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140 Reviews haveatautnessandsenseofpacethatislikeamemoryoftheir making, recycling motifs in different permutations and seeminglyinventingthemselvesastheygoalong. Perhapsthe bestthingaboutPaterson’sversionisthewayheconveysthis. Rilke’s rhymes, if sometimes risky (Banane / Ich ahne), are always full, whereas Paterson mostly uses varieties of halfrhyme. Nodoubtthisisclosertohisusual practice, helpingto make a rhymedversionthat works, but it alsosuggests the improvisednatureoftheoriginal, the tenuouslydelicateaction of the Sonette. This is alsoachievedbya conversational tone, alsopresent inRilke. For instance, in‘TheGods’ (I, 24), ‘we neverset/ ourpathsassweetmeanders; welaythemstraight’, follows exactly the words though not the lineation of the German, but is altogether more familiar, off-hand, idlybut aptlyspokenwheretheGerman(schööne Määander ) soundsmore formal. ‘Horseman’ (I, 11) ends ‘Andmaybe that’s enough’, more sceptical thanthe certainty of the German. Paterson’s great virtue, as inhis ownpoetry, is plainness andclarity, a purityof diction. In‘TheDoubleRealm’ (I, 6) thereisanodd shift out of the contemporary. Where Rilke simplytalks of goingtobed,Patersonhas:‘Whenyoupinchthecandles,never leavethebread/ ormilkoutonthetable; thefamishedshades /aredrawnbythem’. ‘Bed’ wouldhaveinterferedwith‘bread’, whereas ‘pinchthecandles’ not onlyfits thedeft, quick, neat gesture it evokes but alsopicks out the ‘famishedshades’ in the following line. This deftness and confidence, alongside Paterson’s subtle sense of contemporizing, illustrates what is goodabout this translation, the intimacyof knowledge and worditpossesses. Most of Paterson’s divergences are successful inthis way. Onlyoccasionallydoeshecomplicateinanunconvincingway, asinthelasttercetof ‘TheReal’ (II, 10): Beforethebeyond-words, wordsscatterlikestraw. Andmusicstill quarriesitspurposelessspace forthevibrantrock, tobuilditsholyplace.
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Reviews 141 Whereas Rilke’s music just ‘builds’ ina resonant unbroken line, hereitismadetodotwothings(quarryandbuild), with ahiatus betweenthem, whichseems toprevent thelast line fromdoingwhatitsays. Sometimesitistheotherwayround, with asimplification of acomplex thought,strikingly so in the lastpoem, asRilke’sdifficultinjunction‘if youfinddrinking bitter, become wine’ is reduced by being rendered ‘if the water’ssour, turnitinto wine’, whichfeelslikean evasion. But thereismoreofwhatisessentialtoRilkeintheseversionsthan inany other: they openthe poems out into a sharp-edged, attentive, preciselytunedEnglish, whichis a transmutation, not a betrayal, of the softer, more obscure music of the originals. MartynCrucefix’s newversions of theElegies donot stand out inthesamewaybut theyofferamostlyaccuratereading. WithaparallelGermantext, theyasklesstobetakenontheir ownterms. Insteadofageneralcommentaryonhistranslation, Crucefixsupplies a paraphrasingcommentaryoneachpoem. Perhaps the main difficulty with translating the Elegies is accommodatingthe sustainedgrandness of their manner, especially nowadays, whenthe possibility of equivalence to it, as exploitedinLeishmanandStephenSpender’s famous version, seems tohave become unavailable. Crucefixtries to toneit down,then letmomentsofitslip through,whichseems asensiblecourse. It sometimes works, as at thebeginningof theSixth: Figtree, howlonghasitbeenimportanttome thewayyoualmostwhollyskipblossoming andpresspuremystery–quiteunheralded– intoearly-settingfruit. More oftenthough, he cannot avoidsoundingirredeemably peculiar, as whenthe angels are saidtobe ‘occupiedinthe whirling / reinvigoration of themselves’ (Second Elegy) or when(intheNinth) theTunohne Bild (‘actionwithoutform’)

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Reviews

haveatautnessandsenseofpacethatislikeamemoryoftheir making, recycling motifs in different permutations and seeminglyinventingthemselvesastheygoalong. Perhapsthe bestthingaboutPaterson’sversionisthewayheconveysthis. Rilke’s rhymes, if sometimes risky (Banane / Ich ahne), are always full, whereas Paterson mostly uses varieties of halfrhyme. Nodoubtthisisclosertohisusual practice, helpingto make a rhymedversionthat works, but it alsosuggests the improvisednatureoftheoriginal, the tenuouslydelicateaction of the Sonette. This is alsoachievedbya conversational tone, alsopresent inRilke. For instance, in‘TheGods’ (I, 24), ‘we neverset/ ourpathsassweetmeanders; welaythemstraight’, follows exactly the words though not the lineation of the German, but is altogether more familiar, off-hand, idlybut aptlyspokenwheretheGerman(schööne Määander ) soundsmore formal. ‘Horseman’ (I, 11) ends ‘Andmaybe that’s enough’, more sceptical thanthe certainty of the German. Paterson’s great virtue, as inhis ownpoetry, is plainness andclarity, a purityof diction. In‘TheDoubleRealm’ (I, 6) thereisanodd shift out of the contemporary. Where Rilke simplytalks of goingtobed,Patersonhas:‘Whenyoupinchthecandles,never leavethebread/ ormilkoutonthetable; thefamishedshades /aredrawnbythem’. ‘Bed’ wouldhaveinterferedwith‘bread’, whereas ‘pinchthecandles’ not onlyfits thedeft, quick, neat gesture it evokes but alsopicks out the ‘famishedshades’ in the following line. This deftness and confidence, alongside Paterson’s subtle sense of contemporizing, illustrates what is goodabout this translation, the intimacyof knowledge and worditpossesses. Most of Paterson’s divergences are successful inthis way. Onlyoccasionallydoeshecomplicateinanunconvincingway, asinthelasttercetof ‘TheReal’ (II, 10):

Beforethebeyond-words, wordsscatterlikestraw. Andmusicstill quarriesitspurposelessspace forthevibrantrock, tobuilditsholyplace.

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