German · New Poems: The Other Part

Sankt Georg

Saint George

20 lines · 18 notes

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1
And she had been calling on him all night long,
Undandund · conjunctiondepends on hatte
sieshesie · pronoun, nominative, feminine, singulardepends on hatte
hattehadhaben · auxiliary verb, past, indicative, third-person, singularmain verb of the sentence (pluperfect auxiliary)
ihnhimihn · pronoun, accusative, masculine, singulardepends on hatte
dietheder · determiner, accusative, feminine, singulardepends on Nacht
ganzewholeganz · adjective, accusative, feminine, singulardepends on Nacht
NachtnightNacht · noun, accusative, feminine, singulardepends on hatte
GrammarA pluperfect split across lines hatte begins a pluperfect whose participle, angerufen, 'called upon', does not arrive until the next line. German routinely strands the auxiliary far from its participle, and here the gap leaves the long night of pleading unresolved across the line break.
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called upon, knelt down before him, the weak,
WordA separable verb for kneeling The separable verb hinknien means 'to kneel down onto the ground'. The prefix hin- marks motion away from the speaker, toward a place, here the act of sinking to one's knees. The bare participle hingekniet sits beside angerufen as a second thing she did all night.
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watching virgin: Behold, this dragon,
GrammarAn archaic imperative for behold Siehe is an archaic, full form of the imperative of sehen, 'to see', where modern German would use sieh. It survives mostly in biblical and liturgical usage, giving the virgin's prayer the cadence of scripture.
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and I do not know why he keeps watch.
GrammarVerb-final in an indirect question After warum, 'why', the conjugated verb wacht is pushed to the very end of the clause: warum er wacht means 'why he keeps watch'. This word order marks the subordinate clause, and the repeated wach- root ties her wakefulness to the dragon's.
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And then he broke out of the grey of dawn
WordTo break out of dawn The separable verb ausbrechen, 'to break out, burst forth', splits in the past tense: brach ... aus. Morgengraun contracts Morgengrauen, 'the greying of morning, daybreak'. The saint erupts out of the half-light like the sun itself.
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on the dun horse, helmet and hauberk blazing,
WordA horse named by its color falb is a pale yellowish brown, 'dun' or 'fallow'; der Falbe is the dun-colored horse, named for its coat. Haubert, more usually Halsberge, is the mail hauberk. strahlend, 'blazing', governs both Helm und Haubert, so the whole armour shines.
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and he saw her, sorrowful and enchanted,
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gazing upward out of her kneeling
GrammarA bare infinitive after seeing er sah sie ... aufwärtsschaun means 'he saw her gaze upward'. After verbs of perception like sehen, German uses a bare infinitive, schaun, a colloquial form of schauen, with no zu. aus dem Knieen turns the verb knien, 'to kneel', into a noun for the act itself.
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up to the radiance that he was.
GrammarA relative clause as predicate der Glanz, 'radiance, splendour', appears here in the older dative form dem Glänze. The relative clause der er war means 'which he was': the saint does not merely have radiance, he is the radiance she kneels toward.
10
And he galloped, gleaming, along the lands
Wordsprengen, to gallop Beside its common sense 'to blow up, burst', sprengen is also the old equestrian verb 'to set spurs, to gallop'. längs, 'along', takes the genitive, as in längs der Länder, 'along the lands'.
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downward with his raised two-handed sword
WordA great two-handed sword A Doppelhänder, also called a Zweihänder, is a great sword wielded with both hands. erhobnem syncopates erhobenem, 'raised', its dative ending agreeing with Doppelhänder after mit, 'with'.
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into the open danger,
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far too terrible, and yet implored for.
WordTo win something by pleading erflehen means to beg earnestly for something, to win it through prayer; the prefix er- adds the sense of attaining the end of that pleading. The danger is called viel zu furchtbar, 'far too terrible', and yet erfleht, the very thing prayed for all night.
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And she knelt more kneelingly, her hands
GrammarAn invented comparative form kniete knieender pairs the verb 'knelt' with a comparative coined from the participle knieend, 'kneeling', roughly 'knelt more kneelingly'. German has no ordinary comparative of a participle; this one is coined for the line.
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folding them tighter, that he might withstand it for her;
GrammarA subjunctive expressing a wish bestände is the past subjunctive, Konjunktiv II, of bestehen, marking a wish rather than a fact: 'so that he might withstand it'. daß sends the verb to the end of its clause, and the subjunctive form keeps the prayer hopeful and unsettled.
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for she did not know that the one prevails
Grammarder pointing ahead to a clause Here der is not an article but a stressed demonstrative pronoun, 'the one who', whose own relative clause runs on into the next stanza. besteht, present tense of bestehen, now means 'endures, prevails'. The thought deliberately overruns the stanza break.
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whom her heart, her pure and ready heart,
GrammarAn accusative relative pronoun den is the accusative masculine relative pronoun, 'whom', object of niederreißt two lines down: der besteht, den ... niederreißt means 'the one prevails whom her heart tears down'. ihr reines und bereites is in apposition to ihr Herz, her heart.
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out of the light of the divine escort
WordAn escort of light das Geleit is an accompanying escort or safe-conduct; des göttlichen Geleites is the genitive, 'of the divine escort', modifying Licht, 'light', in aus dem Licht des göttlichen Geleites.
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tears down. At the sides of his combat
WordTo tear something down The separable verb niederreißen, 'to tear, pull down', completes the long suspended sentence: her heart reißt the saint nieder, down out of the divine light. zu Seiten, an older plural of Seite, 'side', with the genitive seines Streites means 'on either side of his combat'.
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her prayer stood, as towers stand.
GrammarA simile splitting subject and verb The subject ihr Gebet, 'her prayer', and its verb stand, 'stood', are split by the inserted comparison wie Türme stehen, 'as towers stand'. Placing the simile inside the main clause is an unusual word order.

The particulars

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