Lee Hoiby: Sonnets and Soliloquies (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

Note: quoted in a text by Heveningham.

2. Sonnet 116

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sonnets

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA

Italian

GER

German


Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove: 
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 
It is the star to every wandering bark, 
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come: 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
    If this be error and upon me proved, 
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

3. Sonnet 128

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sonnets

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

ITA

Italian


How oft when thou, my music, music play'st
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand! 
To be so tickl'd, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips. 
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

4. Portia's Plea

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Julius Caesar


Portia:
 I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.
 Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
 Is it excepted I should know no secrets
 That appertain to you? Am I yourself
 But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
 To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
 And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
 Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
 Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

Brutus:
 You are my true and honorable wife,
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
 That visit my sad heart. 
	
Portia:
 If this were true, then should I know this secret.
 I grant I am a woman; but withal
 A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:
 I grant I am a woman; but withal
 A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter.
 Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
 Being so father'd and so husbanded?
 Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em:
 I have made strong proof of my constancy,
 Giving myself a voluntary wound
 Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience.
 And not my husband's secrets?