The snippet of spanish is from El Cid--in canto 3, I think--I don't have
my Cantos at hand. In English the words translate, " a girl child of 9
years old." (If memory serves.)
 
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= Steve Conger                      =
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= Seattle Central Community College =
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On Wed, 2 Dec 1998, Daniel Pearlman wrote:
 
> There IS a little snippet of Spanish somewhere in the Cantos,
> Leon, but I can't remember where.
>
> As to EP's fluency in Italian, when I asked Mary de R. about
> it in the late 60's, she said that he spoke his own rather
> "Dantesque" version of the language.
>
> ==Dan Pearlman
>
> At 10:55 AM 12/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >I can't resist this temptation.
> >
> >Tim Redman wrote:
> >>I'm not sure that Jonathan Gill is correct when he says "Pound was
> >>not a linguist."  His Latin was excellent; he possessed near-native
> >>fluency in Italian and close to that in French and Spanish; his
> >>Chinese became rather good by the '50s and his Greek and German were
> >>adequate.
> >
> >        All the Italian speaking correspondents who received letters or
> >articles from Pound found his Itlian to be "picturesque," "idiosyncratic,"
> >or sometimes "incomprehansible." It must be admited that some
> >English-speaking correspondents also found his letters incomprehensible, so
> >perhaps one shoud discount the last epithet.
> >        Tim;s Italian is much better than mine, but what I have heard
> >ofPoundspeaking Italian could hardly be described as "near native flueney."
> >        I agree with Jonathan Gill that Pound's linguistic aptitude was not
> >much better than average--though his motivation and industry in learning
> >foregn languages was, of course, muc above average. Pound himself admitted
> >in a letter--whose provenance I have forgotten for the moment--that his
> >Latin was adequateat best. His Greek was essentially non-existent. His
> >comand of French was better than any other language--not surprising given
> >his early study of Provencal, and long association with French letters. I
> >have not heard any recording of him speaking French, but it is difficult to
> >imagie that he had a good accent. I don't know of much that would count as
> >evidence for his command of Spanish--though he certainly did study it. That
> >language is notable for its absene from the Cantos
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