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222 The Translator’s InvisibilityBut the reviews also bear witness to the unreason of transparency.After earlier stating that “I am not so naive as to believe that I do notmyself have theories of translation, too!” Raffel contradicted himselfby concluding that “translation cannot be accomplished under theaegis of a theory, but only under the protection of the Muse, who willtolerate theory, who can make use of madness, but who cannot excusefailure to perform” (Raffel 1969:437, 445). Raffel questioned whetherthe Zukofskys’ translation “theory” had any use at all, whetheraesthetic, scholastic or otherwise. Yet instead of rationalizing the use hefound most desirable, he reverted to an anti-intellectual assertion ofaesthetic value as self-evident, the mystifying Muse that transcends thelimitations of time and space, the differences of language and culture.He, like Coogan and Brownjohn, was willing to license only that kindof translation “performance” that conceals its own assumptions andvalues with the illusionistic effect of transparency. Raffel’s antiintellectualismmanifested itself, not merely in his preference for thesweeping judgment to the theoretically nuanced argument, but also inhis rather naive assumption that transparent discourse truly representsthe foreign text, or, indeed, the foreign author: “no one should havedone this book: it does not perform, and it is neither translation norCatullus” (ibid.:445).Raffel’s concern about the use value of the Zukofskys’ workshowed that he equated translation with domestication; their Catulluswas foreignized, high in abuse value. The English reviewer NicholasMoore similarly complained that the Zukofskys’ translation “doesn’trelate to the present in any real way” (Moore 1971:185), ignoring thecontemporary lexicons on which it draws and failing to admit his owndeep investment in a fairly standard dialect of English tilted towardBritishisms. He exemplified his privileged discourse by translatingseveral of Catullus’s poems and publishing his versions with hisreview. Here is no. 89 done by him and the Zukofskys:Gellius est tenuis: quid ni? cui tam bona matertamque valens uiuat tamque venusta sorortamque bonus patruus tamque omnia plena puelliscognatis, quare is desinat esse macer?qui ut nihil attingat, nisi quod fas tangere non est,quantumuis quare sit macer inveniesColdham is rather run-down, and who wouldn’t be!With so kindly and sexy a mother,