Torquato Tasso

• Lovely Nymphs, ye sister Nymphs of the river Po,
  And ye from out the greenwood and where the sea-waves beat,
  And ye who live by fountains and on hill-tops high.
• Rime d'amore ("Rhymes of Love"), 175.

• Wherever I am, I am Love, no less
  among these shepherds than with nobility.
  And inequalities of subjects to my rule
  I balance as I please.
  • Prologue

• Thus if just once you tasted
  the thousandth part of joy's flavor,
  savor from a loving and beloved heart,
  repentently you'd say:
  "Lost is all that time
  I didn't spend in love!"
  • Act I, scene i, lines 26–31.
• Variant translations:
  • All time is truly lost and gone
    Which is not spent in serving love.
  • All time is lost that is not spent in love.
  • Lost is all the time that you don't spend in love.

• What you wish, you may.
  • Act I, Chorus.

• Woman, a thing changeable in nature,
  more than whistles in the wind and more than the tip
  of a supple stalk of wheat.
  • Act I, scene ii. Compare: "Varium et mutabile semper femina", Virgil, Aeneid, 4.569.

• You, Honor, you first veiled
  The fountains of delight,
  Denying those waves to the thirsting lovers.
  • Act I, Choro, line 358.

• This is truly the age of gold,
  since only gold wins and gold reigns.
  • Act II, scene i.

• Love the servant of gold is the greatest,
  foulest, most abominable monster
  created on earth or amid the sea's waves.
  • Act II, scene i.

• The world grows old,
  and growing old, withers away.
  • Act II, scene ii.

• Now don't you know how woman is made?
  She flees, and fleeing wants to be caught;
  she denies, and denying wants to be carried off;
  she fights, and fighting wishes to be vanquished.
  • Act II, scene ii.

• Oh, such a gentle entreaty
  this fool has found,
  reminding me of my youth,
  of pleasures past and present woes!
  • Act II, scene ii.

• Newborn Love has short wings. He can scarcely
  hold them up, and does not spread them out to fly.
  • Act II, scene ii.

• Love, let others read
  The Socratic papers,
  While in two beautiful eyes I will apprehend this art.
  • Act II, Chorus.

• Oh Dafne,
  you truly had pitiless pity
  when you stayed my dart.
  • Act III, scene ii.

• No need for death,
  For to wring two hearts
  First faith sufficed and then love.
  • Act III, Chorus.

• Pity is the messenger of Love
  as lightning is of thunder.
  • Act IV, scene i.

• Modesty restrains weak love,
  but it is a weak bridle to powerful love.
  • Act V, scene i.

• The sacred armies, and the godly knight,
  That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
  I sing; much wrought his valor and foresight,
  And in that glorious war much suffered he;
  In vain 'gainst him did Hell oppose her might,
  In vain the Turks and Morians armed be:
  His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutinies prest,
  Reduced he to peace, so Heaven him blest.
  • Canto I, stanza 1 (tr. Edward Fairfax)

• O heavenly Muse, that not with fading bays
  Deckest thy brow by the Heliconian spring,
  But sittest crowned with stars' immortal rays
  In Heaven, where legions of bright angels sing;
  Inspire life in my wit, my thoughts upraise,
  My verse ennoble, and forgive the thing,
  If fictions light I mix with truth divine,
  And fill these lines with other praise than thine.
  • Canto I, stanza 2 (tr. Edward Fairfax)

• You know the world delights in lovely things,
  for men have hearts sweet poetry will win,
  and when the truth is seasoned in soft rhyme
  it lures and leads the most reluctant in.
  • Canto I, stanza 3 (tr. Anthony Esolen)

• So we, if children young diseased we find,
  Anoint with sweets the vessel's foremost parts
  To make them taste the potions sharp we give;
  They drink deceived, and so deceived, they live.
  • Canto I, stanza 3 (tr. Edward Fairfax)
• Anthony Esolen's translation:
  • As we brush with honey the brim of a cup, to fool
    a feverish child to take his medicine:
    he drinks the bitter juice and cannot tell—
    but it is a mistake that makes him well.
• Compare:
  • Sed vel uti pueris absinthia taetra medentes / cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum / contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore, / ut puerorum aetas inprovida ludificetur / labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum / absinthi laticem deceptaque non capiatur, / sed potius tali facto recreata valescat.
    • When a doctor is trying to give unpleasant medicine to a child, he smears the rim of the cup with honey. And the child, not suspecting any trick, tastes it; and at first he is misled by the sweetness on his lips into swallowing it, however sour it is. But even though he is deceived, he is not distraught; and soon enough he gets better and regains his strength.
      • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Book I, lines 936–942, and Book IV, lines 11–17 (tr. G. B. Cobbold)

• O love, o wonder; love new born, new bred,
  Now groan, now armed, this champion captive led.
  • Canto I, stanza 47 (tr. Fairfax)

• Now if thou be a bondslave vile become,
  No wrong is that, but God's most righteous doom.
  • Canto I, stanza 51 (tr. Fairfax)

• The fear of ill exceeds the evil we fear,
  For so our present harms still most annoy us.
  • Canto I, stanza 82 (tr. Fairfax)

• To a bad king a worse counsellor.
  • Canto II, stanza 2 (tr. Max Wickert)

• She fair, he full of bashfulness and truth,
  Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
  • Canto II, stanza 16 (tr. Fairfax)

• For what the most neglects, most curious prove,
  So Beauty's helped by Nature, Heaven, and Love.
  • Canto II, stanza 18 (tr. Fairfax)

• My torments easy, full of sweet delight,
  If this I could obtain,—that breast to breast
  Thy bosom might receive my yielded sprite.
  • Canto II, stanza 35 (tr. Fairfax)

• Great acts I reach to, to small things I bow.
  • Canto II, stanza 46 (tr. Fairfax)
  • Variant translation: The proud I fear not, nor the meek disdain.

• Chance in uncertain, fortune double-faced,
  Smiling at first, she frowneth in the end:
  Beware thine honor be not then disgraced,
  Take heed thou mar not when thou think'st to mend.
  • Canto II, stanza 67 (tr. Fairfax)

• High state, the bed is where misfortune lies,
  Mars most unfriendly, when most kind he seems,
  Who climbeth high, on earth he hardest lights,
  And lowest falls attend the highest flights.
  • Canto II, stanza 70 (tr. Fairfax)

• Greek faith the due of him who is not known.
  • Canto II, stanza 72 (tr. T. B. Harbottle)

• Unfettered sentiments in simple speech.
  • Canto II, stanza 81 (tr. T. B. Harbottle)

• So might we die, not envying them that live;
  So would we die, not unrevenged all.
  • Canto II, stanza 86 (tr. Fairfax)

• Who scorneth peace shall have his fill of war.
  • Canto II, stanza 88 (tr. Fairfax)

• Now spread the night her spangled canopy,
  And summoned every restless eye to sleep;
  On beds of tender grass the beasts down lie,
  The fishes slumbered in the silent deep,
  Unheard were serpent's hiss and dragon's cry,
  Birds left to sing, and Philomen to weep,
  Only that noise heaven's rolling circles kest,
  Sung lullaby to bring the world to rest.
  • Canto II, stanza 96 (tr. Fairfax)

• The purple morning left her crimson bed,
  And donned her robes of pure vermilion hue,
  Her amber locks she crowned with roses red,
  In Eden's flowery gardens gathered new.
  • Canto III, stanza 1 (tr. Fairfax)

• Already darkening night
  had quenched all rays of daylight, and made truce,
  in mere oblivion of all care and fright,
  with tears and with laments.
  • Canto III, stanza 71 (tr. Wickert)

• Mankind's great adversary.
  • Canto IV, stanza 1 (tr. Wickert)

• Vile man, begot of clay, and born of dust.
  • Canto IV, stanza 10 (tr. Fairfax)

• In a cloak of truth disguise your scheming.
  • Canto IV, stanza 25 (tr. Wickert)

• All things are lawful for our lands and faith.
  • Canto IV, stanza 26 (tr. Fairfax)
• Max Wickert's translation: "For God and country, all things are allowed".

• Victorious prince, whose honorable name
  Is held so great among our Pagan kings,
  That to those lands thou dost by conquest tame
  That thou hast won them some content it brings.
  • Canto IV, stanza 39 (tr. Fairfax)

• Hard is that heart which beauty makes not soft.
  • Canto IV, stanza 77 (tr. Fairfax)

• Cruel Love! You bear our death in murderous vials,
  filled now with gall, now with your honeyed treasure—
  equally fatal all that you ensure,
  whether it be the sickness or the cure.
  • Canto IV, stanza 92 (tr. Wickert)

• For in a world so mutable and blind
  it's often constancy to change one's mind.
  • Canto V, stanza 3 (tr. Wickert)

• Power constrained is but a glorious slave.
  • Canto V, stanza 5 (tr. Fairfax)

• Too dark the place and too inscrutable
  where mortal men their deepest thoughts control.
  • Canto V, stanza 41 (tr. Wickert)

• For love she wist was weak without those arts,
  And slow; for jealousy is Cupid's food;
  For the swift steed runs not so fast alone,
  As when some strain, some strive him to outgone.
  • Canto V, stanza 70 (tr. Fairfax)

• Love calls it folly, what so wisdom saith.
  • Canto V, stanza 78 (tr. Fairfax)

• For when last need to desperation driveth,
  Who dareth most, he wisest counsel giveth.
  • Canto VI, stanza 6 (tr. Fairfax)

• Yield, and sufficient glory let it be
  to have it said that you once fought with me.
  • Canto VI, stanza 32 (tr. Wickert)

• The time for work is while the sun's light shines,
  but every living thing finds peace at night.
  • Canto VI, stanza 52 (tr. Wickert)

• Her peasant garments cannot hide the light
  of noble soul, her nature high and grand,
  and all her queenly majesty shines bright
  in every act her humble chores demand.
  • Canto VII, stanza 18 (tr. Wickert)

• The other's glory seems to make him prey
  to shame, as though reproached for coward fear.
  • Canto VIII, stanza 11 (tr. Wickert)

• For shield and mail are less secure defence
  To the bare breast than holy innocence.
  • Canto VIII, stanza 41 (tr. Alex. Cuningham Robertson)
• Variant translation: Better defence than shield or breastplate, is holy innocence to the naked breast!

• Such death makes happier end
  than conquests of huge realms or infinite gold.
  • Canto VIII, stanza 44 (tr. Wickert)

• For little differs death and heavy sleep.
  • Canto IX, stanza 18 (tr. Fairfax)

• With equal rage, as when the southern wind,
  Meeteth in battle strong the northern blast.
  • Canto IX, stanza 52 (tr. Fairfax)

Sedea colà, dond'egli e buono e giusto
Dà legge al tutto, e 'l tutto orna e produce
Sovra i bassi confin del mondo angusto,
Ove senso o ragion non si conduce.
E della eternità nel trono augusto
Risplendea con tre lumi in una luce.
Ha sotto i piedi il Fato e la Natura,
Ministri umíli, e 'l moto, e chi 'l misura;

E 'l loco, e quella che qual fumo o polve
La gloria di qua giuso e l'oro e i regni,
piace là su, disperde e volve:
Nè, Diva, cura i nostri umani sdegni.
Quivi ei così nel suo splendor s'involve,
Che v'abbaglian la vista anco i più degni;
D'intorno ha innumerabili immortali
Disegualmente in lor letizia eguali.

•  

  From whence with grace and goodness compassed round,
  He ruleth, blesseth, keepeth all he wrought,
  Above the air, the fire, the sea and ground,
  Our sense, our wit, our reason and our thought,
  Where persons three, with power and glory crowned,
  Are all one God, who made all things of naught,
  Under whose feet, subjected to his grace,
  Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place.

  This is the place, from whence like smoke and dust
  Of this frail world the wealth, the pomp and power,
  He tosseth, tumbleth, turneth as he lust,
  And guides our life, our death, our end and hour:
  No eye, however virtuous, pure and just,
  Can view the brightness of that glorious bower,
  On every side the blessed spirits be,
  Equal in joys, though differing in degree.
  • Canto IX, stanzas 56–57 (tr. Edward Fairfax)
• Max Wickert's translation:

  • He sat where He gives laws both good and just
    to all, and all creates, and all sets right,
    above the low bounds of this world of dust,
    beyond the reach of sense or reason's might;
    enthroned upon Eternity, august,
    He shines with three lights in a single light.
    At His feet Fate and Nature humbly sit,
    and Motion, and the Power that measures it,

    and Space, and Fate who like a powder will
    all fame and gold and kingdoms here below,
    as pleases Him on high, disperse or spill,
    nor, goddess, cares she for our wrath or woe.
    There He, enwrapped in His own splendour, still
    blinds even worthiest vision with His glow.
    All round Him throng immortals numberless,
    unequally equal in their happiness.

• I will rise again, a foe, fierce, bold,
  Though dead, though slain, though burnt to ashes cold.
  • Canto IX, stanza 99 (tr. Fairfax)

• Two inward vultures, Sorrow and Disdain.
  • Canto X, stanza 6 (tr. Fairfax)

• They make their fortune who are stout and wise,
  Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies.
  • Canto X, stanza 20 (tr. Fairfax)

• Alike prepared for all fates, at each breath
  assured of triumph and contemning death.
  • Canto X, stanza 38 (tr. Wickert)

• For virtue is of little guilt ashamed.
  • Canto X, stanza 59 (tr. Fairfax). Cf. Dante, Purgatorio 3.8–9.

• Eròtimo cries: 'Not science (I am sure)
  nor my poor mortal hands here work your cure.'
  • Canto XI, stanza 74 (tr. Wickert)

• Black was this queen as jet, yet on her eyes
  Sweet loveliness in black attired lies.
  • Canto XII, stanza 21 (tr. Fairfax)

• Soon, at a torrent's banks, I find its flood
  blocks my advance while bandits follow me.
  • Canto XII, stanza 34 (tr. Wickert)

• Three times the warrior has embraced the maid
  in his huge arms.
  • Canto XII, stanza 57 (tr. Wickert)

• With fortunate misfortune, kindly wrath,
  Heaven's light lash now punishes your black
  and foolish sin, and makes of your soul's weal
  yourself the minister.
  • Canto XII, stanza 87 (tr. Wickert)

• Till Phoebus' rising from his evening fall
  To her, for her, he mourns, he calls, he cries.
  • Canto XII, stanza 90 (tr. Fairfax)

• With spirits dead why should men living fight?
  • Canto XIII, stanza 39 (tr. Fairfax)

• In what a narrow circuit, among what
  abandoned solitudes your fame lies bound!
  Amid vast seas your island earth is shut,
  though "vast" or "ocean", or what words resound
  to name that sea, are idle names and fond,
  for what it is: a shallow bog, a pond.
  • Canto XIV, stanza 10 (tr. Wickert)

• Fame, whose sweet voice whispers of phantom bliss
  to you proud mortals, and who seems so fair,
  is a mere echo, dream, dream lost in shade,
  at every wind-puff scattered and unmade.
  • Canto XIV, stanza 63 (tr. Wickert)

• Great Carthage low in ashes cold doth lie,
  Her ruins poor the herbs in height scant pass,
  So cities fall, so perish kingdoms high,
  Their pride and pomp lies hid in sand and grass:
  Then why should mortal man repine to die,
  Whose life, is air; breath, wind; and body, glass?
  • Canto XV, stanza 20 (tr. Fairfax)
• Max Wickert's translation:

  Exalted Carthage lies full low. The signs
  of her great ruin fade upon the strand.
  So dies each city, so each realm declines,
  its pomp and glory lost in scrub and sand,
  and mortal man to see it sighs and pines.
  (Ah, greed and pride! when will you understand?)

Ecco altre isole insieme, altre pendíci
Scoprian alfin men erte ed elevate.
Ed eran queste l'isole felici;
Così le nominò la prisca etate,
A cui tanto stimava i Cieli amici,
Che credea volontarie, e non arate
Quì partorir le terre, e in più graditi
Frutti, non culte, germogliar le viti.

Quì non fallaci mai fiorir gli olivi,
E 'l mel dicea stillar dall'elci cave:
E scender giù da lor montagne i rivi
Con acque dolci, e mormorio soave:
E zefiri e rugiade i raggj estivi
Temprarvi sì, che nullo ardor v'è grave:
E quì gli Elisj campi, e le famose
Stanze delle beate anime pose.

• About the hill lay other islands small,
  Where other rocks, crags, cliffs, and mountains stood,
  The Isles Fortunate these elder time did call,
  To which high Heaven they reigned so kind and good,
  And of his blessings rich so liberal,
  That without tillage earth gives corn for food,
  And grapes that swell with sweet and precious wine
  There without pruning yields the fertile vine.

  The olive fat there ever buds and flowers,
  The honey-drops from hollow oaks distil,
  The falling brook her silver streams downpours
  With gentle murmur from their native hill,
  The western blast tempereth with dews and showers
  The sunny rays, lest heat the blossoms kill,
  The fields Elysian, as fond heathen sain,
  Were there, where souls of men in bliss remain.

  • Canto XV, stanzas 35–36 (tr. Fairfax)

• And on the flowers
  The plenteous spring a thousand streams down pours.
  • Canto XV, stanza 55 (tr. Fairfax)

• Art, that does all things, never herself displays.
  • Canto XVI, stanza 9 (tr. T. B. Harbottle). Cf. Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 2.313.

Deh mira (egli cantò) spuntar la rosa
Dal verde suo modesta e verginella;
Che mezzo aperta ancora, e mezzo ascosa,
Quanto si mostra men, tanto è più bella.
Ecco poi nudo il sen già baldanzosa
Dispiega: ecco poi langue, e non par quella,
Quella non par che desiata innanti
Fu da mille donzelle e mille amanti.

Così trapassa al trapassar d'un giorno
Della vita mortale il fiore, e 'l verde:
Nè, perchè faccia indietro April ritorno,
Si rinfiora ella mai, nè si rinverde.

• 'Ah, see,' he sang, 'the shamefast, virgin rose
  first bursting her green bud so timidly,
  half hidden and half bare: the less she shows
  herself, the lovelier she seems to be.
  Now see her bosom, budding still, unclose
  and look! She droops, and seems no longer she—
  not she who in her morning set afire
  a thousand lads and maidens with desire.

  So passes in the passing of a day
  the leaf and flower from our mortal scene,
  nor will, though April come again, display
  its bloom again, nor evermore grow green.'
  • Canto XVI, stanzas 14–15 (tr. Wickert)

• Gather the rose of love, while yet thou mayest,
  Loving, be loved; embracing, be embraced.
  • Canto XVI, stanza 15 (tr. Fairfax)
• Compare:
  • Gather the Rose of Love, whilst yet is time,
    Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.
    • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, B. II, C. XII, st. 75
  • Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
    • Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"

• Armida smiles to hear, but keeps her gaze
  fixed on herself, love's labours to behold.
  Her locks she braided and their wanton ways
  in lovely order marshalled and controlled.
  She wound the curls of her fine strands with sprays
  of flowers, like enamel worked on gold,
  and made the stranger rose join with her pale
  breast's native lily, and composed her veil.
  • Canto XVI, stanza 23 (tr. Wickert)

• She tried to cry out: 'Will you, cruel man,
  leave me alone here?' Pain choked off her cry,
  and in her heart the plaintive words began
  to echo in a yet more bitter sigh.
  • Canto XVI, stanza 36 (tr. Wickert)

• Lovers she hated, though she loved their love.
  • Canto XVI, stanza 38 (tr. T. B. Harbottle)

• Bold, but cautiously bold.
  • Canto XVIII, stanza 57

• I'll know his inmost aims and (doubt me not)
  extract the guarded mysteries of his mind.
  • Canto XVIII, stanza 59 (tr. Wickert)

• The craftsman is in his own craft beguiled.
  • Canto XIX, stanza 14 (tr. Fairfax)

• Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile,
  They will, they will not; fools that on them trust.
  • Canto XIX, stanza 84 (tr. Fairfax)

• Like as the wind, stopped by some wood or hill,
  Grows strong and fierce, tears boughs and trees in twain,
  But with mild blasts, more temperate, gentle, still,
  Blows through the ample field or spacious plain;
  Against the rocks as sea-waves murmur shrill,
  But silent pass amid the open main:
  Rinaldo so, when none his force withstood,
  Assuaged his fury, calmed his angry mood.
  • Canto XX, stanza 58 (tr. Fairfax)

• The way to honor, way to safety is.
  • Canto XX, stanza 110 (tr. Fairfax)

• François-René de Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem (1811), translated into English by Frederic Shoberl: Travels in Greece, Palestine, Egypt, and Barbary, Vol. II (1812), pp. 169–170.

• John Dryden, Preface to An Evening's Love, or The Mock-Astrologer (1668)

• 1982 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

• Voltaire, An Essay on Epic Poetry (1727)