In this song from his 1597 "The Firste Booke of Songes or Ayres", John Dowland is setting the tone for his entire oeuvre: melancholy, despair, bitterness, disappointment in love. But if that were all, we would hardly be singing his songs these 400 years later. With Dowland, there is always hope, even when he tells us there is not. There is always beauty, even in the blackest depths. And there is always love.

Performed in Original Pronunciation by OPHELIA: Sanna Kola, mezzo soprano & Tuomas Kourula, archlute