Liebes-Lied | Rainer Maria Rilke

[kaberett]

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Vorlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.

Comments

[kaberett]

(I am in fact reading an edition in parallel translation, at least in part because it's good practice for me to see how translation works - it's a skill I am piecemeal attempting to acquire - but I am sufficiently invested in German musical terminology that I am dissatisfied with the translation in question, so. So.)

[birke]

What is a Bogenstrich, exactly? I tried duden.de, but it was not super-enlightening. (I mean I could just assume it means "bowstroke," but now I've started thinking about it I'm not even 100% clear what that is in English.)

[kaberett]

You are correct, it is literally "bowstroke"! It would be idiomatically translated as "one bow"; when playing a stringed instrument, one "bow" is pulling the bow in one direction (either an upbow or a downbow, depending...), up until the next direction change. So the point of that line is that you can double-stop, or do spread chords: in a single bow, simultaneously sound two (or more) notes on different strings.

... I don't know how well I've explained that because I've been playing stringed instruments since I was a wee small Alex.

[birke]

Oooh, that makes sense. Thank you!
I've never played a bowed instrument, but I do have a rough idea how they work.