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by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930)
Translation © by Bertram Kottmann

A flower and a gem
 (Sung text for setting by O. Kortekangas)
 See original
Language: English 
Our translations:  GER
Fidelity and love are two different things, like a flower and a gem.
And love, like a flower, will fade, will change into something else
or it would not be flowery.

 ... 

And man and woman are like the earth, that brings forth flowers
in summer, and love, but underneath is rock.
Older than flowers, older than ferns,  ... 
older than plasm altogether is the soul of a man underneath.

And when, throughout all the wild orgasms of love
slowly a gem forms, in the ancient, once-more-molten rocks
of two human hearts,  ...  a man's heart and a woman's,
that is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust,
the sapphire of fidelity.

The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love.

Note: the text above is taken from stanzas 1,10-12 of the original text.

Composition:

    Set to music by Olli Kortekangas (b. 1955), "A flower and a gem", stanzas 1,10-12, from Amores, no. 3

Text Authorship:

  • by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930), "Fidelity", appears in Pansies, first published 1928

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Eine Blüte und ein Edelstein", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 37
Word count: 356

Eine Blüte und ein Edelstein
 (Sung text translation for setting by O. Kortekangas)
 See original
Language: German (Deutsch)  after the English 
Treue und Liebe sind so unterschiedlich wie eine Blüte und ein Edelstein.
Liebe wird wie eine Blüte welken, wird sich in etwas anderes verwandeln,
oder sie wäre nicht blütenreich.

 ... 

Mann und Frau sind wie die Erde, die im Sommer Blüten hervorbringt,
und Liebe, doch darunter ist Fels.
Älter als Blumen und Farne,
älter als alles Plasma ist des Menschen Seele in der Tiefe.

Und wenn sich langsam aus all den wilden Orgasmen der Liebe
ein Edelstein formt im uralten, neu aufgeschmolzenen Gestein
zweier Menschenherzen, der eines Mannes und einer Frau,
dann ist dies der Kristall des Friedens, der langsam wachsende, feste Edelstein des Vertrauens,
der Saphir der Treue.

Das Kleinod gemeinsamen Friedens, hervorgebracht aus dem wilden Chaos der Liebe.

Note: the text above is taken from stanzas 1,10-12 of the original text.

Note: this is a translation of Kortekangas's setting.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2015 by Bertram Kottmann, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.

    Bertram Kottmann.  Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de

    If you wish to commission a new translation, please contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in English by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930), "Fidelity", appears in Pansies, first published 1928
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view


This text was added to the website: 2015-09-28
Line count: 21
Word count: 127

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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