Erminia,

I appreciate this very much. It's a shame I have next to no Italian, but my
limited Latin and embarrassing French are a start. I hope you won't mind if
I make a few comments?

Dalla promessa iniziale, sterilità. Dal vanto,
dall' ambizione criptica

I don't know about the syntax here. You should know that in the original,
"vaunting" is, like "vaulting", an adjective qualifying "ambition" and not a
verb in its own right. "Criptica" for "vaulting" seems strange, unless it's
a trans-lingual pun - "vault" as in "burial vault" as in "crypt" - whereas I
had in mind the pole-vault, Olympic event in which one might incur sprains
in both groin and wrist. "Vaunting, / vaulting ambition" = ambition that is
both boastful and athletic, trying (and failing) to propel itself over the
bar. You seem to have given us  "ambition building an elaborate burial-vault
for itself, in preparation for posthumous notoriety", which I of course
accept as valid.

                    , si torce nell' inguine e nel polso.

"Torce" sounds just right - strains of "torsion", twisting and tearing. The
complaint known as testicular torsion is very nasty, or so I understand.

A che inganno dovremo ora girare la mano?
Fra l'oscurità auto-referenziale

I suppose you can see in "self-*shielding*" the heraldic blazon or
mise-en-abime - a representation of a shield upon a shield, as I'm sure you
know - so "auto-referenziale" is quite ingenious here. I'm not sure about
the appropriateness of the register, tho' - "self-referential" is a term of
art of aesthetic theory, a piece of jargon, in a way that "self-shielding"
is not - and "self-shielding" has the additional sense of "self-defending",
which I must admit was what I was originally thinking of.

 e l' esattezza

I wonder what Italian word Pound would have used for "exactitude"? It's him
I'm thinking of here.

che colpisce l'involucro, l' angolo d' incidenza
è pari all' angolo di rifrazione. O quasi.
Nel nasconderti, preservarti, mostri almeno
una certa conoscenza della materia, te stessa. Suggerire
la proliferazione come nome collettivo
per le contromisure. Carica la criptonite.

"Carica" for "load up on"? The opening line of "Smells like Teen Spirit" by
Nirvana is "Load up on drugs and bring your friends". What's Italian for
"download"? Consider cryptographic computer software as munitions, as
certain US authorities seem to see it. Possibly better to leave "kryptonite"
in its original spelling, as it is the mysterious mineral that enfeebles the
comic book hero Superman (also famed for turning nuclear missiles round in
mid-air).

Forse possiamo far ruotare a mezz'aria
questa cosa, passarle - che so! - un qualche virus.
Ruotare le frequenze. Nessun'associazione tra
Anthrax-tipped warheads e eggheads. Mi ci gioco le palle.

The repetition of "ruotare" is perhaps a little unfortunate. What do
Starship Captains tell their officers to do to the shield-frequencies in the
Italian subtitles for Star Trek? (For some reason, if you cycle through
several different "frequencies", it makes it harder for enemy photon
torpedoes to get through your shields. Consider also military
ommunications  - change broadcast frequencies...um...frequently in order to
throw enemy listeners off the scent). And if Tony Blair were to instruct
some Management guru to "turn around" a failing inner-city school in
Italian, what would he say then? If it's "ruotare" both times, then never
mind.

I keep misreading "postmodern" as "postmortem".

Best wishes and many thanks,
Dominic