May 02, 2006 23:46
Recitative Narrator: Be quiet, stop chattering, and pay attention to what's taking place: here comes Herr Schlendrian with his daughter Lieschen; he's growling like a honey bear. Hear for yourselves, what she has done to him!
Aria Schlendrian: Don't one's children cause one endless trials & tribulations! What I say each day to my daughter Lieschen falls on stony ground.
Recitative Schlendrian: You wicked child, you disobedient girl, oh! When will I get my way? Give up coffee!
Lieschen: Father, don't be so severe! If I can't drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat.
Aria Lieschen: Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee!
Recitative Schlendrian: If you don't give up drinking coffee then you shan't go to any wedding feast, nor go out walking. Oh! when will I get my way? Give up coffee!
Lieschen: Oh well! Just leave me my coffee!
Schlendrian: Now I've got the little minx! I won't get you a whalebone skirt in the latest fashion.
Lieschen: I can easily live with that.
Schlendrian: You're not to stand at the window and watch people pass by!
Lieschen: That as well, only I beg of you, leave me my coffee!
Schlendrian: Furthermore, you shan't be getting any silver or gold ribbon for your bonnet from me!
Lieschen: Yes, yes! only leave me to my pleasure!
Schlendrian: You disobedient Lieschen you, so you go along with it all!
Aria Schlendrian: Hard-hearted girls are not so easily won over. Yet if one finds their weak spot, ah! then one comes away successful.
Recitative Schlendrian: Now take heed what your father says!
Lieschen: In everything but the coffee.
Schlendrian: Well then, you'll have to resign yourself to never taking a husband.
Lieschen: Oh yes! Father, a husband!
Schlendrian: I swear it won't happen.
Lieschen: Until I can forgo coffee? From now on, coffee, remain forever untouched! Father, listen, I won't drink any.
Schlendrian: Then you shall have a husband at last!
Aria Lieschen: Today even dear father, see to it! Oh, a husband! Really, that suits me splendidly! If it could only happen soon that at last, before I go to bed, instead of coffee I were to get a proper lover!
Recitative Narrator: Old Schlendrian goes off to see if he can find a husband forthwith for his daughter Lieschen; but Leischen secretly lets it be known: no suitor is to come to my house unless he promises me, and it is also written into the marriage contract, that I will be permitted to make myself coffee whenever I want.
Trio: A cat won't stop from catching mice, and maidens remain faithful to their coffee. The mother holds her coffee dear. The grandmother drank it also. Who can thus rebuke the daughters?