Edward Fairfax

Edward Fairfax (1580? – 27 January 1635) was an English translator.

Quotes edit

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

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

The rosy-fingered morn with gladsome ray
Rose to her task from old Tithonus' lap.
- Book XV, stanza 1

Remembrance is the life of grief; his grave,
Forgetfulness.
- Book XVIII, stanza 2

Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung.
—William Collins

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

How have I sat, where piped the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung;
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 197–200

Spenser and Fairfax both flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth: great masters in our language, and who saw much farther into the beauties of our numbers than those who immediately followed them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr. Waller of Fairfax, for we have our lineal descents and clans as well as other families. Spenser more than once insinuates that the soul of Chaucer was transfused into his body, and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original, and many besides myself have heard our famous Waller own that he derived the harmony of his numbers from the Godfrey of Bulloigne, which was turned into English by Mr. Fairfax.
- John Dryden, Preface to the Fables (1700)

I shall first cite Fairfax, who understood the harmony of numbers better than any person then living, except Spenser. All the world knows his excellent version (or paraphrase rather) of Tasso's Gierusalem liberata.
- Walter Harte, "Notes Upon The Sixth Thebaid of Statius", in A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, Vol. IX (1795), "The Works of Harte", p. 847

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

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Edward Fairfax

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Edward Fairfax

Gerusalemme Liberata – the Edward Fairfax translation, in its entirety, at The Medieval & Classical Literature Library