Ahead of All Parting

by Rainer Maria Rilke

  [The Prodigal Son]

  Cf. Luke 15:11–32.

  this page, Tortuga: Island off northwest Haiti. In the seventeenth century it was a base for the French and English pirates who ravaged the Caribbean.

  this page, Campeche: Port in southeastern Mexico, frequently raided by pirates during the seventeenth century.

  this page, Vera Cruz: City in east-central Mexico; the country’s chief port of entry. It was looted by pirates in 1653 and 1712.

  this page, Deodatus of Gozon: A fourteenth-century member of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (Knights of Malta). Because so many had lost their lives trying to kill the famous dragon of Rhodes, the Grand Master of the Order had forbidden all knights even to approach its cave. Deodatus went ahead and killed the dragon, but because of his disobedience he was stripped of his knighthood. Later he was pardoned, and in 1346 he himself became Grand Master.

  this page, Les Baux:

  Magnificent landscape in Provence, a land of shepherds, even today still imprinted with the remains of the castles built by the princes of Les Baux, a noble family of prodigious bravery, famous in the 14th and 15th centuries for the splendor and strength of its men and the beauty of its women. As far as the princes of Les Baux are concerned, one might well say that a petrified time outlasts this family. Its existence is, as it were, petrified in the harsh, silver-gray landscape into which the unheard-of castles have crumbled. This landscape, near Aries, is an unforgettable drama of Nature: a hill, ruins, and village, abandoned, entirely turned to rock again with all its houses and fragments of houses. Far around, pasture: hence the shepherd is evoked: here, at the theater of Orange, and on the Acropolis, moving with his herds, mild and timeless, like a cloud, across the still-excited places of a great dilapidation. Like most Provençal families, the princes of Les Baux were superstitious gentlemen. Their rise had been immense, their good fortune measureless, their wealth beyond compare. The daughters of this family walked about like goddesses and nymphs, the men were turbulent demigods. From their battles they brought back not only treasures and slaves, but the most unbelievable crowns; they called themselves, by the way, “Emperors of Jerusalem.” But in their coat-of-arms sat the worm of contradiction: to those who believe in the power of the number seven, “sixteen” appears the most dangerous counter-number, and the lords of Les Baux bore in their coat-of-arms the 16-rayed star (the star that led the three kings from the East and the shepherds to the manger in Bethlehem: for they believed that the family originated from the holy king Balthazar). The “good fortune” of this family was a struggle of the holy number “7” (they possessed cities, villages, and convents always in sevens) against the “16” rays of their coat-of-arms. And the seven succumbed.

  (To Witold Hulewicz, November 10, 1925)

  this page, Alyscamps: The ancient cemetery near Arles, with its uncovered sarcophagi.

  this page, “sa patience de supporter une âme”: “his patience in enduring a soul.”

  This comes, I think, from Saint Theresa (of Avila).

  (To Witold Hulewicz, November 10, 1925)

  UNCOLLECTED PROSE, 1902–1922

  The Lion Cage (First draft, Paris, probably November 5–6, 1902; edited and completed, Paris, summer 1907)

  A Meeting (Capri, between January 5 and 7, 1907)

  The Fishmonger’s Stall (First draft, Naples, shortly before January 16, 1907; edited, Paris, summer 1907; completed, Muzot, end of 1925)

  How much we have seen in Naples! A table with fish was itself enormous, so enormous that I would have to tell you about it more precisely: you above all. But it wants to be made, not told; and if someday I make it well enough, you shall read it.

  (To Paula Modersohn-Becker, February 5, 1907)

  Acrobats (Paris, July 14, 1907)

  An Experience (Ronda, approximately February 1, 1913)

  I am offering you a prose piece whose contents are so important to me, and which is so complete in its manifestation, that it is not easy for me to part with it. The small, precise sketch seems adequate for publication inasmuch as not often is a more indescribable experience presented, which here, to some extent, is apprehended and described,—if I am not totally mistaken.

  (To Katharina Kippenberg, July 19, 1918)

  Thank you for your kind and extremely sympathetic response to my piece. I had myself wondered, as I was revising “An Experience,” whether to erase the word Duino; so let it be left out: this way, the most intimate connection stays contained and concealed in the names Polyxène and Raimondine, and for the reader in general the prose piece, not being linked to a specific place, is more uncircumscribed and thus more valid. / If my desk drawers were full, I would perhaps not yet have parted from this sketch; it is, after all, in a certain sense, the most intimate that I have ever written down—, on the other hand, though, one cannot possibly have a large enough conception of the shelter in which the most deeply inner remains hidden, when it once has entered in its most absolute form.

  (To Katharina Kippenberg, August 10, 1918)

  this page, Polyxène or Raimondine: Two sisters of Marie von Thurn und Taxis’ mother; both of them died young.

  On the Young Poet (Probably late summer 1913)

  this page, Kleist: Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), German playwright, poet, and short story writer.

  this page, Stifter: Adalbert Stifter (1805–1868), Austrian novelist and short story writer.

  this page, Danaë: In Greek mythology, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. After her father was warned by an oracle that she would bear a son who would one day kill him, he imprisoned her in a dungeon of bronze. But Zeus descended and entered her in the form of a shower of gold, and she later gave birth to Perseus.

  this page, Petrarch: Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), Italian poet, scholar, and diplomat. After he and his brother succeeded in climbing to the top of Mt. Ventoux (he describes this incident in a famous letter of 1336), he opened Augustine’s Confessions at random:

  And my eyes (I call on my brother, and God too, as witnesses) happened to fall on this passage: “And men go about marveling at the high mountains, and the mighty sea, and the wide rivers, and the vast ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but they do not consider themselves.” I was ashamed, and asking my brother, who was anxious to hear more, not to disturb me, I closed the book, angry with myself that I was still admiring earthly things, while I might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul.

  Primal Sound (Soglio, August 15, 1919)

  Mitsou (Berg am Irchel, November 26, 1920)

  Subtitle, Balthus: The well-known painter Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski, 1908–). He was the son of Rilke’s lover, Baladine Klossowska. The drawings have been published in Mitsou: Forty Images by Balthus, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harry N. Abrams, 1984.

  The Young Workman’s Letter (Muzot, between February 12 and 15, 1922)

  this page, Monsieur V.: Emile Verhaeren (1855–1916), Flemish-French poet.

  this page, canticle to the sun: For a translation of the poem, see The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, ed. Stephen Mitchell, New York: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 43 f.

  PART 3

  Duino Elegies

  AND

  The Sonnets to Orpheus

  Duino Elegies

  (1923)

  The property of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe (1912/1922)

  DIE ERSTE ELEGIE

  Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel

  Ordnungen? und gesetzt selbst, es nähme

  einer mich plötzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem

  stärkeren Dasein. Denn das Schöne ist nichts

  als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,

  und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,

  uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

  Und so verhalt ich mich denn und verschlucke den Lockruf


  dunkelen Schluchzens. Ach, wen vermögen

  wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht, Menschen nicht,

  und die findigen Tiere merken es schon,

  daß wir nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind

  in der gedeuteten Welt. Es bleibt uns vielleicht

  irgend ein Baum an dem Abhang, daß wir ihn täglich

  wiedersähen; es bleibt uns die Straße von gestern

  und das verzogene Treusein einer Gewohnheit,

  der es bei uns gefiel, und so blieb sie und ging nicht.

  O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum

  uns am Angesicht zehrt—, wem bliebe sie nicht, die ersehnte,

  sanft enttäuschende, welche dem einzelnen Herzen

  mühsam bevorsteht. Ist sie den Liebenden leichter?

  Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los.

  Weißt du’s noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere

  zu den Räumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht daß die Vögel

  die erweiterte Luft fühlen mit innigerm Flug.

  Ja, die Frühlinge brauchten dich wohl. Es muteten manche

  Sterne dir zu, daß du sie spürtest. Es hob

  sich eine Woge heran im Vergangenen, oder

  da du vorüberkamst am geöffneten Fenster,

  gab eine Geige sich hin. Das alles war Auftrag.

  THE FIRST ELEGY

  Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’

  hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me

  suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed

  in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing

  but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,

  and we are so awed because it serenely disdains

  to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.

  And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note

  of my dark sobbing. Ah, whom can we ever turn to

  in our need? Not angels, not humans,

  and already the knowing animals are aware

  that we are not really at home in

  our interpreted world. Perhaps there remains for us

  some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take

  into our vision; there remains for us yesterday’s street

  and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease

  when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.

  Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space

  gnaws at our faces. Whom would it not remain for—that longed-after,

  mildly disillusioning presence, which the solitary heart

  so painfully meets. Is it any less difficult for lovers?

  But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.

  Don’t you know yet? Fling the emptiness out of your arms

  into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds

  will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

  Yes—the springtimes needed you. Often a star

  was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you

  out of the distant past, or as you walked

  under an open window, a violin

  yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission.

  Aber bewältigtest du’s? Warst du nicht immer

  noch von Erwartung zerstreut, als kündigte alles

  eine Geliebte dir an? (Wo willst du sie bergen,

  da doch die großen fremden Gedanken bei dir

  aus und ein gehn und öfters bleiben bei Nacht.)

  Sehnt es dich aber, so singe die Liebenden; lange

  noch nicht unsterblich genug ist ihr berühmtes Gefühl.

  Jene, du neidest sie fast, Verlassenen, die du

  so viel liebender fandst als die Gestillten. Beginn

  immer von neuem die nie zu erreichende Preisung;

  denk: es erhält sich der Held, selbst der Untergang war ihm

  nur ein Vorwand, zu sein: seine letzte Geburt.

  Aber die Liebenden nimmt die erschöpfte Natur

  in sich zurück, als wären nicht zweimal die Kräfte,

  dieses zu leisten. Hast du der Gaspara Stampa

  denn genügend gedacht, daß irgend ein Mädchen,

  dem der Geliebte entging, am gesteigerten Beispiel

  dieser Liebenden fühlt: daß ich würde wie sie?

  Sollen nicht endlich uns diese ältesten Schmerzen

  fruchtbarer werden? Ist es nicht Zeit, daß wir liebend

  uns vom Geliebten befrein und es bebend bestehn:

  wie der Pfeil die Sehne besteht, um gesammelt im Absprung

  mehr zu sein als er selbst. Denn Bleiben ist nirgends.

  Stimmen, Stimmen. Höre, mein Herz, wie sonst nur

  Heilige hörten: daß sie der riesige Ruf

  aufhob vom Boden; sie aber knieten,

  Unmögliche, weiter und achtetens nicht:

  So waren sie hörend. Nicht, daß du Gottes ertrügest

  die Stimme, bei weitem. Aber das Wehende höre,

  die ununterbrochene Nachricht, die aus Stille sich bildet.

  Es rauscht jetzt von jenen jungen Toten zu dir.

  Wo immer du eintratst, redete nicht in Kirchen

  zu Rom und Neapel ruhig ihr Schicksal dich an?

  But could you accomplish it? Weren’t you always

  distracted by expectation, as if every event

  announced a beloved? (Where can you find a place

  to keep her, with all the huge strange thoughts inside you

  going and coming and often staying all night.)

  But when you feel longing, sing of women in love;

  for their famous passion is still not immortal. Sing

  of women abandoned and desolate (you envy them, almost)

  who could love so much more purely than those who were gratified.

  Begin again and again the never-attainable praising;

  remember: the hero lives on; even his downfall was

  merely a pretext for achieving his final birth.

  But Nature, spent and exhausted, takes lovers back

  into herself, as if there were not enough strength

  to create them a second time. Have you imagined

  Gaspara Stampa intensely enough so that any girl

  deserted by her beloved might be inspired

  by that fierce example of soaring, objectless love

  and might say to herself, “Perhaps I can be like her”?

  Shouldn’t this most ancient of sufferings finally grow

  more fruitful for us? Isn’t it time that we lovingly

  freed ourselves from the beloved and, quivering, endured:

  as the arrow endures the bowstring’s tension, so that

  gathered in the snap of release it can be more than

  itself. For there is no place where we can remain.

  Voices. Voices. Listen, my heart, as only

  saints have listened: until the gigantic call lifted them

  off the ground; yet they kept on, impossibly,

  kneeling and didn’t notice at all:

  so complete was their listening. Not that you could endure

  God’s voice—far from it. But listen to the voice of the wind

  and the ceaseless message that forms itself out of silence.

  It is murmuring toward you now from those who died young.

  Didn’t their fate, whenever you stepped into a church

  in Naples or Rome, quietly come to address you?

  Oder es trug eine Inschrift sich erhaben dir auf,

  wie neulich die Tafel in Santa Maria Formosa.

  Was sie mir wollen? leise soll ich des Unrechts

  Anschein abtun, der ihrer Geister

  reine Bewegung manchmal ein wenig behindert.

  Freilich ist es seltsam, die Erde nicht mehr zu bewohnen,

  kaum erlernte Gebräuche nicht mehr zu üben,

  Rosen, und andern eigens versprechenden Dingen

  nicht die B
edeutung menschlicher Zukunft zu geben;

  das, was man war in unendlich ängstlichen Händen,

  nicht mehr zu sein, und selbst den eigenen Namen

  wegzulassen wie ein zerbrochenes Spielzeug.

  Seltsam, die Wünsche nicht weiter zu wünschen. Seltsam,

  alles, was sich bezog, so lose im Raume

  flattern zu sehen. Und das Totsein ist mühsam

  und voller Nachholn, daß man allmählich ein wenig

  Ewigkeit spürt.—Aber Lebendige machen

  alle den Fehler, daß sie zu stark unterscheiden.

  Engel (sagt man) wüßten oft nicht, ob sie unter

  Lebenden gehn oder Toten. Die ewige Strömung

  reißt durch beide Bereiche alle Alter

  immer mit sich und übertönt sie in beiden.

  Schließlich brauchen sie uns nicht mehr, die Früheentrückten,

  man entwöhnt sich des Irdischen sanft, wie man den Brüsten

  milde der Mutter entwächst. Aber wir, die so große

  Geheimnisse brauchen, denen aus Trauer so oft

  seliger Fortschritt entspringt—: könnten wir sein ohne sie?

  Ist die Sage umsonst, daß einst in der Klage um Linos

  Or high up, some eulogy entrusted you with a mission,

  as, last year, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa.

  What they want of me is that I gently remove the appearance

  of injustice about their death—which at times

  slightly hinders their souls from proceeding onward.

  Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,

  to give up customs one barely had time to learn,

  not to see roses and other promising Things

  in terms of a human future; no longer to be

  what one was in infinitely anxious hands; to leave

  even one’s own first name behind, forgetting it

  as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.