German · New Poems: The Other Part

Eine von den Alten

One of the Old Women

12 lines · 12 notes

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1
Some evenings (do you know how that feels?)
AbendsEveningsabends · adverbdepends on stehn (cross-segment)
manchmalsometimesmanchmal · adverbdepends on stehn (cross-segment)
weißtdo you knowwissen · verb, present, indicative, second-person, singularmain verb of the parenthetical clause
duyoudu · pronoun, nominative, second-person, singulardepends on weißt
wiehowwie · subordinating conjunctiondepends on tut
dasthatder · pronoun, nominative, neuter, singularsubject of tut
tutfeelstun · verb, present, indicative, third-person, singulardepends on weißt
Wordtun for how something affects you tun normally means 'to do', but in das tut weh, 'that hurts', and the clipped wie das tut, it describes how something acts on you. weißt du, wie das tut, means 'do you know how that feels'.
2
when they suddenly stop and nod back over the shoulder
GrammarClipped verb for coming to a stop stehn is the poetic short form of stehen, 'to stand', with the -e- dropped for the meter. Here it means not just 'to be standing' but 'to come to a stop, to halt'.
3
and a smile, as if made of nothing but patches,
WordQuantifier lauter meaning nothing but ein Flicken is a patch sewn onto worn cloth. aus lauter X means 'made of nothing but X'. lauter here is the quantifier 'sheer, nothing but', not the adjective laut, 'loud'.
4
they show beneath their half-tilted hat.
GrammarMain verb deferred across three lines zeigen, 'they show', is the main verb of the stanza, arriving only here with sie from an earlier line as its subject and ein Lächeln from the line before as its object. German routinely defers the verb this way, holding the sentence open.
5
Beside them there is, just then, a building,
Grammarneben plus dative for a fixed location neben, 'beside, next to', is a two-way preposition; with a static location it takes the dative, here ihnen, 'them'. Placing the phrase first inverts the order so the verb ist comes before the subject ein Gebäude.
6
endless, and they lure you along it
WordVerb for luring someone on locken means 'to entice, to tempt, to beckon', the verb used for luring an animal or person onward. dich is the accusative 'you', the reader drawn in. entlang, 'along', trails after the noun it follows.
7
with the riddle of their mange,
WordNoun for mange applied to people die Räude means mange or scabby skin disease, normally used of animals. Applied here to the women it is a deliberately harsh word for their ruined condition. mit dem Rätsel ihrer Räude is one of the dative mit-phrases naming what lures the reader.
8
with the hat, the cloak, and the gait.
Grammarmit heads a list in the dative mit always governs the dative; here it heads a list of masculine nouns in the dative singular: dem Hut, 'the hat', dem Umhang, 'the cloak', and dem Gang, 'the gait'. The three complete the list of lures begun in the stanza before.
9
With the hand that behind, beneath the collar,
GrammarRelative clause spanning a stanza Mit der Hand, 'with the hand', is dative after mit, extending the list of lures from the stanza before. die is a relative pronoun, 'that, which', introducing a clause that runs across the whole stanza. unterm contracts unter dem, 'beneath the'.
10
secretly waits and reaches out for you:
Grammarverlangen nach governs the dative verlangen nach means 'to long for, to crave' and governs the dative: nach dir means 'for you'. Paired with heimlich wartet, 'secretly waits', it names the hand as the active thing that wants.
11
as if to fold your hands shut
Grammarum zu with zu inside a separable verb wie um ... einzuschlagen means 'as though in order to fold shut'. um zu plus infinitive expresses purpose, and wie softens it to 'as though to'. einschlagen, 'to wrap, to fold over', is separable, so zu slots between prefix and stem: ein-zu-schlagen.
12
in a piece of saved-up paper.
WordParticiple meaning kept or saved aufgehoben is the past participle of aufheben, which means both 'to pick up' and 'to keep, to save'. ein aufgehobenes Papier is a scrap of paper that has been kept or saved, like cheap wrapping.

The particulars

The text: Neue Gedichte, Rainer Maria Rilke. New Poems: The Other Part.
Reading aloud: Digital narration, directed by 1732 Studios.
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