Rilke's encounter with Ancient Greece

We did not know the incredible head
in which his wide eyes ripened. Yet even now
his torso glimmers like a candelabra,
and there his gaze, dimmed only a little,

holds fast and shines. If it did not, the surge
of the breast could not blind you, and that smile
in the slight twist of the loins would not run
to the center, where procreation flared.

Then this stone would be deformed and blunted
under the luminous plunge of the shoulders.
It would not be glistening like lion's fur;

it would not break out from all its edges
like a star. For there is no place here
that does not see you. You must change your life.

"Archaischer Torso Apollos" (An Archaic Torso of Apollo)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Frank Beck

At a time when Rilke was having trouble writing poetry, Auguste Rodin told him to stop writing about his childhood and use the world around him as his subject. Rilke did just that, writing about the panther at the Paris zoo, the carousel at the Luxembourg Gardens and Chartes Cathedral.

He also visited the Louvre and saw this fragment of a Greek statue of Apollo, which inspired one of his most celebrated poems, written in the summer of 1908. I've tried to convey the immediacy of Rilke's poem in German, which you can hear the actor Sven Görtz read at the first link.

• AUDIO: Sven Görtz reads the poem in German
• Rilke's poem in German
• Other Rilke translations on my Selected Translations page
• Rachel Corbett's book about Rilke and Rodin
• VIDEO: Julius Feldmeier plays Rilke in a recent film

Julius Feldmeier as Rilke in Lou Andreas-Salomé: The Audacity to Be Free