by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Translation by François-Victor Hugo (1828 - 1873)
Against my love shall be as I am now
Language: English
Against my love shall be as I am now,
With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;
When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age's cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 63 [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 LXIII", 1865, published [1878] [ voice and piano ], in Sonnets of Shakespeare, Selected from a complete Setting and Miscellaneous Songs, ed. Natalie Macfarren, London : Stanley Lucas, Weber [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. 63, first published 1857
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-08-12
Line count: 14
Word count: 110
Un jour viendra où mon bien‑aimé sera,...
Language: French (Français) after the English
Un jour viendra où mon bien-aimé sera, comme je le suis maintenant, écrasé et épuisé par la main injurieuse du temps. Un jour viendra où les heures auront tari son sang et couvert son front de lignes et de rides ; où le matin de sa jeunesse Aura gravi la nuit escarpée de l'âge ; où toutes ces beautés, dont il est roi aujourd'hui, iront s'évanouissant ou seront évanouies des yeux du monde, dérobant le trésor de son printemps. Pour ce jour-là, je me fortifie dès à présent contre le couteau cruel de l'âge destructeur, afin que, s'il tranche la vie de mon bien-aimé, il ne retranche pas du moins sa beauté de la mémoire humaine. Sa beauté sera vue dans ces lignes noires, à jamais vivantes, et il vivra en elles d'une éternelle jeunesse.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by François-Victor Hugo (1828 - 1873), no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 63, first published 1857 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in English by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 63
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- [ None yet in the database ]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-08-17
Line count: 14
Word count: 133