{"id":80511,"date":"2014-12-04T18:45:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T23:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=80511"},"modified":"2014-12-05T07:41:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T12:41:20","slug":"the-lion-cage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lion Cage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_80513\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-80513\" class=\"wp-image-80513\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\" alt=\"rilke in moscow 1928\" width=\"600\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-80513\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Leonid Pasternak, <i>Rilke in Moscow<\/i> (detail), 1928.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Rainer Maria Rilke was born on this day in 1875. The below is excerpted from \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d one in a series of Rilke translations by Stephen Mitchell in <a href=\"http:\/\/store.theparisreview.org\/products\/the-paris-review-no-111\">our Summer 1989 issue<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>She paces back and forth around him, the lion, who is sick. Being sick doesn\u2019t concern him and doesn\u2019t diminish him; it just hems him in. The way he lies, his soft bent paws intentionless, his proud face heaped with a worn-out mane, his eyes no longer loaded, how is erected upon himself as a monument to his own sadness, just as he once (always beyond himself) was the exaggeration of his strength.<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026] But he just lets things happen, because the end hasn\u2019t yet come, and he no longer exerts any energy and no longer takes part. Only far off, as though held away from himself, he paints with the soft paintbrush of his tail, again and again, a small, semicircular gesture of indescribable disdain. And this takes place so significantly that the lioness stops and looks over: troubled, aroused, expectant.<\/p>\n<p>But then she begins her pacing again, the desperate, ridiculous pacing of the sentinel, which falls back into the same tracks, again and again. She paces and paces, and sometimes her distracted mask appears, round and full, crossed out by the bars.<\/p>\n<p>She moves the way clocks move. And on her face, as on a clock dial which someone shines a light onto at night, a strange, briefly shown hour stands: a terrifying hour, in which someone dies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rainer Maria Rilke was born on this day in 1875. The below is excerpted from \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d one in a series of Rilke translations by Stephen Mitchell in our Summer 1989 issue. She paces back and forth around him, the lion, who is sick. Being sick doesn\u2019t concern him and doesn\u2019t diminish him; it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[33,370,2186,10907,16280,13856,160,16279,15038],"class_list":["post-80511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-archives","tag-back-issues","tag-death","tag-german-literature","tag-issue-111","tag-lions","tag-rainer-maria-rilke","tag-stephen-mitchell","tag-translations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rilke and the Lions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s birthday, an excerpt from his short work \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell in our Summer 1989 issue.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Lion Cage by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 4, 2014 \u2013 Rainer Maria Rilke was born on this day in 1875. The below is excerpted from \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d one in a series of Rilke translations by Stephen Mitchell in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-04T23:45:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-05T12:41:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"691\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"544\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\"},\"headline\":\"The Lion Cage\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-04T23:45:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-05T12:41:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\"},\"wordCount\":269,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"archives\",\"back issues\",\"death\",\"German Literature\",\"Issue 111\",\"lions\",\"Rainer Maria Rilke\",\"Stephen Mitchell\",\"translations\"],\"articleSection\":[\"From the Archive\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\",\"name\":\"Rilke and the Lions\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-04T23:45:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-05T12:41:20+00:00\",\"description\":\"For Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s birthday, an excerpt from his short work \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell in our Summer 1989 issue.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Lion Cage\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\",\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Piepenbring\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpiepenbring\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rilke and the Lions","description":"For Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s birthday, an excerpt from his short work \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell in our Summer 1989 issue.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Lion Cage by Dan Piepenbring","og_description":"December 4, 2014 \u2013 Rainer Maria Rilke was born on this day in 1875. The below is excerpted from \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d one in a series of Rilke translations by Stephen Mitchell in","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-12-04T23:45:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-12-05T12:41:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":691,"height":544,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Dan Piepenbring","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Piepenbring","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/"},"author":{"name":"Dan Piepenbring","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8"},"headline":"The Lion Cage","datePublished":"2014-12-04T23:45:15+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-05T12:41:20+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/"},"wordCount":269,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg","keywords":["archives","back issues","death","German Literature","Issue 111","lions","Rainer Maria Rilke","Stephen Mitchell","translations"],"articleSection":["From the Archive"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/","name":"Rilke and the Lions","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg","datePublished":"2014-12-04T23:45:15+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-05T12:41:20+00:00","description":"For Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s birthday, an excerpt from his short work \u201cThe Lion Cage,\u201d translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell in our Summer 1989 issue.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/rilke-in-moscow-1928.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/the-lion-cage\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Lion Cage"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8","name":"Dan Piepenbring","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Piepenbring"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpiepenbring\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80511"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80524,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80511\/revisions\/80524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}