Open the song on Suno to listen to this edition.
Different claims lead toward what is already within. Creative direction: literary art song · melody following the argument · sparse accompanimentWhat do these music words mean? ↓
The lyric develops the question before arriving at an answer. Repeated statements that people possess these capacities move toward benevolence, right, propriety and wisdom, closing with cited verse. This is a philosophical argument in the text, not a judgement about the listener’s character.
The direction proposes melody progressing with the argument. Separate verbal parallelism from musical return: do successive passages take new paths? Through-composed writing can contain small echoes; three Verse labels alone do not prove repeated music.
Use the repeated words as reading signposts, then compare musical return with onward development. Through-composed writing and Verse labels describe different aspects rather than mutually exclusive identities.
Through-composed · new music as the words progress · a little more Through-composed writing lets music progress with the text rather than setting each new stanza to the same whole section. It can still have clear sections and recurring small ideas: it does not mean formless. Compare the treatment of successive passages; this track’s brief is a proposal, not a completed listening analysis.
Try listening: Compare two passages with different meanings. Do their melodies take different paths? Repeated Verse labels alone cannot tell you.
The Open University · Schubert’s Lieder, Prometheus ↗ Verse · carrying the story forward · a little more A verse often develops people, scenes or events. Successive verses may use similar music with new words. The name does not mean the most important section, and not every song needs one. Verse labels in a lyric are reading clues, not measured boundaries in a recording.
Try listening: Compare two narrative sections: do new words meet similar music? Then find a returning central phrase and compare their roles.
Berklee Online · Verse as narrative, chorus as theme ↗ Read the lyrics [Instrumental Intro]
[Verse 1]
公都子曰：「告子曰：『性無善無不善也。』或曰：『性可以為善，可以為不善，是故文武興則民好善，幽厲興則民好暴。』
[Verse 2]
或曰：『有性善，有性不善，是故以堯為君而有象，以瞽瞍為父而有舜，以紂為兄之子且以為君，而有微子啟、王子比干。』今曰『性善』，然則彼皆非歟？」
孟子曰：「乃若其情則可以為善矣，乃所謂善也。若夫為不善，非才之罪也。惻隱之心，人皆有之；羞惡之心，人皆有之；恭敬之心，人皆有之；是非之心，人皆有之。
[Instrumental Interlude]
[Verse 3]
惻隱之心，仁也；羞惡之心，義也；恭敬之心，禮也；是非之心，智也。仁義禮智，非由外鑠我也，我固有之也，弗思耳矣。
故曰：求則得之，舍則失之。或相倍蓰而無算者，不能盡其才者也。《詩》曰：『天生蒸民，有物有則。民之秉彝，好是懿德。』孔子曰：『為此詩者，其知道乎！故有物必有則，民之秉彝也，故好是懿德。』」
[Instrumental Outro]
