Rilke, "Mensonge II" (Lie II)

​This illustration by an artist named Miranda from around 1874 depicts the fatal failure of a flying apparatus. The self-styled “Flying Man” fell from the skies over London. It’s an apt metaphor for those betrayed by their own lies. (https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/de-groof-falling/)

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We are entering the height of the political season that begins with the conventions and ends only in mid-December with the selection of the president by the electors or even, as we have recently seen, with the counting of the electoral votes by the House of Representatives in early January. In past years, we would have said that the season ended with election day, but such is no longer reliably the case. Indeed, in contrasts with years gone by, we hardly ever leave the political season. Still, the stakes and tensions become higher now.

A political season is a season of half-truths, of lies ugly and beautiful, of disputed facts and credible fictions. Sometimes, at its best, it’s a season of enunciating first principles and attempting virtuous persuasion. Now it seems more like a season of violence. This is not progress. This is not the arc of history bending toward justice. We are conjuring the “ever-threatening storms / Of Chaos blustering round” (Paradise Lost, III. 425). Violence is the child of Chaos by Lies.

It seems an appropriate moment to reconsider a poem by Rilke, “Mensonge II” (“Lie II”). I first posted my tentative translation on 1 May 2023. Although I have since revised it, it is still a rough draft--all my translations of Rilke's poems are like sandpaper to silk.

Rilke is best known, of course, as a great German poet, but at the end of his life he wrote many short poems in French, including “Mensonge II.” The poem’s many metaphors (sometimes verging on allegory) are insightful. The lie is an amphora with no feet: it must be lifted and held by the liar since it can’t stand on its own (section 2). The lie is an islet on a map that does not correspond to reality (section 3). It is a human construct, a “work of the eighth day” of creation; unlike the apple on the tree of life, it’s meant for God to eat (section 3).

I originally wrote that Section 4 is about complicity in lies, and as such is quite troubling. But the scene set by the section’s four lines also suggests a mutual seduction—a wink, an eloquent silence, a hidden conspiracy; it suggests an echo chamber where everyone knows there’s a lie, no one admits who started it ("Did I call you?"), no one is willing to challenge it.

The lie is a thin smile for which we must suitably make up a face (section 5). It is so beautiful that beside it we feel fake (section 6).

We’re all tempted to say, “Yes, I know, my side has its little fibs and pious fictions, but those guys over there, Goebbels holds their beer.” But I try always to remember this: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”―Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Please send comments, suggestions, and critiques to [email protected].

Lie II
by Rainer Maria Rilke

1.
Lie, a toy we break.
Garden where we change places
the better to hide;
yet where at times we cry out
to be half found.

Wind, singing for us,
our shadow, growing long.
Collection of handsome holes
in our sponge.

2.
Mask? No. You are more complete,
lie, your eyes are eloquent.
More like a vase without a foot,
amphora wanting to be in hand.

Your foot has no doubt been swallowed by your handles.
Whoever carries you seems to complete you,
were the movement with which he lifts you
not so remarkable.

3.
Are you flower, are you bird,
lie? Are you scarcely word
or word and a half? What pure silence
surrounds you, beautiful new islet;
maps don’t know your provenance.

Late-comer to creation,
work of the eighth day, posthumous.
Since it’s we who make you,
it must be God who consumes.

4.
Did I call you? But of what word, what gesture
am I guilty of a sudden,
if your silence cries to me, if your eyelid winks at me
with tacit understanding?

5.
For this meager smile
how can a face be found?
Better if a cheek agrees
to put this makeup on.

Lying is in the air,
like this marquee that once
we burned, completely grayed
by its life upside-down.

6.
I’m not making myself clear.
We close our eyes, we leap,
an act almost devout
with God at least.

After, we open our eyes
because we’re being eaten by regret:
next to a lie so beautiful,
don’t we seem counterfeit?

NOTE: “handsome holes” I swiped from A. Poulin’s translation of this poem.

Here’s the original:

Mensonge II

1.
Mensonge, jouet que l’on casse.
Jardin où l’on change de place,
pour mieux se cacher ;
où pourtant, parfois, on jette un cri,
pour être trouvé à demi.

Vent, qui chante pour nous,
ombre de nous, qui s’allonge.
Collection de beaux trous
dans notre éponge.

2.
Masque ? Non. Tu es plus plein,
mensonge, tu as des yeux sonores.
Plutôt vase sans pied, amphore
qui veut qu’on la tient.

Tes anses, sans doute, ont mangé ton pied.
On dirait que celui qui te porte, t’achève,
n'était le mouvement dont il te soulève,
si singulier.

3.
Es-tu fleur, es-tu oiseau,
mensonge ? Es-tu à peine mot
ou mot et demi ? Quel pure silence
t’entoure, bel îlot nouveau
dont les cartes ignorent la provenance.

Tard-venu de la création,
œuvre du huitième jour, posthume.
Puisque c’est nous qui te faisons,
il faut croire que Dieu te consume.

4.
T’ai-je appelé ? Mais de quel mot, de quel signe
suis-je coupable soudain,
si ton silence me crie, si ta paupière me cligne
d’un accord souterrain ?

5.
À ce sourire épars
comment trouver un visage ?
On voudrait qu’une joue e’engage
à mettre ce fard.

Il y a du mensonge dans l’air,
comme, autrefois, cette marquise
qu’on a brûlée, toute grise
de la vie à l’envers.

6.
Je ne m’explique point.
On ferme les yeux, on saute ;
c’est chose presque dévote
avec Dieu au moins.

On ouvre les yeux après,
parce qu’un remord nous ronge :
à côté d’un si beau mensonge,
ne semble-t-on contrefait ?

​Edited 15 July 2024; revised 16 July 2024