I loved her translation of Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio (and most of Paradiso) for Penguin in my teens. She did it in terza rima:
Through me the road to the city of desolation
Through me the road to sorrows diuturnal,
Through me the road among the lost creation
Justice moved my great maker; God Eternal
Wrought me: the power, and the unsearchably
High wisdom, and the primal love supernal.
Nothing ere I was made was made to be
Save things eterne, and I eterne abide;
Lay down all hope, you that go in by me.
These words of sombre colour, I descried
Writ on the lintel of a gateway; “Sir,
This sentence is right hard for me,” I cried.
Madwoman!
__________________
Aaron Poochigian
|