LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • 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

×

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 William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)
Translation © by Guy Laffaille

A pity beyond all telling
Language: English 
Our translations:  FRE IRI
A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love:
The [folk]1 who are buying and selling,
The clouds on their journey above,
The cold, wet winds ever blowing,
And the shadowy hazel grove
Where mouse-grey waters are flowing
Threaten the head that I love.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   S. Grill 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Grill: "folks"

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The pity of love", appears in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, first published 1892 [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 Stanley Grill (b. 1953), "The Pity of Love", copyright © 1987 [ soprano and string quartet ], from To a Child, no. 8, confirmed with an online score [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Ruth Schonthal (1924 - 2006), "A pity beyond all telling", 1949 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Nine Lyric Dramatic Songs, no. 2, Furore Edition [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Raymond Warren (b. 1928), "The pity of love", 1965 [ tenor and guitar ], from The Pity of Love [sung text not yet checked]

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "La pitié de l'amour", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • IRI Irish (Gaelic) [singable] (Gabriel Rosenstock) , "Trua an Ghrá", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2009-01-20
Line count: 8
Word count: 48

La pitié de l'amour
Language: French (Français)  after the English 
Une pitié au-delà de toute parole
Est cachée dans le cœur de l'amour :
Les gens qui achètent et vendent,
Les nuages dans leur voyage en haut,
Les vents froids et humides qui soufflent toujours,
Et le bosquet ombragé de noisetiers
Où les eaux gris souris coulent,
Menacent la tête que j'aime.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2016 by Guy Laffaille, (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 William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The pity of love", appears in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, first published 1892
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2016-12-13
Line count: 8
Word count: 51

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