Rilke, Rainer Maria: Archaic Torso of Apollo (Archaïscher Torso Apollos in English)
Archaïscher Torso Apollos (German)
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Archaic Torso of Apollo (English)We cannot know his undiscovered head in which the apples of the eyes ripen. Yet his torso still glows like a candelabra, in which his seeing, now constrained,
remains and shines. Otherwise the curve of the breast could not dazzle you, nor could a smile pass through the quiet axis of the loins to that centre where procreation swelled.
Otherwise this stone would be disfigured, and cut short, under the shoulders’ transparent fall, and would not glimmer so, like a predator’s pelt:
and would not flare out from all its edges like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must transmute your life.
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