LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,111)
  • Text Authors (19,486)
  • 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 Anonymous / Unidentified Author and sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Translation by François-Victor Hugo (1828 - 1873)

Fair is my love, but not so fair as...
Language: English 
[Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coined,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.]1

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
[She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.]1

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   J. Mucci 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
1 omitted by Mucci

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author, no title, appears in The Passionate Pilgrim, no. 7 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
  • sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

    [ None yet in the database ]


The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:
  • by John C. Mucci , "The Passionate Pilgrim", 1994 [ soprano and contrabass ], from Strange Attractors, no. 2
      • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo)


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2004-10-20
Line count: 18
Word count: 162

Jolie est ma bien‑aimée, mais moins...
Language: French (Français)  after the English 
Jolie est ma bien-aimée, mais moins jolie que capricieuse ;
douce comme une colombe, mais ni fidèle, ni digne de confiance ;
plus brillante que le verre, mais, comme le verre, fragile ;
plus molle que la cire, et pourtant, comme le fer, sujette à la rouille.

Pâle lis, embelli de nuances rosées !
En éclat nulle ne l’éclipse, nulle en fausseté !

Que de fois elle a joint ses lèvres aux miennes,
proférant entre chaque baiser un serment d’amour !
Que de contes elle a forgés pour me plaire,
redoutant mon amour, mais sans cesse en craignant la perte !

Pourtant, au milieu de toutes ces pures protestations,
sa parole, ses serments, ses larmes, tout était dérisoire.

Elle a brûlé d’amour, comme la paille prend feu ;
elle a brûlé l’amour, aussi vite que le feu brûle la paille.
Elle a édifié l’amour, et pourtant elle en a dégradé l’édifice.
Elle a fait vœu d’amour durable, et pourtant elle est tombée dans l’inconstance.
Était-ce là une amoureuse, ou une libertine ?
Elle était mauvaise en ce qu’elle avait de meilleur, sans exceller en rien.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by François-Victor Hugo (1828 - 1873) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

  • a text in English by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist , no title, appears in The Passionate Pilgrim, no. 7 and misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
    • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

    [ None yet in the database ]


Researcher for this page: Guy Laffaille [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2016-01-25
Line count: 18
Word count: 176

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