What happens when Butler’s 1912 Loeb translation of the second elegy of the third book of Propertius, the one that Pound managed to mangle with a Marcian vintage, is declaimed in an approximation of the Poundian delivery?
Meanwhile let us return to our wonted round of song; let the heart of my mistress be moved with joy at the old familiar music. They say that Orpheus with his Thracian lyre tamed wild beasts and stayed rushing rivers, and that Cithaeron’s rocks were driven to Thebes by the minstrel’s art and of their own will gathered to frame a wall. Nay, Galatea too beneath wild Etna turned her steeds that dripped with brine to the sound of thy songs, Polyphemus.
What marvel, when Bacchus and Apollo smile on me, that a host of maidens should adore my words? My house is not stayed on Taenarian columns; I have no ivory chamber with gilded beams; no orchards have I to vie with Phaeacia’s trees, nor hath art built me grottoes watered by the Marcian fount. But the Muses are my comrades, and my songs are dear to them that read, nor ever is Calliope aweary with my dancing.