Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none.’
In plain English
You love music, but you listen to it with sadness — why? Sweetness belongs with sweetness, and joy thrives in joy's company. Yet you resist what should make you happy, or you take pleasure in your own misery.
The harmony of well-tuned instruments, joined together in marriage, should delight you, not offend. Those sounds gently rebuke you: you're fragmenting yourself by staying alone, when you should be playing the parts of a complete whole.
Look at how one string, bound to another like a husband and wife, resonates with its partner in perfect balance — like a father, mother, and child making one beautiful harmony. That wordless song, though many notes, sounds as one. It tells you plainly: 'You will become nothing if you remain alone.'
