Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso Poems
Hedge, that divides the lovely
Garden, and myself from me,
Never in you so fair a rose I see
...
THE ARGUMENT.
God sends his angel to Tortosa down,
Godfrey unites the Christian Peers and Knights;
And all the Lords and Princes of renown
...
Ecco mormorar l'onde,
E tremolar le fronde
A l'aura mattutina, e gli arboscelli,
E sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
...
XVI
Soon was the prey out of their hands recovered,
By step and step the Frenchmen gan retire,
Till on a little hill at last they hovered,
...
Life of my life, you seem to me
Like some pallid olive tree
Or the faded rose I see:
Nor do you lack beauty,
...
LXXXVI
"But if our sins us of his help deprive,
Of his high justice let no mercy fall;
Yet should our deaths us some contentment give,
...
XXVI
"Turks, Persians conquered, Antiochia won,
Be glorious acts, and full of glorious praise,
By Heaven's mere grace, not by our prowess done:
...
XI
Thus when the Lord discovered had, and seen
The hidden secrets of each worthy's breast,
Out of the hierarchies of angels sheen
...
XXXI
Thus spake the nymph, yet spake but to the wind,
She could not alter his well-settled thought;
O miracle! O strife of wondrous kind!
...
LXXXVI
"I see," quoth he, "some expectation vain,
In these false Christians, and some new content,
Our common loss they trust will be their gain,
...
LXVI
"True labour in the vineyard of thy Lord,
Ere prime thou hast the imposed day-work done,
What armies conquered, perished with thy sword?
...
LVI
Guascher and Raiphe in valor like there was.
The one and other Guido, famous both,
Germer and Eberard to overpass,
...
XI
But when the angry king discovered not
What guilty hand this sacrilege had wrought,
His ireful courage boiled in vengeance hot
...
XVII
'Among the knights and worthies of their train,
Let some like outlaws wander uncouth ways,
Let some be slain in field, let some again
...
XXXIII
Thus passed she, praised, wished, and wondered at,
Among the troops who there encamped lay,
...
XLIX
'Three times the shape of my dear mother came,
Pale, sad, dismayed, to warn me in my,
...
LXXI
Aurora bright her crystal gates unbarred,
And bridegroom-like forth stept the glorious sun,
When trumpets loud and clarions shrill were heard,
...
XXXI
The villain flies, he, full of rage and ire,
Pursues, she stood and wondered on them both,
But yet to follow them showed no desire,
...
XLVI
"Sir King," quoth she, "my name Clorinda hight,
My fame perchance has pierced your ears ere now,
I come to try my wonted power and might,
...
THE ARGUMENT.
Ismeno conjures, but his charms are vain;
Aladine will kill the Christians in his ire:
Sophronia and Olindo would be slain
...
Torquato Tasso Biography
Torquato Tasso was born in Sorrento, near Naples in Italy, in 1544. As a young man he was educated by Jesuits at the Court of the Dukes of Urbino and later studied law and philosophy at the University of Padua. He completed his studies at the University of Bologna, from where he later received an invitation, in 1565, to join the brilliant court of the Este at Ferrara, where he remained for many years. There he wrote a number of beautiful, ltrical poems. He had already achieved fame prior to this when, aged just 18, he published his chivlaric poem Rinaldo in 1562. Other works by Tasso include the pastoral play Aminta (1573) and his masterpiece Gerusalemme Liberata (Jeusralem Delivered) - an epic of the exploits of Godfrey of Boulogne during the First Crusade. To some extent, Tasso was a victim to his own religious scruples and desire not to violate the rules of good literature which were then commonly accepted. Before publication, he would offer up his work to scrunity from his friends, as well as the church authorities. However, their sometimes harsh criticisms led him to develop an persecution complex. He was also concerned that actions in life, in which he had sometimes been carried away by storms of passion, were not free from reproach. Psychologically unstable, and following a fit of violence, Tasso washe confined, first in a convent, then intermittently (1579–87) in a hospital. In his last years, he lived with the Gonzagas in Mantua and then wandered restlessly throughout Italy searching for ideal working conditions at other courts. He died at a monastery in Rome in 1595, just one day before he was to have been crowned poet laureate. Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered has since been lauded both as the embodiment of lyric sentiment and as the greatest poem of the Counter-Reformation. The religious motif is strong, the subplots of love and adventure are well developed, and chivalric exploits are recounted in a majestic classical style. The work had enormous influence on English poets, especially Milton. The legend of Tasso's doomed love for Leonora d'Este was immortalized in works by Byron, Goethe, and others and made Tasso a romantic hero.)
The Best Poem Of Torquato Tasso
Hedge, That Divides The Lovely
Hedge, that divides the lovely
Garden, and myself from me,
Never in you so fair a rose I see
As she who is my lady,
Loving, sweet and holy:
Who as I stretch my hand to you
Presses it, so softly, too.
Torquato Tasso Comments
***************** The first attempt to translate Gerusalemme liberata into English was made by Richard Carew, who published his version of the first five cantos as Godfrey of Bulloigne or the recoverie of Hierusalem in 1594. More significant was the complete rendering by Edward Fairfax which appeared in 1600 and has been acclaimed as one of the finest English verse translations. There is also an eighteenth-century translation by John Hoole, and modern versions by Anthony Esolen and Max Wickert. Tasso's poem remained popular among educated English readers and was, at least until the end of the 19th century, considered one of the supreme achievements of Western literature. Somewhat eclipsed in the Modernist period, its fame is showing signs of recovering. ***************** == [from Wikipedia] ==
******************* The fame of Tasso's poem quickly spread throughout the European continent. In England, Sidney, Daniel and Drayton seem to have admired it, and, most importantly, Edmund Spenser described Tasso as an excellente poete and made use of elements from Gerusalemme liberata in The Faerie Queene. The description of Redcrosse's vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the First Book owes something to Rinaldo's morning vision in Canto 18 of Gerusalemme. In the twelfth canto of Book Two, Spenser's enchantress Acrasia is partly modelled on Tasso's Armida and the English poet directly imitated two stanzas from the Italian. The portrayal of Satan and the demons in the first two books of Milton's Paradise Lost is also indebted to Tasso's poem. ******************* - [from Wikipedia] -
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6/2/2023 10:10:07 AM # 1.0.0.1113
A book on Tasso, advertised on the Net, says that Tasso is famous for his Sonnet to his cats at St Ann, and that it is a satirical poem. The book quotes four or 5 lines. Obviously, this sonnet by Tasso has never got into English, and it would go viral if it did get into English and went up on the Net,