Chiunche nasce a morte arriva
nel fuggir del tempo; e 'l sole
niuna cosa lascia viva.
Manca il dolce e quel che dole
e gl'ingegni e le parole;
e le nostre antiche prole
al sole ombre, al vento un fummo.
Come voi uomini fummo1,
lieti e tristi, come siete;
[e or siàn]2, come vedete,
terra al sol, di vita priva.
    Ogni cosa a morte arriva.
Già fur gli occhi nostri interi
con la luce in ogni speco;
or son voti, orrendi e neri,
e ciò porta il tempo seco.

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¹ sometimes modernized to "fumo"
² Dallapiccola: "Ed or siam"

Text Authorship:

• by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564), appears in Rime, no. 21 [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 Luigi Dallapiccola (1904 - 1975), "Chiunche nasce a morte arriva", 1949, from Tre poemi, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in English, a translation by Nathan Haskell Dole (1852 - 1935) [an adaptation] ; composed by Joseph Kaufer.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Walter Heinrich Robert-Tornow (1852 - 1895) [an adaptation] ; composed by Hans Erich Pfitzner, Hugo Wolf.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Bettina Jakobson ; composed by Josef Schelb.
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Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Tout ce qui est né arrive à la mort", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 93