Still throwing stuff away

[mamculuna]

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.

Comments

New Poems I think

[(Anonymous)]

That is a gorgeous passage.

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. :)

Re: New Poems I think

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Me. Of course.

Re: New Poems I think

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

they also create in me a desire to interact more directly to see how I would translate those lines.

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.

Re: New Poems I think

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

And thank you for that! I've always loved the "Apollo" poem, and like that translation very much, and also some of the links from that page.

And I know who you are, without reading the next post that just arrived! Yes, the Faun. Yes.