RE: Off topic. Rilke query

Baader, Cecilia (cbaader@casecorp.com)
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 22:55:08 -0600

Good morning, all.

This is really one that Bruce should answer, but I'll throw about two and a
half cents in here.  For those of you uninterested in the only great poet of
this century, please skip this one, because it'll be long.  [Had to stick
the disclaimer in there... I wasn't sure if I should reply strictly to you,
Sunny, or to the list as one or two people seem to have stated an interest.]

Our Man Rilke had a thing for Orpheus.  If you remember the legend, Orpheus
visited Hades after the death of his beloved wife Eurydice and begged for
her life.  Hades granted her life to him as long as he did not look back on
the long journey from the underworld to make sure that she was behind him.
Hermes went with them on the journey to ensure that Orpheus did not look
back.  He almost made it, but at the last minute looked back, and Eurydice
was taken back and stayed dead forever.

A sad, sad, legend, worthy of several thousand poems.  But I think that
Rilke's is incredible:

Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes
That was the deep uncanny mine of souls.
Like veins of silver ore, they silently
moved through its massive darkness. Blood welled up
among the roots, on its way to the world of men, 
and in the dark it looked as hard as stone.  
Nothing else was red.

There were cliffs there, 
and forests made of mist.  There were bridges 
spanning the void, and that great gray blind lake
which hung above its distant bottom
like the sky on a rainy day above a landscape.
And through the gentle, unresisting meadows
one pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton.

Down this path they were coming.

In front, the slender man in the blue cloak--
mute, impatient, looking straight ahead.
In large, greedy, unchewed bites his walk 
devoured the path; his hands hung at his sides, 
tight and heavy, out of the falling folds, 
no longer conscious of the delicate lyre
which had grown into his left arm, like a slip 
of roses grafted onto an olive tree.
His senses felt as though they were split in two:
his sight would race ahead of him like a dog, 
stop, come back, then rushing off again 
would stand, impatient, at the path's next turn,--
but his hearing, like an odor, stayed behind.
Sometimes it seemed to him as though it reached 
back to the footsteps of those other two 
who were to follow him, up the long path home.
But then, once more, it was just his own steps' echo, 
or the wind inside his cloak, that made the sound.

He said to himself, they had to be behind him, 
said it aloud and heard it fade away, 
They had to be behind him, bit their steps 
were ominously soft.  If only he could
turn around, just once (but looking back 
would ruin this entire work, so near
completion), then he could not fail to see them,
those other two, who followed him so softly:

The god of speed and distant messages,
a traveler's hood above his shining eyes,
his slender staff held out in front of him,
and little wings fluttering at his ankles;
and on his left arm, barely touching it: _she_.

A woman so loved from one lyre there came 
more lament than from all lamenting women;
that a whole world of lament arose, in which
all nature reappeared: forest and valley,
road and village, field and stream and animal;
and that around this lament-world, even as 
around the other earth, a sun revolved 
and a silent star-filled heaven, a lament-
heaven, with its own, disfigured stars--:
So greatly was she loved.

But now she walked beside the graceful god,
her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.
She was deep within herself, like a woman heavy
with child, and did not see the man in front 
or the path ascending steeply into life.
Deep within herself. Being dead 
filled her beyond fulfillment.  Like a fruit
suffused with its own mystery and sweetness, 
she was filled with her vast death, which was so new,
she could not understand that it had happened.

She had come into a new virginity
and was untouchable; her sex had closed 
like a young flower at nightfall, and her hands 
had grown so unused to marriage that the god's 
infinitely gentle touch of guidance
hurt her, like an undesired kiss.

She was no longer that woman with blue eyes
who once had echoed through the poet's songs, 
no longer the wide couch's scent and island,
and that man's property no longer.

She was already loosened like long hair, 
poured out like fallen rain,
shared like a limitless supply.

She was already root.

And when, abruptly, 
the god put out his hand to stop her, saying,
with sorrow in his voice: He has turned around--,
she could not understand, and softly answered
_Who?_

					Far away,
dark before the shining exit-gates,
someone or other stood, whose features were 
unrecognizable.  He stood and saw
how, on the strip of road among the meadows, 
with a mournful look, the god of messages
silently turned to follow the small figure 
already walking back along the path,
her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

Taken in context with the rest of the poem, the lines begin to have more
meaning than they do alone, although I think that Jim did a commendable job
with the little that he had available:  A woman no longer belonging to a man
in a sexual sense to be sure, but in the sense that she has become
intangible, I think.  

He's talking about remembered images and feelings: she is no longer the
woman with blue eyes echoing through a poet's songs, no longer catching the
wide couch's scent and clinging to the island that she offered to him. She
was beyond life at this point, uncertain, gentle, and ethereal.  There was
no longer anything of life in her.  She belongs to heaven, not to him.  And
Rilke's take on it is that when Orpheus turns around, Eurydice is saved, not
lost.

Rilke was of the opinion that human relationships were distraction--
Eurydice was no longer empty in death, no longer feeling the need for love.
It's a completeness of self that she attains with death, and Orpheus would
have taken that from her in his need to resume the mortal relationship.
There's no need for a shared couch in death, you see, for Eurydice has
become "untouchable; her sex had closed / like a young flower at
nightfall... " because she no longer needs someone to complete her.  She is
complete in and of herself, and needs no one. 

Regards,
Cecilia.

> -----Original Message-----
> Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 16:23:02 +0530
> From: Sundeep Dougal <holden@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Subject: Off topic. Rilke query
> Message-ID: <004301bf2f58$29348ac0$50c0c5cb@default>
> 
> In the mysterious ways the universe functions, some unknown
> correspondent decided to address the following query to me, 
> apropos of nothing really, which I, in my ususal benign way first 
> decided to ignore, but have since become somewhat intrigued by,
> in an idle sort of way.
> 
> Considering that this list has some Rilke enthusiasts and experts, I
> wonder if someone would care to expound, explicate, or generally
> speculate.
> 
> <quote>
> 
> > In the Rilke poem Orpheus Eurydice Hermes, what do you think the
> line
> 
> > "Even now she was no longer that blonde woman
> > who'd sometimes echoed in the poet's poems,
> > no longer the broad couch's scent and island,
> > nor yonder man's possession any longer."
> >
> > means?  I am specifically asking about the reference to the "broad
> > couch's scent and island."
> 
> </unquote>
> 
> ObSalinger: alleged _only great poet of the century_ etc.
> 
> Sonny
> 
>