Melisande's song | The King's three blind daughters

by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949)

Translation Singable translation by John (or Jack) William Mackail (1859 - 1945)

Melisande's song

Language: English after the French (Français)

Our translations: GER

The King's three blind daughters
Sit locked in a hold.
In the darkness their lamps
Make a glimmer of gold.

Up the stair of the turret
The sisters are gone,
Seven days they wait there
And the lamps they burn on.

"What hope?" says the first,
And leans o'er the flame.
"I hear our lamps burning.
O yet! if he came!"

"O hope!" says the second,
"Was that the lamps' flare,
Or a sound of low footsteps?
The Prince on the stair!"

But the holiest sister
She turns her about:
"O no hope now for ever,
Our lamps are gone out!"

Text Authorship:

Singable translation by John (or Jack) William Mackail (1859 - 1945) [an adaptation] [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949), no title, written 1893, appears in Quinze Chansons, no. 5
- Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924), "Melisande's song", op. 80, orchestrated 1898 by Charles Koechlin, from the a play - incidental music Pelléas et Mélisande [ sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Vyacheslav Karatygin (1875 - 1925) ENG SWE ; composed by Boleslav Leopoldovitch Yavorsky.
Also set in Swedish (Svenska), a translation by Bertel Gripenberg (1878 - 1947) ENG FIN ; composed by Jean Sibelius.

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

Researcher for this page: Bertram Kottmann

This text was added to the website: 2005-03-01
Line count: 20
Word count: 101