Had I not been reading page 346 of my Penguin trade paperback Gravity's Rainbow, I would never have learned that O, wie spurlos zerträte ein Engel den Trostmarkt is from the tenth Dueno Elegy, and, as if that weren't enough, that I do not like the translation that everybody reads, either, because the guy botches its first three words.
So I spent the next howeverlong translating the first three sentences:
That I this one day, upon the final exit of the most furious insight,
sing out Jubilation and Glory to upward-voiced angels.
That from the clear striking of the collective hearts' hammers
none fail to yield, none doubt, none play their strings
too quickly. That my face, shiny with tears, makes me
more brilliant; that the inconspicuous crying need
blossoms.
–LBJ, translating Rilke, 6/2007
If only Rilke had been on the German language exam…
–Julie
True dat!
To be fair, the translation you don't like is from the foremost Rilke scholar working in the English language and is paart of his life long work to translate all of Rilke's work into the English language. He has won awards and accolades for his work. That doesn't of course mean that his rhythm or word choice, say, are perfect for everyone's ear, just that his translation attempts to stay loyal in English to what Rilke was attempting to do in German. There are other translations of Rilke, some better than others, but they are spotty at best, and with a project the size of the Duino Elegies, what you want is someone who gets it mostly right consisistantly rather than providing great work but once in a while.
Translation is always going to be a “best case scenario” kind of business. For instance, for grimmigen Einsicht, snow has nightmare, you have furious insights. Yours is more literal, his takes liberties, but his comes closer to the fact that grimmigen is also a kind of grim fury, anger derived from bleak hopelessness, thus nighmare (sort of). He loses, however, the facet of the insight in favor of the nightmare, the latter being something that happens to you, the former being something you actively attain. The middle ground would be nice, of course, but that's the untranslated line in the native tongue, so…
I think Edward Snow is your safe bet for Rilke until someone comes along to unseat him. It's a hell of a lot better than Bob Weir's translation; let's at least say that much.