"At the still point..."
 
-- Four Quartets

Spanish Dancer

(New Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke,
 June 1906, Paris)

As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white
flickering tongues before it bursts into flame:
with the audience around her, quickened, hot,
her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.

And all at once it is completely fire.

One upward glance and she ignites her hair
and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress
into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace
from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long
naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.

And then:  as if the fire were too tight
around her body, she takes and flings it out
haughtily, with an imperious gesture,
and watches:  it lies raging on the floor,
still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die--.
Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet
exultant smile, she looks up finally
and stamps it out with powerful small feet.

From The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria
Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell
 Spanische Tänzerin

(Neue Gedichte, von Rainer Maria Rilke,
  Juni 1906, Paris)

Wie in der Hand ein Schwefelzündholz, weiß,
eh es zur Flamme kommt, nach allen Seiten
zuckende Zungen streckt--: beginnt im Kreis
naher Beschauer hastig, hell und heiß
ihr runder Tanz sich zuckend auszubreiten.

Und plötzlich ist er Flamme, ganz und gat.

Mit einem Blick Entzündet sie ihr Haar
und dreht auf einmal mit gewagter Kunst
ihr ganzes Kleid in diese Feuersbrunst,
aus welcher sich, wie Schlangen die erschrecken,
die nackten Arme wach und klappernd strecken.

Und dann:  als würde ihr das Feuer knapp,
nimmt sie es ganz ausamm und wirft es ab
sehr herrisch, mit hochmütiger Gebärde
und schaut:  da liegt es rasend auf der Erde
und flammt noch immer und ergiebt sich nicht--.
Doch  sieghaft, sicher und mit einem süßen
grüßenden Lächeln hebt sie ihr Gesicht
und stampft es aus mit kleinen festen Füßen.

Another dancer, from a 1963 story by Roger Zelazny:

A Rose for Ecclesiastes
     "What is that tube of fire?"
     "A cigarette.  Want one?"
     "Yes, please."
     She sat beside me, and I lighted it for her.
     "It irritates the nose."
     "Yes.  Draw some into your lungs, hold it there, and exhale."
     A moment passed.
     "Ooh," she said.
     A pause, then, "Is it sacred?"
     "No, it's nicotine," I answered, "a very ersatz form of divinity."
     Another pause.
     "Please don't ask me to translate 'ersatz.'"
     "I won't.  I get this feeling sometimes when I dance."
     "It will pass in a moment."
     "Tell me your poem now."
     An idea hit me.
     "Wait a minute," I said.  "I may have something better."
     I got up and rummaged through my notebooks, then I returned and
sat beside her.
     "These are the first three chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes,"
I explained.  "It is very similar to your own sacred books."
     I started reading.
     I got through eleven verses before she cried out, "Please don't
read that!  Tell me one of yours!"
     I stopped and tossed the notebook onto a nearby table.  She was
shaking, not as she had quivered that day she danced as the wind, but
with the jitter of unshed tears.  She held her cigarette awkwardly,
like a pencil.  Clumsily, I put my arm about her shoulders.
     "He is so sad," she said, "like all the others."
     So I twisted my mind like a bright ribbon, folded it, and tied the
crazy Christmas knots I love so well.  From German... with
love, I did an impromptu paraphrasal of a poem about a Spanish dancer.
I thought it would please her.  I was right.
     "Ooh," she said again.  "Did you write that?"
     "No, it's by a better man than I."
     "I don't believe it.  You wrote it yourself."
     "No, a man named Rilke did."
     "But you brought it across to my language.  Light another match,
so I can see how she danced."
     I did.
     "The fires of forever," she mused, "and she stamped them out,
`with small, firm feet.'  I wish I could dance like that."
     "You're better than any Gypsy," I laughed, blowing it out.
     "No, I'm not.  I couldn't do that."
     Her cigarette was burning down, so I removed it from her fingers
and put it out, along with my own.
     "Do you want me to dance for you?"

"I twisted my mind like a bright ribbon,
folded it, and tied the
crazy Christmas knots I love so well."

-- Roger Zelazny,
A Rose for Ecclesiastes

"All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."
-- T. S. Eliot,
 Four Quartets



New York Times Book Review
cover illustration
by Stephen Savage,

Candlemas 2003

Page created by Steven H. Cullinane on Sept. 22, 2008.