Stories of God

“Fluent and engaging.”

—Library Journal

ABOUT THE BOOK

Composed in 1899 when Rilke was only twenty-three, the interconnected tales of Stories of God were inspired by a trip to Russia the young poet had made the year previously. It is said that the vastness of the Russian landscape and the profound spirituality he perceived in the simple people he met led him to an experience of finding God in all things, and to the conviction that God seeks to be known by us as passionately as we might seek to know God.

All the great themes of Rilke’s later powerful and complex poetry can be found in the Stories of God, yet their charming, folktale-like quality has made them among the most accessible of Rilke’s works, beloved by all ages.

RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875–1926) is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. His works include Duino Elegies, The Sonnets to Orpheus, and Letters to a Young Poet.

MICHAEL H. KOHN is coeditor of the best-selling anthology The Buddha and His Teachings. He has been teaching Buddhism and meditation for more than thirty years, and he has edited a number of the books of his teacher, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa. He has also published numerous translations, including an acclaimed version of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

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Stories of God

Rainer Maria

Rilke

A NEW TRANSLATION BY

MICHAEL H. KOHN

Shambhala
BOSTON & LONDON
2013

SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

Translation © 2003 by Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Cover photograph: Mitch Hrdlicka/Getty Images

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875–1926.

[Geschichten vom lieben Gott. English]

Stories of God/Rainer Maria Rilke; a new translation by Michael H. Kohn.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2538-3

ISBN 978-1-59030-038-1

I. Chödzin, Sherab. II. Title.

PT2635.I65 V613 2003

833′.912—dc21

2002152897

My friend, once I put this book in your hands, and you were fonder of it than anyone before you. So I have become accustomed to thinking of it as belonging to you. Therefore, permit me, not only in your own book but in all the books of this new edition, to write your name, to write:

The Stories of God belong to Ellen Key.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

Rome, April 1904

Contents

The Tale of God’s Hands

The Stranger