Der Panther

After the neo-greek interlude, we return to the artistic production of civilized nations: I hereby post Rainer Maria Rilke's famous poem Der Panther along with my attempt at translation.

Der Panther

Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, dass er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.


6.11.1902, Paris

The Panther

At the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

His gaze,from pacing behind the bars that stand before him
has grown so exhausted that there's nothing it can hold
It seems to him as if there are a thousand bars before him
and beyond these thousand bars no world.


The soft footfalls, the supple muscular canter
that goes about in ever-smaller turns
is like a dance of power around a fixed center
in which, like dazed, a greater spirit burns.

And only at times the curtain that obscures the sight
silently parts -. Right then an image shoots through the eye
goes through the limbs - then strained quiet -
straight to the heart only for it to die.

(1) "fixed" in stanza 2, line 3 to be read fix-ed and not fix'd
(2) "quiet" stanza 3 line 3, noun and not adjective.
(3) Stanza 3 awkward in form and metre but read aloud it actually sounds good and retains cadence.

[Despite the fact that I faced it like Nabokov, as a predetermined failure and with annotation as deemed necessary, I think the effort is not bad, so I stick to my copyright (whatever that means on the internet) and reproduction only with mention of this source, my blog.]


EDIT 6/2/2008:

I received feedback for the poem by Brian Jones who noted that "lay before him" [stanza 1] (referring to the bars of the cage) conveyed the image of horizontal bars, instead of vertical ones. Indeed, it was an inappropriate selection, so I replaced it with "stand" as was his suggestion as well. Another correction was made as well since footfalls was "footfals".

Brian Jones keeps a treasury of the arts and lore from the past, The Beckoning. A visit there is time well spent.