---
title: ArchaicTorsoOfApollo
created: 2007-05-28 13:15
updated: 2007-05-28 13:16
revision: 3
author: Auriea
summary: "[[Quoth]] Archaic Torso of Apollo We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with . . ."
---

[[Quoth]]

**Archaic Torso of Apollo**

 We cannot know his legendary head

 with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso

 is still suffused with brilliance from inside

 like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

 gleams in all its power. Otherwise

 the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could

 a smile run through the placid hips and thighs

 to that dark center where procreation flared.

 Otherwise this stone would seem defaced 

 beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders

 and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

 would not, from all the borders of itself,

 burst like a star: for here there is no place

 that does not see you. You must change your life.

**Rilke**