Analysis of from The Tenth Elegy
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Ah, but the City of Pain: how strange its streets are:
the false silence of sound drowning sound,
and there--proud, brazen, effluence from the mold of emptiness--
the gilded hubbub, the bursting monument.
How an Angel would stamp out their market of solaces,
set up alongside their church bought to order:
clean and closed and woeful as a post office on Sunday.
Outside, though, there's always the billowing edge of the fair.
Swings of Freedom! High-divers and Jugglers of Zeal!
And the shooting gallery with its figures of idiot Happiness
which jump, quiver, and fall with a tinny ring
whenever some better marksman scores. Onward he lurches from cheers
to chance; for booths courting each curious taste
are drumming and barking. And then--for adults only--
a special show: how money breeds, its anatomy, not some charade:
money's genitals, everything, the whole act
from beginning to end--educational and guaranteed to make you
virile . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Oh, but just beyond that,
behind the last of the billboards, plastered with signs for "Deathless,"
that bitter beer which tastes sweet to those drinking it
as long as they have fresh distractions to chew . . . ,
just beyond those boards, just on the other side: things are real.
Children play, lovers hold each other, off in the shadows,
pensive, on the meager grass, while dogs obey nature.
The youth is drawn farther on; perhaps he's fallen in love
with a young Lament . . . . . He pursues her, enters meadowland.
She says:
"It's a long way. We live out there . . ."
Where? And the youth follows.
Something in her bearing stirs him. Her shoulders, neck--,
perhaps she's of noble descent. Still, he leaves her, turns around,
glances back, waves . . . What's the use? She's a Lament.
Translated by Edward Snow
Scheme | XABXBCXDEBXXXXXXFXXBXFEGCXXXDGXAX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101111111 011011101 011101001011100 01010010100 111011111011 11011111110 1010101011011 1111101001101 1110110010011 001010011101100100 11100110101 0101101011011011 11111011001 1100100110110 01011101101001101 1010010011 1010110100001111 10 111011 0101101101111 110111111101 11111101011 10111110101111 1011011101001 1010101110110 01111010111001 10101101010101 11 10111111 100110 100010110101 011110011110101 10111011001 0101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,792 |
Words | 290 |
Sentences | 45 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 33, 1 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 675 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 157 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 08, 2023
- 1:28 min read
- 92 Views
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