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 Robert Greene (1558 - 1592)

Sephestia's Song to her Child
 (Sung text for setting by H. Biggs)
 See original
Language: English 
Our translations:  GER
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
      Mother's wag, pretty boy,
      Father's sorrow, father's joy;
      When thy father first did see
      Such a boy by you and me,
      He was glad, I was woe;
      Fortune changèd made him so,
      When he left his pretty boy,
      Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
      Streaming tears that never stint,
      Like pearl-drops from a flint,
      Fell by course from his eyes,
      That one another's place supplies;
      Thus he grieved in every part,
      Tears of blood fell from his heart,
      When he left his pretty boy,
      Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
      The wanton smiled, father wept,
      Mother cried, baby leapt;
      More he crow'd, more we cried,
      Nature could not sorrow hide:
      He must go, he must kiss
      Child and mother, baby bliss,
      For he left his pretty boy,
      Father's sorrow, father's joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee.

Composition:

    Set to music by Hayes Biggs (b. 1957), "Sephestia's Song to her Child", 1991, first performed 1991 [ soprano and piano ], C. F. Peters Corporation, Edition Peters 67525

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Greene (1558 - 1592), "Sephestia's Lullaby", written 1589, from the prose-poem Menaphon

See other settings of this text.

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "Sephestias Wiegenlied", 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: 32
Word count: 199

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