Rilke (1875-1926) Falken-Beize

Falconry

A prince survives by unseen acts.
At night the chief advisor knocked
at Frederick's workroom in the tower
and found him formulating facts
for treatises on wingèd power
while his penman turned out text.

It was in this aerie room
he'd walked all night with her on arm,
turbulent and barely fledged.
Whatever plans then sprang to mind,
whatever fondness deeply chimed
in recollection he would trash
and tend the frightened and impassioned
thing he wished to understand.
Every night he made a time
for nothing but the young unhandled

animal. It was her staring
inborn mind he'd worked to learn,
so he was lofted with her grace
when she, the bird that nobles praise,
thrown gleaming from his hand (her wingbeats raised
into the heartfelt morning air)
and diving like an angel struck the hern.


The Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) composed a Latin treatise on Falconry based on direct experience and observation. There is some evidence suggesting that he was more interested in birds than he was in warfare. The sonnet verse-form was invented at Frederick's court in Sicily and one of the earliest sonnets we have was written by him. His chief advisor was Piero della Vigna, whose poetry in Italian vernacular has, at least in part, also been preserved. The female falcon being larger than the male and preferred for hunting, the bird being trained is so designated in the translation.

translation © 1999, 2001 Leonard Cottrell. All rights reserved

Falken-Beize

Kaiser sein heißt unverwandelt vieles
überstehen bei geheimer Tat:
wenn der Kanzler nachts dem Turm betrat,
fand er ihn, des hohen Federspieles
kühnen fürstlichen Traktat

in den eingeneigten Schreiber sagen;
denn er hatte im entlegnen Saale
selber nächtelang und viele Male
das noch ungewohnte Tier getragen,

wenn es fremd war, neu und aufgebräut.
Und er hatte dann sich nie gescheut,
Pläne, welche in ihm aufgesprungen,
oder zärtlicher Erinnerungen
tieftiefinneres Geläut
zu verachten, um des bangen jungen

Falken willen, dessen Blut und Sorgen
zu begreifen er sich nicht erließ.
Dafür war er auch wie mitgehoben,
wenn der Vogel, den die Herren loben,
glänzend von der Hand geworfen, oben
in dem mitgefühlten Frülingsmorgen
wie ein Engel auf den Reiher stieß.

*

NP2 1908