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Sankt Sebastian, by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Nigel Stuart

10/5/2021

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Picture
Saint Sebastian, by Il Sodoma (Italy) 1525

German:

Sankt Sebastian 

Wie ein Liegender so steht er; ganz 
hingehalten von dem großen Willen. 
Weitentrückt wie Mütter, wenn sie stillen, 
und in sich gebunden wie ein Kranz. 
Und die Pfeile kommen: jetzt und jetzt 
und als sprängen sie aus seinen Lenden, 
eisern bebend mit den freien Enden. 
Doch er lächelt dunkel, unverletzt. 
Einmal nur wird seine Trauer groß, 
und die Augen liegen schmerzlich bloß, 
bis sie etwas leugnen, wie Geringes, 
und als ließen sie verächtlich los 
die Vernichter eines schönen Dinges.

English:
​
Saint Sebastian

Though seeming to lie down, yet shall he stand 
supported by a strength of will to stay. 
Like mothers giving breast, he’s far away 
and wrapped up in himself, like wreathed garland. 
The thwack of arrows, as each finds its mark, 
sound now, and now, as if sprung from his flesh 
from steel hard tips to every quivering fletch. 
Yet still, as though unhurt, his smile is dark. 
At one instant, a sorrow slowly grows 
and wells, a grief his pain-filled eyes expose 
till it’s renounced, as though a trivial thing, 
as if such lapse, contemptuously, they chose 
for what, on beauty, would destruction bring. 

Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Nigel Stuart

Nigel Stuart is a retired professor of 20th century history and a translator of epic poetry, with a secondary professional interest in renaissance Europe, in artistic practice and in film; who also writes poetry in English and in Scots.
Picture
Saint Sebastian, by El Greco (Spain, b. Greece) c. 1578
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