Shall I compare thee to a summer's day | Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Language: English

Available translation(s): FIN ITA

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

J. Dankworth sets lines 1-8

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Text Authorship:

by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 18 [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 Lora Aborn (1907 - 2005), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" [sung text not yet checked]
by Julius C. Adams , "Sonnett", 1972, copyright © 1972 [ low voice and piano ], [sic] for the title [sung text not yet checked]
by William Arthur Aikin (1857 - 1939), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", published 1911 [ voice and piano ], confirmed with a CD booklet ; Stainer & Bell [sung text checked 1 time]
by David Andrews , "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1963, published 1969 [ tenor or soprano and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Edward Applebaum (b. 1937), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1975, published 1982 [ soprano, alto, baritone, SSSAAABarBarBar chorus, and chamber orchestra ], from Cantata Concertante: "When dreams do show thee me", no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Neil Ardley , "Shall I compare thee", 1974, published 1974 [ duet for 2 sopranos and instrumental ensemble ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Walter Aschaffenburg (b. 1927), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ", op. 14 no. 1 (1966-7), first performed 1967 [ tenor and piano ], from Three Shakespeare Sonnets, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Sonnet XVIII - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"", 2002 [ high voice or medium voice and piano ], from Five Sonnets, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Melinda Bargreen , "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day", 2017 [ tenor or baritone and piano ], from In Fields Where Roses Fade, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Alan Dudley Bush (1900 - 1995), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", op. 92 no. 1 (1980), first performed 1981 [ baritone and chamber orchestra ], from Two Shakespeare Sonnets, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Mary Grant Carmichael (1851 - 1935), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", published 1898, London: Ashdown [sung text not yet checked]
by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968), "Sonnet XVIII - Shall I compare", op. 125 (Shakespeare Sonnets), Heft 1 no. 2 (1944-7) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Leslie Crabtree (b. 1941), "Sonnet XVIII", 2005 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by John Philip William Dankworth (1927 - 2010), "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day", 1964, lines 1-8 [ voice and piano ], confirmed with a concert programme booklet [sung text checked 1 time]
by David Leo Diamond (1915 - 2005), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day", 1964, published 1967 [ high voice and piano ], from We Two, no. 1, New York : Southern [sung text checked 1 time]
by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day", 1972-3 [ high voice and piano ], from A Miscellany of Love Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Wolfgang Fortner (1907 - 1987), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1981, published c1982 [ tenor and piano ], from Widmungen : aus den Sonetten von William Shakespeare, no. 4, Mainz ; New York : Schott [sung text not yet checked]
by Ernest Gold (1921 - 1999), "Shall I compare thee?" [sung text not yet checked]
by Ralph R. Guenther , "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1960, first performed 1961 [ soprano, flute, and violoncello ], from Two Shakespearean Sonnets, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 2000, first performed 2001 [ baritone and piano ], from Love's Pilgrimage -- 5 songs for Baritone and Piano, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by C. E. (Charles Edward) Horn (1786 - 1849), "Shall I compare thee?", published 1864 [sung text not yet checked]
by J. Frederick Keel (1871 - 1954), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" [sung text not yet checked]
by Frederick Kelley (1881 - 1916), "Shall I compare thee?", op. 1 no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881 - 1916), "Shall I compare thee", op. 1 (Two Songs) (1901), published 1912 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by John La Montaine (1920 - 2013), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" [sung text not yet checked]
by Huub de Lange (b. 1955), "Shall I compare thee", published 2005 [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Three Shakespeare Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Noël Lee (1924 - 2013), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1996 [ bass-baritone, clarinet, horn, and contrabass ], from Sonnets de soleil, de sanglots - Four Songs from Shakespeare, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Leonard J[ordan] Lehrman (b. 1949), "Sonnetina #5", op. 45 (1978) [ tenor or soprano with viola/clarinet/harp/guitar/marimba ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Kenneth Leighton (1929 - 1988), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", from 5 Shakespeare Songs, no. 2, available from the Kenneth Leighton Trust, e-mail jo (DOT) leighton (AT) blueyonder (DOT) co (DOT) uk [sung text checked 1 time]
by Stefan Lienenkämper , "Sonett 18", published 2006 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Vier Lieder nach Sonetten von W. Shakespeare, no. 3, Helmstadt : HH Musikverlag [sung text not yet checked]
by Nils Lindberg (b. 1933), "Shall I compare thee" [ chorus ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Enid Luff , "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1978, published 1980, first performed 1978 [ mezzo-contralto solo, violin or flute, and piano ], from Three Shakespeare Sonnets, London: Primavera [sung text not yet checked]
by Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968), "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day", 2016, first performed 2016 [ soprano, cello and piano ], from Summer to Winter, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, Sir (1848 - 1918), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", from Four Sonnets of Shakespeare, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928 - 2016), "XVIII (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day)", op. 14 no. 3 (1952), published 1973, first performed 1953 [ soprano and piano ], from Three Sonnets of Shakespeare, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Richard Simpson (1820 - 1876), "Sonnet XVIII", 1863-4 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Carlos Claudio Spies (1925 - 2020), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", 1976-7, first performed 1978 [ satb quartet and piano ], from Five Sonnet-Settings, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ludmilla Ulehla (b. 1923), "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" [sung text not yet checked]
by Stephen Wilkinson (b. 1919), "Eternal summer" [ voice and piano ], from Eternal Summer, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in English, [adaptation] ; composed by Zane Randall Stroope.
- Go to the text.
Also set in Japanese (日本語), a translation by Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859 - 1935) ; composed by Elliot Weisgarber.
- Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Nikolay Vasilyevich Gerbel (1827 - 1883) , no title ; composed by Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov.
- Go to the text.

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

DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (L. A. J. Burgersdijk)
FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 18, first published 1857
FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot) , no title, appears in Œuvres Complètes de Shakspeare Volume VIII, in Sonnets, no. 18, first published 1863
GER German (Deutsch) (Ludwig Reinhold Walesrode) , first published 1840
RUS Russian (Русский) (Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky) , "Сонет 18", written 1914

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 114

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