TABOO: THE ACTUAL MODERNIST AESTHETIC, MADE REAL A ...

we might not: for example, sections VIII, IX and X of ―Homage‖ refer successively to
the poems Mueller designates III 24, 25, 26 and 27‖ (Arkins 34). Sections one and two of
the ―Homage‖ refer to the poem that is enumerated in Mueller's first section of Book
Three. Most translations break this poem in two and enumerate accordingly – the second
section of the ―Homage‖ stems from Mueller's third section of Book Three. It is there that
Pound claims a new orientation for the reception of Propertius's distinct mode of
incorporating forgotten Greek mythology into Latin vernacular poetry. We also find
Propertius‘s vow of fidelity to his craftsmanship there. These struck Pound as being
concomitant facets of Propertius's ironic orientation to the elegiac tradition. Pound reads
into Propertius's allusions a similar critique and play with his audience's memory as the
one he was aspiring to achieve with his own previous and ongoing play with Luminous
Details.
In Section II of the homage, Pound transforms the task of translation itself to
present a critique of contemporary philology. The lines ―et Veneris dominae uolucres,
mea turba, columbae/ tingunt Gorgoneo punica rostra lacu‖ [and the swift doves of
Mistress Venus, my flock,/ wet their purple beaks at the Gorgon's pool (Katz)] refer to
the source of Propertius' love poetry, the liquid source on Mount Helicon. Pound turns
this into: ―The small birds of the Cytherean mother/ their Punic faces dyed in the
Gorgon's lake.‖ The periphrasis of Venus into ―Cytherean mother‖ mocks erudition while
demonstrating the highly verbal sentimentality Propertius wrenched from his persistent
patterns of appositive re-naming. ―Punic‖ reminds us of war and the rejected subject
matter of Propertius. Donald Davie once wrote that Pound intentionally makes these
mistakes: ―Pound, who knows Latin well and could have written Homage only if that is
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