#139222 - 02/13/05 01:47 AM
deconstructing Hamlet
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/03/00
Posts: 10463
Loc: this too shall pass
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okay, enough frippery. let's get down to the hard stuff. In reply to:
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
so, what the heck is a fardel??
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#139225 - 02/13/05 05:59 AM
Re: I'm as confused as anyone
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 09/30/01
Posts: 6296
Loc: Piedmont Region of Virginia, U...
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Cool, tsuwm. I think fardels are bumpkins.
And the nothing's good or bad, but thinking makes it so is kinda like beauty's in the eye of the beholder. Or choose your philosophy. Or Emerson's evil is good becoming. Or perspective. Or Bing Crosby's everybody's got an angle.
But I really don't know about fardels. Maybe one of Max's Shakespeare sites will explain that.
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#139226 - 02/13/05 10:08 AM
Re: I'm as confused as anyone
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 4757
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David and Ben Crystal in their wonderful Shakespeare’s Words: a Glossary & Language Companion* confirm your lookup of fardel as burden, load, bundle. Billy also used the word in Winter’s Tale: [Autolycus to Shepherd] The fardel there, what’s i’th’ fardel?* http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1176741> but thinking makes it soMany read this whole speech as an exposition of a profoundly existential exploration of his predicament.
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#139227 - 02/14/05 05:07 PM
Reduplicating Hamlet
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/03/00
Posts: 10463
Loc: this too shall pass
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well this was to be expected, right?! : ) ..the people muddied,
Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him..Samuel Johnson complained that texts of his day rendered " in hugger-mugger" as "in private" (maybe it had better be "in secret"). he went on to write: In reply to:
That the words now replaced are better, I do not undertake to prove; it is sufficient that they are Shakespeare's: If phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the words of any authour; and as these alterations will be often unskilfully made, we shall in time have very little of his meaning.
all of the online (public domain) versions read hugger-mugger, as does my Complete Works hardcopy; and there is lots of exegesis to be found.
is there any reason, at this far remove, to be publishing "translated" versions of Shakespeare?
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#139228 - 02/14/05 07:32 PM
Re: Reduplicating Hamlet
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 4757
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> is there any reason, at this far remove, to be publishing "translated" versions of Shakespeare?
I would say emphatically not (as you expected, right?!) The occasional struggle with unfamiliarity can be a boon to enrich our understanding of modern usage and abusage. It also allows us to let the meaning go and just hear the sheer poetry of his soundscape (especially when rendered in the flesh rather than internalised by our reading). For any reading this who didn't bother to click through the link to the good little review/article in The Economist, let me provide their closing words here:
Of course there's an argument for clarity; but accessible Shakespeare in modern translation may bury as much as 16th-century Shakespeare does. So, when foxed and flummoxed, there's nothing for it but this excellent glossary. A question for readers: does “knowing your onions” refer to C.T.? If so, the modern gloss will have to be “knowing your Crystals”. ibid
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