LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by John Dryden (1631 - 1700) and by Robert Howard, Sir (1626 - 1698)

Seek not to know
Language: English 
God of dreams:
 Seek not to know what must not be reveal'd,
 Joys only flow when fate is most conceal'd.
 Too busy man would find his sorrows more
 If future fortunes he should know before;

 For by that knowledge of his destiny
 He would not live at all but always die.
 Enquire not then who shall from bonds be freed,
 Who'tis shall wear a crown and who shall bleed.

 All must submit to their appointed doom,
 Fate and misfortune will too quickly come.
 Let me no more with powerful charms be press'd
 I am forbid by fate to tell the rest.

Text Authorship:

  • by John Dryden (1631 - 1700) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
  • by Robert Howard, Sir (1626 - 1698) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Henry Purcell (1658/9 - 1695), "Seek not to know", Z. 630 no. 15 (1695), from the a play - incidental music The Indian Queen, no. 15, Act 3 [ sung text verified 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Barry Kamil

This text was added to the website: 2003-11-15
Line count: 13
Word count: 101

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris