by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Language: English
Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
...
Lay me, O where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
Composition:
- Set to music by Dominick Argento (1927 - 2019), "Dirge", 1957, published 1970 [ high voice and piano ], from 6 Elizabethan Songs, no. 4, New York, Boosey
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Twelfth Night: or, What You Will, Act II, scene 4
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Jan Jonk) , "Kom toch gauw, kom toch gauw, dood", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Komm herbei, komm herbei, Tod", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Vieni, o morte", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Marianne Beate Kielland) , "Kom hit, kom nå hit, død", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- POL Polish (Polski) (Józef Komierowski) , no title
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 99