Archaic Torso of Apollo (Rilke) (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Archaic Torso of Apollo We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, gleams in all its power. Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. Otherwise this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. Copyright © 1996 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; April 1996; "To Work Is to Live Without Dying"; Volume 277, No. 4; pages 112-118.