Lied des südlichen Flusses | Dem Kaufmann aus Ch'üt'ang gab ich das Jawort

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by Harold Witter Bynner (1881 - 1968)

Translation © by Bertram Kottmann

A song of the Southern River

Language: English after the Chinese (中文)

Our translations: GER

Since I married the merchant of Ch'üt'ang
He has failed each day to keep his word.
Had I thought how regular the tide is,
I might rather have chosen a riverboy.

Text Authorship:

by Harold Witter Bynner (1881 - 1968), "A song of the Southern River", appears in The Jade Mountain, first published 1929 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Based on:

a text in Chinese (中文) by Li Yi (748 - 829), "江南曲"
- 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 Edmund Duncan Rubbra (1901 - 1986), "A song of the Southern River", op. 116 no. 4 (1962) [ soprano and harp ], from The Jade Mountain, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]

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

GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Lied des südlichen Flusses", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Ferdinando Albeggiani

This text was added to the website: 2008-07-25
Line count: 4
Word count: 31

Lied des südlichen Flusses

Language: German (Deutsch) after the English

Dem Kaufmann aus Ch'üt'ang gab ich das Jawort -
er aber konnte seitdem sein Wort nicht halten, Tag um Tag.
Hätte ich bedacht, wie beständig die Gezeiten sind -
lieber hätte ich einen Jungen vom Fluss genommen.

Text Authorship:

Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2008 by Bertram Kottmann, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Bertram Kottmann. Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de
If you wish to commission a new translation, please contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in English by Harold Witter Bynner (1881 - 1968), "A song of the Southern River", appears in The Jade Mountain, first published 1929
- Go to the text page.

Based on:

a text in Chinese (中文) by Li Yi (748 - 829), "江南曲"
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2008-08-06
Line count: 4
Word count: 35