If music be the food of love
Language: English
Available translation(s): FRE GER ITA
If music be the food of love,
Sing on till I am fill'd with joy;
For then my list'ning soul you move
To pleasures that can never cloy.
Your eyes, your mien, your tongue declare
That you are music ev'rywhere.
Pleasures invade both eye and ear,
So fierce the transports are, they wound,
And all my senses feasted are,
Tho' yet the treat is only sound,
Sure I must perish by your charms,
Unless you save me in your arms.
Note: the first line quotes
Orsino's lines in Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night
Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889 - 1960), "If music be the food of love", 1933, published 1933 [ voice and piano ], from Old wine in new bottles: four Restoration songs, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Henry Purcell (1658/9 - 1695), "If music be the food of love", Z. 379, published 1692, published in Gentleman's Journal or Monthly Miscellany, June 1692 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Michael Tippett (1905 - 1998), "If music be the food of love", note: this is a realization of a Purcell song.  [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Wim Zwaag (b. 1960), "If music be the food of love ", 2003 [ soprano and cello ], from Music for a while, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Si la musique est la nourriture de l'amour", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Elaine Marie Ortiz-Arandes) , "Wenn Musik die Nahrung der Liebe ist", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Se la musica è il cibo dell'amore", copyright © 2006, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 80
Se la musica è il cibo dell'amore
Language: Italian (Italiano)  after the English
Se la musica è il cibo dell'amore
canta fino a che io sia pieno di gioia:
perché allora muovi la mia anima che ascolta
a piaceri che non possono mai saziare.
I tuoi occhi, la tua grazia, la tua lingua proclamano
che tu sei musica in ogni parte.
I piaceri invadono l'occhio e l'orecchio,
e i sentimenti che provo sono così violenti che feriscono,
e tutti i miei sensi festeggiano
in un banchetto di suono.
Certo morirò per il tuo fascino
se non mi salvi tra le tue braccia.
Authorship:
- Translation from English to Italian (Italiano) copyright © 2006 by Paolo Montanari, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
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Based on:
This text was added to the website: 2006-03-06
Line count: 12
Word count: 89