Reading notes

• Auguste Rodin §42 Christ

  Jesus of Nazareth; Rilke recalls the Gospel scenes in which Christ answers confused questioners with a single clarifying parable.

• The Book of Images §21 the last table

  The Last Supper: the figure at its center is Christ, taking leave of the disciples before Gethsemane (the olive grove); his word scatters their hands from the bread like birds startled by a shot.

• The Book of Images §54 that Son

  Christ, the 'drop' in which the never-hoped-for heavens turn blue — the child the icon's Virgin will bear.

• The Life of the Virgin Mary §1 the One who soon appears

  Christ, for whose sake the mother is now being born.

• The Life of the Virgin Mary §4 the Savior

  The unborn Christ, 'still a flower' in Mary's womb.

• The Life of the Virgin Mary §11 crosswise through my lap

  The Pietà: Mary holds the dead Christ across her lap; she who bore him can no longer bring him to birth, that is, back to life.

• The Life of the Virgin Mary §12 a little pale still from the grave

  The risen Christ comes first of all to his mother---an appearance not in the Gospels but cherished in devotional tradition.

• The Life of the Virgin Mary §13 The Risen One

  Christ enthroned in heaven, who for four-and-twenty years has kept the seat beside him empty for his mother.

• The Book of Hours §30 the Word

  Christ, the Son and Word (Logos, John 1); the 'springtime of God' that came to completion in Italy as 'the rose of roses'---the one flowering of the tree-God.

• The Book of Hours §32 the Greatest

  The 'Greatest' she has not yet borne is the dead Christ of the Pietà; the Virgin turns from the Nativity toward the 'coming wounds' of the Passion.

• The Book of Hours §56 Son

  Christ the Pantocrator, whose image fills the central dome and 'binds the building round.'

• New Poems: The Other Part §28 this one cried out

  The crucified Christ, whose dying cry the bored executioners mistake for a call to Elijah; Rilke keeps the camera on the indifferent soldiers and the distant scream of Mary.

• New Poems: The Other Part §29 risen for her sake

  The risen Christ, who rose, in Rilke's reading, expressly to deny Mary Magdalene the relief of touch and so transform her love.

• Early Poems §61 Lord Christ

  Christ, who in the Prague legend leads the procession of the beheaded lords across the square.

• Stories of God §89 Jesus

  'Our Lord,' the dead Christ of the Pietà whom Mary holds.

• The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge §408 Jesus

  Jesus, imagined as one who still has the resurrection in every limb; Malte thinks only he could bear these unloved women, yet it is the great lovers who draw him, not those who merely wait to be loved.

• New Poems §15 Jesus

  The dead Christ of the Pietà, addressed by one who loved him as a living man; his torn hands and open heart are the wounds of the crucifixion.