During these weeks, he was writing Marien-Leben (The Life of Mary).[2]:p.103 While walking along the cliffs overlooking the Adriatic Sea near the castle, Rilke claimed to hear a voice calling to him speaking the words of the first line, Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? ("Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the hierarchies of angels?") which he quickly wrote in his notebook. Within days, he produced drafts of the first two elegies in the series and drafted passages and fragments that would later be incorporated into later elegies—including the opening passage of the tenth elegy.[6]:p.225[12]:p.10