If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
This song was recorded live in The Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, St Hilda’s College as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2006.
Click here to listen to this song performed by Sophie Daneman and Julius Drake.
Text
Sonnet on a monkey
English source:
Marjory Fleming
O lovely O most charming pug
Thy graceful air and heav'nly mug
The beauties of his mind do shine
And ev'ry bit is shaped so fine
Your very tail is most devine
Your teeth is whiter than the snow
You are a great buck and a beau
Your eyes are of so fine a shape
More like a christians than an ape
His cheeks is like the roses blume
Your hair is like the ravens plume
His noses cast is of the roman
He is a very pretty weoman
I could not get a rhyme for roman
And was oblidged to call it weoman
Thy graceful air and heav'nly mug
The beauties of his mind do shine
And ev'ry bit is shaped so fine
Your very tail is most devine
Your teeth is whiter than the snow
You are a great buck and a beau
Your eyes are of so fine a shape
More like a christians than an ape
His cheeks is like the roses blume
Your hair is like the ravens plume
His noses cast is of the roman
He is a very pretty weoman
I could not get a rhyme for roman
And was oblidged to call it weoman
