Waiata 1: He mea whakamāori, nā ngā Waiata a Wiremu Hākipia

A translation into Māori of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1


Nō ngā tino mea, ka tūmanakohia ngā uri

Kia kore rawa e mate te puāwai o te ātaahua,

Kia kawe tonu te kāwai i tōna maharatanga

Ahakoa tauheke noa ia i te wā:

Tēnā ko koe, tāmauria ki ōu ake kamo pīata —

Tou ana i tō ahikā ki tōu hau anake

Whānau mai nei ko Nihoroa nā Te Makuru

Tū mai ko koe, tō ake hoariri, takahi mauri ana.

Ināianei, e te rea kahurangi o te ao,

Kawainga kotahi o te kōanga hahaki,

Kei te negus koe i tō hua i tō kōpuku,

Ā, e taku rorirori, ka moumou kaihākere:

Arohaina rā te ao, kei kaihorotia

Tōu nama ki a ia e kōrua, ko Mate.


From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory;

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buries thy content,

And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

Image: Podocarpus totara [tōtara] and Dacrycarpus dacrydioides [kāhikatea], circa 1885, by Sarah Featon. Purchased 1919. Te Papa. Catalogue entry here.

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Emily Dickinson: Ētahi Ruri | Some Poems

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Shakespeare: Waiata 2 | Sonnet 2