David Werner Amram: Five Shakespeare Songs (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


[Come away, come away, death]¹,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
[O prepare it!]²
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
[A thousand, [thousand]³ sighs to save,]⁴
Lay me, O where
[Sad]³ true lover never find my grave,
[To weep there!]⁵

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¹ Fortner: "Death, come away, come away"
² Dring: "Come prepare it"
³ omitted by Korngold
⁴ omitted by Argento.
⁵ Amram: "did share it." [mistake?]

2. O mistress mine

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Twelfth Night

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O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love's coming 
That can sing both high and low.

[Trip]¹ no further, pretty sweeting;
[Journeys]² end in lovers' meeting,
Ev'ry wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:

[In]³ delay there lies no plenty;
Then [come kiss]⁴ me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

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¹ Korngold: "O trip"
² Korngold: "For journeyes"
³ Korngold: "And in"
⁴ Korngold: "come and kiss"

3. Make me a willow cabin

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Twelfth Night


Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,
But you should pity me!

4. The wind and the rain

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Twelfth Night

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When that I was and a little tiny boy,
[With]¹ hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,
[With]¹ hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.

[ But when I came, alas! to wive,
[With]¹ hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.]²

[ But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.]³

A great while ago the world [begun]⁴,
[With]¹ hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.

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¹ Amram: "With a"
² Omitted by Amram.
³ set only by Baxter.
⁴ Amram: "began"

Input by Ted Perry

5. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Much Ado About Nothing

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

DUT

Dutch


Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
[ One foot in sea and one on shore;
To one thing constant never. ]¹
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
[ The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leavy. ]¹
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

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¹ Lines reversed in version set by Fisher

Input by Ted Perry