Rilke's French Rose Poems In Translation: XII

John William Waterhouse, Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 1909.



It is once again ages since I posted any translations of Rilke's Roses poems from the French, but I do mean to get back to them now. I have every intention of translating the whole cycle (please remind me that I said this.)

That said, I found XII particularly challenging. I really messed around with the line breaks and the number of lines - the latter, at least, is something I try not to do much. But this was the only way I could get it to work, somehow. This poem seems to contrast with many of the other poems in the cycle - it has a rather harsh and blunt tone, and sprawls down the page awkwardly (though probably deliberately). So I hope I haven't wreaked too much havoc.

As usual, I have included the French original after the English translation. And I'm very open to comments and suggestions. Part of the master plan is to revise these all at some point.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XII

Rose, who are you fighting
with those thorns?
Did your fragile joy force
this change to a hostile thing?

Against whom does this weapon guard you?
How many enemies have I warned away
who feared it not at all?
Instead, through summer and autumn days,
you harm the hand that helps you.



LES ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke)


XII

Contre qui, rose,
avez-vous adopté
ces épines?
Votre joie trop fine
vous a-t-elle forcée
de devenir cette chose
armée?

Mais de qui vous protège
cette arme exagérée?
Combien d'ennemis vous ai-je
enlevés
qui ne la craignaient point.
Au contraire, d'été en automne,
vous blessez les soins
qu'on vous donne.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014.

Rilke's Rose Poems In Translation, VIII

J W Waterhouse, The Soul of the Rose, 1908.



This painting by Waterhouse, The Soul of the Rose, is itself apparently inspired by a line in a poem, 'Come Into the Garden, Maud' by Tennyson - "And the soul of the rose went into my blood". You can read the whole poem here.

Here's the latest of my translation of Rilke's French Roses poems. I'm really not sure about this one (although I couldn't see to improve it) and am wondering if I should just go to sleep and give up translation, at least for tonight.



THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from French by Clarissa Aykroyd)


VIII

From within a crowded dream
where you were one of many flowers,
soaked as though by tears
you reach towards the dawn.

With uncertain desire
your gentle, sleeping powers
develop tender forms
resembling cheeks, or breasts.


LES ROSES


VIII

De ton rêve trop plein,
fleur en dedans nombreuse,
mouillée comme une pleureuse,
tu te penches sur le matin.

Tes douces forces qui dorment,
dans un désir incertain,
développent ces tendres formes
entre joues et seins.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2013.  

Pre-Raphaelites and Poetry at Tate Britain

This painting is Love Among the Ruins by my favourite Pre-Raphaelite painter, Edward Burne-Jones. It is based on the poem of the same title by Robert Browning, which can be found on the link below. The painting and the poem both set up a striking contrast between the monumental achievements of the powerful, now crumbling, and the inexorable strength of love and the "plenty and perfection" of natural life:


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS (Robert Browning)


I went this afternoon with a friend to the current exhibition at London's Tate Britain, Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, which included this painting among others. I've been to a few different Pre-Raphaelite exhibitions in the past ten years, and as much as I enjoyed this one, I think that my favourite is still the exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2003, which was based on Andrew Lloyd-Webber's personal collection...it was absolutely amazing. (I was living in Dublin at the time and was just visiting London, but it was more than worth flying over for.) I also especially liked the Waterhouse exhibition a few years ago, also at the Royal Academy.

The current exhibition grouped the works of art more or less by theme: Nature, History, Religion, Beauty, Mythology. My Pre-Raphaelite preference is very much for Mythology, so I wouldn't have minded seeing some more of those, especially as Burne-Jones is pre-eminent in such themes. It was especially exciting to see those that were new to me, though. I developed a love of Pre-Raphaelite art in large part because of Burne-Jones's affinity for Arthurian themes. This exhibition included two of Burne-Jones's tapestries on the Grail Quest - rather wonderfully, they were on loan from Jimmy Page's personal collection. Burne-Jones, Arthuriana and Led Zeppelin - it doesn't get much better.

Others have described the details and the unofficial membership of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood far better than I could, but I can say why I personally love the art. It is both romantic and formal, neither of which I would entirely want to do without. The women portrayed, while obviously highly idealised, are also powerful, sensual and intelligent. I can't help thinking that ideals of female beauty have gone backwards. These women are not childlike or androgynous, for example.

The movement was also very highly...integrated, if that is the right word. The Pre-Raphaelites were not only painters, or only visual artists; they had a whole design ethic, and some of the decorative material, furniture, etc associated with the movement appeared as well. There was a beautiful clavichord with an incredibly lovely painting by Burne-Jones inside.

From my current perspective, one of the most interesting points was the fact that poetry was so highly integrated into Pre-Raphaelite art. It genuinely seemed as though half the paintings had some poetic inspiration: Dante, Tennyson, poems by their own contemporaries and so forth. There was an early edition of Tennyson's Poems on display, open to the first lines of 'The Lady of Shalott', and an early edition of Christina Rossetti's poems as well. This was a time when poetic achievement was innate in the art of a nation.

I also discovered that I don't much like William Holman Hunt. Burne-Jones's remote and beautiful myths, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti's remarkable women, carried the exhibition for me, and that was much as it should be.

Adrienne Rich's 'I Dream I'm the Death of Orpheus': "A Woman With a Certain Mission"

Adrienne Rich, one of the outstanding American poets of the twentieth century and a feminist icon, recently died in California at the age of 82. Many bloggers posted tributes and many articles appeared, but I decided to hold off until I found a poem that I wanted to write a little bit about. I admire what I have read of Rich's work, but that has not been a great deal, so far. 'Diving Into the Wreck', about myth and psychological exploration and identity, is an amazing poem.

I came across this poem, 'I Dream I'm the Death of Orpheus', while looking through articles on Rich and collections of poems, and it really made an impact on me. The Poetry Archive also has a recording of her reading the poem.


I DREAM I'M THE DEATH OF ORPHEUS (Adrienne Rich)


To give the mythological context (which I wasn't very familiar with, so apologies to those who are), Orpheus (of Orpheus and Euridyce fame) died at the hands of the Maenads, frenzied female worshipers of Dionysus. The stories seem to vary, saying that he angered the Maenads by turning from the exclusive worship of Dionysus, or that he had forsaken the love of women after the death of Eurydice. In any case, the story has obvious totemic power in turning the tables on traditional male oppression of women. The above painting is by Pre-Raphaelite painter John Waterhouse, of the discovery of Orpheus's head by nymphs after his death. Ursula Le Guin has also written an interesting poem, 'The Maenads'.

In 'I Dream I'm the Death of Orpheus', Rich invokes both mythology and modernity; her Maenad figure is driving the poet's body in a black Rolls-Royce, and she has "contacts among Hell's Angels". The language suggests that this woman is caught in a spiral of both power and uncertainty; she certainly feels her own strength, "in the prime of life", but she repeats such phrases as though to reassure herself. The figure of the male poet seems like something she has killed within herself, in "these underground streets", to set herself free, but will she resurrect him "to walk backward against the wind/on the wrong side of the mirror"? What will destroy her and what will liberate her? This questions all arise through an edgy, paranoid night-time vision, the Maenads of ancient Greece meeting something like the Chicago Mob.

Adrienne Rich was a great poet and will be much missed.