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Torquato Tasso

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Lost is all the time that you don't spend in love.

Torquato Tasso (March 11 1544 – April 25 1595) was an Italian epic poet and dramatist, best known for his Rinaldo (1562), Aminta (1573) and Gerusalemme Liberata (1580).

Quotes

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  • Vaghe Ninfe del Po, Ninfe sorelle,
    E voi de' boschi e voi d'onda marina
    E voi de' fonti e de l'alpestri cime.
    • 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.

Aminta (1573)

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Main article: Aminta
  • Perduto è tutto il tempo
    Che in amar non si spende.
    • 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.

Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

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Main article: Jerusalem Delivered
The sacred armies, and the godly knight,
That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
I sing.
  • Canto l'arme pietose e 'l capitano
    che 'l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo.
    • The sacred armies, and the godly knight,
      That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
      I sing      .
He, full of bashfulness and truth,
Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
  • Ei che modesto è sì, com'essa è bella,
    Brama assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede.
  • Chi la pace non vuol, la guerra s' abbia.
    • Who scorneth peace shall have his fill of war.
      • Canto II, stanza 88 (tr. Fairfax)
In a world so mutable and blind
it's often constancy to change one's mind.
  • Chè nel mondo mutabile e leggiero,
    Costanza è spesso il variar pensiero.
    • For in a world so mutable and blind
      it's often constancy to change one's mind.
      • Canto V, stanza 3 (tr. Wickert)
Too dark the place and too inscrutable
where mortal men their deepest thoughts control.
  • Chè 'n parte troppo cupa, e troppo interna
    Il pensier de' mortali occulto giace.
    • Too dark the place and too inscrutable
      where mortal men their deepest thoughts control.
      • Canto V, stanza 41 (tr. Wickert)
  • Dal sonno alla morte è un picciol varco.
    • For little differs death and heavy sleep.
      • Canto IX, stanza 18 (tr. Fairfax)
Under whose feet, subjected to His grace,
Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place.
  • Ha sotto i piedi il Fato e la Natura,
    Ministri umíli, e 'l moto, e chi 'l misura.
    • Under whose feet, subjected to his grace,
      Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place.
      • Canto IX, stanzas 56–57 (tr. Edward Fairfax)
  • Chè sovente addivien che 'l saggio e 'l forte
    Fabbro a se stesso è di beata sorte.
    • They make their fortune who are stout and wise,
      Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies.
      • Canto X, stanza 20 (tr. Fairfax)
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?
  • Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni
    Dell'alte sue ruine il lido serba.
    Muojono le città, muojono i regni;
    Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba;
    E l'uomo d'esser mortal par che si sdegni:
    O nostra mente cupida e superba!
    • 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)

  • 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.
  • Cogliam d'Amor la rosa: amiamo or quando
    Esser si puote riamato amando.


Misattributed

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  • Fortune rarely accompanies anyone to the door.
  • It is the fortunate who should extol fortune.
    • Though attributed to Tasso this is in fact from Goethe's Torquato Tasso, Act II, scene 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, scene iv, line 63. In the original German:
      Ein Tag der Gunst ist wie ein Tag der Ernte:
      Man muss geschäftig sein, sobald sie reift.

Quotes about Tasso

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  • The most excellent of modern poets, ... whom I reverence next to Virgil.
    • John Dryden, Preface to An Evening's Love, or The Mock-Astrologer (1668)
  • I found that I had an affinity with writers like Ariosto and Tasso, at least to the extent of loving their poetry. (“Those allegories of Ariosto and Tasso were in some ways very futuristic with those fantastic voyages-they were almost like science fiction without the science.”) Of course they didn't really have science to use. But they had a similarly disciplined imagination.
  • No man in the world was ever born with a greater genius and more qualified for epic poetry.
    • Voltaire, An Essay on Epic Poetry (1727)

See also

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