venuti

236 The Translator’s InvisibilityBlackburn included a translation of Bertran’s poem in thetroubadour anthology he mentioned to Pound in 1958. He followedPound’s example by pursuing a modernist translation strategy,resorting to free verse with the most subtly intricate rhythms andmaking an inventive selection of archaisms. Blackburn’s translation isa strong performance that competes favorably against both of Pound’sappropriations of the Provençal text:And I love beyond all pleasure, thatlord who horsed, armed and beyond fear isforehead and spearhead in the attack, and thereemboldens his men with exploits. Whenstour proches and comes to quartersmay each man pay his quit-rent firmly,follow his lord with joy, willingly,for no man’s proved his worth a stiver untilmany the blowshe’s taken and given.Maces smashing painted helms,glaive-strokes descending, bucklers riven:this to be seen at stour’s starting!And many valorous vassals pierced and piercingstriking together!And nickering, wandering lost, throughthe battle’s thick,brast-out blood on broken harness,horses of deadmen and wounded.And having once sallied into the stourno boy with a brassard may think of aught, butthe swapping of heads, and hacking off arms—for here a man is worth more deadthan shott-free and caught!Blackburn 1958:119–120)“Quit-rent,” “vassals,” “glaive-strokes”—Blackburn created a lexiconthat was obviously medieval, and he occasionally mimicked Anglo-Saxon patterns of rhythm and alliteration (“brast-out blood on brokenharness”). Yet his translation discourse was not only historicizing, butforeignizing: some of the archaisms are decidedly unfamiliar, or