“Against the granite acridity of Catullus’ passion, against Ovid’s magic, and Ovid’s sense of mystery, Horace has but the clubman’s poise and no stronger emotion than might move one toward a particularly luscious oyster. His jibes at old women are like petty personal fusses lacking the charm of Palladas’ impartial pessimism or the artistic aloofness, the Epicurean and really godlike impersonality of Catullus’ poem containing the phrase, ‘habet dentes’, which is the first Wyndham Lewis drawing, perhaps the only Wyndham Lewis drawing, in literature.”

An Italian translation of Pound’s “Horace,” originally published in The Criterion, January 1930, printed vis-à-vis the original English. The English was also reprinted in Arion, Summer/Autumn 1970 (see Gallup C756), and was translated into French by Michel Beaujour for Les Cahiers de L’Herne (1966, Gallup D23r) and into Japanese by Ryozo Iwasaki (Gallup D173a). First Italian edition thus. A fine copy, save for light creasing at the gutters as the covers open, as expected. With a frontispiece portrait of Pound (also included in reflection to rear), possibly by Arnold Genthe.