Songs

Songs

Sonetto XXXII (1942) Op. 22 no.6

Part of a series or song cycle:

Seven Sonnets of Michaelangelo (Op. 22)

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Sonetto XXXII

Michelangelo Buonarotti

S’un casto amor, s’una pietà superna,

S’una fortuna infra dua amanti equale,

S’un’aspra sorte all’un dell’altro cale,

S’un spirto, s’un voler duo cor governa;

S’un’anima in duo corpi è fatta etterna,

Ambo levando al cielo e con pari ale;

S’amor c’un colpo e d’un dorato strale

Le viscer di duo petti arda e discerna;

S’amar l’un l’altro, e nessun se medesmo,

D’un gusto e d’un diletto, a tal mercede,

C’a un fin voglia l’uno e l’altro porre;

Se mille e mille non sarien centesmo

A tal nodo d’amore, a tanta fede;

E sol l’isdegno il può rompere e sciorre.

Sonnet XXXII

English Translation © Elizabeth Mayer & Peter Pears

If love be chaste, if pity heavenly, if fortune equal between two lovers; if a bitter fate is shared by both, and if one spirit, one will rules two hearts;

if in two bodies one soul is made eternal, raising both to heaven on the same wings; if at one stroke and with a gilded arrow love burns and pierces two hearts to the core;

if in loving one another, forgetting one’s self, with one pleasure and one delight there is such reward that both wills strive for the same end;

if thousands and thousands do not make one hundredth part to such a bond of love, to such constancy, can, then, mere anger break and dissolve it?

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Composer

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).

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