Sonetto XXX | Veggio co' be' vostr'occhi un dolce lume

by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564)

Veggio co' be' vostr'occhi un dolce lume

Language: Italian (Italiano)

Our translations: ENG FRE LIT SPA SPA

  Veggio co' be' vostr'occhi un dolce lume
che co' mie ciechi già veder non posso;
porto co' vostri piedi un pondo addosso,
che de' mie zoppi non è già costume.

  Volo con le vostr'ale senza piume;
col vostro ingegno al ciel sempre son mosso;
dal vostro arbitrio son pallido e rosso,
freddo al sol, caldo alle più fredde brume.

  Nel voler vostro è sol la voglia mia,
i miei pensier nel vostro cor si fanno,
nel vostro fiato son le mie parole.

  Come luna da sé sol par ch'io sia,
ché gli occhi nostri in ciel veder non sanno
se non quel tanto che n'accende il sole.

Available sung texts: ← What is this?

• B. Britten

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Text Authorship:

by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564), no title, appears in Rime, no. 89 [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 (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "Sonetto XXX", op. 22 no. 3 (1940), published 1943 [ voice and piano ], from Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Jeanne Leleu (1898 - 1979), "Veggio co' be' vostr' occhi un dolce lume", 1924, published 1925 [ medium voice and piano or orchestra ], from Sonnets de Michel-Ange Buonarroti, no. 2, Paris, Éd. 'Au Ménestrel' Heugel, also set in French (Français) [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in French (Français), a translation by Michel Augustin Varcollier (1795 - 1883) , appears in Poésies de Michel-Ange Buonarroti, peintre, sculpteur et architecte florentin, Paris, Éd. Hesse et Cie., first published 1826 ; composed by Jeanne Leleu.
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Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) , no title, appears in Michelangelo-Übertragungen ; composed by Christoph Alexander Garbe, Willy Kehrer, Harald Lie, Anton Schoendlinger.
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Also set in Polish (Polski), a translation by Leopold Staff (1878 - 1957) ; composed by Romuald Twardowski.
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Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

ENG English (John Addington Symonds) , "To Tommaso de' Cavalieri: Love the light-giver", appears in The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella now for the first time translated into rhymed English, first published 1878
GER German (Deutsch) (Hermann Friedrich Grimm) , "An Tommaso Cavalieri", from Michelangelo: Gedichte und Briefe, first published 1907

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 107