Original by Ranier Maria Rilke - Translated by Lore Confino
THE THIRD ELEGY
One thing to sing the beloved: quite another, alas,
to sing of that hidden, guilty river-god of our blood!
The one she claims for herself from afar, her young man,
what can he know of that Lord of Desire, who bursts forth
from his solitude, often forestalling, often ignoring
the girl's existence, and raises his godhead
from fathomless depths, arousing night to unending turmoil!
O the god of our blood, his fearful trident!
O the dark-blowing wind from his breast of spiralling seashell!
Hark, how the night moulds itself, hollows and tunnels.
O stars, is it not you that awaken desire in the lover,
to look upon the face of his beloved?
Does not his intimate knowledge of her pure, bright
features come to him out of the pure, shining stars?
Not you, alas, not you, his mother,
made his eyebrows arch to eager expectancy.
Not you, maiden, t'was not your close presence,
caused his lips curve to such fervent expression.
Can you really believe your light step
shook him so deeply: you, who pass by as softly
as a gentle breeze? True, you touched fear
in his heart, but older terror possessed him with that touch.
Call him... you cannot recall him wholly, hold him back
from those dark encounters. Of course, he wants to;
he breaks free. Relieved, he settles in your inmost heart,
takes up his self... his own beginning.
Did he really begin himself, ever?
Mother: you made him small; it was you who began him.
He was new, even to you. You bent over him, brought to his eyes
a friendly world, and warded off the strange one.
Alas, gone are the years, when your slender body, alone,
stood between him and mounting chaos. Much could you hide
from him; you made harmless the suspect room at night,
From the refuge of your sheltering heart, you added
a human space to his night-space. You set the lamp
not in the dark, but close to your presence, to let it shine
in friendship. Every strange sound you could smilingly
explain, seeming to know just when a board would creak.
And he listened to you and was comforted. With tender care,
you guarded him, could do so much: his Fate, tall and cloaked,
withdrew behind the wardrobe, and his restless Future
stayed contained, awhile, in the folds of curtains.
And he, himself, relieved as he drifted under drowsy
eyelids into first sweet slumber, beholding you still,
seemed safe.. .but in his innermost being,
who could protect him, hold back the floods of his origin?
Ah, there was no caution in the sleeper; sleeping,
but dreaming, in feverish fantasy, he succumbed!
He, the new one, the timid one, how enmeshed he was,
the creeping tendrils of his inner happenings already
knit in patterns, in throttling growth,
in beast-like, hunting images. How he surrendered. Loved.
Loved his inner life, the inner savage, this primeval
forest within, above whose silent collapse
his heart stood fresh and green. Loved. Loved it,
went beyond his own roots in mighty thrust for new being,
where his own little birth was already overcame.
Loving, he descended into ancestral blood, into caverns,
where horror lurked, forefather sated. And every terrible
thing knew him, winked, all-knowing.
Yes, the Unspeakable smiled ...Seldom did you smile
so tenderly, you, his Mother. How could he not love it,
smiling so sweetly at him? He loved it before you,
for it was loosed from the beginning, in the waters
that carried his tiny form.
See: we do not love as flowers love, out of the seasons
in a single year. When we love, the sap of ages rises
in our arms. O Maiden, know this: that we love
in ourselves not One, the One yet to , but All,
countless in ferment. Not one single child, but the fathers
that rest in us like mountain ruins. Not one child,
but the dry river-bed of erstwhile mothers –
the whole soundless landscape, beneath clouded
or clear destiny. Maiden: all this came before you.
And you, yourself, are you aware...you tempted forth
past ages in the loved one. Who knows, what feelings
were dredged up from disembodied beings?
Women who hated you! Sinister men you roused
in the young man's veins! Dead children reached out to you...
O softly now, softly, show him a loving act, a dependable
day's work...lead him close to the garden...
outweigh his nights....
contain him...