C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Congedo at the Conclusion of the Rinaldo
By Torquato Tasso (15441595)
Dedicated to Cardinal Luigi d’Esté
Translation of Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen
T
Rinaldo’s cares, and prattled through my page,
Whilst other studies claimed the irksome hour,
In the fourth lustre of my verdant age;
Studies from which I hoped to have the power
The wrongs of adverse fortune to assuage;
Ungrateful studies, whence I pine away
Unknown to others, to myself a prey.
With ease, released from law’s discordant maze,
To spend on the green turf, in forests brown,
With bland Apollo whole harmonious days,
Then might I spread, Luigi, thy renown,
Where’er the sun darts forth resplendent rays;
Thyself the genial spirit should infuse,
And to thy virtues wake a worthier Muse.
Child of few hours and those most fugitive!
Dear little book, born on the sunny soil
By Brenta’s wave! may all kind planets give
To thee the spring no winter shall despoil,
Life to go forth when I have ceased to live;
Gathering rich fame beyond our country’s bounds,
And mixed with songs with which the world resounds.
Ere yet thou seek’st the prince whose name, impressed
Deep in my heart, upon thy front we view,—
Too poor a portal for so great a guest!—
Go, find out him from whom my birth I drew,
Life of my life! and whose the rich bequest
Has been, if aught of beautiful or strong
Adorns my life and animates my song.
To pierce beyond the veil of dim disguise,
Shall see the faults that lie concealed so close
To the short vision of my feeble eyes,
And with that pen which joins the truth of prose
To tuneful fable, shall the verse chastise
(Far as its youth the trial can endure),
And grace thy page with beauties more mature.