Another Autumn of Rilke (里爾克的另一秋)

I introduced my first poem on Rilke two days ago. I have since found another, also on the subject of this third season of the year between scorching summer and freezing winter: autumn, the season we're now in. It may be interesting to introduce that as well, by way of comparison and who knows, perhaps,  for a different "feel"". Here it is;

Ende des Herbstes                      End of Autumn                            秋末

Ich sehe seit einer Zeit                I have seen for some time          我已見多時

wie alles sich verwandelt.            how everything is changing.    一切皆在變

Etwas steht auf und handelt           Something rises and acts       某些東西冒起與活動

und tötet und tut Leid.                    and kills and causes sorrow.   殺傷與帶來悲痛。

 

Von Mal zu Mal sind all              From one time to another             從這刻至那刻

die Gärten nicht dieselben           all the gardens now are not the same花園已一點也不一樣

von den gilbenden zu der gelben from the yellowing to the           從微黄至金黃

langsamen Verfall:                      golden slow decay:                          慢慢枯萎

wie war der Weg mir weit.          how long my path has been.          我的路多麼漫長 。

 

Jetzt bin ich bei den leeren           Now I stand amidst the void         我立於虛空中

und schaue durch alle Alleen.       and gaze down all avenues.        凝視所有林蔭大道

Fast bis zu den fernen Meeren      Almost to the distant oceans      幾達遠洋

kann ich den ernsten schweren      I can see the ponderous heaviness 我見到那凝重

verwehrenden Himmel sehn.          relentlessly denying sky.              正義無反悔地抗拒天堂 。

In this other Autumn, we see a different Rilke, no longer as hopeful as the other Autumn. In the other poem, everything is falling but he was still hoping that there might still be someone who would stop the fall, as he said, with infinite gentleness. In this poem, that hope is completely gone. All he could see is a sense of forlorness, a sense of having to stand on his own. There was absolutely nothing to support him. He was seeing everything changing, right before his eyes, relentlessly, never to turn back again, never to be reversed. As he said, he was standing in the void. He sees all the trees in the tree-lined boulevards turning from light to a golden yellow with a heaviness which seem to the poet to be just so many fingers accusing the sky with their "heaviness", their "solemnity", their "seriousness".

This poem like the other is part of his  Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images), part of an assorted collection of short lyrics, dialogues, interior monologues, quasi-ballads, narrative excursions into myth and history, religion, psychological portraits, long requiems and stream of consciousness pieces. The Book of Images appeared twice, first in July 1902 when he was 26, containing 45 poems written between 1898-1901. Then a second edition appeared some 4 years later in December 1906 when he included 37 new poems and re-ordered the sequence of his older poems. In the same period, he was also working on Das Studenbuck The Book of Hours, written in 1903 and published in 1905. In the meantime, he had also written a monograph on the French sculptor Rodin for whom he was secretary. He was heavily influenced by Rodin's advice to him that images must be concrete and objective before they can move others. He adopted Rodin's advice when he produced his Neue Gedichte (New Poems 1907-1908). Since the poem above appeared in the Book of Images, it must belong to this transitional period in his thinking. And it shows. He gives form to abstractness: the "heaviness" was resisting the sky relentlessly! It was turned from a noun to a verb!