LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,139)
  • Text Authors (19,558)
  • 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)
Translation by François-Victor Hugo (1828 - 1873)

Farewell! thou art too dear for my...
Language: English 
Our translations:  ITA
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
  In sleep a King, but waking no such matter.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 87 [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 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968), "Sonnet LXXXVII - Farewell!", op. 125 (Shakespeare Sonnets), Heft 1 no. 13 (1944-7) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Leslie Crabtree (b. 1941), "Sonnet LXXXVII", 2002 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, Sir (1848 - 1918), "Farewell, thou are too dear for my possessing", from Four Sonnets of Shakespeare, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet LXXXVII", 1864-5 [ medium 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. 87, first published 1857
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Addio! Troppo sei caro per il mio possesso", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2004-08-09
Line count: 14
Word count: 117

Adieu ! tu es un bien trop précieux pour...
Language: French (Français)  after the English 
Adieu ! tu es un bien trop précieux pour moi, 
et tu sais trop sans doute ce que tu vaux : 
la charte de ta valeur te donne la liberté, 
et tes engagements envers moi sont tous terminés.
Car ai-je d'autres droits sur toi que ceux que tu m'accordes ? 
Et où sont mes titres à tant de richesses ? 
Rien en moi ne peut justifier ce don splendide, 
et aussi ma patente m'est-elle retirée.
Tu t'étais donné à moi par ignorance de ce que tu vaux 
ou par une méprise sur mon compte. 
Aussi, cette grande concession, fondée sur un malentendu, 
tu la révoques en te ravisant.
  Ainsi, je t'aurai possédé, comme dans l'illusion d'un rêve : 
  roi, dans le sommeil, mais, au réveil, plus rien !

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by François-Victor Hugo (1828 - 1873), no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 87, 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. 87
    • Go to the text page.

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: 2010-08-18
Line count: 14
Word count: 122

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