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Five Shakespeare Songs

Song Cycle by David Werner Amram (b. 1930)

1. Come away death  [sung text checked 1 time]

Language: English 
[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

Text Authorship:

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Jan Jonk) , "Kom toch gauw, kom toch gauw, dood", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Komm herbei, komm herbei, Tod", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Vieni, o morte", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Marianne Beate Kielland) , "Kom hit, kom nå hit, død", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • POL Polish (Polski) (Józef Komierowski) , no title

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?]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. O mistress mine  [sung text checked 1 time]

Language: English 
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]2, pretty sweeting;
[Journeys]3 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]4 delay there lies no plenty;
Then [come kiss]5 me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Text Authorship:

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo)
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "O Fräulein meins! Woher du wanderst", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • IRI Irish (Gaelic) [singable] (Gabriel Rosenstock) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "O mia signora", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • POL Polish (Polski) (Józef Komierowski) , no title [an adaptation]

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Korngold: "O trip"
2 [sic] ; and Hall: "farther"
3 Korngold: "For journeyes"
4 Korngold: "And in"
5 Korngold: "come and kiss"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Make me a willow cabin  [sung text checked 1 time]

Language: English 
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!

Text Authorship:

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. The wind and the rain  [sung text checked 1 time]

Language: English 
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.

[ ... ]

A great while ago the world [begun]2,
[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.

Text Authorship:

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Amram: "With a"
2 Amram: "began"

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

5. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more  [sung text checked 1 time]

Language: English 
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.]2
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Text Authorship:

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Fisher: "To one thing constant never,/ One foot in sea and one on shore."
2 Fischer: "Since summer first was leavy,/ The fraud of men was ever so."

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Total word count: 485