Three Songs from William Shakespeare

Song Cycle by Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

Translated to:

French (Français) — Trois Chansons de William Shakespeare

1. Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? [sung text checked 1 time]

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing.
  Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
  Sings this to thee: "Thou single wilt prove none."

Authorship:

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 8 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

See other settings of this text.

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

FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot) , no title, appears in Œuvres Complètes de Shakspeare Volume VIII, in Sonnets, no. 8, first published 1863
FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 8, first published 1857
ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Tu, musica all'orecchio, perché triste la musica ascolti?", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Jeroen Scholten

2. Full fathom five thy father lies [sung text checked 1 time]

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
[Ding-dong.]¹
Hark! now I hear them, - ding-dong bell.

Authorship:

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

See other settings of this text.

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

DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Lidy van Noordenburg) , "Vijf vadem diep", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
FRE French (Français) (Guy de Pourtalès)
FRE French (Français) (Maurice Bouchor)
GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Voll Faden fünf", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
IRI Irish (Gaelic) [singable] (Gabriel Rosenstock) , copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Tuo padre giace a una profondità di cinque tese", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1869
NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Arild Bakke) , "På fem favner", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
SWE Swedish (Svenska) (Anonymous/Unidentified Artist)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ omitted by Ives.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Spring [sung text checked 1 time]

When daisies pied and violets blue
 [And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,]¹
  Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo, then on ev'ry tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
  Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
  And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
[When]² turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
  And maidens bleach their summer [smocks]³,
The cuckoo, then on ev'ry tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
  Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

Authorship:

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

See other settings of this text.

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

FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo)
GER German (Deutsch) (Anonymous/Unidentified Artist) , "Lied. Der Frühling", first published 1870

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Stravinsky: reversed.
² Arne: "And"
³ Arne: "frocks"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 256