LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,448)
  • 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 (1,114)
  • 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 Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818 - 1894)
Translation © by Laura (Pranada) Sylvis

La cigale
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
Ô Cigale, née avec les beaux jours,
Sur les verts rameaux dès l'aube posée,
Contente de boire un peu de rosée,
Et telle qu'un roi, tu chantes toujours.

Innocente à tous, paisible et sans ruses,
Le gai laboureur, du chêne abrité,
T'écoute de loin annoncer l'Été
Apollôn t'honore autant que les Muses,
Et Zeus ta donné l'Immortalité!

Salut, sage enfant de la Terre antique,
Dont le chant invite à clore les yeux,
Et qui, sous l'ardeur du soleil Attique,
N'ayant chair ni sang, vis semblable aux Dieux.

Text Authorship:

  • by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818 - 1894), "La cigale", appears in Poèmes antiques, in Odes anacréontiques, no. 8, first published 1852 [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 Ernest Amédée Chausson (1855 - 1899), "La cigale", op. 13 (Quatre mélodies) no. 4 (1887) [ high voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English (Laura (Pranada) Sylvis) , "The cicada", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 13
Word count: 87

The cicada
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
O cicada, born with fine days,
Poised from dawn on the green branches,
Happy to drink a little dew,
And kinglike, you always sing.

Blameless to all, peaceful and without guile,
The happy worker, shaded by the oaktree,
Hears you in the distance heralding summer.
Apollo praises you as highly as the Muses,
And Zeus has given you immortality!

Hail, wise child of ancient earth,
Whose song invites eyes to close,
And who, beneath the intensity of the Attic sun,
Having neither flesh nor blood, live like the Gods.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2004 by Laura (Pranada) Sylvis, (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 French (Français) by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818 - 1894), "La cigale", appears in Poèmes antiques, in Odes anacréontiques, no. 8, first published 1852
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2004-11-02
Line count: 13
Word count: 89

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