The Lay of the love and death of Coronet Christoph

Rilke

1. Riding

Riding, Riding, Riding, through the day,

through the night, through the day.
Riding, riding, riding. And courage has grown so tired,
and longing so great. There are no more mountains,
hardly a tree. Nothing dares to stand up.
Foreign huts squat thirstily at muddied wells.
Nowhere a tower. And always the same picture.
One finds that one has two eyes too many. Only at night
does one sometimes believe one knows the way.
Perhaps at night we always return
to the stretch of road that
we gained so painfully under the foreign sun? It may be.
The sun is heavy, as it is during the depth of our summer.
But it was summer when we took our leave.
The dresses of the women shimmered for a long time among the green.
And now we are riding along. So it must be Autumn.
At least in the place where sad women know of us.

2. The little Marquis

Von Langenau repositions himself in his saddle and says:
"Marquis..."
At first his neighbor, the fine little Frenchman,
had spoken and laughed for three days.
Now he knows nothing anymore.
He is like a child who wants to sleep.
Dust is settling on his fine white lace collar;
he does not notice it. He is slowly wilting
in his velvety saddle.
But von Langenau smiles and says:
"You have strange eyes, Marquis.
No doubt you resemble your mother.-"
At that the little one blossoms one more time
and dusts off his collar and is as new.

3. Someone is talking of his mother

Someone is talking of his mother.
He apparently is German.
Loudly and slowly he places his words:
Like a girl who is assembling a flower bouquet,
and who thoughtfully tries out
flower after flower and does not yet know
what it will become - that is how he structures his words.
For fun? For ill? All listen.
Even the spitting ceases.
After all they are all gentlemen, who know what is proper.
And those in this band who do not know German,
suddenly understand it, feel individual words:
"Evenings" ... "Was little..."

[In this they are all close to each other, these gentlemen,
who come from France and from Burgundy,
from the Netherlands, from the valleys of Kaernten,
from the bohemian castles and from Emperor Leopold.
Because what one of them is recounting,
they have also experienced, and just like that.
As if there were only one mother...

So one is riding into the evening,

any evening. One is silent again,
but the bright words are now being carried along.
Then the Marquis lifts off his helmet.
His dark hair is soft,
and as he bends down his head,
his hair spreads on his neck in a feminine fashion.
Now von Langenau recognizes it as well:
Far away something is towering into the gloaming,
something slender, dark.
A lonely column, half fallen apart.
And after they have long passed it, later,
it comes to him, that that had been a Madonna.]

4. Watch-fire
Watch-fire. One sits around it and waits.
Waits for someone to sing.
But one is so tired.
The red light is heavy.
It rests on dusty shoes.
It crawls up to the knees,
it looks into the folded hands.
It has no wings.
The faces are dark.
Yet for a while the eyes of the little Frenchman
glow with their own light.
He has kissed a small rose,
and now it may continue to wilt on his breast.
Von Langenau saw it
because he could not sleep.
He thinks: I have no rose, none.
Then he sings.
And it as an old, sad, song,
that the girls sing at home in the fields,
when the harvests near their end in the fall.

[Says the little Marquis: "You are very young, sir?"

And von Langenau, half in sadness and half in defiance:
"Eighteen". Then they are silent.
Later the Frenchman asks:
"Do you have a bride at home, Squire?"
"You?", retorts von Langenau.
"She is fair like you."
And again they are silent, until the German cries out:
"What the devil then, why are you sitting
in the saddle and riding through this poisonous land
against the Turkish dogs?"
The Marquis smiles. "In order to return."
And von Langenau becomes sad.
He is thinking of a blond girl
with whom he played. Wild games.
And he wants to go home,
just for a moment,
only long enough
to say the words: "Magdalena,-
please forgive that I was always so...!"
How was I? the young man thinks. -
And they are so far apart.]

5. The army

One day, in the morning, a rider is there,

and then a second, four, ten.
Wholly clad in iron, tall.
Then one thousand behind them: The army.
One must part.
"Have a happy return home, Marquis."
"May Mary protect you, Squire."
And they cannot leave each other.
They are suddenly friends, brothers.
They have more to confide in each other;
because they already know so much of each other.
They hesitate. Around them there is tumult and hooves beating.
The Marquis pulls off his large right glove.
He takes out the small rose, and removes one petal.
As if he were breaking the host.
"This will protect you. Good bye."
Von Langenau is astonished.
His eyes follow the Frenchman for a long while.
Then he places the foreign petal under his coat.
And it drifts up and down on the waves of his heart.
The trumpet calls. He rides to the army, the squire.
He smiles sadly:
he is protected by an unknown woman.

6. A day among the army train

A day among the army train. Swearing, colors, laughing:

the country dazzles with it. Colorful boys come running.
Tussling and yelling. Hussies with purple hats
in their flood of hair. Signaling. Lansquenets come,
iron-black as if the night were afoot.
Hotly grabbing the hussies, so that their dresses are torn up.
Pushing them against the edge of the drum.
And the even wilder resistance of quick hands awakens the drums,
as in a dream they rumble, rumble-.
And in the evening they are holding lanterns for him, strange ones.
Wine, aglow in iron helmets. Wine? Or Blood?
Who can make out the difference?

7. Spork

Finally in front of Spork.

The duke towers next to his white horse.
His long hair has the gleam of iron.
Von Langenau did not ask.
He recognizes the general, dismounts,
and bows in a cloud if dust.
He is bringing a letter
that is to recommend him to the duke.
However, the duke orders: "Read this rag to me."
And his lips did not move.
He did not need them for that;
they are sufficient for swearing.
Anything beyond that, is spoken by his right hand.
Its looks tell you as much.
The young gentleman has long finished.
He doesn't know any longer where he is standing.
Spork occupies everything.
Even the sky is gone.
Then Spork, the great general, says:
"Cornet." And that is a lot.

8. The scream

The company is on the other side of the Raab river.

Von Langenau is riding aimlessly, alone.
The plain. Evening. The metal fittings of the saddle gleam through
the dust.
And then the moon rises. He can tell by looking at his hands.
He is dreaming.
But then a scream assaults him.
Screams upon screams
disrupt his dream.
It is no owl. Heaven have mercy:
The lone tree
screams at him:
You!
And he sees: It is writhing. A body is writhing
Against the tree, and a young female,
bloodied and naked,
snarls at him: Set me free!

And he jumps down into the black green,

And cuts through the hot ropes;
And he sees her burning glances,
And the baring of her teeth.

Is she laughing?

He shudders with dread

And is already up on his steed
And races into the night,
The bloody ropes grasped firmly in his fist..

9. The letter

Von Langenau is writing a letter, lost in thought.

He is drawing slowly with large, serious, upright letters:

"My good mother,

"Be proud: I am carrying the flag,
"Be without worry. I am carrying the flag.
"Love me: I am carrying the flag-"

The he puts the letter under his uniform,

in the most secret place, next to the rose petal.
And thinks: he will soon be fragrant with it.
And thinks: perhaps someone will find it one day...
And thinks - ...; because the enemy is near.

10. The castle

Their horses step over a slain peasant.
He has his eyes wide open and something reflects in them;
not the sky. Later dogs bark.
That means that they finally have come upon a village.
And above the huts rises a castle of stone.
The broad bridge offers itself to them.
The gate looms large. The high trumpet sounds a welcome.
Listen: A racket, clattering, and dogs barking.
Neighing in the courtyard, hoof-beats and shouts.

11. Rest

Rest! A guest for once. Not always having to be

one's own host with meager provisions.
Not always grasping at things with hostile feelings;
for once to let everything happen to oneself and to know -
whatever happens is fine.
Courage also needs to stretch itself
once in a while and relax
under the finery of silken blankets.
Not to be a soldier all the time.
To wear one's hair loosely
and the collar wide open
and to sit on silk armchairs
and everything to perfection:
the feeling after the bath.
To learn again what women are.
And how the white ones act,
and how the blue ones are;
what their hands are like,
how they sing their laughter,
when blond lads bring the beautiful bowls,
heavy with juicy fruits.

12. The celebration

It began as a meal. And it turned into a feast;

you'd hardly know how.
The high flames torched up, the voices flew about,
confused songs clattered out of glass and brightness,
and finally out of the ripened measures:
the dance emerged. And it swept everyone along with it.
What a crashing of waves there was in the halls,
what a meeting each other, choosing each other,
saying of good-byes and finding each other again,
reveling in the bright lights and being blinded by lights
and swaying in the summer winds
that are in the dresses of warm women.
Out of dark wine and a thousand roses
the hour pours itself roaringly into the dream of the night.

13. And one stands

And one stands and stares at this glory.

And he is the kind that waits to see whether he will wake up.
Because only during one's sleep does one see such finery,
and such festivals of such women:
their smallest gesture is a dropping broquaded pleat.
They build up hours out of silvery conversations,
and sometimes they raise their hands in such a way -,
you have to think that somewhere
where you cannot reach they are breaking off gentle roses
that you cannot see. And there you dream:
To be adorned with them
and be with other joys
and to earn yourself a crown
for your forehead, which is empty.

14. Are you the night?

One who is wearing white silk realizes
that he cannot wake up;
because he is awake and confused with reality.
So he escapes, afraid, into the dream and stands in the park,
alone in the black park. And the party is far.
And the light is lying.
And the night is close around him and cool.
And he asks a woman who inclines toward him:
"Are you the night?"
She smiles.
And then he is ashamed of his white clothes.
And wants to be far away and alone and in iron.
Completely in iron.

15. Have you forgotten?

"Have you forgotten that you are my page
for this day? Would you abandon me?
Where are you going?
Your white dress gives me your right-."

"Are you longing for your rough coat?"

"Are you freezing? - Are you homesick?"

The duchess smiles.
No. But only because being a child
has slipped off his shoulders,
this gentle dark dress.
Who took it away?
"You?" he asks in a voice
he had not yet heard.
"Du!"
And now nothing is on him.
And he is naked like as a saint.
Bright and slender.

[Slowly the castle's fires darken. All are heavy:

tired or in love or drunk.
After these many empty, long nights in the field:
beds. Wide oak beds.
There one can pray differently
than in the lumpy rut on the way,
which becomes like a grave, when one wants to fall asleep.
"Lord God, as you will it!"
The prayers are shorter in bed.
But more fervent.]

16. The room in the tower

The room in the tower is dark.

But they illuminate each other's face with their smile.

They reach and grope like the blind
and find the other like a door.
Almost like children who are afraid of the dark,
that is how they crowd in on each other.
And yet they do not fear.
There is nothing that might be against them:
no yesterday, no tomorrow;
because time has collapsed.
And they are blossoming from its ruins.

He does not ask: "Your husband?"

She does not ask: "Your name?"
After all, they have found each other
to be a new generation for each other.
They will give each other a hundred new names
and take them away again,
quietly, as one removes an earring.

17. In the anteroom

In the anteroom his military coat is draped across an armchair,

as well as his sash and the long coat of him who is von Langenau.
His gloves lie on the floor.
His flag is erect, leaning against the cross beams of the window.
It is black and slender.
Outside a storm chases across the sky
and shreds the night into pieces, white and black ones.
The light of the moon passes like a lasting bolt of lighting,
and the immobile flag casts nervous shadows.
It is dreaming.
18. Was there an open window?
Was there an open window? Is the storm inside the house?
Who is slamming the doors shut?
Who is going through the rooms? Let it be.
Whoever it may be. He will not find his way into the tower chamber.
Like a sleep behind a hundred doors is this great sleep,
that two people share;
share like one mother or one death.

19. Is this the morning?

Is this the morning? Which sun is rising?

How large the sun is.
Are those birds? Their voices are everywhere.

Everything is bright, but it is not a day.

Everything is loud, but they are not the calls of birds.

It is the beams that are bright.
It is the windows that are screaming.
And they scream, red, to the enemy
who are standing outside in the flickering country, screaming fire.

And with torn up sleep in their faces all are crowding,

half iron, half naked, from room to room,
from sections and wings and search for the staircase.

And the horns in the courtyard stammer with uncertain breath:

Assemble, Assemble!
And quaking drums.

20. But the flag is not present

But the flag is not present.

Calls: Cornet!
Racing horses, prayers, yelling,
curses: Cornet!
Iron on iron, order and signal;

Quiet: Cornet!
And once again: Cornet!
And exits the surging cavalry.

...
But the flag is not present.

21. The flag

He is racing to beat the burning hallways,

through doors that scorch and restrain him,
across stairs that singe him,
he breaks out of the raging building.
In his arms he carries the flag
like a white, unconscious woman.
And he finds a horse, and it is like a scream -
above everything and past everything,
even past those whom he knows.
And then the flag comes to as well
and never was it this royal;
and now they all see it, far ahead in front,
and recognize the man without a helmet
and recognize the flag.
But then it begins to glow, unfolds and turns large and red.

Their flag now burns in amidst the enemy,

and they chase after it.

22. Death

Von Langenau is deep among the enemy, but entirely alone.

The terror has created a round space around him,
and he stops, right in the middle,
under his flag that is slowly burning up.

Slowly, almost thoughtfully, he looks around himself.

There is much that is strange, colorful, before him.
Gardens - he thinks and smiles.
But then he feels
that eyes are holding him and he recognizes men
and he knows they are the pagan dogs -:
and throws his horse right into them.

But, as everything now crashes down around him,

there are the gardens again,
and the sixteen curved sabers
that dance toward him, flash for flash are a bright festival.

A laughing fountain.

23. The following spring

The military coat burned up in the castle,
the letter, and the rose petal from an unknown woman. -
The following spring (it arrived sad and cold)
a messenger of the Baron of Pirovano
slowly rode into Langenau.
There he saw an old woman weeping.