LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,448)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

To me, fair friend, you never can be old
Language: English 
Our translations:  ITA
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:
  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
  Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   L. Crabtree 

About the headline (FAQ)

View text with all available footnotes

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 104 [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 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968), "Sonnet CIV - To me, fair friend", op. 125 (Shakespeare Sonnets), Heft 1 no. 18 (1944-7) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Leslie Crabtree (b. 1941), "Sonnet CIV", 2010 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet CIV", 1866 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Carlos Claudio Spies (1925 - 2020), "To me, fair friend, you never can be old", 1976-7, first performed 1978 [ satb quartet and piano ], from Five Sonnet-Settings, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 104, first published 1857
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Per me, mio dolce amico, non potrai mai invecchiare", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2007-10-15
Line count: 14
Word count: 118

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

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris