Torquato Tasso
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Torquato Tasso (1544-03-11 – 1595-04-25) was an Italian epic poet and dramatist, best known for his Rinaldo (1562), Aminta (1573) and Gerusalemme Liberata (1580).
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[edit] Sourced
The fount of love's delight,
Denying drafts to slake the lover's thirst.
Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
- Forse, se tu gustassi anco una volta
La millesima parte de la gioie
Che gusta un cor amato riamando,
Diresti, ripentita, sospirando:
Perduto è tutto il tempo
Che in amar non si spende.- Perhaps if only once you did enjoy
The thousandth part of all the happiness
A heart beloved enjoys, returning love,
Repentant, you would surely sighing say,
"All time is truly lost and gone
Which is not spent in serving love." - Aminta Act I, sc. i, line 26 (1573)
- Translation by Charles Jernigan and Irene Marchegiani Jones, Aminta (2000) p. 13
- Perhaps if only once you did enjoy
- Tu prima, Onor, velasti
La fonte dei diletti,
Negando l'onde a l'amorosa sete.- You, Honor, first you hid
The fount of love's delight,
Denying drafts to slake the lover's thirst. - Aminta, Act I, sc. ii, line 358
- Translation: Jernigan and Jones p. 55.
- You, Honor, first you hid
- Brama assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede.
- He full of bashfulness and truth,
Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought. - Gerusalemme Liberata Bk. II, stanza 16 (1580)
- Translation by Edward Fairfax, Godfrey of Bulloigne; or, The Recovery of Jerusalem (1844) vol. 1, p. 100. Translation first published 1600.
- He full of bashfulness and truth,
[edit] Misattributed
- Fortune rarely accompanies anyone to the door.
- This is sometimes said to be by Torquato Tasso, and sometimes to be a quotation from Goethe's verse play Torquato Tasso, but it is from Joseph Jacobs' translation of Baltasar Gracián's Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia , maxim no. 59. In the original Spanish: Pocas veces acompaña la dicha a los que salen.
- It is the fortunate who should extol fortune.
- Though attributed to Tasso this is in fact from Goethe's Torquato Tasso, Act II, sc. iii, line 115. In the original German: Das Glück erhebe billig der Beglückte!.
- The day of fortune is like a harvest day,
We must be busy when the corn is ripe- Actually from Goethe's Torquato Tasso, Act IV, sc. iv, line 63. In the original German:
Ein Tag der Gunst ist wie ein Tag der Ernte:
Man muss geschäftig sein, sobald sie reift.
- Actually from Goethe's Torquato Tasso, Act IV, sc. iv, line 63. In the original German:
