Come away death | Come away, come away, death

Come away, come away, death

Language: English

Our translations: DUT GER ITA NOR

[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]³;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
  My poor corpse, where my bones shall be [thrown]⁴:
[A thousand, thousand sighs to save,]⁵
  Lay me, O where
[Sad true]⁶ lover never find my grave,
  [To weep there!]⁷

Available sung texts: ← What is this?

• D. Amram • D. Argento • G. Baxter • M. Castelnuovo-Tedesco • M. Dring • V. Fine • G. Finzi • W. Fortner • J. Hall • E. Korngold • J. Leguerney • K. Leighton • E. Moeran • R. Quilter • B. Roe • R. Vaughan Williams • S. Wilkinson

V. Fine sets stanza 1

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Fortner: "Death, come away, come away"
² Dring: "Come prepare it"
³ Leguerney: "thrown"; Wilkinson: "strewn"
⁴ Leguerney: "strown"
⁵ Korngold: "A thousand sighs to save,"; omitted by Argento.
⁶ Korngold: "True"
⁷ Amram: "did share it." [mistake?]

Text Authorship:

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Twelfth Night: or, What You Will, Act II, scene 4 [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 Arthur N. Aldridge , "Come away, Death", published [1892] [ medium voice and piano ], from Four Songs, Brighouse: Hartley [sung text not yet checked]
by R. E. H. Allport , "Come away, Death", published 1928 [ high voice and piano ], London, Oxford University Press [sung text not yet checked]
by David Werner Amram (b. 1930), "Come away death", published 1972 [ tenor and piano or orchestra ], from Five Shakespeare Songs, no. 1, New York, Peters [sung text checked 1 time]
by (Howard) Orsmond Anderton (1861 - 1934), "Come away, come away, death", published [1910?] [ tenor and piano ], from 3 Shakespeare Songs, London : Forsyth [sung text not yet checked]
by Dominick Argento (1927 - 2019), "Dirge", 1957, published 1970 [ high voice and piano ], from 6 Elizabethan Songs, no. 4, New York, Boosey [sung text checked 1 time]
by Godfrey Edward Pellew Arkwright (1864 - 1944), "Come away Death", published [1902?] [ low voice and piano ], from Nine Songs from Shakespeare, London, Joseph Williams [sung text not yet checked]
by Thomas Augustine Arne (1710 - 1778), "Come, away death", published 1741 [sung text not yet checked]
by Granville Ransome Bantock, Sir (1868 - 1946), "Come away, Death", 1934 [ voice and piano ], from Six Shakespeare Songs, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
by Garth Baxter (b. 1946), "Come away, come away, death" [ voice and guitar ], from Four Songs from Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968), "Old Song", op. 24 no. 2 [ soprano, piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Benjamin James Dale (1885 - 1943), "Come away, death" [sung text not yet checked]
by (Henry) Walford Davies, Sir (1869 - 1941), "Come away, come away, death", op. 13 no. 2, published 1902 [ voice and piano ], from The Clown's Songs in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Matthew Dewey (b. 1984), "Come away, Death", 2013, first performed 2013 [ baritone and piano ], from Four Shakespeare Songs, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977), "Come away, death" [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Edmunds (1913 - 1986), "Come away, Death", 1936 [sung text not yet checked]
by Vivian Fine (1913 - 2000), "Dirge", 1937-40, first performed 1941, stanza 1 [ soprano or mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Four Elizabethan Songs, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Gerald Finzi (1901 - 1956), "Come away, come away, death", op. 18 no. 1 (1939), from Let Us Garlands Bring, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Wolfgang Fortner (1907 - 1987), "Death, come away", 1946, published 1947 [ voice and piano ], from Songs nach Texten von William Shakespeare mit Klavierbegleitung , no. 8, Mainz : Schott, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Linton Gardner (1917 - 2011), "Come away, death", op. 181 no. 4 (1988) [ counter-tenor, recorder, harpsichord, and violoncello ], from Six by Four, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
by John Linton Gardner (1917 - 2011), "Come away, come away, death", 1936, first performed 1936 [ baritone, oboe, and piano ], from A Suite of 5 Songs from Palgrave's Golden Treasury [sung text not yet checked]
by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Come away, death", 1920 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "Come away, come away, death", 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. 9 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Lee Hoiby (1926 - 2011), "Come away, Death", 1955 [ voice and lute ], from Songs of the Fool, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Sven Eric Emanuel Johanson (1919 - 1997), "Dirge", 1974, copyright © 1978 [ mixed chorus and piano ], from Fancies, no. 8, Stockholm : C. Gehrmans Musikförlag ; New York : Walton Music Corp. [sung text not yet checked]
by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957), "Come away, death", op. 29 no. 1, published 1937 [ voice and piano ], from Songs of the Clown, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Jacques Leguerney (1906 - 1997), "Come away, come away!", 1964, published 1988 [ voice and piano ], from Quatre mélodies, no. 1, Paris, Max Eschig [sung text checked 1 time]
by Kenneth Leighton (1929 - 1988), "Come away, death", from 5 Shakespeare Songs, no. 4, available from the Kenneth Leighton Trust, e-mail jo (DOT) leighton (AT) blueyonder (DOT) co (DOT) uk [sung text checked 1 time]
by Elizabeth Maconchy (1907 - 1994), "Come away Death", 1956 [ voice and piano ], from Four Shakespeare Songs, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ernest John Moeran (1894 - 1950), "Come away, Death", R. 39 (1925) [ voice and piano ], Oxford University Press [sung text checked 1 time]
by Douglas Stuart Moore (1893 - 1969), "Come away, death" [sung text not yet checked]
by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "Come away, death", op. 6 no. 1 (1905), published 1905 [ voice and piano or orchestra ], from Three Shakespeare Songs (First Set), no. 1, Boosey [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Come Away, Death", op. 183 (1948) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Ethel Florence Lindesay Robertson, née Richardson (1870 - 1946), as Henry Handel Richardson, "Come away death" [sung text not yet checked]
by Betty Roe (b. 1930), "Come away, death", published 1974 [ medium voice, flute, and piano ], from Four Shakespeare Songs, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir (1852 - 1924), "Come away Death", op. 65 no. 2 (1896), published 1897 [ voice and piano ], from The Clown's Songs from Twelfth Night, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "Come away, death", 1909 [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Vergin , "Come away, death", 1988 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Stephen Wilkinson (b. 1919), "Come away, Death" [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in Dutch (Nederlands), a translation by Emmanuel Hiel (1834 - 1899) , "Kom alhier, kom alhier, dood!", appears in Gedichten, in Twaalf liederen van Shakespere, no. 6, first published 1868 ; composed by Petrus Leonardus Leopoldus "Peter" Benoit.
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Also set in French (Français), a translation by Maurice Bouchor (1855 - 1929) ; composed by Ernest Amédée Chausson.
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Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767 - 1845) , no title ; composed by Paul Angerer, Carl Banck, Hermann Bischoff, Johannes Brahms, Walter Braunfels, Peter Cornelius, Johann Peter Cornelius D'Alquen, Friedrich Adrian Götzloff, Emil Kauffmann, Wilhelm Killmayer, Hermann Levi, Carl Loewe, Adolph Bernhard Marx, Arnold Mendelssohn, Roger Quilter, Felix von Woyrsch, Franz Wüllner.
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Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Franz Hermann Schneider (1860 - 1930) ; composed by Oscar Weil.
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Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Harald Genzmer, Bernhard Stavenhagen.
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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 German (Deutsch), a translation by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803) , written 1826 ; composed by Catharinus Elling, Carl Georg Peter Grädener.
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Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Bernhard Ernst Scholz.
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Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Friedrich Gundolf (1880 - 1931) , no title, appears in Was ihr wollt ; composed by Wilhelm Petersen.
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Also set in Norwegian (Bokmål), a translation possibly by Edvard Lembcke (1815 - 1897); composed by Catharinus Elling, Peter Arnold Heise.
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Also set in Swedish (Svenska), a translation by Carl August Hagberg (1810 - 1864) ; composed by Jean Sibelius.
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Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
POL Polish (Polski) (Józef Komierowski) , no title

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 99

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