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TORQUATO TASSO Jerusalem Delivered

 
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  Jerusalem Delivered

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso (March 11, 1544 - April 25, 1595) - Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) (1580), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. Published 1581 in Parma, Italy. Translated by Edward Fairfax (1560-1635); translation first published in London, 1600. Original title of Fairfax translation: "Godfrey of Bulloigne or The Recoverie of Jerusalem."

Rinaldo and Armide in the Enchanted Garden Tasso Reading from "Jerusalem Delivered" to Leonora d'EsteTasso Rebuked by the Prime Minister of the Duke

Left to right:
Rinaldo and Armide in the Enchanted Garden
Tasso Reading from "Jerusalem Delivered" to Leonora d'Este
Tasso Rebuked by the Prime Minister of the Duke

 

First Book

THE ARGUMENT
God sends his angel to Tortosa down,
Godfrey unites the Christian Peers and Knights;
And all the Lords and Princes of renown
Choose him their Duke, to rule the wars and fights.
He mustereth all his host, whose number known,
He sends them to the fort that Sion hights;
The aged tyrant Juda's land that guides,
In fear and trouble, to resist provides.

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.

II
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.

III
Thither thou know'st the world is best inclined
Where luring Parnass most his sweet imparts,
And truth conveyed in verse of gentle kind
To read perhaps will move the dullest hearts:
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.

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