LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,102)
  • Text Authors (19,440)
  • 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 (1,113)
  • 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 Katherine Philips (1631 - 1664)
Translation © by Beate Binnig

O solitude, my sweetest choice!
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
Our translations:  CAT GER
O solitude, my sweetest choice!
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult and from noise,
How ye my restless thoughts delight!
O solitude, my sweetest choice!
O heav'ns! what content is mine
To see these trees, which have appear'd
From the nativity of time,
And which all ages have rever'd,
To look today as fresh and green
As when their beauties first were seen.

O, how agreeable a sight
These hanging mountains do appear,
Which th' unhappy would invite
To finish all their sorrows here,
When their hard fate makes them endure
Such woes as only death can cure.

O, how I solitude adore!
That element of noblest wit,
Where I have learnt Apollo's lore,
Without the pains to study it.
For thy sake I in love am grown
With what thy fancy does pursue;
But when I think upon my own,
I hate it for that reason too,
Because it needs must hinder me
From seeing and from serving thee.
O solitude, O how I solitude adore!

About the headline (FAQ)

The first stanza comes from stanza 1 of the original French text; the second stanza comes from stanza 3, lines 5-10; and the third stanza comes from the final stanza of the original.


Text Authorship:

  • by Katherine Philips (1631 - 1664) [an adaptation] [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Based on:

  • a text in French (Français) by Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant (1594 - 1661), "O folz des folz, et les folz mortelz hommes"
    • 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):

  • by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "O solitude", 1955, published 1994 [ voice and piano ], a realization of the Purcell song. Confirmed with a CD booklet [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Henry Purcell (1658/9 - 1695), "O solitude, my sweetest choice", Z. 406, published 1684/5 [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Beate Binnig) , "Oh Einsamkeit, meine süßeste Wahl!", copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2003-11-21
Line count: 28
Word count: 169

Oh Einsamkeit, meine süßeste Wahl!
Language: German (Deutsch)  after the English 
Oh Einsamkeit, meine süßeste Wahl!
Der Nacht gewidmete Orte,
Fern von Aufruhr und Lärm,
Wie ihr meine rastlosen Gedanken erfreut!
Oh Einsamkeit, meine süßeste Wahl!
Oh Himmel! Wie zufrieden es mich macht
Diese Bäume zu sehen, die erschienen sind
zu Anbeginn der Zeit,
Und die alle Zeitalter verehrt haben,
Die heute noch so frisch und grün aussehen
Wie damals, als ihre Schönheit zum ersten Mal erblickt wurde.

Oh was für einen angenehmen Anblick
Diese hängenden Gärten bieten,
Die die Unglücklichen dazu einladen würden,
allen ihren Sorgen hier ein Ende zu machen,
Wenn ihr hartes Schicksal sie
Qualen aushalten lässt, die nur der Tod kurieren kann.

Oh, wie sehr ich die Einsamkeit liebe!
Dieses Element vornehmster Geisteshaltung,
wo ich die Weisheiten Apollos gelernt habe,
Ohne die Mühsal des Studierens.
Deinetwegen bin ich an Liebe gewachsen
mit den von dir verfolgten Neigungen;
Aber wenn ich selbst darüber nachdenke,
Hasse ich es deshalb auch,
Weil es mich daran hindern muss
Dich zu sehen und dir zu dienen.
Oh Einsamkeit, oh wie sehr ich dich liebe!

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2019 by Beate Binnig, (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 Katherine Philips (1631 - 1664) [an adaptation]
    • Go to the text page.

Based on:

  • a text in French (Français) by Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant (1594 - 1661), "O folz des folz, et les folz mortelz hommes"
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2019-11-04
Line count: 28
Word count: 172

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