Hallo,
Here is another poem (aus dem Nachlaß) that I would greatly appreciate anyone's help in translating to English.
Es winkt zu Fühlung fast aus allen Dingen,
aus jeder Wendung weht es her: Gedenk!
Ein Tag, an dem wir fremd vorübergingen,
entschließt im künftigen sich zum Geschenk.
Wer rechnet unseren Ertrag? Wer trennt
uns von den alten, den vergangnen Jahren?
Was haben wir seit Angebinn erfahren,
als dass sich eins im anderen erkennt?
Als dass an uns Gleichgültiges erwarmt?
O Haus, o Wiesenhang, o Abendlicht,
auf einmal bringst du’s beinah zum Gesicht
und stehst an uns, umarmend und umarmt.
Durch alle Wesen reicht der eine Raum:
Weltinnenraum. Die Vögel fliegen still
durch uns hindurch. O, der ich wachsen will,
ich seh hinaus, und in mir wächst der Baum.
Ich sorge mich, und in mir steht das Haus.
Ich hüte mich, und in mir ist die Hut.
Geliebter, der ich wurde: an mir ruht
der schönen Schöpfung Bild und weint sich aus.
Vielen Dank im Voraus,
Linda
Es winkt zu Fühlung fast aus allen Dingen
Es winkt
Hi Linda,
very difficult, but I'll try:
Sense almost seems to beckon from all matters,
from every formulation: Think! it wafts.
A day we're only passing by as strangers,
determines to be gift in days to come.
Who'll ever reckon our yield? Who'll cut
us off the old, long passed-by years?
What else we learned since ever time begun
than this: Each other do we recognize?
And this: The unconcerned warms up through us.
O house, o meadow-slope, o ev'ning light,
all of a sudden almost you reveal,
stand close to us, embracing and embraced.
That only space, it penetrates all beings:
World's inner space. Silently birds are flying
right through ourselves. And I, wanting to grow,
I look outside, inside me grows my tree.
I'm worried, but inside me stands the house.
I do beware, inside me there is care.
Beloved one I became, and in myself
Creation's image cries to heart's content.
Again, I humbly tried to transfer Rilke's diction, rhythm and accentuation into my limited English. Please don't feel uncomfortable with grammar and word order at times!
very difficult, but I'll try:
Sense almost seems to beckon from all matters,
from every formulation: Think! it wafts.
A day we're only passing by as strangers,
determines to be gift in days to come.
Who'll ever reckon our yield? Who'll cut
us off the old, long passed-by years?
What else we learned since ever time begun
than this: Each other do we recognize?
And this: The unconcerned warms up through us.
O house, o meadow-slope, o ev'ning light,
all of a sudden almost you reveal,
stand close to us, embracing and embraced.
That only space, it penetrates all beings:
World's inner space. Silently birds are flying
right through ourselves. And I, wanting to grow,
I look outside, inside me grows my tree.
I'm worried, but inside me stands the house.
I do beware, inside me there is care.
Beloved one I became, and in myself
Creation's image cries to heart's content.
Again, I humbly tried to transfer Rilke's diction, rhythm and accentuation into my limited English. Please don't feel uncomfortable with grammar and word order at times!
Zuletzt geändert von Volker am 14. Mai 2003, 07:51, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
Ich hab' auch Verstand.©
gez. Volker™
gez. Volker™
Hi Volker,
Wow! I really appreciate this. It's late, and I want to read it again, so I'll wait until tomorrow for any comments, but please don't worry about rhythm or accentuation too much. It's difficult enough just trying to find the right words, without worrying about all of the other things. Although rhythm or rhyme are nice, and a large part of poetry of course, I am more concerned with just understanding Rilke's words and what he was trying to say. Oh course, if you really don't mind or you enjoy working on those things, then of course that would be wonderful, but I certainly don't expect it!
Vielen Dank und liebe Grüße,
Linda
Wow! I really appreciate this. It's late, and I want to read it again, so I'll wait until tomorrow for any comments, but please don't worry about rhythm or accentuation too much. It's difficult enough just trying to find the right words, without worrying about all of the other things. Although rhythm or rhyme are nice, and a large part of poetry of course, I am more concerned with just understanding Rilke's words and what he was trying to say. Oh course, if you really don't mind or you enjoy working on those things, then of course that would be wonderful, but I certainly don't expect it!
Vielen Dank und liebe Grüße,
Linda
Hallo Volker,
dieses Gedicht zu übersetzen, ist wirklich eine Leistung! Es ist immer einfacher, eine Grundlage zu haben, um dann einige Begriffe raus zu picken und Alternativen zu finden. Ich hoffe, das kommt bei dir richtig an! (Und nicht so:
) Es ist nämlich viel effizienter, wenn jeder das beisteuert, was ihm liegt, dann wird es erst richtig interessant. Ich schwelge lieber in Deutungen und Seelenbildern und lasse die Intuition einfließen (das meinte ich mit "flowers") Wenn ich versucht hätte dieses Gedicht ganz zu übersetzen, wäre es wahrscheinlich peinlich geworden 
!
Ich bin mal gespannt, was Linda dazu sagen wird!
Viele Grüße M.
dieses Gedicht zu übersetzen, ist wirklich eine Leistung! Es ist immer einfacher, eine Grundlage zu haben, um dann einige Begriffe raus zu picken und Alternativen zu finden. Ich hoffe, das kommt bei dir richtig an! (Und nicht so:
) Es ist nämlich viel effizienter, wenn jeder das beisteuert, was ihm liegt, dann wird es erst richtig interessant. Ich schwelge lieber in Deutungen und Seelenbildern und lasse die Intuition einfließen (das meinte ich mit "flowers") Wenn ich versucht hätte dieses Gedicht ganz zu übersetzen, wäre es wahrscheinlich peinlich geworden !Ich bin mal gespannt, was Linda dazu sagen wird!
Viele Grüße M.
Hi Volker und Marie,
Sorry for my delayed response, but I had several unplanned appointments today and have a meeting tonight, so it may be tomorrow before I have a chance to finish looking over these latest two translations and to fully savor them! Meanwhile I didn’t want you to think you hadn’t heard back from be because I didn’t like the translations or anything like that. Quite the contrary!
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
Sorry for my delayed response, but I had several unplanned appointments today and have a meeting tonight, so it may be tomorrow before I have a chance to finish looking over these latest two translations and to fully savor them! Meanwhile I didn’t want you to think you hadn’t heard back from be because I didn’t like the translations or anything like that. Quite the contrary!
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
It's me again. One quick question -- Is there any difference in posting a reply using the Sticky option other than the fact that it apparently is placed at the top of the list?
One other question for you, Marie. You asked about the last sentence in "Dinner for One." What is the title in German and do you know which book it is from?
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
One other question for you, Marie. You asked about the last sentence in "Dinner for One." What is the title in German and do you know which book it is from?
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
Hi Linda,
that was just a joke! "Dinner for One" is a very old English humorous stage play which is repeated only in the original version up and down every German TV-station on New Year's Eve. I couldn't imagine that there is a single human being on this planet who has never heard of it! I have to realize that Germany is NOT the middle of the world!!!
Sorry, Volker, - I couldn't post this under "Rilke virtuell" or "Rilke menschlich". Don't distribute more "giftgrüne Anti-Smilies" to me, please! Rilke would have liked "Dinner for One, too, I assume! Besides all tragic soul conditions he had an excellent sense of humour! (So I've at least mentioned him, and my thematic blip is half bad, I hope?! )
Liebe Grüße M.
that was just a joke!
"Dinner for One" is a very old English humorous stage play which is repeated only in the original version up and down every German TV-station on New Year's Eve. I couldn't imagine that there is a single human being on this planet who has never heard of it! I have to realize that Germany is NOT the middle of the world!!!Sorry, Volker, - I couldn't post this under "Rilke virtuell" or "Rilke menschlich". Don't distribute more "giftgrüne Anti-Smilies" to me, please! Rilke would have liked "Dinner for One, too, I assume! Besides all tragic soul conditions he had an excellent sense of humour! (So I've at least mentioned him, and my thematic blip is half bad, I hope?!
)Liebe Grüße M.
Dinner for One
Hi Marie,
You got me on that one! I did think at first that it sounded like a movie title, but it was going on midnight and I was all but brain dead! It does sound vaguely familiar, but I don't think I've ever seen it. It's interesting to learn about the New Year's Eve tradition. Just for the fun of it I was going to try to come up with the last line for you online, but this is all I found.
"It's a bit bizarre when you think about it. A short British cabaret sketch from the 1920s has become a German New Year's tradition. Yet, although "Dinner for One or the 90th Birthday" is a famous cult classic in Germany and several other European countries, it is unknown in the English-speaking world, including Britain, its birthplace."
That does seem rather strange, doesn't it.
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
You got me on that one! I did think at first that it sounded like a movie title, but it was going on midnight and I was all but brain dead! It does sound vaguely familiar, but I don't think I've ever seen it. It's interesting to learn about the New Year's Eve tradition. Just for the fun of it I was going to try to come up with the last line for you online, but this is all I found.
"It's a bit bizarre when you think about it. A short British cabaret sketch from the 1920s has become a German New Year's tradition. Yet, although "Dinner for One or the 90th Birthday" is a famous cult classic in Germany and several other European countries, it is unknown in the English-speaking world, including Britain, its birthplace."
That does seem rather strange, doesn't it.
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
Hi Volker,
This was a very busy day, and I didn't have a chance to spend the time on your most recent translation that I had hoped to. I also haven't had a chance yet to look up the German words that I don't know in this poem (and there are many as always), but I like what I think this poem is saying., and I think you did a great job. This poem is rather long, and I know it must have been a very difficult task translating it. The first line alone seems impossible to translate to me. I will comment more once I've had a chance to study it a bit. For now, my only question concerns the first word in the poem, "sense." I was trying to figure out which German word you translated that from. I think I was expecting something like "all things" or "everything" but the German word order is very difficult for me to put together. It's like the words are in reverse order!
Please know how much I appreciate your time and efforts,
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
This was a very busy day, and I didn't have a chance to spend the time on your most recent translation that I had hoped to. I also haven't had a chance yet to look up the German words that I don't know in this poem (and there are many as always), but I like what I think this poem is saying., and I think you did a great job. This poem is rather long, and I know it must have been a very difficult task translating it. The first line alone seems impossible to translate to me. I will comment more once I've had a chance to study it a bit. For now, my only question concerns the first word in the poem, "sense." I was trying to figure out which German word you translated that from. I think I was expecting something like "all things" or "everything" but the German word order is very difficult for me to put together. It's like the words are in reverse order!
Please know how much I appreciate your time and efforts,
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
Favorite English Poem
Hi again, Volker,
One of my favorite poems in English is the very well known, "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Oddly enough, both of my two favorite poets are from other countries - Rilke, from Austria (originally) and Anna Akhmatova from Russia.
Concerning foreign poetry, I like these words by Cliff Crego:
To learn a poem in but one language, especially if the language
is not your own, is like climbing a mountain alone by its most direct
and arduous route.
To learn a great poem in two or more languages
is to climb the same mountain, but now from many different sides,
perhaps together with friends.
Then we may come to see that the summit is the place
where all the many directions, which we once
perceived as so different, are clearly one.
And that the mountain itself, no matter how many
times we climb it, remains forever pristine and pure,
forever beyond our understanding.
This then is the place where the poem
has brought us, the place where all language ends...
By the way, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but he has a nice Rilke Website, mostly in English though: http://picture-poems.com/rilke/index.html
The section with pictures along with Rilke poems is especially nice.
Oh, one last thing. There is a very good online German-English dictionary site: http://dict.leo.org/
You just type in the word, and all kinds of choices come up. Check it out!
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
One of my favorite poems in English is the very well known, "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Oddly enough, both of my two favorite poets are from other countries - Rilke, from Austria (originally) and Anna Akhmatova from Russia.
Concerning foreign poetry, I like these words by Cliff Crego:
To learn a poem in but one language, especially if the language
is not your own, is like climbing a mountain alone by its most direct
and arduous route.
To learn a great poem in two or more languages
is to climb the same mountain, but now from many different sides,
perhaps together with friends.
Then we may come to see that the summit is the place
where all the many directions, which we once
perceived as so different, are clearly one.
And that the mountain itself, no matter how many
times we climb it, remains forever pristine and pure,
forever beyond our understanding.
This then is the place where the poem
has brought us, the place where all language ends...
By the way, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but he has a nice Rilke Website, mostly in English though: http://picture-poems.com/rilke/index.html
The section with pictures along with Rilke poems is especially nice.
Oh, one last thing. There is a very good online German-English dictionary site: http://dict.leo.org/
You just type in the word, and all kinds of choices come up. Check it out!
Liebe Grüße,
Linda
-
Gast
Hi Linda,
it's a little difficult to give responses at the moment, because my printer doesn't work so I don't see the text while I'm in the answering-modus, but I'll try.
Some more explaining (rather than translating) ideas regarding to the first line "Es winkt zu Fühlung...":
- All things seem to invite the feeling
- An invitation to feel greets out of all things
"winkt" in a literal sense means to wave s.o.
"Fühlung" is translated by "contact, touch" which doesn't seem to be suitable in this case. I guess, Rilke ment it more emotional or intended to combine emotional and physical realization by using this term. It's something inbetween "feeling" and "touch":
- to be touched by the spirit of all things
- The spirit of all things gets distinctly
- Awareness is the task (the wish) of all those things
I hope my trial to indicate a direction for an accurate translation doesn't increase the confusion about the subject?!
Liebe Grüße M.
it's a little difficult to give responses at the moment, because my printer doesn't work so I don't see the text while I'm in the answering-modus, but I'll try.
Some more explaining (rather than translating) ideas regarding to the first line "Es winkt zu Fühlung...":
- All things seem to invite the feeling
- An invitation to feel greets out of all things
"winkt" in a literal sense means to wave s.o.
"Fühlung" is translated by "contact, touch" which doesn't seem to be suitable in this case. I guess, Rilke ment it more emotional or intended to combine emotional and physical realization by using this term. It's something inbetween "feeling" and "touch":
- to be touched by the spirit of all things
- The spirit of all things gets distinctly
- Awareness is the task (the wish) of all those things
I hope my trial to indicate a direction for an accurate translation doesn't increase the confusion about the subject?!
Liebe Grüße M.
Kleiner Tipp
Hallo Marie.
Für das Erstellen der Antwort ein zweites Browserfenster öffnen: (bei mir mit der gedrückten Apfeltaste - unter Windows müßte es auch gehen, wahrscheinlich mit der ALT oder Control(Strg)-Taste).
Dann hast du das alte Fenster mit dem Text immer im Hintergrund und kannst bei Bedarf zwischen den beiden Fenstern hin- und herspringen. (Menüzeile: Fenster)
Spar dir die Druckertinte und schone die Wälder
Kleiner Tipp:it's a little difficult to give responses at the moment, because my printer doesn't work so I don't see the text while I'm in the answering-modus, but I'll try.
Für das Erstellen der Antwort ein zweites Browserfenster öffnen: (bei mir mit der gedrückten Apfeltaste - unter Windows müßte es auch gehen, wahrscheinlich mit der ALT oder Control(Strg)-Taste).
Dann hast du das alte Fenster mit dem Text immer im Hintergrund und kannst bei Bedarf zwischen den beiden Fenstern hin- und herspringen. (Menüzeile: Fenster)
Spar dir die Druckertinte und schone die Wälder
Ich hab' auch Verstand.©
gez. Volker™
gez. Volker™
!). Ich gelobe Besserung und gehe schnell ein paar Bäume pflanzen!