LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,143)
  • Text Authors (19,560)
  • 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 William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

So is it not with me as with that Muse
Language: English 
Our translations:  ITA
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
  Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, 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 Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet XXI", 1865 [ high voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Adolf Wallnöfer (1854 - 1946), "Sonet 21", op. 78 no. 4, published 1904 [ tenor and piano ], from 5 Sonnette von William Shakespeare, no. 4, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Friedrich Martin von Bodenstedt (1819 - 1892) , no title ; composed by Adolf Wallnöfer.
    • Go to the text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 21, first published 1857
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Non mi appartiene quella Musa poetica", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2007-10-12
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