Angels general


Rainer Maria Rilke, the Second Elegie, translated by A. S. Kline

Every Angel is terror. And yet,
ah, knowing you, I invoke you, almost deadly
birds of the soul. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of the most radiant of you stood at the simple threshold,
disguised somewhat for the journey and already no longer
awesome (Like a youth, to the youth looking out curiously).
Let the Archangel now, the dangerous one, from behind the stars,
take a single step down and toward us: our own heart,
beating on high would beat us down. What are you?

Early successes, Creation's favourite ones,
mountain-chains, ridges reddened by dawns
of all origin - pollen of flowering godhead,
junctions of light, corridors, stairs, thrones,
spaces of being, shields of bliss, tempests
of storm-filled, delighted feeling and, suddenly, solitary
mirrors: gathering their own out-streamed beauty
back into their faces again.

For we, when we feel, evaporate: oh, we
breathe ourselves out and away: from ember to ember,
yielding us fainter fragrance. Then someone may say to us:
'Yes, you are in my blood, the room, the Spring-time
is filling with you'..... What use is that: they cannot hold us,
we vanish inside and around them. And those who are beautiful,
oh, who holds them back? Appearance, endlessly, stands up,
in their face, and goes by. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours rises from us, like the heat
from a dish that is warmed. O smile: where? O upward gaze:
new, warm, vanishing wave of the heart - :
oh, we are that. Does the cosmic space,
we dissolve into, taste of us then? Do the Angels
really only take back what is theirs, what has streamed out of
them, or is there sometimes, as if by an oversight, something
of our being, as well? Are we as mingled with their
features, as there is vagueness in the faces
of pregnant women? They do not see it in the swirling
return to themselves. (How should they see it?)

Lovers, if they knew how, might utter
strange things in night air. Since it seems
everything hides us. Look, trees exist; houses,
we live in, still stand. Only we
pass everything by, like an exchange of air.
And all is at one, in keeping us secret, half out of
shame perhaps, half out of inexpressible hope.

Lovers, each satisfied in the other, I ask
you about us. You grasp yourselves. Have you a sign?
Look, it happens to me, that at times my hands
become aware of each other, or that my worn face
hides itself in them. That gives me a slight
sensation. But who would dare to exist only for that?
You, though, who grow in the other's delight
until, overwhelmed, they beg:
'No more' -: you, who under your hands
grow richer like vintage years of the vine:
who sometimes vanish, because the other
has so gained the ascendancy: I ask you of us. I know
you touch so blissfully because the caress withholds,
because the place you cover so tenderly
does not disappear: because beneath it you feel
pure duration. So that you promise eternity
almost, from the embrace. And yet, when you've endured
the first terrible glances, and the yearning at windows,
and the first walk together, just once, through the garden:
Lovers, are you the same? When you raise yourselves
one to another's mouth, and hang there - sip against sip:
O, how strangely the drinker then escapes from their action.
Weren't you amazed by the caution of human gesture
on Attic steles? Weren't love and departure
laid so lightly on shoulders, they seemed to be made
of other matter than ours? Think of the hands
how they rest without weight, though there is power in the torso.
Those self-controlled ones know, through that: so much is ours, this is us, to touch our own selves so: the gods
may bear down more heavily on us. But that is the gods' affair.

If only we too could discover a pure, contained
human place, a strip of fruitful land of our own,
between river and stone! For our own heart exceeds us,
even as theirs did. And we can no longer
gaze after it into images, that soothe it, or into
godlike bodies, where it restrains itself more completely.

Psalm 103, 20

Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.





247 photos
Presentation of the Virgin in the temple; above left:  
Crucifixion; above right: Christ's descent to limbo.   
Around 1315                                            
King's Church, Kraljeva Crkva, Studenica Monastery
#15030733

Presentation of the Virgin in the temple; above left: Crucifixion; above right...

Presentation of Saint Mary in the temple. Top right:   
During her stay in the temple, little Mary is fed      
by an angel. Around 1315                               
North wall, King's Church, Kraljeva Crkva,Studenica    
Monastery.                     Detail of 15-03-07/33   

Saint's day: 26 July - St. Anne
#15030734

Presentation of Saint Mary in the temple. Top right: During her stay in the...

Anastasis: Christ standing on the broken gates         
of hell, he pulls Adam and Eve to salvation. The       
guardian of Hades lies bound and gagged at Christ's    
feet. Around 1315. King's Church, Kraljeva Crkva,      
(King's Church) Studenica Monastery.           Detail
#15030735

Anastasis: Christ standing on the broken gates of hell, he pulls Adam a...

King Milutin, founder of King's Church, Studenica      
Monastery, and his wife Simonida. The king holds       
a model of the church.                                 
King's Church, Kraljeva Crkva, around 1315             
Detail of 15-03-07/37
#15030736

King Milutin, founder of King's Church, Studenica Monastery, and his wife...

Birth of the Virgin Mary (center register). Saint      
Anne on her bed, the infant Mary being washed and      
put in her cradle. Lower register: Saint Anne left of  
King Milutin and Queen Simonida.                       
King's Church, Kraljeva Crkva, Studenica Monastery     

Saint's day: 26 July
#15030737

Birth of the Virgin Mary (center register). Saint Anne on her bed, the in...

Voronet Church, built according to legend "in three    
months and three weeks" by Prince Stephen the Great    
(1457-1504) and painted during the time of the         
"domnitor" (prince) Petru Rures. The churches in       
Moldavia are covered on the outside by frescos.
#15030747

Voronet Church, built according to legend "in three months and three weeks"...

Fresco of the Last Judgement, west wall, Voronet       
Church. In front of the blue background, typical of    
Voronet, the red stream of the fires of hell opens     
at Christ's feet. The righteous assemble in orderly    
rows in the left half.
#15030748

Fresco of the Last Judgement, west wall, Voronet Church. In front of the...

The Last Judgement, Voronet Church, detail:            
Christ Judge in the upper register, his throne below.  
From the throne descends the stream of hellfire        
which awaits the damned. Angels blow trumpets like     
Romanian shepherds' Alphorns to wake the dead.
#15030749

The Last Judgement, Voronet Church, detail: Christ Judge in the uppe...

The Last Judgement, Voronet Church, detail: Angels     
fight devils for souls; the damned wear Turkish turbans
(the Moldavians' enemies at the time); angels blow     
trumpets which look like Moldavian shepherds' Alphorns 
Detail of 15-03-07/49
#15030750

The Last Judgement, Voronet Church, detail: Angels fight devils for souls;...

The Last Judgement, Voronet Church, detail: while      
King David plays a lyre, an angel pulls the soul       
in the form of a newborn infant from a dead man's      
mouth.                                                 
Detail of 15-03-07/49
#15030751

The Last Judgement, Voronet Church, detail: while King David plays a lyre,...

The church in Sucevita; the paintings around the apse  
show the composition "cinul" (rank), a suite of all    
heavenly and worldly hierarchies, seraphs,angels,      
prophets,apostles,bishops,martyrs,kings etc.).The      
church is surrounded by citadel-like walls.
#15030752

The church in Sucevita; the paintings around the apse show the composition "ci...

Moses receives the tablets of the law (right and       
centre). From the outer wall of the church in          
Sucevita, Romania. Left: City of God and Madonna.
#15030753

Moses receives the tablets of the law (right and centre). From the outer...