My chickens, they've been pwned!

Things I've learned from Fairfax's translation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered:

• A really good poet can make even Tancred look like a decent guy.


• Despite all the opportunities for slashy male comradeship you'd expect in a war epic, Tasso's more into femslash (see especially vi.79).


• If you disguise yourself in your roomie's armor, people expect you to fight like her. Who knew?


• Christianity good; all things pagan bad. He's just sayin'.


• Who needs Marlowe's mighty lines when you can get smoothly pointed meters like this?


• Temptations are more interesting than battles. Especially repetitious battles with predestined ends.


• No fashionable warrior woman should be without several sets of armor, including a jet black number accessorized for night-time assaults.


• Fairfax would have adored a thesaurus. "And sweet-breath'd Zephyr on his spreading wings / Sleep, ease, repose, rest, peace and quiet brings" (xiv.1.7-8) is all too typical.


• When you have a totally cool concept like a spring that's the underground source of all the rivers in the world, you don't need to dress up the cave walls with glittering precious gems. In fact, you're better off without the distracting decorations. I'd call it "gilding the lily" except there's real gilding but no lilly.


• It's impossible to read lines like "... his broad shield, wherein displayéd flies / The bird that proves her chickens for her own / By looking 'gainst the sun with open eyes" (viii.49.2-4) without cracking up. My medieval beast-lore isn't strong, but I think the bird is an eagle, which makes the chickens even funnier. Yes, I know, chicken means chicks, but still.

I won't, as for The Faerie Queene, compile a list of the naughty bits because Tasso was writing for Counter-Reformation -- aside from what I've already quoted, the only naughty bits are a scene of two bathing maidens that Spenser improved when he stole it. Sad, really. And, yes, I managed to finish it anyway.

---L.