Rilke (1875-1926) Falken-Beize

The Art of Falconry

The king of Sicily conducts
a secret project after hours:
Nights when his advisor knocked
at Frederick's workroom in the tower
he'd find him formulating facts
for treatises on wing�d power
while his penman turned out text.
And in that same secluded room
he walked all night with her on arm,
turbulent and barely fledged.

Every night he made a time--
whatever plans then sprang to mind
or tender memories that chimed
inside him deeply he would trash,
for her, the frightened, untamed, rash
young falcon's sake: whose staring
inborn mind he worked to learn.

So he was lofted with her grace
when, the bird that nobles praise,
thrown gleaming from his hand, she rose
into the heartfelt morning air
and diving like an angel struck the heron.

The Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) composed a Latin treatise on Falconry based on direct experience and observation. There is some evidence suggesting that he was more interested in birds than he was in warfare. The sonnet verse-form was invented at Frederick's court in Sicily and one of the earliest sonnets we have was written by him. His chief advisor was Piero della Vigna, whose poetry in Italian vernacular has, at least in part, also been preserved. The female falcon being larger than the male and preferred for hunting, the bird being trained is so designated in the translation.

translation � 1999, 2001 Leonard Cottrell. All rights reserved

main index for rhymed translations.
rhymed Rilke translations

Falken-Beize

Kaiser sein hei�t unverwandelt vieles
�berstehen bei geheimer Tat:
wenn der Kanzler nachts dem Turm betrat,
fand er ihn, des hohen Federspieles
k�hnen f�rstlichen Traktat

in den eingeneigten Schreiber sagen;
denn er hatte im entlegnen Saale
selber n�chtelang und viele Male
das noch ungewohnte Tier getragen,

wenn es fremd war, neu und aufgebr�ut.
Und er hatte dann sich nie gescheut,
Pl�ne, welche in ihm aufgesprungen,
oder z�rtlicher Erinnerungen
tieftiefinneres Gel�ut
zu verachten, um des bangen jungen

Falken willen, dessen Blut und Sorgen
zu begreifen er sich nicht erlie�.
Daf�r war er auch wie mitgehoben,
wenn der Vogel, den die Herren loben,
gl�nzend von der Hand geworfen, oben
in dem mitgef�hlten Fr�lingsmorgen
wie ein Engel auf den Reiher stie�.

*

NP2 1908