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16 - “In der Certosa”

from IV - Poems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

George C. Schoolfield
Affiliation:
Yale
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Summary

When Rilke was in Florence in April 1898, on the commission of Lou, he made an excursion recommended by Baedeker's Italien: Erster Teil: Ober-Italien, Ligurien, Das [sic] nördliche Toscana (1894): to reach the “Certosa di Val d'Ema,” also called the “Certosa di Galluzzo,” one took a twenty-three minute ride by steam-tram, for 35 centesimi, from the Porta Romana. Contrary to his wont, he did not describe the artistic treasures of the large Carthusian monastery, the “rich and splendid edifice” built by the Florentine merchant Nicolo Acciaioli in 1341. Instead his attention was fixed on the courtyards, filled with small gardens:

Und weil die ganze Welt in diesem engen Rahmen Raum und Recht gewinnen will, so sind Gärtchen drin eingebettet, die viele, viele kleine weißkiesige Wege haben, zwischen Reihen wilder Rosen leiten sie immer wieder ineinander und enden schließlich an der einen Zypresse, die schon hart an der Mauer emporsteigt. Die Sehnsucht hat sie so in dieser vielen Verzweigung geführt; ein kleines, versöhntes Symbol des großen Irrens, eine Erinnerung an das viele, das die Gänge nicht mehr umspannen. Und zwischen den Pfaden geht in fröhlichen Farben die unverbrauchte Liebe dieser armen Kapuzinerhände auf und blüht in ihrer ganzen Unschuld.

(TF, 29)

[And since the whole world will win room and rights in this narrow frame, tiny gardens are embedded in it, which have many, many white-pebbled paths; between rows of wild roses they lead into one another again and again and finally end at that single cypress, which stands there hard by the wall. Yearning has led them thus, in this manifold branching, a small reconciled symbol of the great mistakenness, a memory of the many things the pathways no longer include. And between the paths, in joyous colors, the unused love of these poor Capuchin hands comes up and blooms in its whole, blessed innocence.]

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2008

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