Edward Fairfax (1580? – 27 January 1635) was an English translator.
Quotes
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1600)
- The golden sun rose from the silver wave,
And with his beams enamelled every green.- Book I, stanza 35
- Aurora bright her crystal gates unbarred,
And bridegroom-like forth stept the glorious sun.- Book I, stanza 71
- Better sit still, men say, than rise to fall.
- Book II, stanza 79
- The throne of Cupid had an easy stair,
His bark is fit to sail with every wind,
The breach he makes no wisdom can repair.- Book IV, stanza 34
- Patience, a praise; forbearance is a treasure;
Sufferance, an angel is; a monster, rage.- Book V, stanza 47
- Base affections fall, when virtue riseth.
- Book V, stanza 62
- Sorrow, misfortune's son, despair's foul sire.
- Book XII, stanza 88
- The rosy-fingered morn with gladsome ray
Rose to her task from old Tithonus' lap.- Book XV, stanza 1
- Nature gives beauty; fortune, wealth in vain.
- Book XVI, stanza 65
- Remembrance is the life of grief; his grave,
Forgetfulness.- Book XVIII, stanza 2
- In their speech is death, hell in their smile.
- Book XIX, stanza 84
Quotes about Fairfax
- His diction is so pure, elegant, and full of graces, and the turn of his lines so perfectly melodious, that one cannot read [his translation] without rapture; and we scarcely imagine the original Italian has greatly the advantage in either, nor is it very probable that while Fairfax can be read, any author will attempt a new translation of Tasso with success.
- Theophilus Cibber, The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. I (1753), 'The Life of Edward Fairfax', pp. 223–224
- Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung.- William Collins, Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland (written 1749, published 1788), lines 199–200
- Fairfax has translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness, which for that age are surprising.
- David Hume, The History Of Great Britain, Under The House of Stuart, Vol. I (1759), p. 128
- I have lit upon Fairfax's 'Godfrey of Bullen,' for half-a-crown. Rejoice with me.
- Charles Lamb, letter to Coleridge (15 April 1797), in The Works of Charles Lamb, Vol. II (1837), p. 160
- One of the most judicious, elegant, and haply in his time most approved of English translators, both for his choice of so worthily extolled a heroic poet as Torquato Tasso, as for the exactness of his version, in which he is judged by some to have approved himself no less a poet than in what he hath written of his own genius.
- Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675), p. xvi
- Milton often copies Fairfax, and not his original.
- Thomas Warton, Poems upon Several Occasions (1785), p. 204
External links
- Gerusalemme Liberata – the Edward Fairfax translation, in its entirety, at The Medieval & Classical Literature Library
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