Torquato Tasso: A Play

Pleases me and must please me, yet the impatience in me
Increases as well.
He cannot end, cannot finish,
He is constantly changing, moving slowly forward,
Standing still again, he deceives hope;
Reluctantly, one sees the enjoyment removed
To a late time, which one had believed so near.

I praise the modesty, the care,
With which he goes step by step toward the goal.
Only through the favor of the Muses goddesses of the arts and sciences do so many
Rhymes close firmly together into one;
And his soul harbors only this urge,
His poem shall round itself into a whole.
He does not want to heap tale upon tale,
Which entertain in a charming way and finally
Deceive, fading away like loose words.
Leave him, my brother! For time is not
The measure of a good work;
And if posterity is to enjoy it as well,
Then the artist's contemporary world must forget itself.