41 Torquato Tasso Quotes

The Italian poet Torquato Tasso presents a highly imaginative version of the battles between Muslims and Christians following the Siege of Jerusalem after the First Crusade.

Torquato Tasso was among the most read poets on the European continent until the early 20th century. The date of birth of his poet was March 11, 1544, while the place of his birth was Sorrento, Italy.

Torquato Tasso was believed to have suffered through some mental illness before his demise. Torquato Tasso died on April 25, 1595, and the place of his death was Rome, Italy. Torquato Tasso is best remembered for his notable work such as 'Aminta,' 'Inträngandet i den förtrollade skogen,' and many more. He was born to Bernardo Tasso, and Porzia de' Rossi. He also had one sibling, Cornelia Tasso. Many of his works are translated by Max Wickert. His English readers have read Max Wickert's translation. Torquato Tasso attended the Jesuits' newly established school in Naples in 1552 while residing there with his mother and their sole sister Cornelia. The boy's intellectual prowess and zeal for religion won widespread respect. He became well-known at the young age of eight. Shortly after this time, he was given a chance to start his father, who was living in captivity in Rome and was extremely poor and unemployed. They learned in 1556 that Porzia Tasso had passed away unexpectedly and tragically in Naples. Her brother allegedly poisoned her, intending to seize control of her estate, and her husband was adamantly convinced of the reason above. In the end, Porzia's inheritance was never passed down to her son, and her maternal relations forced Cornelia to wed someone younger than she was. Tasso's father was a courtier by trade and a poet by preference. So, when a position at the court of Urbino became available in 1557, Bernardo Tasso embraced it with enthusiasm.

Tasso's life, starting in 1565, was focused on the Ferrara castle, the setting for numerous later triumphs and horrifying tragedies. After Rinaldo was published, he discussed the epic in several 'Discourses On The Art Of Poetry,' which firmly established his commitment to a particular system and earned him the added notoriety of an intellectual critic. The following five years appear to have been Tasso's finest days, although the loss of his father in 1569 deeply hurt his sympathetic personality.

There were many Torquato Tasso quotes included in his poems. Here are some of them.

"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."

"Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile,

They will, they will not; fools that on them trust;

For in their speech is death, hell in their smile."

"O happy, golden age!

Not for that rivers ran

With streams of milk, and honey dropped from trees."

"Then amongst flowers and springs,

Making delightful sport,

Sat lovers without conflict, without flame."

"The day of fortune is like a harvest day,

We must be busy when the corn is ripe."

"A fool is he that comes to preach or prate,

When men with swords their right and wrong debate."

"O subtle love! a thousand wiles thou hast, by humble suit, by service, or by hire, to win a maiden's hold,--a thing soon done, for nature framed all women to be won."

- 'Jerusalem Delivered: An Heroic Poem'.

"Virtue's guard is labor; ease, her sleep."

"Not for no cold did freeze,

Nor any cloud beguile

Th'eternal flowering spring"

"Now if thou be a bondslave vile become, No wrong is that, but God's most righteous doom."

Tass had some beautiful things to say about art, we could constantly see it in his true love, poetry.

"Art, that does all things, never herself displays."

"Love, let others read

The Socratic papers

While in two beautiful eyes I will apprehend this art."

"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 in the end grows old,

Without these arts, and spiritless and slow,

Like courser that ne'er shows his highest speed,

Unless some rival follow or precede."

"Grave was the man in years, in looks, in word, his locks were grey, yet was his courage green."

"For what the most neglects, most curious prove,

So Beauty's helped by Nature, Heaven, and Love."

"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."

"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."

"None merits the name of Creator but God and the poet."

"Thus if just once you tasted

the thousandth part of joy's flavor,

savor from a loving and beloved heart,

repentantly you'd say:

"Lost is all that time

I didn't spend in love!"

Here's Tasso's perception of life, through his words repentant, depicted through his quotes. Some of them are also about the joys of true love.

"True love cannot be found where it does not exist, nor can it be denied where it does."

"Hadst thou but tasted once the thousandth part

Of joys, which bless the loved and loving heart,

Your words repentant and your sighs would prove,

Lost is the time which is not past in love."

"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."

"Love the servant of gold is the greatest,

foulest, most abominable monster

created on earth or amid the sea's waves."

- 'Aminta'.

"All things are lawful for our lands and faith."

"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."

"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."

"She fair, he full of bashfulness and truth,

Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought."

"Gather the rose of love, while yet thou mayest,

Loving, be loved; embracing, be embraced."

"Three times the warrior has embraced the maid in his huge arms."

"Love is when he gives you a piece of your soul, that you never knew was missing."

Nothing like a Torquato tasso quote on success.

"Now if thou be a bondslave vile become,

No wrong is that, but God's most righteous doom."

"The day of fortune is like a harvest day,

We must be busy when the corn is ripe."

"The fear of ill exceeds the evil we fear,

For so our present harms still most annoy us."

"Fortune rarely accompanies anyone to the door."

" It is the fortunate who should extol fortune."

"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."

- 'Gerusalemme Liberata,' 1581.

"As shaking terrors from his blazing hair,

a sanguine comet gleams through dusky air."

"They make their fortune who are stout and wise,

Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies."

"For when last need to desperation driveth,

Who dareth most he wiseth counsel giveth."

"Read, whilst you arm you; arm you, whilst you read."