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Orpheus
Rainer Maria Rilke's '55 Sonnets to Orpheus' remain a testimony to a writer whose significance other poets continue to testify to. Don Paterson's translation offers a radiant and at times distressing version of the great work.
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Don Paterson
62 books103 followersDon Paterson (b. 1963) is a Scottish poet and writer. He is the author of sixteen books of poetry, aphorism, criticism, memoir and poetic theory. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, three Forward Prizes, the T.S. Eliot Prize on two occasions, and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Andrews, and for twenty-five years was Poetry Editor at Picador MacMillan. He has long had a parallel career as a jazz guitarist.
He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.
He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Andrews, and for twenty-five years was Poetry Editor at Picador MacMillan. He has long had a parallel career as a jazz guitarist.
He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 1, 2016
This year I spent some time with Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus. My command of German is adequate but I found these poems to be rather opaque so I amassed a collection of alternative English translations to help me tunnel my way to the collection’s deeper messages. Surprisingly, the rendering that gave me most pleasure, and significantly so, is not strictly a translation of the Rilke original, but a ‚version’. In an illuminating postscript, Scottish poet Don Paterson explains his intentions as follows: „This is not a translation, but a version. A translation remains true to the original words and their relations, and its primary aim is usually one of stylistic elegance (…) of which lyric unity is only one of several competing considerations. It glosses the original, but does not try to replace it. Versions, however, are trying to be poems in their own right: while they have the original to serve as a detailed ground-plan and elevation, they are trying to build themselves a robust home in an new country, in its vernacular architecture, with local words for its brick and local music for its mortar.”
The paradoxical observation is that Paterson’s liberties with the original seem to bring us closer than any translation to the spirit of Rilke’s poetic genius. As an example, here is the eighth sonnet of the second book. It’s one of my favorite poems, and in its gritty urban setting also one of the least typical of the cycle. Paterson’s version follows two translations, by Martyn Crucefix (Enitharmon Press, 2012) and C.F. MacIntyre (University of California Press, 1960).
II/8 (T: Martyn Crucefix)
Childhood playmates - you few, so long ago -
in the scattered gardens about the city:
how was it we met and grew close cautiously
and like the lamb with the talking scroll
we spoke, but mutely. When we were happy,
no one possessed it. Who owns it?
And then, among people walking there, it melted
the long years’ anxious passing by.
Strange cars rolled past us, ephemeral.
Houses stood strong, heavy, untrue - and none
ever knew us. Of it all, what was real?
Nothing. But these balls - their arcs, a marvel.
Not even the children … Though sometimes one,
O already falling, stepped in beneath the dropping ball.
II/8 (T: C.F. MacIntyre)
You few playmates of childhood long ago
in scattered city gardens: how we found
each other and grew hesitantly fond
and, like the lamb with the speaking scroll,
although
speaking, were silent. All our fun belonged
to no one. Who could it be?
And how it dissolved wherever people thronged,
and under the long year’s anxiety!
Carriages passed us, strangers. Solid, dark,
houses stood, near, make-believe - and none
knew us ever. What was real in the All?
Nothing. Except the balls. Their splendid arcs.
Not even the children … but sometimes there
was one,
ah, dying, who walked under the falling ball.
The Ball
Don Paterson
What happened to that little brotherhood,
lords of the scattered gardens of the city?
We were all so shy, I never understood
how we hooked up in the first place; like the lamb
with the scroll that spoke, we too spoke in silence.
It seemed when we were happy it was no one’s;
whose ball was it? In all the anxiety
of that last summer, it melted in the scrum:
the street leaned like a stage-set, the traffic
rolled around us, like huge toys; nobody
knew us. What was real in that All?
Nothing. Just the ball. Its glorious arc.
Not even the kids … But sometimes one,
already fading, stepped below as it fell.
It’s immediately obvious that Paterson’s version is more approachable than any of the two translations. The rhythm flows better, the speech is less stilted, the emphatic first person perspective arouses our empathy and the subtle change in time perspective (‚last summer’) trails in its wake that mixture of wistfulness and boredom that marks the end of long school holidays.
Importantly, Paterson focuses our attention by adding a title (as he does for every poem in his version). The mysterious, unpenetrable presence of the toy as Ding-an-Sich is the dark center of this poem. Rilke introduces the image of the ball (in plural) only in the final stanza but in Paterson’s version it appears much earlier and he twists and connects to it the emphatic open question that reverberates through the original.
From that familiar yet mysterious object that „melts in the scrum” extends a forcefield to the life world of the child. Children are still more attuned to the mystery of the world beyond the symbolic realm. The world of adults, however, has lost that connection and as a result it turns into something fake and foreign for the children, like a stage-set.
In the final stanza Paterson stays close to the original. Only he sticks to the noun’s singular, which is consistent with what went before. And it avoids unwanted and unpalatable connotations. Furthermore, unlike Rilke, Paterson refers only once to the object. In the final line, he simply refers to ‚it’ and suddenly it may be something much bigger that falls because we still carry with us the echo of the third stanza’s final line.
Paterson does something exceptional in his versioning of the sonnets. Upon a first reading the thematic and structural resemblance with the original is clear. A closer look reveals however, that Paterson took significant liberties in his recomposition. And yet, despite these liberties, I feel the result reveals the poetic and philosophical essence of Rilke’s universe much more accurately than any translation I have come across.
The paradoxical observation is that Paterson’s liberties with the original seem to bring us closer than any translation to the spirit of Rilke’s poetic genius. As an example, here is the eighth sonnet of the second book. It’s one of my favorite poems, and in its gritty urban setting also one of the least typical of the cycle. Paterson’s version follows two translations, by Martyn Crucefix (Enitharmon Press, 2012) and C.F. MacIntyre (University of California Press, 1960).
II/8 (T: Martyn Crucefix)
Childhood playmates - you few, so long ago -
in the scattered gardens about the city:
how was it we met and grew close cautiously
and like the lamb with the talking scroll
we spoke, but mutely. When we were happy,
no one possessed it. Who owns it?
And then, among people walking there, it melted
the long years’ anxious passing by.
Strange cars rolled past us, ephemeral.
Houses stood strong, heavy, untrue - and none
ever knew us. Of it all, what was real?
Nothing. But these balls - their arcs, a marvel.
Not even the children … Though sometimes one,
O already falling, stepped in beneath the dropping ball.
II/8 (T: C.F. MacIntyre)
You few playmates of childhood long ago
in scattered city gardens: how we found
each other and grew hesitantly fond
and, like the lamb with the speaking scroll,
although
speaking, were silent. All our fun belonged
to no one. Who could it be?
And how it dissolved wherever people thronged,
and under the long year’s anxiety!
Carriages passed us, strangers. Solid, dark,
houses stood, near, make-believe - and none
knew us ever. What was real in the All?
Nothing. Except the balls. Their splendid arcs.
Not even the children … but sometimes there
was one,
ah, dying, who walked under the falling ball.
The Ball
Don Paterson
What happened to that little brotherhood,
lords of the scattered gardens of the city?
We were all so shy, I never understood
how we hooked up in the first place; like the lamb
with the scroll that spoke, we too spoke in silence.
It seemed when we were happy it was no one’s;
whose ball was it? In all the anxiety
of that last summer, it melted in the scrum:
the street leaned like a stage-set, the traffic
rolled around us, like huge toys; nobody
knew us. What was real in that All?
Nothing. Just the ball. Its glorious arc.
Not even the kids … But sometimes one,
already fading, stepped below as it fell.
It’s immediately obvious that Paterson’s version is more approachable than any of the two translations. The rhythm flows better, the speech is less stilted, the emphatic first person perspective arouses our empathy and the subtle change in time perspective (‚last summer’) trails in its wake that mixture of wistfulness and boredom that marks the end of long school holidays.
Importantly, Paterson focuses our attention by adding a title (as he does for every poem in his version). The mysterious, unpenetrable presence of the toy as Ding-an-Sich is the dark center of this poem. Rilke introduces the image of the ball (in plural) only in the final stanza but in Paterson’s version it appears much earlier and he twists and connects to it the emphatic open question that reverberates through the original.
From that familiar yet mysterious object that „melts in the scrum” extends a forcefield to the life world of the child. Children are still more attuned to the mystery of the world beyond the symbolic realm. The world of adults, however, has lost that connection and as a result it turns into something fake and foreign for the children, like a stage-set.
In the final stanza Paterson stays close to the original. Only he sticks to the noun’s singular, which is consistent with what went before. And it avoids unwanted and unpalatable connotations. Furthermore, unlike Rilke, Paterson refers only once to the object. In the final line, he simply refers to ‚it’ and suddenly it may be something much bigger that falls because we still carry with us the echo of the third stanza’s final line.
Paterson does something exceptional in his versioning of the sonnets. Upon a first reading the thematic and structural resemblance with the original is clear. A closer look reveals however, that Paterson took significant liberties in his recomposition. And yet, despite these liberties, I feel the result reveals the poetic and philosophical essence of Rilke’s universe much more accurately than any translation I have come across.
February 15, 2020
Rilke is obviously great, and Paterson's afterword and notes on translation provide an intelligent reading as well as a thoughtful discussion on the specific problems of translating, both this text and in general. I'd like to read Gass's Rilke translation as well, to see how they compare, both in translation and critical apparatus. Paterson's observation "that the translated poem can undergo continuous cultural rebirth, in a way denied to the original" as it is continually retranslated seems particularly interesteing; having read Mitchell's translations of the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus, I think Rilke in English is an inexhaustible source of fascination.
April 12, 2025
"True singing is another kind of breath./A breath of nothing. A sigh in a god. A wind."
This evocative version of Rilke's sonnets (Paterson preferring that term to the more literal connotations of "translation") highlight their engagement with themes of mortality, engagement with nature, and human existence within a technological world. I was particularly intrigued by how Paterson plays with the sonnet form, introducing slant or half-rhyme and different metres, introducing a liveliness to what I sometimes find to be a stiflingly formal poetic form. Particularly memorable for me were poems such as "Unicorn" ("...and yet such was their love/the beast arose...") and "The Real" ("...but for us...being here is still magic, a source/with a thousand wellheads..."), sonnets which seemed to capture the frenzy of creative energy and insight that Paterson describes Rilke composing them in.
This evocative version of Rilke's sonnets (Paterson preferring that term to the more literal connotations of "translation") highlight their engagement with themes of mortality, engagement with nature, and human existence within a technological world. I was particularly intrigued by how Paterson plays with the sonnet form, introducing slant or half-rhyme and different metres, introducing a liveliness to what I sometimes find to be a stiflingly formal poetic form. Particularly memorable for me were poems such as "Unicorn" ("...and yet such was their love/the beast arose...") and "The Real" ("...but for us...being here is still magic, a source/with a thousand wellheads..."), sonnets which seemed to capture the frenzy of creative energy and insight that Paterson describes Rilke composing them in.
January 23, 2018
The story behind Rilke's composition of this sonnet sequence (50+ sonnets composed in less than a month, and left mostly untouched after composition) certainly does seem to echo the mythic feats of the original Orpheus. This isn't a translation, of course, as much as Paterson would bluster that it is...it's a "version" inspired by the original (but I enjoyed the individual poems much more than the movement of the entire sequence anyways, so no great loss there -- sorry Rilke). Paterson's notes are almost as interesting as the poetry; eg, the observation that sonnets break where they because they too follow the Fibonacci Sequence -- and thus also the required total of 55.
December 20, 2018
Reading these amazing poems alongside Rilke's Sonette an Orpheus, I had the weird impression that a time-traveling Rilke had produced a laudable but nonetheless inferior, fustier German version of Paterson's sparkling originals. A minor miracle of translation.
May 30, 2020
Very different run at Rilke’s great sonnets. Interesting as an alternative approach, with a few standouts. The Mitchell translation is still my favorite so far.
January 17, 2026
I'm not saying this is a bad book, it may well be very clever poetry. But I just couldn't get my head around it. Not for me.
February 8, 2024
This is Don's best work, I think. I'll back that up more substantially when I'm not just between tasks as I am now (trying to cheat time in keeping w the material in question).
Keen to come across very casually and just himself as he does live, his rhymes are as tight as the subject matter is serious. That's not to negate Rilke's open, questioning ground.
What makes this book for me, as much as some of his very best poetry, is both the Afterword and the Appendix, Fourteen Notes on the Version. Here he goes into the differences and crossing points between translation and versions, which is what he offers here. He describes, with great eloquence and convincing clarity, why a version is a far more worthwhile task. He concludes, "Versioning allows a poet to disown their own voice and try on another."
Keen to come across very casually and just himself as he does live, his rhymes are as tight as the subject matter is serious. That's not to negate Rilke's open, questioning ground.
What makes this book for me, as much as some of his very best poetry, is both the Afterword and the Appendix, Fourteen Notes on the Version. Here he goes into the differences and crossing points between translation and versions, which is what he offers here. He describes, with great eloquence and convincing clarity, why a version is a far more worthwhile task. He concludes, "Versioning allows a poet to disown their own voice and try on another."
August 28, 2023
Quite simply, The Don. Control of form and sound, providing a clear, natural version of an oracular text. A pleasure and an inspiration.
December 20, 2015
Brilliant. One of the books I return to over and over again. It's always new.
October 9, 2009
Check this out for its Afterward. An amazing analysis of poetry.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews