If Love's a Sweet Passion (Henry Purcell)

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• CPDL #3277:

Editor: Udo Baake (submitted 2002-02-20).   Score information:    Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes: in A4 page format, different lyrics from ID # 3020

• CPDL #3020:

Editor: Alfred M. Drenth (submitted 2001-09-28).   Score information: 104 kbytes   Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes: in A4 page format, requires Acrobat Reader 4.0 or higher

General Information

Title: If Love's a Sweet Passion
Composer: Henry Purcell

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Opera

Language: English
Instruments: a cappella
Published:

Description:

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

Lyrics from CPDL 3277:

I press her hand gently,

look languishing down,

and by passionate silence

I make my love known.

But oh! How I'm blest

when so kind she does prove,

by some willing mistake

to discover her love.

When in striving to hide,

she reveals her flame,

and in our eyes tell each other

what neither dares name.

Lyrics from CPDL 3020:

If love's a sweet passion why does it torment?

If a bitter, oh tell me, whence comes my content?

Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,

or grieve at my fate, when I know it's in vain?

Yet so pleasing the pain is so soft as the dart,

That at once it both wounds me and tickles my heart.