Differentia: Review of Italian Thought

Number 2 Spring Article 38

1988

Omaggio a Sesto Properzio by Ezra Pound

John Paul Russo

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Recommended Citation Russo, John Paul (1988) "Omaggio a Sesto Properzio by Ezra Pound," Differentia: Review of Italian Thought: Vol. 2 , Article 38. Available at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia/vol2/iss1/38

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phasis on the notion of "human" when Homage, he knows how to back off his arguing with the physicalists), but dis­ rhetoric "with a grimace," a tribute to agreements are also what go into the his "vigilance" or aesthetic tact. In this making of a book that deserves to be sense Pound loses his sense of propor­ read and discussed. tion-and worse--from time to time in The Cantos. REMO BODE! Bacigalupo succeeds admirably in Universita di Pisa conveying the contrary moods, voices, and qualities that critics have found in Homage: its "technical expertise" (Blackmur), "sensuousness" (Fraser), and "wit" (Dekker); "an ideal of civilized intelligence" (Perkins); its de­ liberate "translatorese" (Davie) of a "scolaretto" (Bacigalupo); its "polyva­ lence," "contrasting styles," the "re­ Omaggio a Sesto Properzio duction of elegaic and mythological By Ezra Pound elements in Latin culture to com­ Ed. and trans. by Massimo Bacigalupo monplace, joke, cliche," the "elegant Genoa: Edizioni S. Marco dei Giusti- brio" that unifies the tone of the se­ niani, 1984 quence (D' Agostino)--one could re­ construct High Modernist poetics on Massimo Bacigalupo, author of The the basis of this "per-version" Formed Trace: The Later Poetry of Ezra (Ruthven) of Propertius. Chiefly Pound (L'ultimo Pound, winner of the Bacigalupo aims for directness and Viareggio Prize for nonfiction in 1982), clarity, sometimes achieving his end has turned his attention to Pound's ear­ with an almost word-for-word transla­ lier work. His edition of Homageto Sex­ tion: tus Propertiuscontains the English text and first Italian translation, an histori­ I shall have, doubtless, a boom after my cal and critical introduction, an anno­ funeral tated selection of letters and criticism Seeing that long standing increases all (1916-1979), explanatory notes, and a things list of textual variants (not easily come regardless of quality. by elsewhere). (23-25) The introduction focuses on the lin­ Avro di sicuro un boom a funerali fatti, guistic relations between Pound's text Visto che l'antichita accresce tutto and the Propertian original, tactfully indipendentemente dalla qualita. characterized as an "ambiguous fidel­ ity." Bacigalupo helpfully places the Bacigalupo does not overplay his poem within the context of Pound's hand: "Out-weariers of Apollo" (10) career. Composed in 1917-18, it is a becomes simply "Gli estenuatori di transitional work that combines the Im­ Apollo." In its ninetyish way Pound's agist and Vorticist virtues (image as "veiled flood of Acheron" impresses "radiant node"; "planes of relation") of with its dark foreboding, the linguistic Lustra (1916) while announcing the equivalent of Sibelius' Swan of Tuonela. more variable dramatic tone, narrative Bacigalupo's "flutti velati" serves well, juxtaposition, and visionary historical even if it cannot catch the archaism of spaciousness of the Urcantos and The "flood." Elsewhere he translates Cantos, already under way. But if "flood" by "La piena" in "The flood Pound "presses the organ pedal" in shall move toward the fountain/Ere DIFFERENT/A 322

love know moderations" (337-38)-a all'inferno" and "Lamorte mette dente different kind of flood. su tutte"). Lines in which Pound plays Homageillustrates Pound's logopoeia: off the original Latin and uses English "a play in the shading of the words words derived mainly from Latin will themselves." Logopoeia "employs lose some of their oddness when words not only for their direct mean­ turned into Italian: ing," wrote Pound, "but it takes count in a special way of habits of usage, of And my ventricles do not palpitate to the context we expect to find with the Caesarial ore rotundas word." One of Ruthven's examples occurs in the line "And expound the Poi i miei ventricoli non pal­ distentions of Empire" where the "dis­ pitano all' ore rotunda cesareo (266) tentions are distentions because the The word "acquire" in "The Parthians empire is already too big." Finding the shall get used to our statuary/and ac­ logopoetic equivalent in Italian for quire a Roman religion" works off "get many phrases proved Bacigalupo' s used to," the colloquial expression. hardest task. His "le distese" for "dis­ (285-86) As David Perkins comments, tentions" works the effect in Italian. the logopoetic effect is For unsuitable in "Helen's conduct is 'unsuitable' " (276), however, he gives felt not only in the individual phrases ("get " 'sconveniente.' " Since "suitor" has used to" suggests the boredom of imperial already appeared (155) and Pound statuary; "acquire" is delicate irony .. . by places "unsuitable" in quotation marks euphemism, since the "acquisition" will (to catch-and play with-the tone of come not by conquest but by being con­ snobbish disdain), the logopoeia quered) but in the "play" between the emerges in the recovery of the ever-ad­ phrases: moving from the native and col­ miring suitors--which does not come loquial "get used" to the Latinate "acquire," through " 'sconveniente'." (At the the shading of the diction wittily reflects the same time, as J. P. Sullivan has re­ process of conquest and acculturation. (His­ tory of Modern Poetry, 1:471) marked, "certain sorts of irrational pun can only bring out such logopoeiaif we Bacigalupo does his best with "I Parti have the adventitious aid of a [Latin] faranno l' abitudine alla nostra text before us to see the play on statuaria,/e si procureranno una re­ words.") ligione latina." Pound mixes words derived from Latin (and Greek) with words of Anglo­ Sometimes a word of the original Saxon origin, creating powerful sonic drops from sight. "We have kept our and satiric effects: erasers in order" (12) quietly declares an article of "aesthetic" ideology and Persephone and Dis, Dis, have mercy upon her, High Modernist faith. Erasers--Prop­ There are enough women in hell, quite ertius wrote pumice, from pumex = enough beautiful women pumice stone-stand for refinement ad lope, and Tyro, and Pasiphae, and the unguem. Like all poetic "things," they formal girls of Achaia, are "in order" in the poem. We do not And outofTroad, and from the Campania, Death has his tooth in the lot quite "see" them in "Per parte nostra Avernus lusts for the lot of them sappiamo cancellare." Elsewhere (407-13) Bacigalupo defends his choice on the basis of emphasizing the noi as op­ The Italian lacks or seems to lack the posed to the "Out-weariers of Apollo" equivalent medley of diversely derived (see Bacigalupo, " 'Per parte nostra sounds ("Vi sono abbastanza donne sappiamo cancellare': al lavoro su due REVIEWS 323

poemetti di Pound," II verri, no. 12 [Sept. 1986], 71-72). ButifBacigalupo's "straziato" cannot convey the shock of "scarified," he captures the pathos and dignity of the passage:

You will follow the bare scarified breast Nor will you be weary of calling my name, nor too weary To place the last kiss on my lips When the Syrian onyx is broken. Seguirai ii petto nudo straziato Enon ti stancherai di chiamare ii mio nome, non sarai troppo stanca Per porre I' ultimo bacio sulle mie lab bra Quando l'onice sira si spezza .

"Scarify" (to scar, to cut, to criticize se­ verely) derives from the Greek scariphasthai,to scratch an outline, to sketch; it is related to scribe-another example of logopoeia. We should add that Omaggioa Sesto Properziois another elegantly produced volume from the publishing house of Edizioni S. Marco dei Giustiniani (vico Fieno 13, Genoa).

JOHN PAUL RUSSO University of Miami, FL

Don Chisciotti and Sanciu Panza By Giovanni Meli Trans. into English verse with intro. and notes by Gaetano Cipolla Illus. by Giuseppe Vesco Ottawa: Canadian Society for Italian Studies, 1986

The title of Giovanni Meli' s most am­ bitious poem should not mislead read­ ers into thinking that it deals with the further adventures of Don Quijote and