Song Cycle by Miriam Gideon (1906-1996)

1. Sonnet VIII: Music to Hear

Authorship

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , no title, from Sonnets, no. 8

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)
FRE French (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
FIN Finnish (Erkki Pullinen)

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing.
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: "Thou single wilt prove none."

2. Sonnet XIX: Devouring Time

Authorship

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , no title, from Sonnets, no. 19

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood.
Make glad the sorry seasons as thou fleets,
As do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time,
To the wide world and her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime;
O! Carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding me.
    Yet do thy worst, old time: despite thy wrong, 
    My love shall in my verse ever live young.

3. Sonnet XXXIII: Full many a glorious morning

Authorship

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , no title, from Sonnets, no. 33

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
  Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

4. Sonnet LXXI: No longer mourn for me

Authorship

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , from Sonnets, no. 71

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I perchance compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love e'en with my life decay:
  Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
  And mock you with me after I am gone.

5. Sonnet CXXIII: No, Time, thou shalt not boast

Authorship

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , no title, from Sonnets, no. 123

Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
  This I do vow and this shall ever be;
  I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.

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