The Translator’s Invisibility

Some of Rossetti’s deviations from the Italian improve the fluency of the translation by simplifying the syntax. “At whose side is Love himself,” for instance, is a free rendering of “mena seco Amor” that reads much more easily than a closer version like “she leads Love with herself.” Rossetti also added different nuances to Cavalcanti’s idealization of the lady, making it more moral or spiritual, even theological, by using “benison” for “umiltà” (“humility,” “meekness,” “modesty”), “honour” for “piacenza” (“pleasantness”), and “redemption” for “salute” (“health,” “salvation”). Pound’s 1910 version quoted Rossetti’s, but it adhered more closely to the Italian text and noticeably increased the archaism. Next to Rossetti’s version, moreover, Pound’s offered a more human image of the lady by referring to her “modesty” and “charm” and suggesting that she commands the attention of an aristocratic elite (“noble powers”). The lover meanwhile possesses a knightly “daring” that “ne’er before did look so high,” spiritually or socially:

Who is she coming, whom all gaze upon,
Who makes the whole air tremulous with light,
And leadeth with her Love, so no man hath
Power of speech, but each one sigheth?
Ah God! the thing she’s like when her eyes turn,
Let Amor tell! ’Tis past my utterance:
And so she seems mistress of modesty
That every other woman is named “Wrath.”
{195}Her charm could never be a thing to tell
For all the noble powers lean toward her.
Beauty displays her for an holy sign.
Our daring ne’er before did look so high;
But ye! there is not in you so much grace
That we can understand her rightfully.

(Anderson 1983:43)

The version Pound published in his 1912 collection, Sonnets and Ballate, constituted a substantial revision, but it did not alter his basic archaizing strategy:

Who is she coming, drawing all men’s gaze,
Who makes the air one trembling clarity
Till none can speak but each sighs piteously
Where she leads Love adown her trodden ways?

Ah God! The thing she’s like when her glance strays,
Let Amor tell. ’Tis no fit speech for me.
Mistress she seems of such great modesty
That every other woman were called “Wrath.”

No one could ever tell the charm she hath
For all the noble powers bend toward her,
She being beauty’s godhead manifest.

Our daring ne’er before held such high quest;
But ye! There is not in you so much grace
That we can understand her rightfully.

(ibid.:45)

Pound retained some of his borrowings from Rossetti and used additional archaic forms (“adown,” “godhead,” “quest”) that introduced a romantic medievalism traced with misogyny. The opening characterized the lady as a Keatsian “belle dame sans merci,” implying that she exploits her commanding beauty (“drawing all men’s gaze”) to victimize her many admirers (“each sighs piteously”) with some frequency (“adown her trodden ways”). There was even a hint of moral imperfection, a potential for infidelity (“her glance strays”).

In 1932, Pound published Guido Cavalcanti Rime, a critical edition of the Italian texts along with several translations that included a final version {196} of this sonnet. Here the archaism was pushed to an extreme, apparent not just in Pound’s lexicon, syntax, and orthography, but also in pseudo-archaic neologism (“herward”). The lady underwent yet another metamorphosis, this time into a mystical image “that borders the visible”: