No. 31 A Bird’s Song of Love
Come to me, come, O come!
Let me not die, but come!
Hyria hysria nazaza
Trillirivos.
Fair is thy face, O fair!
Fair thine eyes, O how fair!
Hyria hysria nazaza
Trillirivos.
Fair is thy flowing hair!
O fair, O fair, how fair!
Hyria hysria nazaza
Trillirivos.
Redder than rose art thou,
Whiter than lily thou!
Hyria hysria nazaza
Trillirivos.
Fairer than all, I vow,
Ever my pride art thou!
Hyria hysria nazaza
Trillirivos.
The following displays an almost classical intensity of voluptuous passion, and belongs in all probability to a period later than the Carmina Burana. I have ventured, in translating it, to borrow the structure of a song which occurs in Fletcher’s Rollo (act v. scene 2), the first stanza of which is also found in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (act iv. scene 1), and to insert one or two phrases from Fletcher’s version. Whether the composer of that song had ever met with the Latin lyric to Lydia can scarcely form the subject of critical conjecture. Yet there is a faint evanescent resemblance between the two poems.