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On to the books. And it pays off! I found my long-lost copy of Rilke's Duino Elegies/Duineser Elegien--the translation by Elaine Boney. It's the first one I read, and it may not really be the best, but it's the one I've come to think of as the real English version.
A favorite passage:
Siehe, wir lieben nicht, wie die Blumen, aus eninem
einzigen Jahr; uns steigt, wo wir lieben,
unvordenklicher Saft in die Arme.
Here's Boney's version:
See, we do not love as the flowers do from a single year's
unfolding; when we love sap from time immemorial
rises in our arms.
And here's the same from a translation by MacIntyre:
Remember, we don't love like the flowers from a single
year only; when we love, arises in our arms
the sap from immemorial ages.
Literal is nice, but I think you have to honor the normal word order of the language you're translating into.
ETA: Comments below persuaded me to buy the Mitchell version, cheap at Amazon. Can't have too much Rilke! Here's Mitchell's version of this passage:
No, we don't accomplish our love in a single year
as the flowers do; an immemorial sap
flows up through our arms when we love.
A favorite passage:
Siehe, wir lieben nicht, wie die Blumen, aus eninem
einzigen Jahr; uns steigt, wo wir lieben,
unvordenklicher Saft in die Arme.
Here's Boney's version:
See, we do not love as the flowers do from a single year's
unfolding; when we love sap from time immemorial
rises in our arms.
And here's the same from a translation by MacIntyre:
Remember, we don't love like the flowers from a single
year only; when we love, arises in our arms
the sap from immemorial ages.
Literal is nice, but I think you have to honor the normal word order of the language you're translating into.
ETA: Comments below persuaded me to buy the Mitchell version, cheap at Amazon. Can't have too much Rilke! Here's Mitchell's version of this passage:
No, we don't accomplish our love in a single year
as the flowers do; an immemorial sap
flows up through our arms when we love.
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From:
no subject
No, we don't accomplish our love in a single year
as the flowers do; an immemorial sap
flows up through our arms when we love.
Part of the beauty of Rilke, I think, is that his lyrics are pliant.
From:
no subject
I downloaded a couple of translations of the first and second. Mitchell is one. I may have to bide a little for mine, I had a stack of things come in one interlibrary loan, and I am trying to read Jane Jacobs also.
I also think that for some reason the translations do odd things to my head. Excellent for reading before drawing or other things. Not *cough* quite so neat at work. http://picture-poems.com/rilke/rilkelinks.html is where I started last year and with Sonnets to Orpheus Crego and and Howard Landman.
In addition to German, reading even a little Rilke just made me want to take a year of and go immersion. Pamela Dean's Tamlin and Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary but especially the former is having the same effect.
From:
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Most of what I know of the language comes from either cooking with my German in-laws or from reading Rilke in interlinear translation! My son is very fluent and went to school there twice, but I never studied the language formally--but love what I know of it.
Here's a Hunter version of that passage I found via your link:
Observe: a season does not contain
our whole lifetime, as with a lilac.
When we love, a slower sap,
thicker than centuries,
courses through our embrace.
He makes it a little too much his own, I think--I want the translation to give me the German in English, and just that.
Although Ezra Pound took some extreme liberties with Chinese translations and created poems I love.
From: (Anonymous)
New Poems I think
http://picture-poems.com/rilke/features/alderspring.html The Gazelle and most especially the bit at the end. I think that is what I feel and comes from me to go into pieces like the Faun and the Wolfboy. Or what I was trying for. This was before I found the poem. Sometimes these things happen, especially online.
I think that although the translations are so beautiful, and the one you quoted here I really like, they also create in me a desire to interact more directly to see how I would translate those lines. Also, an admiration for artists that can reach so far. The most amazing example of that for me is still that figure on stela I saw last March.
Thank you for posting this. :)
From:
Re: New Poems I think
From:
Re: New Poems I think
Yes, exactly. I think I really like to read a lot of different translations to see how the original still soars above them. The rhythm of the last line of this passage for example--just can't quite get there in English, but so perfect in German.
From:
Re: New Poems I think
And I know who you are, without reading the next post that just arrived! Yes, the Faun. Yes.
From:
no subject
Indeed, Rilke is why I took a year of German in University. Sadly, it takes more than one course to reach the level of proficiency to translate nuances and moods. I've often toyed with the idea of going the Goethe Institute intensive immersion courses route, as we have a branch here in Montréal.
BTW, Rilke translates very ill into French. At least, I think so. Thank God I happened upon him in English translation first! I shudder to think all I'd have missed out on...
From:
no subject
From:
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From:
honor the normal word order
From:
Re: honor the normal word order
From:
no subject
I really should read a whole lot more German poetry. I know I've read a whole lot more poetry in Spanish in my four years of study than in my entire life of speaking German. Maybe Rilke is a good place to start.
From:
no subject
And some of his prose is worthwhile too.