Four Shakespeare Songs (Third Set)

Song Cycle by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953)

1. Who is Silvia?
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Who is Silvia? what is she?
That all our Swaines commend her?
Holy, faire, and wise is she.
The heavens such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kinde as she is faire?
For beauty lives with kindnesse:
Love doth to her eyes repaire,
To helpe him of his blindnesse:
And being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia, let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortall thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling.
To her let us Garlands bring.

Text Authorship:

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

  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (L. A. J. Burgersdijk)
  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , "Kuka on Silvia?", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "À Silvia", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Carlo Rusconi) , first published 1859
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Juan Henríquez Concepción) , "¿Quién es Silvia?", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Peter Rastl [Guest Editor]

2. When daffodils begin to peer
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
When daffodils begin to peer -
   With heigh! The doxy over the dale -
Why, then comes the sweet o' the year;
   For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge -
   With heigh! The sweet birds, O how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
   For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
   With heigh! with heigh! The thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
   While we lie tumbling in the hay.

 ...

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

  • CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot) , no title

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

3. How should I your true love know Sung Text

Note: this is a multi-text setting


How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author, appears in Hamlet [an adaptation]
  • sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Based on:

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Note: this is often referred to as the Walsingham Ballad, and is quoted in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5. Ophelia is singing.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem An old song ended refers to this song.

Quoted in Rhian Samuel's The Gaze.


Researcher for this page: Ted Perry 


He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.1

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author
  • sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

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View original text (without footnotes)

These words are sung by Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, but they are probably not by Shakespeare.

Quoted in Rhian Samuel's The Gaze.

1 Rihm adds "Oho! Oho! Nay, but ... mark"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


White his shroud as the mountain snow,
[Larded]1 with sweet [flowers]2;
Which bewept to the [grave did go]3
With true-love [showers]4.

Text Authorship:

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View original text (without footnotes)

These words are sung by Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, but they are probably not by Shakespeare.

1 Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "Larded all"
2 White: "flow'rs"
3 Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Grill: "ground did not go"
4 White: "show'rs"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

4. Sigh no more, ladies
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Text Authorship:

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

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Total word count: 340