LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,922)
  • Text Authors (20,931)
  • 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 (1,131)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Anonymous / Unidentified Author and possibly by Orlando Gibbons (1583 - 1625) and sometimes misattributed to Thomas Morley (1557 - 1602)
Translation © by Dwain Richardson

The silver swan
 (Sung text for setting by G. Bachlund)
 See base text
Language: English 
Our translations:  FRE GER
The silver swan who, living, had no note,
when death approached, unlocked her silent throat.

Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:

"Farewell all joys, O death come close my eyes.
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise."

Composition:

    Set to music by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "The silver swan", 1966 [ SATB chorus a cappella ]

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author, "The silver swan", first published 1612
  • possibly by Orlando Gibbons (1583 - 1625), "The silver swan", first published 1612
  • sometimes misattributed to Thomas Morley (1557 - 1602)

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Dwain Richardson) , "Le cygne argenté", copyright © 2003, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Martin Stock) , "Der Silberschwan", copyright © 2001, (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: 6
Word count: 52

Le cygne argenté
 (Sung text translation for setting by G. Bachlund)
 See original
Language: French (Français)  after the English 
Le cygne argenté, qui, vivant, n'a eu aucune note
Quand la mort s'est approchée et a ouvert sa gorge silencieuse.

A la rive couverte de roseaux, elle a penché son sein et a chanté sa première
et dernière note, puis elle n'a plus chanté: 

Adieu, toutes les joies, Ô, la mort, ferme mes yeux;
Vivent plus d'oies que de cygnes, plus de fous que de sages.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2003 by Dwain Richardson, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in English by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist , "The silver swan", first published 1612 and possibly by Orlando Gibbons (1583 - 1625) and misattributed to Thomas Morley (1557 - 1602)
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view


This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 6
Word count: 66

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 © 2026 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris