This was the first Rilke poem I ever came across, and I was intrigued by its rich sound effects – the pattern in phrases like ‘leis aus seinen Augen ausgelöst’ is somewhat remininscent of Welsh cynghanedd – while at the same time wondering if a native German reader might find them a little over the top. Written in 1907, in its preoccupation with death it can be seen as a forerunner to his longer poem ‘Orpheus und Eurydice’, and his ‘Die Sonette an Orpheus’.
It may seem that in an age that has largely lost its confidence in an afterlife, Rilke’s poem savours of wishful thinking, but of course, if you are going to disallow wishful thinking in art you are going to say goodbye to a great deal of human culture.
The translation that follows is my own.
Der Tod der Geliebten
Er wusste nur vom Tod was alle wissen:
dass er uns nimmt und in das Stumme stößt.
Als aber sie, nicht von ihm fortgerissen,
nein, leis aus seinen Augen ausgelöst,
hinüberglitt zu unbekannten Schatten,
und als er fühlte, dass sie drüben nun
wie einen Mond ihr Mädchenlächeln hatten
und ihre Weise wohlzutun:
da wurden ihm die Toten so bekannt,
als wäre er durch sie mit einem jeden
ganz nah verwandt; er ließ die andern reden
und glaubte nicht und nannte jenes Land
das gutgelegene, das immersüße –
Und tastete es ab für ihre Füße.
The Death of the Beloved
He only knew of death what all men know:
It bears us to a silent world below,
And yet when she, not torn away from him,
But softly taken, like a light grown dim,
Across to unknown shadows made her glide,
And when he knew that they on that far side
Now like a full moon had her maiden’s smile,
Her gentle ways, her goodness without guile,
It seemed then that he knew them all, the dead,
As if, through her, he had become related.
The others talked and did not understand,
But he, the unbelieving, named that land
The well placed one, the one forever sweet,
And felt it out in spirit for her feet.
David Sutton 