In addition to numerous translations and several essays, EricTorgersen has written two books about Rainer Maria Rilke, one scholarly (Dear Friend: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker Northwestern U.P., 1998) and one in the form of fiction (The Man Who Loved Rilke, March Street Press, 2008).
"It was not until I read 'Requiem for a Friend' in Eric Torgersen's translation that I understood what a great and tragic poem it is: guilt-ridden, impassioned, intimate, a sublimated howl. Torgersen's version is one of those rare complete successes in the absolutely impossible art of translation." —Galway Kinnell
"A brilliant and valuable study, written with grace and passion, Torgersen's work could scarcely be bettered, both for the delight of reading it provides and for the insights into the lives it exposes." --Choice
"As a guide through the intersecting lives and relevant work of Rilke, Modersohn-Becker, and Westhoff, this study has qualitatively and in its focus no parallel in either English or German." —Reinhold Heller, University of Chicago
"A brilliant and valuable study, written with grace and passion, Torgersen's work could scarcely be bettered, both for the delight of reading it provides and for the insights into the lives it exposes." --Choice
"As a guide through the intersecting lives and relevant work of Rilke, Modersohn-Becker, and Westhoff, this study has qualitatively and in its focus no parallel in either English or German." —Reinhold Heller, University of Chicago
Here is Eric's translation of Rilke's ten-part series Die Stimmen, The Voices:
Title Page
Rich and happy? Sure, keep quiet.
No one wants to know.
But if you're broken, or something's missing,
you've got to put on a show.
You've to say it: I'm going blind,
or else I'm blind already,
or I'm out of luck, or my child is sick,
or I'm patched up and all unsteady....
It may not get you far.
But they walk right past you, like you're a thing,
unless you do something, so you sing.
That's where the good songs are.
People are strange enough: given the choice
they'd listen to choirs of castrated boys.
But God himself comes, and stays a long time,
when all these cut-ups start making their noise.
The Beggar’s Song
I pass by all the gates of town,
beaten by sun and rain;
then all at once I lay my right ear
in my right hand again;
and my own voice seems strange to me,
as if it weren’t mine.
I may be the one who cries out then,
or someone else; I’m not sure.
What I cry out for isn’t much;
poets cry out for more.
At last, with no doors or windows to close,
I close my eyes instead;
resting my head in the palm of my hand
is almost like going to bed;
I wouldn’t want anyone to think
I have no place to lay my head.
The Blind Man’s Song
I’m blind, you out there—it’s an affliction,
a plague, a curse, a contradiction,
a weight on each day of my life.
I’m led through sheer emptiness every day,
my gray hand on the grayest gray--
on the gray arm of my wife.
You lurch and push and you’d like to think
you don’t sound like a stone on a stone;
but you’re wrong. I’m the one; I live on
and suffer and sound off, alone.
There’s a screaming inside me that never ends,
from my heart or my guts, either one.
You know the songs? You never sang them,
not in the key they’re set in;
every morning you wake to the warm
new light your windows let in;
you have that feeling of face to face--
and that’s where pity can get in.
The Drinker’s Song
It came and went. It was never mine.
I wanted to keep it. It stayed in the wine.
(Whatever it was.) Now I’m broke.
The wine gave me this, the wine gave me that,
till I came to trust it—now look what I’ve got.
I’m a joke.
Now I’m caught in his game and he throws me
around like a card, and today he’ll lose me
to that pig, Death, and that’s it.
When Death picks me up, just a filthy card,
he’ll scratch his gray scabs with me, dig at them hard,
and throw me out in the shit.
The Suicide’s Song
So: one more minute.
Then--
then they come and cut the rope
and take me back again.
And I was so ready: could feel a bit
of eternity in my intestine.
They offer me a spoonful of life,
a bit of life in a cup;
no thanks. Yes I want. I want no more.
Let me throw myself up.
I know the world is a brim-full pot
and life is warm and tastes good;
but it only goes to my head every time
and never gets to my blood.
It nourishes others; it makes me sick.
Not everyone likes it—I’ve tried it.
Now for at least a thousand years
I’m going on a diet.
The Widow’s Song
On the beginning life was good--
it warmed me and let me grow.
It does that for everyone when they’re young,
but how was I to know?
I had no idea what life was for--
then came year on year on year,
not good, not new, not fresh any more,
as if life were torn in two.
It wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t my own,
we never lacked patience, either one;
the trouble is that death has none.
I saw him coming, on and on,
taking and taking, never done.
Not that what he took was mine.
But what was mine, what belonged to me?
You mean to say even the misery
was a loan from fate? I thought that was free.
Fate wants more than your happiness back,
it wants the crying, the pain, the bad luck,
and it won’t pay much when it buys up the wreck.
Fate was right there and paid a small price
for every look on this old face,
for this walk—I watched it all happen.
It bought up a little bit every day
and when I was empty it walked away
and left me standing open.
The Idiot’s Song
They just let me go, they get out of my way,
nothing can happen, or so they say,
and that’s good.
Nothing can happen. Everything goes
on circling around the Holy Ghost,
around that particular ghost (you know)
and that’s good.
No, really, of course you mustn’t think I
am a threat to anyone as I go by--
it’s just something in the blood.
Blood is the heaviest thing—blood is heavy.
Sometimes it’s more than a man can carry.
(That’s good.)
Oh, take a look, what a pretty ball,
round and red as all in all.
You made it? That’s good.
Does it come when you call?
Isn’t it strange that everything should
go on flowing together and drifting apart,
a little confusing but friendly at heart
and good.
The Orphan’s Song
I’m No One now, and No One I’ll stay,
I’m too small to be someone, anyway;
No One I will be.
Mothers and fathers,
take pity on me.
It’s not worth the trouble to bring me up,
I’ll only be cut down.
No one can use me; I’m not all here yet
and tomorrow I’ll be all gone.
All I have is this one dress,
and it’s getting faded and thin;
maybe to God it might be enough
to hold an eternity in.
All I have—all I’ve ever had--
is this one lock of hair.
It used to belong to Someone’s Dearest.
Now he holds no one dear.
The Dwarf’s Song
My soul is straight, I guess, and good,
but what of my heart, my poor, bent blood,
all the parts of me that hurt?
My soul can’t hold them all upright.
It has no bed, it has no garden,
it just hangs on to my spiky skeleton
beating its wings in revulsion.
And what’s the use of hands like these?
How stunted they are—just look and see--
like little toads after rain they hop,
sticky and clumsy, heavy and damp.
The rest is old and worn and sad;
sometimes I wonder, why doesn’t God
just throw it all out in the dump?
Could He be angry with me for my face,
my peevish, sullen mouth?
It would have been ready, so many times,
to be bright as that of a youth.
But the only ones I’ve met face to face
were big dogs. Dogs don’t have what it takes.
The Leper’s Song
No one in town will look at me
because my luck was leprosy.
I go round rattling my clapper—see?
I rattle my one wretched melody
in the ears of all who pass nearby--
I’m the one the world abandoned.
They all go wooden at the sound,
they look away or down at the ground,
they don’t want to know what happened.
As far as the sound of my clapper goes
I’m right at home. But now I suppose
you’ll make the sound of my clapper so loud
that no one in the whole wooden crowd
will risk seeing me from across the way
any more than they’d look me in the eye.
Then I’ll be able to walk all day
without seeing man, woman, girl or boy.
I’d hate to scare animals away.
"Title Page," "The Blind Man's Song," "The Suicide's Song," "The Idiot's Song," "The Orphan's Song," first appeared in Aldus: A Journal of Translation
Title Page
Rich and happy? Sure, keep quiet.
No one wants to know.
But if you're broken, or something's missing,
you've got to put on a show.
You've to say it: I'm going blind,
or else I'm blind already,
or I'm out of luck, or my child is sick,
or I'm patched up and all unsteady....
It may not get you far.
But they walk right past you, like you're a thing,
unless you do something, so you sing.
That's where the good songs are.
People are strange enough: given the choice
they'd listen to choirs of castrated boys.
But God himself comes, and stays a long time,
when all these cut-ups start making their noise.
The Beggar’s Song
I pass by all the gates of town,
beaten by sun and rain;
then all at once I lay my right ear
in my right hand again;
and my own voice seems strange to me,
as if it weren’t mine.
I may be the one who cries out then,
or someone else; I’m not sure.
What I cry out for isn’t much;
poets cry out for more.
At last, with no doors or windows to close,
I close my eyes instead;
resting my head in the palm of my hand
is almost like going to bed;
I wouldn’t want anyone to think
I have no place to lay my head.
The Blind Man’s Song
I’m blind, you out there—it’s an affliction,
a plague, a curse, a contradiction,
a weight on each day of my life.
I’m led through sheer emptiness every day,
my gray hand on the grayest gray--
on the gray arm of my wife.
You lurch and push and you’d like to think
you don’t sound like a stone on a stone;
but you’re wrong. I’m the one; I live on
and suffer and sound off, alone.
There’s a screaming inside me that never ends,
from my heart or my guts, either one.
You know the songs? You never sang them,
not in the key they’re set in;
every morning you wake to the warm
new light your windows let in;
you have that feeling of face to face--
and that’s where pity can get in.
The Drinker’s Song
It came and went. It was never mine.
I wanted to keep it. It stayed in the wine.
(Whatever it was.) Now I’m broke.
The wine gave me this, the wine gave me that,
till I came to trust it—now look what I’ve got.
I’m a joke.
Now I’m caught in his game and he throws me
around like a card, and today he’ll lose me
to that pig, Death, and that’s it.
When Death picks me up, just a filthy card,
he’ll scratch his gray scabs with me, dig at them hard,
and throw me out in the shit.
The Suicide’s Song
So: one more minute.
Then--
then they come and cut the rope
and take me back again.
And I was so ready: could feel a bit
of eternity in my intestine.
They offer me a spoonful of life,
a bit of life in a cup;
no thanks. Yes I want. I want no more.
Let me throw myself up.
I know the world is a brim-full pot
and life is warm and tastes good;
but it only goes to my head every time
and never gets to my blood.
It nourishes others; it makes me sick.
Not everyone likes it—I’ve tried it.
Now for at least a thousand years
I’m going on a diet.
The Widow’s Song
On the beginning life was good--
it warmed me and let me grow.
It does that for everyone when they’re young,
but how was I to know?
I had no idea what life was for--
then came year on year on year,
not good, not new, not fresh any more,
as if life were torn in two.
It wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t my own,
we never lacked patience, either one;
the trouble is that death has none.
I saw him coming, on and on,
taking and taking, never done.
Not that what he took was mine.
But what was mine, what belonged to me?
You mean to say even the misery
was a loan from fate? I thought that was free.
Fate wants more than your happiness back,
it wants the crying, the pain, the bad luck,
and it won’t pay much when it buys up the wreck.
Fate was right there and paid a small price
for every look on this old face,
for this walk—I watched it all happen.
It bought up a little bit every day
and when I was empty it walked away
and left me standing open.
The Idiot’s Song
They just let me go, they get out of my way,
nothing can happen, or so they say,
and that’s good.
Nothing can happen. Everything goes
on circling around the Holy Ghost,
around that particular ghost (you know)
and that’s good.
No, really, of course you mustn’t think I
am a threat to anyone as I go by--
it’s just something in the blood.
Blood is the heaviest thing—blood is heavy.
Sometimes it’s more than a man can carry.
(That’s good.)
Oh, take a look, what a pretty ball,
round and red as all in all.
You made it? That’s good.
Does it come when you call?
Isn’t it strange that everything should
go on flowing together and drifting apart,
a little confusing but friendly at heart
and good.
The Orphan’s Song
I’m No One now, and No One I’ll stay,
I’m too small to be someone, anyway;
No One I will be.
Mothers and fathers,
take pity on me.
It’s not worth the trouble to bring me up,
I’ll only be cut down.
No one can use me; I’m not all here yet
and tomorrow I’ll be all gone.
All I have is this one dress,
and it’s getting faded and thin;
maybe to God it might be enough
to hold an eternity in.
All I have—all I’ve ever had--
is this one lock of hair.
It used to belong to Someone’s Dearest.
Now he holds no one dear.
The Dwarf’s Song
My soul is straight, I guess, and good,
but what of my heart, my poor, bent blood,
all the parts of me that hurt?
My soul can’t hold them all upright.
It has no bed, it has no garden,
it just hangs on to my spiky skeleton
beating its wings in revulsion.
And what’s the use of hands like these?
How stunted they are—just look and see--
like little toads after rain they hop,
sticky and clumsy, heavy and damp.
The rest is old and worn and sad;
sometimes I wonder, why doesn’t God
just throw it all out in the dump?
Could He be angry with me for my face,
my peevish, sullen mouth?
It would have been ready, so many times,
to be bright as that of a youth.
But the only ones I’ve met face to face
were big dogs. Dogs don’t have what it takes.
The Leper’s Song
No one in town will look at me
because my luck was leprosy.
I go round rattling my clapper—see?
I rattle my one wretched melody
in the ears of all who pass nearby--
I’m the one the world abandoned.
They all go wooden at the sound,
they look away or down at the ground,
they don’t want to know what happened.
As far as the sound of my clapper goes
I’m right at home. But now I suppose
you’ll make the sound of my clapper so loud
that no one in the whole wooden crowd
will risk seeing me from across the way
any more than they’d look me in the eye.
Then I’ll be able to walk all day
without seeing man, woman, girl or boy.
I’d hate to scare animals away.
"Title Page," "The Blind Man's Song," "The Suicide's Song," "The Idiot's Song," "The Orphan's Song," first appeared in Aldus: A Journal of Translation