Each To The Other’s Lips

O How Strangely the Drinker Slips*

We lifted each other to each other’s lips

But The drinker — says Rilke slipped from the sacrament.

*From Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke There are over 23 English translations of this deeply philosophical poem, and all are very different. But the central idea in this short fragment is that a lovers’ kiss cannot sustain what it seems to promise. Something is always lost between the lips.

“The drinker vanish[es]” says Robert Hunter. “The drinker slipped from the sacrament” says Edward Snow — an intriguing translation as “sacrament” is not found in the German:

Wenn ihr einer dem andern euch an den Mund hebt und ansetzt –: Getränk an Getränk: o wie entgeht dann der Trinkende seltsam der Handlung.

And yet Rilke’s kiss does seem to evoke the image of two lovers sharing the sacramental cup at the Altar — even if the German doesn’t mention it.