You're right to suspect that Pound took a few liberties but the tone is not
far off. I've appended below a fairly literal translation of Doch die
Kastraten klagten to give you a sense of what's going on. If I have time
later this afternoon I'll do the same for the other poems.
Tim Romano


Doch die Kastraten klagten,
Als ich meine Stimm' erhob;
Sie klagten und sie sagten:
Ich sänge viel zu grob.

Und lieblich erhoben sie alle
Die kleinen Stimmelein,
Die Trillerchen, wie Kristalle,
Sie klangen so fein und rein.

Sie sangen von Liebessehnen,
Von Liebe und Liebeserguß;
Die Damen schwammen in Tränen
Bei solchem Kunstgenuß.


How the eunuchs complained
When I lifted my voice;
They complained and they said:
I sang much too coarsely.

And charmingly they all lifted
their little voicelets,
the little warblers, like crystal
they rang so fine and clear.

They sang of love-yearning,
Of love and love-outpouring;
The ladies were swimming in tears
the art was so delectable.






At 10:22 AM 7/5/02 +0000, Jon Elek wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am wondering if anyone on this list knows much about Heine's "Die
>Heimkehr" and "Die Harzreise," bits of which Pound translated in Canzoni.
>Can anyone recommend a particularly reliable English translation? I suspect
>that Pound took some liberties with Heine and made his translations more
>comic than the source material. Any thoughts?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jon
>
>
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