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The Archaic Torso of Apollo, by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by William Ruleman

7/13/2017

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Picture
Torso Miletus, marble sculpture circa 480 B.C. photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen (France). 2006.
The Archaic Torso of Apollo
  
We could not know his huge and noble head
With eyes grown apple-ripe. Yet even so,
His torso glows with a candelabrum’s glow
Wherein his gaze, though only faintly fed,
 
Is held and gleams. Or else that bulging breast
Could never blind you, nor a smile run there
In the tender twist of the loins to that center where
The spring of procreation hangs at rest.
 
Or else this stone would squat, disfigured, small,
Truncated under the shoulders’ lucid fall.
Nor would it shimmer like a wild beast’s hide--
 
Break forth at every point in star-sharp strife.
For there is no place here, on any side,
That does not see you. You must change your life.

Rainer Maria Rilke; translated from German by William Ruleman
 
Archaischer Torso Apollos
  
Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

Rainer Maria Rilke

William Ruleman is Professor of English at Tennessee Wesleyan University. His newest books include the poetry collections From Rage to Hope (White Violet Press, 2016), Salzkammergut Poems, and Munich Poems (the latter two from Cedar Springs Books, 2016), as well as his translations of Hermann Hesse’s early poems (Cedar Springs Books, 2017) and Stefan Zweig’s unfinished novel Clarissa (Ariadne Press, 2017).
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