from Sonnets to Orpheus
O dieses ist das Tier, das es nicht giebt.
O this is the animal that does not exist.
Sie wußtens nicht und habens jeden Falls
But they didn't know that, and, in any case,
-- sein Wandeln, seine Haltung, seinen Hals,
they loved it -- loved its gait, its stance,
bis in des stillen Blickes Licht -- geliebt.
its neck, loved the light in its quiet gaze.
Zwar war es nicht. Doch weil sie's liebten, ward
It never was. But since they loved it,
ein reines Tier. Sie ließen immer Raum.
a pure animal became. They always left space.
Und in dem Raume, klar und ausgespart,
And in that space, unoccupied and bright,
erhob es leicht sein Haupt und brauchte kaum
it calmly raised its head and scarcely needed
zu sein. Sie nährten es mit keinem Korn,
to be. They fed it not with grain, --
nur immer mit der Möglichkeit, es sei.
only with the promise of its being.
Und die gab solche Stärke an das Tier,
And this gave the animal such power,
daß es aus sich ein Stirnhorn trieb. Ein Horn.
that a horn sprouted from its brow. One horn.
Zu einer Jungfrau kam es weiß herbei --
White, it strode up to a virgin -- and was,
und war im Silber-Spiegel und in ihr.
in the mirror's silver and in her.
--Rainer Maria Rilke (translation by Edward Snow)
The Sonnets to Orpheus were written partly in response to the death of a 19-year-old young woman, a friend of his daughter's. Their central theme is the imagination's ability to bring things into being -- the power of art to create and transcend. In this case, it's an animal that never was: the unicorn. Unicorns have become so associated with kitsch, the bedroom decor of pre-teen girls, that they've lost much of their magic, and it takes a wizard-poet like Rilke to bring it back. Edward Snow's letter-perfect translation, though it loses the rhymes that knit together the original poem, has its own magic.
