【正文】 rne read Greek and took English metric in hand。 Prossetti brought in the Italian primitives。 Fitzgerald made the only good poem of the time that has gone to the people。 it is called, and is to a great extent, a trans or mistranslation….After this period English literature lives on translation, it is fed by translation。 every new exuberance, every new heave is stimulated by translation, every allegedly great age is an age of translation” [2]. Pound believes that translation could bring new energy to target literature. Hugh Kenner in The Pound Ezra (1971) noted that “It seems to have been about 1911 that Pound came to think of translation as a model for the poetic are: blood brought to ghosts” As for his poetics, there is no doubt that it is Imagist Movement. He finds his way into rejuvenating the English poetry by translating Chinese classical poems. Pound himself explains the reason why he translates Chinese poetry in his essay “Chinese Poetry”, “it is because Chinese poetry has certain qualities of vivid presentation。 and because certain Chinese poets have been content to set forth their matter without moralizing and wihtout ment” [1]. He regards translation as a model for the poetic art. Translating Chinese classical poems into English greatly enriches the American poetry and provided English readers with freshness. By absorbing and digesting the Chinese poetry, Pound is able to take the nutrition and gradually transfuse it into native American literature coupled with his great admiration and respect for Chinese poetry. During the translation, Pound does not pay much attention to the traditional faithfulness which emphasized the linguistic equivalence. On the contrary, he imitates adapts and rewrites the original works. Cultural Salvation Pound once wrote that literature does not exist in vacuum. It is the same with translation. A good translation should not consider its literal meaning but also the reality meaning in the target society. Take Cathay for example to understand Pounds thoughts of translation as cultural salvation.According to textual research[17]，“Cathay” is an antiquated English word referring to a far away fairly land. In addition, on the left of the cover of the first edition of Cathay is a big Chinese character “耀” which literally means “shining”. To be specific the title of this book is “耀 amp。Cathay ”. Since it is a convention that the title of the book must correspond with the content of the book, the title seems to tell that in this book Pound will introduce a rich, prosperous and fantastic China to us. There are 18 English poems translated from 19 Chinese classical poems. (Pound bined two of Libai’s poems into one) Fenollosa’s manuscripts provide Pound with 150 Chinese poems concerning diverse themes. However, Pound mainly chooses those sad ones. As Hugh Kenner points out, “ Cathay is largely a war book….Its exiled bowmen, deserted women, leveled dynasties, departures for far places, lonely frontier guardsmen and glories remembered from afar, cherished memories…The Cathay poems paraphrase an elegiac war poetry nobody wrote.” [8] Out of the 19 poems, three focus on the motif of the plaint of the frontier soldiers. These are Song of the Bowmen of Shu, Lament of the Frontier Guard, and SouthFolk in Cold Country. Another three poems The Beautiful Toilet, The RiverMerchant’s Wife: A Letter, and The Jewel Stair’s Grievance concentrate on the plaints of the abandoned wives. The sadness of departure is also an important motif, which can be seen in Four Poems of Departure, Separation on the River Kiang, Taking Leave of a Friend, Leavetaking Near Shoku and The city of Choan. Another five poems center on the poet’s loneliness: The River Song, Poem by the Bridge at TenSkin, Exile’s letter, Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku, and ToEmMei’s “The Unmoving Clound.”. Only the last two poems are about the good days in the past. However these are also sorrowful because the good belongs to the past. The sadness of soldiers, abandoned wives, departing friends, lonely persons and the reminiscence of the past are consistent throughout Cathay. From the discussion above, we know that the title of the book contrast greatly with the content of the book. If we relate to the background of that time, it may be easier to understand Pound’s motivation during the selection.In and before the year of the appearance of Cathay, Europe was torn apart by world war two. People were tortured by tough war affairs, forced departure and misery of death. Soldiers traveled far away to defend the glory of their nations, sometimes in vain, leaving their beloved ones depressed and desperate. The sense of estrangement and disillusion prevailed. Under this circumstance, Pound’s acumen for the wartorn people helped set the tone of sadness for the anthology of Cathay. The early 20th century in the west is filled with the contradictions between man and nature, man and society and between men themselves. Apparently, Pound was talking about the society of old China while in fact it was about the cruel reality in modern western world. Under the persona of alien culture, it moved the western readers. The Translatability of PoetryTranslation of literal works is indeed a difficult task not even the translation of poetry. For many years, people try to define the translation of poetry. Robert Frost’s remark that “poetry is what gets lost in translation” [10] implies that poetry is some intangible, ineffable thing which, although constructed in language cannot be transposed across language. However, Pound mits to the translation of poetry and determines to find “the indestructible” or “what can not be lost” in poetry translation. MelopoeiaIn his Polite Essays [2], Pound laid out three of poetry, in which ‘language is charged or energized.’ the first is melopoeia, or the musical property of the words, which means that music directs the shape of meaning. In Pound’s words, this musical quality can be appre