Product Description
THREE LABE SONNETS for mezzo-soprano and piano is a collection of settings by Louise Labé, (1520-1566), a female French Renaissance poet. Labé was fluent in Latin and Italian, and a trained musician. She wrote twenty-four sonnets.
TRANSLATION
Sonnet VIII - I Live, I Die
I live, I die, I burn with fire, I drown.
It matters very little what I feel;
All life is now too real, now too surreal;
Joy comes and endless boredom weighs me down,
And suddenly I laugh and then I cry;
With grief and bliss Im weeping for the past;
Good feelings go away and yet they last,
And suddenly I bleed and then I sigh.
Thats how it goes. Strange, ever changing love
Has worn me out. I wish I were removed
From such a star-crossed fate! I need a truce
With Lady Luck. Again and yet again,
Her wheel is spinning madly to produce
This wanton, wild, intense, exquisite pain.
Sonnet XVIII - O Kiss Me
O kiss me, kiss me, re-kiss me, and kiss!
Be reckless, impudent, hot-headed, bold!
O woo me! Pursue me! Kiss me like this:
And Ill give back fifty as hot as red coals.
There, is it hurting? Come, lets soothe the pain.
Ill give you sixty others just like these.
And so well kiss again and then again,
While we enjoy each other at our ease.
I know theres fire within your unshaped clay,
And so, allow me, love, to share my happiness:
O lets make burning passion rule today.
Im fond of doing what I love to do,
Yet cannot feel supreme delight unless
I have my other wild encounters, too.
Sonnet XIV - As Long As Tears
As long as tears can well up in my eyes
Im saddened that our nights are marked by pain.
And now my voice expresses once again
A plaintive melody Ive improvised.
As long as I can pluck the lute, I try
To sing about your charms in my refrain.
As long as I can think, my fevered brain
Is burning with an ardent zeal. I cry
And cry a hundred thousand times for you.
But when I feel my whirling thoughts grow still,
And when both hand and voice wont work their will,
Because your treachery is piercing through
My heart, Ill know theres just one final way.
Ill ask for Death to darken that bleak day.
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