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Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.
V. Giannini sets lines 1-2
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 151 [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 Vittorio Giannini (1903 - 1966), no title, copyright © 1953, lines 1-2, from opera The Taming of the Shrew, Act III ; New York : Ricordi [sung text not yet checked]
- by Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet CLI", 1866 [ high voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 151, first published 1857
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-08-13
Line count: 14
Word count: 119
Amore è troppo giovane per comprendere cosa sia coscienza e tuttavia chi può ignorare che la coscienza discende da Amore? Perciò, gentile ingannatrice, non essere troppo severa per ogni mio errore che potrebbe capitarmi di fare: E invero, è perché tu mi inganni, che inganno io pure la mia parte più nobile affinché il mio volgare corpo possa tradirla; L’anima mia potrebbe sussurrare al mio corpo che in amore, potrà trionfare la carne che d'altro non va in cerca E, sollevandosi al suono del tuo nome, te designa come preda trionfale e si gonfia con vanto, contentandosi solo di essere tua schiava, ficcandosi nei tuoi affari per poi cadere al tuo fianco. Nessuna mancanza di coscienza può vietare che io chiami “Amore” ciò che prima mi solleva e poi mi fa cadere.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to Italian (Italiano) copyright © 2025 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.
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Based on:
- a text in English by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 151
This text was added to the website: 2025-07-16
Line count: 14
Word count: 132