The Triumph of Time and Truth

The Triumph of Time and Truth is the final name of an oratorio by George Frideric Handel produced in three different versions across fifty years of the composer’s career: Handel’s very first oratorio, composed in spring 1707, to an Italian-language libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili.

One of its famous arias is Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa (Leave the Thorn, Take the Rose), later recast as "Lascia ch'io pianga" (Leave Me to Weep) in the opera Rinaldo.

Handel was by that time living in England and producing seasons of English-language oratorio and Italian opera.

In March 1757, possibly without much involvement from the blind and aging Handel, the oratorio was further expanded and revised.

The libretto was reworked into English, probably by the composer’s prolific last librettist, Thomas Morell, while John Christopher Smith Jr. probably assembled the score.