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September 23 the music world lost a friend. As lyricist for the Grateful Dead and occasional collaborator with Bob Dylan, Robert Hunter witnessed much and was no doubt grateful himself for this platform from which his creative energy could shine.
It was my intention to write a memoriam that day, but other things crowded out that aim. This is a belated tribute, re-sharing some lines I wrote about Hunter’s translations of some of the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke.
It’s often been remarked how the Internet is like a giant labyrinth, with each explorer ending up in different places based on choices one makes, following links, or as Robert Frost in his poem “The Road Not Taken” suggests, “way leads on to way” so that we sometimes know not how we arrived in these various places and spaces within this seemingly infinite hypercard deck.
Robert Hunter was such an integral part of the Grateful Dead magic that when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, he was included with the band, even though he’d never actually performed with them. Robert Hunter was the first, and maybe only, non-performer inducted in this manner.
Hunter’s interests stretched beyond the bounds of contemporary songwriting. So it was that quite by accident I discovered his translations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, specifically Rilke’s Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus, which features some of my own favorite Rilke verses.
It’s intriguing how Rilke resurrected Orpheus, a character from Greek mythology endowed with superhuman musical skills, to become a symbol in the modern world.
According to the Brittanica, “Orpheus was the son of a Muse, (probably Calliope, the patron of epic poetry) and Oeagrus, a king of Thrace (though some…
