by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955)
Translation Singable translation by Anonymous / Unidentified Author
La rose rouge
Language: French (Français) after the Chinese (中文)
Our translations: ENG
L'épouse d'un guerrier est assise près de sa fenêtre. Le cœur lourd, elle brode une rose blanche sur un coussin de soie. Elle s'est piqué le doigt ! Son sang coule sur la rose blanche, qui devient une rose rouge. Sa pensée va retrouver son bien-aimé qui est à la guerre et dont le sang rougit peut-être la neige. Elle entend le galop d'un cheval... Son bien-aimé arrive-t-il, enfin ? Ce n'est que son cœur qui bat à grands coups dans sa poitrine... Elle se penche davantage sur le coussin, et elle brode d'argent ses larmes qui entourent la rose rouge.
Confirmed with Franz Toussaint, La flûte de jade : poésies chinoises, Paris: H. Piazza, 1920, pages 8-9.
Text Authorship:
- by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "La rose rouge", appears in La flûte de jade [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Chinese (中文) by Li-Tai-Po (701 - 762) [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Armande de Polignac (1876 - 1962), "La rose rouge", published 1922 [ medium voice and piano ], from La flûte de jade, no. 7, Genève, Éd. A. Henn, also set in English [sung text checked 1 time]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in English, a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Armande de Polignac.
- Also set in English, a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Arthur Farwell.
- Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
- Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Hans Bethge (1876 - 1946) , "Die rothe Rose", appears in Die chinesische Flöte ; composed by Hermann Albus, José Berr, Clemens von Franckenstein, Maria Herz, Leonard Pieter Joseph Michielsen, James Martin Simon, Georg Wolfsohn.
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Alfred Henschke (1890 - 1928) , "Die weisse und die rote Rose ", first published 1915 ; composed by Hanns Eisler, Walther Hirschberg, Béla Reinitz, Alice Samter.
- Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Julia Weissberg.
- Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
- Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "The Red Rose", copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor] , Sharon Krebs [Senior Associate Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2008-02-19
Line count: 11
Word count: 99
The red rose
Language: English after the French (Français)
The warrior's bride is sitting so lonely at her open window. Sick at heart, yet her fingers are deftly working, weaving a snowwhite rose. She has pricked her tender flesh! Her blood on the budding rose has trickled, and it is now a crimson flower. All her thoughts do follow him, her lover brave, so far away fighting and whose life blood perchance now reddens the snow. Now she hears a steed's gallop from far . . . Oh my beloved, do you come at last? 'Tis only her heart that throbs in her breast so wildly beating . . . Over her work she lower bends her sorrowing eyes, and she embroiders in silver all the tears which fell on her rosebud crimson.
Text Authorship:
- Singable translation by Anonymous / Unidentified Author [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "La rose rouge", appears in La flûte de jade
Based on:
- a text in Chinese (中文) by Li-Tai-Po (701 - 762) [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Armande de Polignac (1876 - 1962), "The red rose", published 1922 [ medium voice and piano ], from La flûte de jade, no. 7, Genève, Éd. A. Henn, also set in French (Français) [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Sharon Krebs [Senior Associate Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2008-02-19
Line count: 11
Word count: 124