Rainer Maria Rilke. Duino Elegies (Translated by C. F. MacIntyre, 1961) Rilke worked on the Elegies for decades. In German, it’s his skill in using German syntax to compress meaning, to generate subtly variable rhythms, rhyme, and echo. MacIntyre has attempted to give us an English version of Rilke’s syntax and sound play, and for the most part succeeds.
The book prints German and English on facing pages, so comparison is easy. Rilke ruminates; his declamations pretend to public speech. Hence the label, Elegies.
A random sample (from the Sixth Elegy):
Wunderlich nah ist der Held doch den jugendlich Toten. Dauern
ficht ihn nicht an. Sein Aufgang ist Dasein; beständig
nimmt er sich fort und tritt ins veränderte Sternbild
seiner steten Gefahr.
MacIntyre’s translation:
Strangely near is the hero to those who died young.
Permanence does not tempt him. His rise is Being.
Steadfastly he goes onward and enters the changed constellation
of his perpetual danger.
My translation:
Curiously close is the hero to the youthfully dead. Persistence
does not affect him. His rise pure existence; forever
he takes himself off and steps into the altered star sign
of his perpetual peril.
Rilke is difficult, inexhaustible. He repays repeated reading. I’m glad to have MacIntyre’s translation, not least for his giving us a sense of Rilke’s sound. Its play against my own understandings increases both insight and pleasure. The introduction is a good overview of the poems with some glimpses of Rilke's life. Recommended. ***
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