"In 1787, Carl Friedrich Cramer published one of the most curious documents of eighteenth-century music history: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Fantasia in C minor of 1753, with two monologues set to the music by the poet Henrich Wilhelm von Gerstenber" (Richards 25) The first verse is to be the words of Socrates as he contemplates death. The second verse is a paraphrase of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. This text setting is a prime example of Sturm und Drang and how it transitioned from a literary movement into music. Below is a translation of the lyrics from German to English. There is also a recording of the C Minor Fantasia below. Read through the two verses and then listen. Do you think that this is an accurate text setting?

No, no the serious high figure, the approaching hour shall not terrify me, the hour of decay. Death! I know thee, figure of genius, spirit, high messenger of heaven. The spirit thou soarest, the sweep of light. Immortality radiates from thou, spirit, 'tis thou, who in the vale where I fervently sought thou often whispered immortality into my heart. oh you rejoicing in me, oh my soul you are immortal. I shall drink the source of light on heavenly shores. I am blessed! Immortality from its full, silver stream! ah! where the song of the stars sounds, there immortality. From its silver stream. Idea oh beam of light in me, ah I succumb to you! Cup of death, refreshing draught, I thirst for you. o summoner in the night! o summoner of death! Blessed are you, I follow you. He dies still pale from poison, his unbound spirit soars free from poison out of the murder's den.
To be or not to be, that is the question. Death! Sleep! Sleep and dream, black dream! Dream of death! To dream it ha! The blissful dream! To look at life! The vale of tears! Where shyness lurks! malice laughs! innocence weeps! o no! o no! it would rather be desirable for you, soul, to slumber into not being! To awake into the light of being! to look upward at delight o soul! life! to see them all who loved us not mourning them anymore! the new reunion sounds gloriously in tender arms! then o abundant joy! The heavenly tear falls! Where is a dagger! a sword? to flee into the grave of being? to die ah! the great death of final being! where is a dagger! a sword? to pass away the vale of malediction into the grave of being down to life.