Nothing to do with Robbie Williams, obviously. At least, I don't think so. In my recent dabblings with digital imagery, a theme of "angels" has started to emerge. There is a slightly disreputable vein of modern thinking that has revived the ancient figure of the angel as a "messenger" between different domains of discourse, for example in the work of philosopher Michel Serres, Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), or Tony Kushner's Angels in America. The idea of these mercurial envoys, faithfully and patiently transmitting communications between realms appeals to me, perhaps in part because of my father's wartime trade as a despatch rider. The emblem of the Royal Signals is Mercury, wing-heeled messenger of the gods, known to all as "Jimmy".
The words inscribed on the image above are the opening of Rike's first Duino Elegy: "Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?" (Who, among the ranks of angels, would hear me, if I cried out?).
5 comments:
Is that your own translation, Mike? I notice the order of the clauses has been altered (lit "Who, if I cried out, would hear me from [amongst] the Angels' ranks*?"). Presumably Rilke had his reasons for expressing it in his chosen order?
Who -- if anyone -- does the face in the picture belong to? Is that "Jimmy"?
* ? -- don't actually know this word myself
Zouk,
Yes, just a simple prose rendering of the sense. Sounds more English to me that way round (this way round, more German to me it sounds... ;) Or maybe more Yoda-ish...
The face is one of the very weathered "herms" at Mottisfont Abbey (head and shoulders on a plinth).
Mike
Your blog, your call, but agree necessarily I cannot.
Zouk,
If it's clauses in their original Germanic order you like, I'll see about getting a sentence by Kafka into the mix.
Latin poetry is probably the most bizarre: the words appear to have been cut up and thrown into the air, to achieve the order least likely to make any sense. From my "Revenants" book:
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Animus my mind fert inclines [me] dicere to speak of formas forms mutatas changed in nova corpora into new bodies
Rev. Dr. Giles 1862
Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge, I purpose to entreate
Arthur Golding 1567
Of bodies chang'd to other shapes I sing
George Sandys 1632
Mike
Of course I recognize the quote and its translation from your wondrous book [the client may insert a link here, haha], The Revenants*. However, Latin is something else -- different family and amply semantically inflected. There's really nothing about the alternative translation I gave that clangs in my ear at least, and I feel that for the poet it was perhaps the cry which was primary, not the angels upon whom you were focussed. Just sayin, guv.
*Et ne reviendras-tu à Stevenage un jour jamais?
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