The
Sonnet Sessions continue...
William Shakespeare, Sonnet II
When forty
winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep
trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's
proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a
totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being
asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the
treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within
thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an
all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more
praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst
answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my
count, and make my old excuse,'
Proving his
beauty by succession thine!
This were to be
new made when thou art old,
And see thy
blood warm when thou feel'st it
cold.
Ralph
Vaughan Williams, “Fantasia on Greensleeves“, from Sir John in
Love, opera adapted
from William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives
of Windsor, 1928
(Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy)
Nino
Rota, “Sarabande” from soundtrack to Zeffirelli’s “The Taming of
the Shrew”, 1967 (Columbia Pictures, US / Italy) orchestra
conducted by Carlo Savina