# John Hoole

John Hoole (2 December 1727 – 2 August 1803) was an English translator.

## Quotes

* My endeavour has been to render the sense of my author as nearly as possible, which could never be done merely by translating his words.
** Preface to Jerusalem Delivered, an Heroic Poem; translated from the Italian of Torquato Tasso (1764), p. xix

### Translations
#### Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)

* The spotless maid is like the blooming rose Which on its native stem unsullied grows; Where fencing walls the garden-space surround, Nor swains, nor browsing cattle tread the ground. But if some hand the tender stalk invades, Lost is its beauty, and its colour fades: No more the care of heaven, or garden's boast, And all its praise with youths and maidens lost.
** Book I, line 300
* Love what we see can from our sight remove, And things invisible are seen by Love.
** Book I, line 396
* Ah! why so rare does cruel Love inspire Two tender bosoms with a mutual fire? Say, whence, perfidious, dost thou pleasure find To sow dissension in the human mind?
** Book II, line 1
* What has that wretched damsel left to boast, What good on earth, whose virtuous praise is lost?
** Book VIII, line 285
* So from a water clear, the trembling light Of Phoebus, or the silver queen of night, Along the spacious rooms with splendour plays, Now high, now low, and shifts a thousand ways.
** Book VIII, line 490
* The youth, who pants to gain the amorous prize, Forgets that Heaven with all-discerning eyes Surveys the secret heart; and when desire Has, in possession, quenched its short-lived fire, The devious winds aside each promise bear, And scatter all his solemn vows in air!
** Book X, line 24
* Reflect, ye gentle dames, that much they know, Who gain experience from another's woe.
** Book X, line 32
* What more our folly shows, Than while we others seek, ourselves to lose?
** Book XXIV, line 7
* In blaming others, fools their folly show, And most attempt to speak when least they know.
** Book XXVIII, line 7
* For oft the grace Of costly vest improves a beauteous face.
** Book XXVIII, line 82
* Of all the sex this certain truth is known, No woman yet was ever content with one.
** Book XXVIII, line 370
* To others never do That which yourselves would wish undone to you.
** Book XXVIII, line 591
* Behold the state of man's unstable mind, Still prone to change with every changing wind! All our resolves are weak, but weakest prove Where sprung from sense of disappointed love.
** Book XXIX, line 1
* Never let us utter what we never can know, And chiefly when it works another's woe.
** Book XXXII, line 753
* But such their power who rule with tyrant sway, Whom most they loath the people most obey.
** Book XXXVII, line 774
* When Fame, O monarch! good or evil tells, Evil or good beyond the truth she swells.
** Book XXXVIII, line 327
* And Neptune's white herds low above the wave.
** Book XLI, line 66
* These friendly words awhile consoled the fair; For grief imparted oft alleviates care.
** Book XLII, line 202
* Not beauty, wealth, or lineage e'er could raise A woman's name (he said) to height of praise, If not in action chaste.
** Book XLIII, line 628
* When highest placed on giddy Fortune's wheel, Unhappy man must soon expect to feel A sad reverse, and in the changing round With rapid whirl as sudden touch the ground.
** Book XLV, line 1

#### Dramas and Other Poems of Metastasio (1800)

* The toils of honour dignify repose.
** "Achilles in Scyros", Act III, last scene
* 'Tis often constancy to change the mind.
** "Siroes", Act I, scene viii
* For while the treason I detest, The traitor still I love.
** "Romulus and Hersilia", Act I, scene v

## Quotes about Hoole

* A noble transmuter of gold into lead. [...] He did exactly so many couplets day by day, neither more nor less; and habit had made it light to him, however heavy it might seem to the reader.
** Walter Scott, diary entry (June 4, 1826), in John Gibson Lockhart's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837), p. 317

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on John Hoole on Wikipedia