It was during the heart-wrenching 1990 film Awakenings that this absolutely remarkable poem was popularized. In the film, the Robert DeNiro character, who is trapped within himself, makes a connection with Robin Williams, who as the doctor Oliver Sacks had been treating these special situation patients. Using a Ouija board, DeNiro successfully leads his doctor to this poem, which expresses his situation.Because the poet Rilke wrote in German, I eventually discovered that there are a range of translations, some inferior to others. This here is my favorite version of the poem, but I have included a link below to a website which has numerous additional translations.... each more or less successful in its own way. In the end, the tragic idea the DeNiro sought to communicate through in the poem should be sadly clear.
The Panther
His vision from the passing of the bars
is grown so weary that it holds no more.
To him it seems there are a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars no world.
The padding gait of flexibly strong strides,
that in the very smallest circle turns,
is like a dance of strength around a center
in which stupefied a great will stands.
Only sometimes the curtain of the pupil
soundless parts--. Then an image enters,
goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs
--and in the heart ceases to be.
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