Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in my self respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 149 [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 Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet CXLIX", 1864 [ medium voice or high voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Nikolay Vasilyevich Gerbel (1827 - 1883) , no title ; composed by Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov.
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 149, first published 1857
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-08-13
Line count: 14
Word count: 119
Kak ty' mogla skazat`, chto [ne lyubima mnoj]1, Kogda iz-za tebya vrazhduyu sam s soboyu, Kogda lish` o tebe ya dumayu odnoj? Lyublyu li ya togo, ne zanyat kto toboyu? Laskayu li ya tex, kogo ne lyubish` ty'? Kogda zhe ty' poroj mne gnevom ugrozhaesh`, Ne napolnyayu l` ya — chto ty', konechno, znaesh` — Lish` vdoxami svoej dushevnoj pustoty'? Net doblesti vo mne nastol`ko nedostupnoj, Chtob prenebrech` na mig sluzheniem tebe, Kogda bogotvorit vse luchshee vo mne Postupok kazhdy'j tvoj, xotya by' i prestupny'j. No ne lyubi menya: ya vizhu nakonecz, Chto zryachix lyubish` ty', togda kak — ya slepecz.
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)1 Ippolitov-Ivanov: "мною не любима"; further changes may exist not shown. This change may be spurious; it appears to have been pasted onto the score in imslp.
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Note on TransliterationsShow untransliterated (original) text
Text Authorship:
- by Nikolay Vasilyevich Gerbel (1827 - 1883), no title [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. 149
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859 - 1935), "Как ты могла сказать, что не любима мной", op. 45 no. 2 (1913) [ voice and piano ], from Сонеты В. Шекспира, no. 2, Moscow: P. Jurgenson [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2021-07-11
Line count: 14
Word count: 103