The poem below 'So hast du ganz und gar vergessen' was not part of Die
Heimkehr but belonged to a different group of lyrics.  The translation's
first stanza is quite close to the original, the second stanza not as
close. Pound ratchets up the bitterness. There is one outright
mistranslation: in line 5 Pound renders "das Leid" (injury, sorrow, grief,
pain) as "das Lied" (song, ballad, tune, lay); I doubt this was a misprint
in whatever edition Pound had been using. In line 6, 'zusammenpressen'
means 'to press together, compress' [as in dichten = condensare]; with
'unduly' Pound needed a rhyme--it's not quite there in the original. In
line 9, "größer als" means "greater than" and "groß" means "great": Pound
gives "better stuff" and "good enough" which alter the tone
significantly.  Here's a gloss for the second stanza:

So you have entirely forgotten the Love and the Sorrow,
Which the Heart made me press together.
I know not, was the Love greater than the Sorrow?
I know only, they were great both.

Tim Romano



So hast du ganz und gar vergessen,
Daß ich so lang dein Herz besessen,
Dein Herzchen so süß und so falsch und so klein,
Es kann nirgend was Süßres und Falscheres sein.

So hast du die Lieb' und das Leid vergessen,
Die das Herz mir täten zusammenpressen.
Ich weiß nicht, war Liebe größer als Leid?
Ich weiß nur, sie waren groß alle beid'!