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Titania's
Lullaby (2006)
- SATB a cappella choir.
 Commission
as one of the three finalists in the 2006 Young New
Yorker's Chorus Competition
for Young Composers.
Secular
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Notes:
In the play, this is the song that the fairies sing to Titania to get her
to sleep. It is while she is sleeping that Oberon squeezes the flower over
her eyelids, ensuring her to fall in love with the first person she sees
upon waking. Philomel was a character in Greek Mythology who was turned
into a nightingale. It is her song that the fairies invoke. The nature of
this song is both playful and soothing. Singers should take care to have
fun with both verses and yet make a contrast between that and the lullaby
which follows in the choruses.
Text:
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen.
Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
Never harm,
Nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good-night, with lullaby.
Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.
Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
Never harm,
Nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good-night, with lullaby.
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II, ii |
