LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,120)
  • Text Authors (19,527)
  • 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

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Translation © by Ferdinando Albeggiani

As an unperfect actor on the stage
Language: English 
Our translations:  ITA
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.
O! let my looks be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
  O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
  To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 23 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet XXIII", 1865 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:
  • by John Philip William Dankworth (1927 - 2010), "Duet of Sonnets", 1964, copyright © 1964 [ voice, instrumental ensemble (jazz ensemble) ], in Shakespeare & All That Jazz; text follows Sonnet 23, then Sonnet 24, and then both simultaneously
    • View the full text. [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in Polish (Polski), a translation by Maciej Słomczyński (1922 - 1998) ; composed by Tadeusz Baird.
    • Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]

Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 23, first published 1857
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Come, sulla scena, un attore dilettante", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2007-09-25
Line count: 14
Word count: 114

Come, sulla scena, un attore dilettante
Language: Italian (Italiano)  after the English 
Come, sulla scena, un attore dilettante
Che la sua parte scorda per paura,
O come un uomo violento, di rabbia traboccante,
cui cede il cuore per l'eccessiva furia;
Così io, per la mia insicurezza, le parole ho perduto
Che del rito amoroso sono la stessa essenza,
e al colmo del mio amore sono schiacciato
dal peso stesso della sua potenza.
Siano allora i miei libri la mia sola eloquenza
E i muti messaggeri del mio parlante petto,
a supplicare amore e a cercare ricompensa
meglio di quella lingua che più e di più ha detto.
Oh! Impara a leggere ciò che l'amore con il suo silenzio dice
Ascoltare con gli occhi, al fine ingegno d'amore si addice.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to Italian (Italiano) copyright © 2008 by Ferdinando Albeggiani, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in English by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 23
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2008-02-09
Line count: 14
Word count: 117

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