Temps dévorant, émousse les griffes du lion

Translation by François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787 - 1874)

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's...

Language: English

Available translation(s): ITA

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad [and]¹ sorry seasons as thou fleets,
As do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and [all]² her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
  Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong, 
  My love shall in my verse ever live young.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Bachlund: "the"
² omitted by Bachlund.

Authorship:

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 19 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

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

by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Sonnet XIX - "Devouring Time"", 2002 [high voice or medium voice and piano], from Five Sonnets, no. 3 [ sung text checked 1 time]
by Miriam Gideon (1906 - 1996), "Sonnet XIX: Devouring Time", 1949 [voice and piano, or voice and trumpet and string quartet (or string orchestra)], from Sonnets from Shakespeare, no. 2 [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet XIX", 1862-5 [medium voice and piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Flavio Testi (b. 1923), "cantata seconda (devouring time)", op. 24 (1972), published 1973, first performed 1973 [tenor, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, violin, and piano], Milan: Ricordi [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]

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

FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 19, first published 1857
FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot) , appears in Œuvres Complètes de Shakspeare Volume VIII, in Sonnets, no. 19, first published 1863
ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Sonnet XIX - "O tempo divorante"", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
RUS Russian (Русский) (Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky) , "Сонет 19", written 1914

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2007-05-07
Line count: 14
Word count: 115

Temps dévorant, émousse les griffes du...

Language: French (Français) after the English

Temps dévorant, émousse les griffes du lion, 
et que la terre dévore elle-même sa douce postérité,
arrache les dents acérées des mâchoires du tigre féroce, 
brûle dans son sang le phénix à longue vie, 
apporte-nous dans ton vol des saisons heureuses et des saisons funestes. 
Temps aux pieds rapides, fais ce que tu voudras 
dans le vaste univers, et pour ses charmes fragiles, 
je ne t'interdis qu'un crime odieux, 
que tes heures ne sillonnent pas le beau front de mon ami, 
n'y trace point de lignes avec ton antique plume, 
laisse-le dans ton cours subsister tout entier 
pour servir de modèle de beauté aux races futures. 
Néanmoins fais du pis que tu voudras, vieux Temps: en dépit de tes outrages, 
mon ami vivra toujours jeune dans mes vers.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship:

by François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787 - 1874), appears in Œuvres Complètes de Shakspeare Volume VIII, in Sonnets, no. 19, first published 1863 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

a text in English by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 19

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 text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2016-05-19
Line count: 14
Word count: 128