Topical Guide 654

Mark Dorset

Allusion

What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 7:

     “I decided that things had to change. I heard that old warning: you must change your life.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaïscher Torso Apollos”:

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (translated by M. D. Herter Norton):

We did not know his legendary head
In which the eyeballs ripened. But
His torso still glows like a candelabrum
In which his gaze only turned low,

holds and gleams. Else could not the curve
of the breast blind you, nor in the slight turn
of the loins could a smile be running
to that middle, which carried procreation.

Else would this stone be standing maimed and short
under the shoulders’ translucent plunge
not flimmering like the fell of beasts of prey

nor breaking out of all its contours
like a star: for there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (translated by Stephen Mitchell):

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

This torso may have been the inspiration for, or object of, “Archaïscher Torso Apollos.” It is the “Torso from Milet,” in the Louvre. Rilke would have been likely to see it there during the period when he served as secretary to Auguste Rodin, whom he regarded as the model for everything an artist ought to be.

See also:
Allusion; Quotation TG 140, TG 455, TG 462, TG 502, TG 506, TG 532, TG 559, TG 583, TG 592; TG 626

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