Blow, blow thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As [man's]1 ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
[Because]2 thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou [bitter]3 sky,
[Thou dost]4 not bite so [nigh]5
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As [friend]6 remember'd not.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

T. Arne sets stanzas 1:1-6, 2:1-6

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View original text (without footnotes)

Note: In Steele's score, "Heigh" is spelled "Hey"

¹ Arne: "men's"
² Parry: "Although"
³ Fortner: "winter"
⁴ Clearfield, Holman: "That does"; Bridge: "That dost"
⁵ Korngold: "high"
⁶ Clearfield: "a friend"; Steele: "friends"

Text Authorship:

• by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7 [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 Thomas Augustine Arne (1710 - 1778), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1740, stanzas 1:1-6, 2:1-6 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Joseph W. Baber (b. 1937), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", op. 19 no. ? (1954-64), published 1976 [ high voice and piano ], from Shakespearean Songs, Lexington : Kelley [sung text not yet checked]
• by Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1903, published 1916 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968), "Winter wind" [ high voice and piano ], from Shakespeare Songs, Book II, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", first performed 2013 [ mezzo-soprano, baritone, and piano ], from The Drift of Things; Winter Songs, no. 6, Self-published, Angelfire Press ; in Part II, "For Love is a Thing of Changes" [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Louis Crerar , "Blow, blow thou winter wind ", 1952 [ high voice and piano ], from Four Shakespeare Songs [sung text not yet checked]
• by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 1988, published 1991, first performed 1988 [ SATB chorus and brass (three trumpets, three trombones) or piano ], from A Feast for Christmas, no. 2, Charlene Archibeque Choral Series, Santa Barbara Music Publishing [sung text not yet checked]
• by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1945, published 1949 [sung text not yet checked]
• by William Arms Fisher (1861 - 1948), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", published 1897, copyright © 1897 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Wolfgang Fortner (1907 - 1987), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", op. 31 (4 Lieder) no. 3 (1946), published 1947 [ voice and piano ], from Songs nach Texten von William Shakespeare mit Klavierbegleitung , no. 6, Mainz : Schott, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Steven R. Gerber (b. 1948), "Blow, blow thou winter wind ", 1988 [ medium voice and piano ], from Six Songs of William Shakespeare, no. 6 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1920 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 2015, first performed 2016 [ counter-tenor and piano ], from O Mistress Mine -- 12 Songs for countertenor and piano on texts from plays by William Shakespeare, no. 11 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Derek Holman (b. 1931), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 2009, first performed 2009 [ voice and piano ], from The Four Seasons, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Mervyn, Lord Horder, the Second Baron of Ashford (1910 - 1998), "Blow, blow!", 1977 [ voice and piano ], from Seven Shakespeare Songs, London : Lengnick [sung text not yet checked]
• by Sven Eric Emanuel Johanson (1919 - 1997), "Blow, blow thou winter wind ", 1974, copyright © 1978 [ mixed chorus and piano ], from Fancies, no. 3, Stockholm : C. Gehrmans Musikförlag ; New York : Walton Music Corp. [sung text not yet checked]
• by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", op. 31 no. 3, from Four Shakespeare Songs, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1891 - 1918), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", copyright © 1911 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968), "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" [ chorus and orchestra or instrumental ensemble ], from Four Choral Seasons, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, Sir (1848 - 1918), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1874-1885, published 1886, from English Lyrics, Second Set, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", op. 6 no. 3 (1905), published 1905 [ voice and piano ], from Three Shakespeare Songs (First Set), no. 3, Boosey [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "Blow, blow thou winter wind" [ chorus and orchestra ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "Blow, blow thou winter wind" [ chorus and orchestra ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Andrew Schneider (b. 1991), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 2011 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by David Sisco , "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 2000 [ tenor and piano ], from Two Shakespeare Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Douglas Steele (1910 - 1999), "Blow, blow thou winter wind" [ voice and piano ], Manchester, Forsyth Publications [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Michael John Trotta (b. 1978), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", published 2013 [ SATB chorus and tambourine ], Walton Music [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in Danish (Dansk), a translation by Edvard Lembcke (1815 - 1897) ; composed by Peter Arnold Heise.
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• Also set in French (Français), a translation by Jules Ruelle (1834 - 1892) ; composed by Akhilles Nikolayevich Alferaki.
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• Also set in French (Français), a translation by Irène Hillel-Erlanger (1878 - 1920) , "Chanson d'Amiens" ; composed by Camille Erlanger.
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• Also set in French (Français), a translation by Camille de Sainte-Croix (1859 - 1915) ; composed by Paul Vidal.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767 - 1845) ; composed by Harald Genzmer, Robert von Hornstein, Wilhelm Killmayer, Arnold Mendelssohn, Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai, Roger Quilter, Moritz Weyermann.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Karl Georg Mantey ; composed by Wolfgang Fortner.
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• Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Leonid Nikolayevich Martynov (1905 - 1980) , copyright © ; composed by Georgiy Vasil'yevich Sviridov.
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• Also set in Swedish (Svenska), a translation by Carl August Hagberg (1810 - 1864) ; composed by Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammar.
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Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
• FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
• GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Stürm, stürm du Winterwind!", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Soffia, soffia vento invernale", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Soffia, soffia, vento d'inverno", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 112

Вой, зимний ветер, вой! Ты хоть ни есть какой
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