines/49 words, than what ought to be possible. Song of the Sea is a hidden jewel that shows perhaps a different side of Rilke; a side of poetic subtlety and musicality, which constitutes the principal features of especially his later French-written poems.

I present the poem in German, as well as with my own English translation, after which I shed some much-needed light on the problem with many of the new(er) Rilke-translations.

Lied Vom Meer (1907)

Uraltes Wehn vom Meer,
Meerwind bei Nacht:
du kommst zu keinem her;
wenn einer wacht,
so muß er sehn, wie er
dich übersteht:
uraltes Wehn vom Meer,
welches weht
nur wie für Ur-Gestein,
lauter Raum
reißend von weit herein. . .

O wie fühlt dich ein
treibender Feigenbaum
oben im Mondschein.

Translation:

Ancient wafting from the sea,
sea-wind at night:
you come to no one here;
if one should awake,
he must see, how he
can survive you:
ancient wafting from the sea,
which blows
only as if for primordial rocks,
pure space
tearing in from afar.

O how a budding fig tree
will feel you
up in the moonlight.

From the translations I have read of Rilke, I have been rather stunned how a short poem such as this can be bruised and cannibalised through the act of translation. I remember reading in Robert Lowell’s early letters, as he was making his own journey towards mastering Latin, Greek, and other classical languages, stumbling upon many “dish-water translations“, that, “a poor translation is an ugly photograph.” (Letter to Ezra Pound, May 2nd, 1936). It was much the same queasy feeling with which I was left, having read Rilke in German, and then later revisiting the English translations, one of which can be read here. This is but one translation out of many, but it happens to be similar to the translation I have had on my bookshelf for years, and which seems to be recycled—with occasional updates—in most commercially available translations.

As I have done in the past with Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Levine, among others, I will dissect the poem line for line, and in this instance, contrast my translation with Albert Ernest Flemming’s.

L. 1-3
Ancient wafting from the sea,
sea-wind at night:
you come to no one here;

Flemming has translated (and he is far from the only translator to do so) “Uraltes” to “timeless“. This is nothing short of a gross miss-interpretation, which only serves to lead the English reader astray. “Uraltes” is a thing, or a phenomena, which is ancient or very, very old. Rilke does not describe the wafting as, say “zeitloss“, which is the German word for “timeless“, nor does he flaunt any other synonym for zeitloss, of which there are, if not plenty, then sufficient alternatives to have explicated his point, had it been his point. On the contrary, Rilke describes the wafting as “Uraltes“, as there is an important temporal element to the ancient force that is the wafting, just as there is a temporal element underpinning the entire poem.

“Wehn” can be translated as a “breeze” or a “breath” too, which could work, but as I am working within the confines of a more literal translation, I find wafting to be the more accurate—even by poetic standards. What Rilke is describing in this ancient wafting from the sea is a force of nature that we as humans have had to content with since the dawn of man. It is a force of basal indifference that does not yield to prayers, but “you [it] come to no one here” (l.3). While it could, with reasonable conviction, be translated as “towards no one“, especially to emphasise the directional indifference of the wafting, I still find the preposition “to” slightly more appropriate, as it emphasises the indifference of the wafting force, while conveying the lack of consolation we are to find when the wafting—inevitably—comes our way.

I cannot help but be reminded of the haunting tempest by the end of Dickens’s masterpiece David Copperfield, in which the wind (indifferent as ever) takes the lives of both Steerforth and Ham. Seen in the mirror of Rilke’s wafting, it stresses the Rilkean indifference of Nature, which does not differentiate between the wicked (Steerforth) or the good-hearted (Ham).

L. 4-6
if one should awake,
he must see, how he
can survive you:

These three lines are rather dramatic. I have seen a few Rilke translations translate “wacht” as “guard“, that is to say: “if one should stand guard.” This is downright incorrect and an unfortunate misreading of Rilke that stains the poem’s ambition. The line is most certainly to be read as “if one should awake” or even “wake up“, as there is a definite element of a re-awakening whenever the wafting, or to be more dramatic, the tempest comes about. I dare say, no matter how well-prepared or experienced the captain is, even heroes (or hero-villains) such as captain Ahab, Odysseus, or Fussy Joe, they must take account of the situation, and with each great wafting: “he must see how he can survive you [it].” Mortality is on the line when confronted with the ancient wafting, though for us temporal beings only, not for our poetic protagonist the “Uraltes Wehn“, which has blown for many and many a millennia.

As a technical aside: “wacht” is not written capitalised, and as nouns are capitalised in German, it is a rather straightforward and glaring mistake—not just poetically—to translate “wacht” as “to guard“, or even “a guard“.

L. 7-11
ancient wafting from the sea,
which blows
only as if for primordial rocks,
pure space
tearing in from afar.

In line 9 we have possibly the most conspicuous mistranslation that has been repeated in several Rilke translations. Contrast here Flemming’s translation: “that for aeons have blown ancient rocks” to the translation above. It is clearly a misreading on behalf of Flemming’s (and other translators), which goes to show how the reader/translator has not understood Rilke in the least, and is, with his/her odd misinterpretation, grossly muddying the metaphorical waters. Rilke is with indisputable lucidity describing the wafting as blowing only “as if for” the primordial or ancient rocks. That is to say, the wafting does not blow for any of us, or for ideology, or for any metaphysical entity. The wafting blows indifferently and it is apathetic to whichever prayers or needs we might have. The “Ur-Gestein” serves as a temporal (or: anti-temporal) simile, as the wafting has blown “as if for” the rocks, whose hardened anatomy have been in existence for far longer than we have, and assumedly will be, long after we have gone to our collective tomb. They are not temporal in the sense that we are, and the repetition of “Ur” is an indicator that the wafting and the rocks have more in common with each other than we have with we either of them. Finally, “as if” does tell us, despite the similarities between these two ancient entities, that the wafting does not blow for those great grey heartless things either, but it blows only, (1) for itself, (2) for nothing at all, or (3) for something. In line with Rilke’s poem, however, we can safely assume that (2) is at the belly-center of the wafting.

Lines 10-11 are beautiful and almost oxymoronic, considering the pure and glassy space from whence the wafting will “rip” or “tear” in from afar. How any translator in their right mind can translate “reißend” to “coming” is on a level of dim-wittedness that is simply beyond me. The wafting is meant to “tear” in from afar, which is in line with Rilke’s meditation on the wafting’s indifferent savagery, certainly not to “come” in from afar.

L. 12-14
O how a budding fig tree
will feel you
up in the moonlight.

Here, I have talked to my partner, who is quite adamant that the poet from whose meditative lips we are given this meditation is—possibly—in direct contact with the fig tree, as if to ask of the fig tree’s experience of the cold ancient wafting; how it possibly overcomes the wafting during those long, abandoned moonlit nights. It is a wonderful metaphor, and if one wants to translate it literally, as I have, meaning the indirect communication with the fig tree, or if one wants to push the boundaries and have the poet talk directly to the tree, I think both will prove sufficiently fruitful and acceptable, though the latter is (and my partner agrees) more technically correct.

In conclusion, Song of the Sea is a beautiful little poem that clearly contrasts the temporal human condition with that of the natural world whose rough and indifferent elements we must struggle with—and always have. Like the soliloquies of Hamlet or the Dickinsonian meditations, Rilke’s poem is at its very heart a mirror held up to our own mortality. And while Rilke does not exactly offer an alternative to what Freud called, “making friends with the necessity of dying” (Thanatos–Eros), that is to say, the aim of one day returning to an inorganic, tension-free thing, rather like those great Ur-Gesteine/ancient rocks, Rilke instead offers a poetic medium in which, if we cannot make friends with death, then we can—at least—meditate on its preliminaries. Or, as my partner jokingly suggested, take a lesson from that solitary fig tree.

Like Dickinson’s From Blank to Blank—, Wallace Stevens’s The Snowman, or Shelley’s Ozymandias, among other short poems, Rilke is able to pack an incredible volume of intensity and cognitive originality within a few lines.
Reading Rilke in the original German has been a riveting experience so far, and I am eagerly awaiting the moment when my “Germanic capabilities”, as it was, will get me to a point when I can freely read his most profound poems, which are, truly, even in translation, to quote Harold Bloom: “The epitome of the aesthetic act.”