German · New Poems: The Other Part

Die Entführung

The Abduction

19 lines · 18 notes

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1
Often, as a child, she had slipped away
Oftoftenoft · adverbdepends on war
warhadsein · auxiliary verb, past, indicative, third-person, singularmain verb of the sentence
sieshesie · pronoun, nominative, feminine, singulardepends on war
alsasals · prepositiondepends on war
KindchildKind · noun, nominative, neuter, singulardepends on als
ihrenherihr · determiner, dative, feminine, pluraldepends on Dienerinnen
DienerinnenmaidservantsDienerin · noun, dative, feminine, pluraldepends on entwichen (next line)
WordDative object of a later verb Dienerinnen is the dative plural of die Dienerin, 'maidservant', the feminine of der Diener, 'servant'. The dative is governed by entwichen on the next line, since jemandem entweichen means 'to escape from someone'.
2
from her maidservants, to see the night and the wind
GrammarParticiple far from its auxiliary entweichen, 'to escape, slip away', is a strong verb conjugated with sein: war ... entwichen is the pluperfect, 'had escaped'. The participle is held far from its auxiliary war in line 1, a long suspension typical of Rilke.
3
(because indoors they are so different)
GrammarWeil sends the verb to the end weil, 'because', is a subordinating conjunction, so the finite verb sind moves to the clause's end: weil sie drinnen so anders sind. drinnen means 'inside, indoors', where the night and wind are tamed once brought within the walls.
4
out where they begin to stir;
WordInfinitive used as a noun das Beginnen is the verb beginnen, 'to begin', used as a noun, 'the beginning, the setting-out'. an ihrem Beginnen means roughly 'at their first stirring'. draußen, 'outside', answers drinnen from the line before.
5
yet surely no night of storm had ever
WordCompound noun, storm plus night Sturmnacht compounds Sturm, 'storm', and Nacht, 'night', giving 'stormy night'. German builds such nouns freely, and the gender follows the final element, so die Sturmnacht. gewiß, now spelled gewiss, means 'surely, certainly'.
6
torn the vast park so to pieces
GrammarPluperfect, past participle gerissen is the past participle of the strong verb reißen, 'to tear, rip', completing hatte ... gerissen, the pluperfect begun in the line before. in Stücke reißen is the idiom 'to tear to pieces'.
7
as her conscience now tore it apart,
WordConscience, echoing an earlier word das Gewissen is 'the conscience'. Rilke sets it against gewiß, 'surely', two lines above, and against zerriß, the past of zerreißen, 'to tear apart': the storm tore the park, her conscience tears her.
8
when he took her down from the silken ladder
GrammarWeak adjective ending after von der von takes the dative; die Leiter, 'ladder', is feminine, so the dative gives der seidenen Leiter, with the weak adjective ending -en following the article. seiden means 'silken'; da here is temporal, 'when'.
9
and carried her onward, onward, onward:
GrammarSeparable verb stays whole weitertragen, 'to carry on, carry farther', is separable, weiter- plus tragen. In this subordinate clause introduced by da the verb stays whole and final, sie weitertrug, 'carried her onward'.
10
until the carriage was everything.
WordThe word for carriage der Wagen here is the horse-drawn carriage waiting for the elopement, not the modern sense 'car'. Isolated as a single short line, it marks the threshold where nothing remains but the moving coach, alles, 'everything'.
11
And she smelled it, the black carriage,
GrammarPast tense, and apposition roch is the simple past of riechen, 'to smell'. ihn, den schwarzen Wagen places a pronoun and its noun in apposition, both accusative since der Wagen is masculine: 'it, the black carriage'.
12
around which, held in check, the hunt stood waiting
WordHeld in check, restrained verhalten as an adjective means 'restrained, held in check, suppressed', describing das Jagen, 'the hunt', pressing in around the carriage but reined in. um den, 'around which', points back to den Wagen.
13
and the danger.
14
And she found it lined with something cold;
GrammarTo line, and a nominalized adjective etwas mit ... ausschlagen means 'to line, upholster something with', and ausgeschlagen is the past participle of the separable ausschlagen. Kaltem is the adjective kalt used as a neuter noun in the dative after mit, 'something cold'.
15
and the black and the cold were in her too.
GrammarAdjectives turned into nouns das Schwarze and Kalte are adjectives made into neuter nouns, 'the black' and 'the cold', as abstractions. The single verb war stays singular even though it answers both nouns, fusing them into one quality now in ihr, 'inside her'.
16
She crept down into her coat collar
WordTo creep, plus a compound noun kroch is the simple past of kriechen, 'to crawl, creep'; with in plus the accusative it expresses motion into a place. der Mantelkragen compounds Mantel, 'coat', and Kragen, 'collar'.
17
and felt for her hair, as if it would stay here,
GrammarAls plus subjunctive, unreal comparison als, 'as though', with the subjunctive II bliebe, from bleiben, 'to stay', marks an unreal comparison: 'as though it would stay here'. The word order inverts after als, with the verb coming right after it.
18
and heard, as a stranger, a stranger say:
WordSame word, adverb and noun fremd, 'strange, foreign, estranged', appears twice: first as an adverb coloring how she hears, then in einen Fremden, 'a stranger', a nominalized adjective in the masculine accusative. The doubling makes listener and speaker both strangers.
19
Iamwithyou.
GrammarThree words run together Ich bin bei dir, 'I am with you', is printed with no spaces between the words; bei takes the dative, giving bei dir. Rilke fuses the reassurance into one breathless, unbroken utterance.

The particulars

The text: Neue Gedichte, Rainer Maria Rilke. New Poems: The Other Part.
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