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Sonnet Lines

Song Cycle by Laura Kaminsky (b. 1956)

?.
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
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."

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 8

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 page: Jeroen Scholten
Total word count: 110
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