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by Anonymous / Unidentified Author and possibly by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

And will he not come again?
Language: English 
Our translations:  FRE HEB
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, [he is gone,]1
And we [cast away moan]2:
God [ha']3 mercy on his soul!
[And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.]4

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   S. Grill •   M. White 

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes

These words are sung by Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, but they are probably not by Shakespeare.

1 omitted by White.
2 Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "moan as we're cast away"
3 Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "have"
4 omitted by White; Castelnuovo-Tedesco; Grill: "And on the souls of all good Christians, I pray God. God be with you."

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author, appears in Hamlet [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
  • possibly by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in Hamlet [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 David Werner Amram (b. 1930), "Ophelia's song ", 1986 [ voice and piano ], from Four Shakespeare Songs, no. 4, C. F. Peters [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Stanley Grill (b. 1953), "And will he not come again", copyright © 2005 [ soprano, harp and strings ], from Ophelia Songs, no. 6, confirmed with an online score [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Osvaldo Costa de Lacerda (1927 - 2011), "And will he not come again?" [ voice and piano ], from Canções de Ofélia, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:
  • by Maude Valérie White (1855 - 1937), "Ophelia's Song", published 1882 [ voice and piano ], London: Boosey & Co.
    • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Eduard Lassen.
    • Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Karl Joseph Simrock (1802 - 1876) , no title, appears in Shakespeare in deutscher Übersetzung, in 6. Hamlet, first published 1868 and sometimes misattributed to Ludwig Wilhelm Friedrich Seeger (1810 - 1864); composed by Richard Georg Strauss.
    • Go to the text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Ludwig Wilhelm Friedrich Seeger) , no title, appears in Shakespeare in deutscher Übersetzung, in 6. Hamlet
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Karl Joseph Simrock) (Ludwig Wilhelm Friedrich Seeger) , no title, appears in Shakespeare in deutscher Übersetzung, in 6. Hamlet, first published 1868
  • HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Hamutal Atariah) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2010-07-11
Line count: 11
Word count: 71

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

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