Washing the Corpse
They’d grown used to him there, but when they lit
the kitchen lamp and the flame
fluttered in the dark, he, the one without a name,
seemed all the more un-nameable. They washed his throat
and knowing nothing of his life,
contrived one for the stranger.
One of them turned her head to cough
and set her sponge, soaked with vinegar,
on his face. The other paused
and drops fell from her stiff-bristled
brush while his contorted hand tried to convince
them, tried to show the entire house
that he no longer thirsted.
He no longer thirsted. And they, abashed,
coughed, and set again to work
but harder now and washed
the man. Their shadows on the silent walls jerked
and flailed as though inside a net until there came an end
to the washing. Night, in the bare window,
shrugged. And he, whose name they didn’t know,
naked and clean now,
gave commands.
* * * * *
Leichen-Wäsche
Sie hatten sich an ihn gewöhnt. Doch als
die Küchenlampe kam und unruhig brannte
im dunkeln Luftzug, war der Unbekannte
ganz unbekannt. Sie wuschen seinen Hals,und da sie nichts von seinem Schicksal wussten,
so logen sie ein anderes zusamm,
fortwährend waschend. Eine musste husten
und ließ solang den schweren Essigschwammauf dem Gesicht. Da gab es eine Pause
auch für die zweite. Aus der harten Bürste
klopften die Tropfen; während seine grause
gekrampfte Hand dem ganzen Hause
beweisen wollte, dass ihn nicht mehr dürste.Und er bewies. Sie nahmen wie betreten
eiliger jetzt mit einem kurzen Huster
die Arbeit auf, so dass an den Tapeten
ihr krummer Schatten in dem stummen Mustersich wand und wälzte wie in einem Netze,
bis dass die Waschenden zu Ende kamen.
Die Nacht im vorhanglosen Fensterrahmen
war rücksichtslos. Und einer ohne Namen
lag bar und reinlich da und gab Gesetze.
* * * * *
Steve Kronen on “Washing the Corpse”
Much remains unsaid, implied, and invisible in Rilke’s corporeal “Washing the Corpse.” Rilke, without specifying, invokes for me the Marys at the foot of the crucified Jesus via the two women washing the body of the poem’s unknown dead man. One of the women inadvertently offers him vinegar, but unlike the dying Jesus, the corpse silently makes it clear that he no longer thirsts. Yet, as did the dead Jesus, he continues giving “commands” to those attending him, and perhaps, through the poem’s curtainless window, to those beyond.
Those missing curtains are given a ghostly substantiation as “a net” — a shadow on the wall — inside of which the two women flail about at their task. The women, like the corpse itself, are unnamed. They also give their own command by imposing a missing narrative upon the dead man, investing him with a new life just as Christianity will provide its believers with a new life beyond death. All the while, like an unspeaking God, the black night peers in at the three of them.
“Washing the Corpse” is from Rilke’s 1908 New Poems II (Der Neuen Gedichte anderer Teil). What we call New Poems (Neue Gedichte) is actually two volumes, issued a year apart. The second volume gives us also “The Last Evening” and “Black Cat,” as well as “The Archaic Torso of Apollo” in which Rilke again directs our attention to the body of an enigmatic god who again silently commands us.