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Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 68 [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 LXVIII", 1865 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 68, 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: 2010-08-12
Line count: 14
Word count: 108
Così la sua guancia è la mappa dei giorni passati,
Quando la bellezza viveva e moriva come i fiori ora,
prima che questi segni bastardi di bellezza fossero creati,
e sopra un volto vivo potessero trovare dimora.
Prima che ogni treccia dorata dei defunti,
diritto dei sepolcri, venisse recisa,
per vivere una seconda vita su una seconda testa;
dal vello morto della bellezza, resa più vistosa:
In lui si riconoscono quelle sacre ore passate,
di ornamenti prive, ma autentiche e vere,
Che l’altrui verde non usavano per la propria estate,
Non saccheggiando il vecchio per bellezza rinnovare;
E lui, come una mappa, la Natura tiene in serbo
per mostrare alla falsa Arte ciò che la bellezza era un tempo.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to Italian (Italiano) copyright © 2025 by Ferdinando Albeggiani, (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.
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Based on:
- a text in English by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 68
This text was added to the website: 2025-07-17
Line count: 14
Word count: 119
