Rainer Maria Rilke

Sonnets to Orpheus

Translation by M. D. Herter Norton

To Rilke himself the Sonnets to Orpheus were "perhaps the most mysterious . . . in the way they came up and entrusted themselves to me, the most enigmatic dictation I have ever held through and achieved; the whole first part was written down in a single breathless act of obedience, between the 2nd and 5th of February, without one word being doubtful or having to be changed."

The poems themselves are their own best reason for their title. Orpheus—the mythical poet, sometimes called the son of Apollo, who could enchant beasts and birds and spirits with his song and might have brought back his Eurydice from the world of the dead, had he not turned to look before she had once more set foot in the world of the living.