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The Tempest Songbook

Song Cycle by Kaija Saariaho (1952 - 2023)

1. Ariel's Hail Sung Text

Note: this is a multi-text setting


Arial:
 All hail, great master! Grave Sir, hail! I come
 To answer thy best pleasure; be it to fly,
 To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
 On the curled clouds, -- to thy strong bidding task
 Ariel and all his quality.

 ... 

Ariel:
 I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
 Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
 I flamed amazement: sometime I'd divide,
 And burn in many places.  ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2 (Ariel)

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1869

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]



 ...  Then I beat my tabour,
At which, like unbacked colts, they pricked their ears,
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses
As they smelt music. So I charmed their ears
 ... . 

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1 (Ariel)

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo)
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1869

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


2. Caliban's Dream
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd,
I cried to sleep again.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in The Tempest, Act III, Scene 2 (Caliban)

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1869

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Miranda's Lament
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Miranda:
 If by your art, my dearest father, you have
 Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
 The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
 But that the sea, mounting to the face of sky
 Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
 With those that I saw suffer!  ...  O, the cry did knock
 Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished!
 Had I been any god of power, I would
 Have sunk the sea within the earth, or ere
 It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
 The fraughting souls within her.

Prospero: Be collected:
 No more amazement: tell your pitying heart
 There's no harm done.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Prospero's Vision
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.
 ...  These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
 ...  a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1 (Prospero)

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1869

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. Ferdinand's Comfort [sung text not yet checked]

Note: this is a multi-text setting


Where should this music be? i' th' air or th' earth?
It sounds no more;--and sure it waits upon
Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wrack,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion,
With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,--
Or it hath drawn me rather,--but 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2 (Ferdinand)

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1869

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]



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.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2

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]


Total word count: 513
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

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