Ezra Pound's "Portrait d'une Femme" addresses an upper-class woman who decided to pursue social status and independence rather than a more conventional marriage. The poem's speaker compares the lady to a sea full of debris: she has collected interesting stories and ideas from important people, but has never developed a real identity of her own. First published in Pound's 1912 collection Ripostes, "Portrait d'une Femme" (French for "Portrait of a Lady") explores the class and gender anxieties that flared up as women's roles in society shifted.
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The Full Text of “Portrait d'une Femme”
1Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
2London has swept about you this score years
3And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
4Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
5Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
6Great minds have sought you—lacking someone else.
7You have been second always. Tragical?
8No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
9One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
10One average mind—with one thought less, each year.
11Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
12Hours, where something might have floated up.
13And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
14You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
15And takes strange gain away:
16Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
17Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
18Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
19That might prove useful and yet never proves,
20That never fits a corner or shows use,
21Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
22The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
23Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
24These are your riches, your great store; and yet
25For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
26Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
27In the slow float of differing light and deep,
28No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
29Nothing that's quite your own.
30 Yet this is you.
The Full Text of “Portrait d'une Femme”
1Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
2London has swept about you this score years
3And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
4Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
5Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
6Great minds have sought you—lacking someone else.
7You have been second always. Tragical?
8No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
9One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
10One average mind—with one thought less, each year.
11Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
12Hours, where something might have floated up.
13And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
14You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
15And takes strange gain away:
16Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
17Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
18Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
19That might prove useful and yet never proves,
20That never fits a corner or shows use,
21Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
22The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
23Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
24These are your riches, your great store; and yet
25For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
26Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
27In the slow float of differing light and deep,
28No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
29Nothing that's quite your own.
30 Yet this is you.
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Summary
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Themes
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Status, Identity, and Fulfillment
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Portrait d'une Femme”
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Lines 1-5
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. -
Lines 6-10
Great minds have sought you—lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind—with one thought less, each year. -
Lines 11-12
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up. -
Lines 13-15
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away: -
Lines 16-17
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two, -
Lines 18-21
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days: -
Lines 22-26
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff: -
Lines 27-30
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
Yet this is you.
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Symbols
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Money and Finance
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
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Apostrophe
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Assonance
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Asyndeton
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Irony
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Repetition
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Rhetorical Question
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Metaphor
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Sargasso Sea
- Score
- In fee
- Oddments
- Spars
- Dimmed
- Wares
- Of price
- Dulling
- Uxorious
- Gain
- Curious suggestion
- Pregnant with mandrakes
- Tarnished
- Idols
- Ambergris
- Inlays
- Sea-hoard
- Deciduous
- Sodden
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Portrait d'une Femme”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Speaker
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“Portrait d'une Femme” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Portrait d'une Femme”
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More “Portrait d'une Femme” Resources
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External Resources
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Imagist Poetry — Browse the first official anthology of Imagist poetry, edited by Pound and published in 1914.
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A Biography of the Poet — Learn more about Ezra Pound's life and works via the Poetry Foundation.
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A Modern Woman's Perspective — Browse "Modern Woman: Her Intentions," a book written by Florence Farr (Pound's possible muse) that outlines her view of female oppression and liberation in the early 20th century.
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Imagining the Sargasso — Read the famous fictionalization of the Sargasso Sea from Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Note that this is the original (partial) translation from the French that would have been available to English speakers at the time of this poem's publication.
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The New Woman — Read up on how the feminist ideal of "The New Woman" was received in turn-of-the-century literature.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Ezra Pound
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