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Margin 195Her charm could never be a thing to tellFor all the noble powers lean toward her.Beauty displays her for an holy sign.Our daring ne’er before did look so high;But ye! there is not in you so much graceThat we can understand her rightfully.(Anderson 1983:43)The version Pound published in his 1912 collection, Sonnets and Ballate,constituted a substantial revision, but it did not alter his basicarchaizing strategy:Who is she coming, drawing all men’s gaze,Who makes the air one trembling clarityTill none can speak but each sighs piteouslyWhere she leads Love adown her trodden ways?Ah God! The thing she’s like when her glance strays,Let Amor tell. ’Tis no fit speech for me.Mistress she seems of such great modestyThat every other woman were called “Wrath.”No one could ever tell the charm she hathFor all the noble powers bend toward her,She being beauty’s godhead manifest.Our daring ne’er before held such high quest;But ye! There is not in you so much graceThat we can understand her rightfully.(ibid.:45)Pound retained some of his borrowings from Rossetti and usedadditional archaic forms (“adown,” “godhead,” “quest”) thatintroduced a romantic medievalism traced with misogyny. The openingcharacterized the lady as a Keatsian “belle dame sans merci,” implyingthat she exploits her commanding beauty (“drawing all men’s gaze”) tovictimize her many admirers (“each sighs piteously”) with somefrequency (“adown her trodden ways”). There was even a hint of moralimperfection, a potential for infidelity (“her glance strays”).In 1932, Pound published Guido Cavalcanti Rime, a critical edition ofthe Italian texts along with several translations that included a final version

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