Blow, blow thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As [man's]1 ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
[Because]2 thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou [bitter]3 sky,
[Thou dost]4 not bite so [nigh]5
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As [friend]6 remember'd not.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

T. Arne sets stanzas 1:1-6, 2:1-6

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View original text (without footnotes)

Note: In Steele's score, "Heigh" is spelled "Hey"

¹ Arne: "men's"
² Parry: "Although"
³ Fortner: "winter"
⁴ Clearfield, Holman: "That does"; Bridge: "That dost"
⁵ Korngold: "high"
⁶ Clearfield: "a friend"; Steele: "friends"

Text Authorship:

• by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Thomas Augustine Arne (1710 - 1778), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1740, stanzas 1:1-6, 2:1-6 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Joseph W. Baber (b. 1937), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", op. 19 no. ? (1954-64), published 1976 [ high voice and piano ], from Shakespearean Songs, Lexington : Kelley [sung text not yet checked]
• by Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1903, published 1916 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968), "Winter wind" [ high voice and piano ], from Shakespeare Songs, Book II, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", first performed 2013 [ mezzo-soprano, baritone, and piano ], from The Drift of Things; Winter Songs, no. 6, Self-published, Angelfire Press ; in Part II, "For Love is a Thing of Changes" [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Louis Crerar , "Blow, blow thou winter wind ", 1952 [ high voice and piano ], from Four Shakespeare Songs [sung text not yet checked]
• by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 1988, published 1991, first performed 1988 [ SATB chorus and brass (three trumpets, three trombones) or piano ], from A Feast for Christmas, no. 2, Charlene Archibeque Choral Series, Santa Barbara Music Publishing [sung text not yet checked]
• by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1945, published 1949 [sung text not yet checked]
• by William Arms Fisher (1861 - 1948), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", published 1897, copyright © 1897 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Wolfgang Fortner (1907 - 1987), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", op. 31 (4 Lieder) no. 3 (1946), published 1947 [ voice and piano ], from Songs nach Texten von William Shakespeare mit Klavierbegleitung , no. 6, Mainz : Schott, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Steven R. Gerber (b. 1948), "Blow, blow thou winter wind ", 1988 [ medium voice and piano ], from Six Songs of William Shakespeare, no. 6 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1920 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 2015, first performed 2016 [ counter-tenor and piano ], from O Mistress Mine -- 12 Songs for countertenor and piano on texts from plays by William Shakespeare, no. 11 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Derek Holman (b. 1931), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 2009, first performed 2009 [ voice and piano ], from The Four Seasons, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Mervyn, Lord Horder, the Second Baron of Ashford (1910 - 1998), "Blow, blow!", 1977 [ voice and piano ], from Seven Shakespeare Songs, London : Lengnick [sung text not yet checked]
• by Sven Eric Emanuel Johanson (1919 - 1997), "Blow, blow thou winter wind ", 1974, copyright © 1978 [ mixed chorus and piano ], from Fancies, no. 3, Stockholm : C. Gehrmans Musikförlag ; New York : Walton Music Corp. [sung text not yet checked]
• by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", op. 31 no. 3, from Four Shakespeare Songs, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1891 - 1918), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", copyright © 1911 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968), "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" [ chorus and orchestra or instrumental ensemble ], from Four Choral Seasons, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, Sir (1848 - 1918), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", 1874-1885, published 1886, from English Lyrics, Second Set, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", op. 6 no. 3 (1905), published 1905 [ voice and piano ], from Three Shakespeare Songs (First Set), no. 3, Boosey [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "Blow, blow thou winter wind" [ chorus and orchestra ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "Blow, blow thou winter wind" [ chorus and orchestra ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Andrew Schneider (b. 1991), "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 2011 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by David Sisco , "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", 2000 [ tenor and piano ], from Two Shakespeare Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Douglas Steele (1910 - 1999), "Blow, blow thou winter wind" [ voice and piano ], Manchester, Forsyth Publications [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Michael John Trotta (b. 1978), "Blow, blow thou winter wind", published 2013 [ SATB chorus and tambourine ], Walton Music [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in Danish (Dansk), a translation by Edvard Lembcke (1815 - 1897) ; composed by Peter Arnold Heise.
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• Also set in French (Français), a translation by Jules Ruelle (1834 - 1892) ; composed by Akhilles Nikolayevich Alferaki.
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• Also set in French (Français), a translation by Irène Hillel-Erlanger (1878 - 1920) , "Chanson d'Amiens" ; composed by Camille Erlanger.
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• Also set in French (Français), a translation by Camille de Sainte-Croix (1859 - 1915) ; composed by Paul Vidal.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767 - 1845) ; composed by Harald Genzmer, Robert von Hornstein, Wilhelm Killmayer, Arnold Mendelssohn, Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai, Roger Quilter, Moritz Weyermann.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Karl Georg Mantey ; composed by Wolfgang Fortner.
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• Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Leonid Nikolayevich Martynov (1905 - 1980) , copyright © ; composed by Georgiy Vasil'yevich Sviridov.
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• Also set in Swedish (Svenska), a translation by Carl August Hagberg (1810 - 1864) ; composed by Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammar.
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Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
• FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
• GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Stürm, stürm du Winterwind!", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Soffia, soffia vento invernale", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Soffia, soffia, vento d'inverno", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 118

Souffle, souffle vent d'hiver;
Tu n'es pas si cruel
Que l'ingratitude de l'homme.
Ta dent n'est pas si pénétrante,
Car tu es invisible
Quoique ton souffle soit rude.
Hé! ho! chante ; hé ! ho ! dans le houx vert;
La plupart des amis sont des hypocrites et la plupart des amants des fous
Allons ho ! hé ! le houx!
Cette vie est joviale.

Gèle, gèle, ciel rigoureux,
Ta morsure est moins cruelle
Que celle d'un bienfait oublié.
Quoique tu enchaînes les eaux,
Ton aiguillon n'est pas si acéré
Que celui de l'oubli d'un ami.
Hé! ho! chante ; hé ! ho ! dans le houx vert;
La plupart des amis sont des hypocrites et la plupart des amants des fous
Allons ho ! hé ! le houx!
Cette vie est joviale.