A Year with Rilke: Orpheus, Do You Hear?

November 17, 2011

Orpheus, Do You Hear?

Orpheus, by Auguste Rodin

Orpheus, do you hear
the new sound
droning and roaring?
Many now exult in it.

Though the Machine
insists on our praise,
who can listen
with all this noise?

See, it rolls over everything,
weakening us
and taking our place.

Since its strength is of our making,
why can't it serve
and not possess us?

Sonnets to Orpheus I, 18

3 comments:

stevenThu Nov 17, 01:24:00 PM GMT+1
and there are so very many machines - not entirely of the physical world either - that clank and grunt containing all who are willing to be contained and processed. steven
ReplyDelete
Replies
GeorgeThu Nov 17, 02:25:00 PM GMT+1
A bold commentary on our contemporary society, where "the Machine" creates so much noise and demands so much praise that we can hardly listen to our lives. Yes, we have made it to serve us, but it now possesses us.
ReplyDelete
Replies
dsFri Nov 18, 01:35:00 AM GMT+1
So prescient he was! How have we allowed it to possess us so completely?
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!

About the Blog

We, Lorenzo and Ruth, are blog friends who, upon discovering our shared admiration for Rainer Maria Rilke's writings in a new volume of daily readings, decided to launch this blog.

Lorenzo (in Spain) has a home blog called The Alchemist's Pillow. Ruth (in the U.S.) has a home blog called synch-ro-ni-zing. Both of us also write poems and receive inspiration from Mary Oliver, Rumi, and many other poets.

We hope you will be inspired by this site, and we'd love to hear your responses in comments.

The Challenge of Translation

How can a poem written by Rilke, or anyone, be translated into another language, when a poem by its nature is a snapshot of a feeling, idea or story that also sings in lyricism, cadence, rhyme (sometimes) and other nuances that contribute to the poem intrinsically?

C. John Holcombe has thoroughly and generously explored the "problems" of translation in an article linked here, in which he explores the poem Herbsttag by Rilke. You can read fourteen versions of the first stanza by different translators, as well as a revelation of the issues of translation: word choice when there is no perfect equivalent; diction; word order (maintain the original or rearrange for effect?); rhyme; balance; and looking at the context of the poet's previous work.