¡Ve, rosa seductora!

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by Edmund Waller (1608 - 1687) and by Henry Kirke White (1785 - 1806)

Translation © by José Miguel Llata

Go, lovely Rose!

Language: English

Available translation(s): SPA

Go, lovely Rose! --
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
  That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,
  And shuns to have her graces spied
That hadst thou sprung
  In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
  Of beauty from the light retir'd;
Bid her come forth,
  Suffer herself to be [desir'd]¹,
And not blush so to be admir'd.

Then die! -- that she
  The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee:
  How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Yet though thou fade,
From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise;
And teach the maid
That goodness time's rude hand defies;
That virtue lives when beauty dies.

J. Carpenter sets stanzas 1-2, 4-5?
J. Salomon sets stanzas 1-4
H. Lawes sets stanzas 1-4
C. Harris sets stanzas 1-4

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
See also Ezra Pound's Envoi.

¹ Attwood: "admir'd" [possibly a mistake]

Authorship:

by Edmund Waller (1608 - 1687) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
by Henry Kirke White (1785 - 1806) [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 Samuel Hans Adler (b. 1928), "Go, lovely rose" [ high voice and piano ], from Three Songs about Love, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Thomas Augustine Arne (1710 - 1778), "Go, lovely Rose" [sung text not yet checked]
by Thomas Attwood (1765 - 1838), "Go, lovely rose" [sung text checked 1 time]
by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Go, lovely Rose", 2009 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Seymour Barab (1921 - 2014), "Go lovely rose", from Four Songs, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ernst Alexander 'Sas' Bunge (1924 - 1980), "Go, lovely rose", published 1950, rev. 1968, from Four XVII^th century poems, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by John Alden Carpenter (1876 - 1951), "Go, lovely rose", stanzas 1-2,4-5?, from Eight Songs, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
by Richard Jackson Cumming (b. 1928), "Go, lovely rose" [sung text not yet checked]
by Johann Friedrich Hugo, Freiherr von Dalberg (1760 - 1812), "Go, Lovely Rose", op. 15 no. 1, from Three English Songs and a Glee with an Accompaniment for the Pianoforte, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "Go, lovely Rose ", 1951 [ baritone or tenor and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Arthur Foote (1853 - 1937), "Go, lovely Rose!" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Christopher H. Harris , "So Wondrous Sweet and Fair", stanzas 1-4 [ SATB chorus a cappella ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Henry Lawes (c1595 - 1662), "The Rose", published 1655, stanzas 1-4 [ voice and continuo ], from The Second Book of Ayres, and Dialogues, no. 9, Confirmed with The Second Book of Ayres and Dialogues, for One, Two, and Three, by Henry Lawes , John Playford, London 1655, Page 9. [sung text checked 2 times]
by Humphrey Procter-Gregg (1895 - 1980), "Go, lovely rose" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "Go, lovely rose", op. 24 no. 3 (1922), published 1923, first performed 1923 [ voice and piano ], from Five English Love Lyrics, no. 3, London, Chappell [sung text checked 1 time]
by Ned Rorem (b. 1923), "Song", from The Nantucket Songs, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Johann Peter Salomon (c1745 - 1815), "Go lov'ly Rose", stanzas 1-4 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Maude Valérie White (1855 - 1937), "Go lovely Rose!", published 1885 [ voice and piano ], London: G. Ricordi & Co. [sung text not yet checked]

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

SPA Spanish (Español) (José Miguel Llata) , copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website: 2003-11-19
Line count: 25
Word count: 138

¡Ve, rosa seductora!

Language: Spanish (Español) after the English

¡Ve, rosa seductora!
Dile que me pierde a mi y pierde su tiempo,
que ahora ya sabe
porqué la comparo a ti,
de tan dulce y bella que es.

Dile que es joven
y huye para no mostrar sus gracias,
 y que si hubiera florecido 
en el desierto, donde no hay nadie,
moriría inadvertida.

Poco es el valor
de la belleza en la oscuridad.
Invítala a salir,
y que permita ser deseada,
y no sonrojarse cuando sea admirada.

¡Y después, muera! Que ella pueda
ver reflejado en ti
el destino común de todas las cosas extraordinarias.
¡Cuán corto es el tiempo que compartieron, 
ellas tan maravillosas, dulces y bellas!

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About the headline (FAQ)

Translation of title "Go, lovely Rose!" = "¡Ve, rosa seductora!"

Authorship:

Translation from English to Spanish (Español) copyright © 2020 by José Miguel Llata, (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:

Based on:

a text in English by Edmund Waller (1608 - 1687) and by Henry Kirke White (1785 - 1806)

This text was added to the website: 2020-10-05
Line count: 25
Word count: 114