by John Fletcher (1579 - 1625)
There's not a Swain, on the Plain
Language: English
There's not a Swain, on the Plain, would be bless'd like me, oh! could you but on me smile; but you appear so severe that trembling with fear, my heart goes pit-a-pat, all the while: When I cry, must I die, you make no reply, but look shy, and with a scornful eye kill me by your cruelty. Oh! can you be so hard to me?
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Text Authorship:
- by John Fletcher (1579 - 1625) [author's text not yet checked 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 (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "There's not a swain of the plain", 1948 [ voice and piano ], a realization of the Purcell song. Confirmed with a CD booklet [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Henry Purcell (1658/9 - 1695), "There's not a swain", Z. 587 no. 1 (1693), from the incidental music to Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Elaine Marie Ortiz-Arandes) , "Es gibt im Land keinen jungen Liebhaber", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this page: Virginia Knight
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 11
Word count: 66