Entrance

The poem consists of three rhyming quatrains, as in the original German. (A quatrain consists of four lines of verse.) Gioia the translator has attempted the difficult task of remaining true to the rhyme scheme of the original poem without straying from the meaning of the words. In the first two quatrains, Line 1 rhymes with Line 3 (“tonight” and “sight”), and Line 2 rhymes with Line 4; then Line 5 rhymes with Line 7 and Line 6 with Line 8. The final quatrain has a different rhyme scheme. Line 9 rhymes with Line 12, and Line 9 with Line 10. The rhyme scheme can thus be presented in its entirety as abab cdcd effe.

Unlike Rilke’s original, which consists entirely of perfect rhymes, the English translation contains two partial or near-rhymes: “secure” (Line 2) and “you are” (Line 4); and “mouth” (Line 10) and “truth” (Line 11), in which the vowel sound is different but the final consonants are the same.

The meter is predominantly iambic pentameter. (An iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, and a pentameter consists of five poetic feet.) Line 9 is a good example of regular iambic pentameter: “And you have made the world and all you see.” The translator inserts an extra syllable into Line 1, which can hardly be avoided because “Whoever” contains three syllables rather than the two that the meter calls for. In Line 7, the last two feet, “a huge, black tree” consist of an iamb followed by a spondee (two stressed syllables), which makes the tree stand out strongly against the anticipated metrical rhythm even more so than in the German original, which maintains the iambic rhythm of these two feet.

One line, Line 4, is shorter than the others. In the German version, it is a dimeter (two poetic feet). Once more, as in Line 1, the translator into English must add an extra syllable, to accommodate the word, “Whoever.” The short line, which repeats exactly the opening words of the poem, serves to emphasize what the poet intends to be the universality of the poem and the guidance it offers about the creative act: anyone, no matter what their background, talent, or interests, can do it.