Shakespeare's Comedies: Shake Shakespeare's hand and make a friend for life

By Jeanne Arthur

These translations of Shakespeare's comedies stand on their own so that they may be read quickly and easily eliminating the need to search for the meaning of every second word but they are supplemented by supporting explanations of the world in which Shakespeare lived for those who are curious about it. Jeanne Arthur’s translations make Shakespeare accessible to the ordinary person. She hopes that they will make the fun and warmth of Shakespeare's comedies live in contemporary Western culture once again for many more people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665740463

Jeanne Arthur

Jeanne Arthur BA (Honours Drama) is a retired teacher of Drama, English and History who was inspired to translate Shakespeare’s plays into modern English by her students who asked questions about the plays that were not easy to answer even though she had an honours degree in Drama from Flinders University and thirty years of teaching Drama. Retirement gave Jeanne the time and opportunity to write these translations to answer her students’ questions and to allow her to reflect on Shakespeare’s plays at a leisurely pace. She believes the outcome of this experience will be helpful to readers, performers and theatre workers as it brings many years of working on Shakespeare’s plays and poetry to clarify their meaning and create immediately accessible texts supported by thorough explanatory notes about Shakespeare’s world.

Book preview

SHAKESPEARE’S

Comedies

SHAKE SHAKESPEARE’S HAND

AND MAKE A FRIEND

FOR LIFE

JEANNE ARTHUR

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Copyright © 2023 Jeanne Arthur.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-4035-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4046-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904700

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/23/2023

CONTENTS

To the reader

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Much Ado About Nothing

The Comedy of Errors

The Friendly Wives of Windsor

The Taming of the Shrew

Twelfth Night or What You Want

Bibliography

Titles by Jeanne Arthur

This translation is

dedicated to those people who are curious about Shakespeare who has always been there for me whenever I wanted him to be.

I hope they too will Shake Shakespeare’s hand and make a friend for life.

Thanks

I wish to thank those people who listened to me as I developed

this work and took the time to read parts of it.

TO THE READER

The comedies selected for this book titled Shakespeare’s Comedies have been translated into Standard English from The Folio Society Limited Edition publication of The Norton Facsimile (Second edition) of the 1623 First Folio publication of Shakespeare’s plays.

I have selected these plays because, while they do not comprise the full list that the 1623 First Folio identified as his comedies, it seems to me that they stand out as the funniest plays by Shakespeare. In most of his plays, Shakespeare includes witty characters and at least one scene that has a comic intention but the plays selected for this book abound with witty characters, jokes, and humorous, laughter promoting scenes, even in Much Ado About Nothing, which could easily have turned into a tragedy in the hands of a less skilful playwright.

Shakespeare set most of his plays in a royal court of some kind or with an aristocratic setting but this context has not made his themes irrelevant for an audience today. A modern translation makes that easier to see. Although many of his characters are nominally kings and queens, in Shakespeare’s hands they have become characters that live and breathe in our minds. For example, the quarrel between the fairy monarchs, which has repercussions for the climate in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, leads to the hilarious confusions at the centre of the play. The grim beginning of the play is resolved on a happy note for all the characters including the tradesmen who win the opportunity to perform, however foolishly, for the Duke and his court after their wedding ceremony. In Love’ Labour’s Lost King Ferdinand of Navarre finds his court in a state of uproar when he imposes impossible rules on his citizens and his guests including the Princess of France. Marriage is the central theme of Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew with seemingly impossible obstacles placed in the way of the goal of a happy marriage being swept inventively away by hilarious characters and scenarios. The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night are delightful comedies of confusion where once again our preconceptions are reversed. Everything is not as it seems for the characters whose bewilderment at the situations created for them is side-splitting for the audience.

My aim is to help people of all ages to enjoy the work of the world’s greatest playwright and poet for their own pleasure and understanding of our dramatic, cultural and historical past for many more centuries. I believe a translation will make that more likely.

I started the translations of these plays assuming that Shakespeare’s English is now virtually a foreign language. As I proceeded with this work I became aware that this assumption was more correct than I thought. Not only was there the obvious problem that many English words used in Shakespeare’s England are no longer used today but words that seem familiar no longer have the same meanings. As well Shakespeare could give the same word different meanings from play to play. So my first task was to translate the now unused words and expressions into commonly used modern English and my second to clarify the ambiguities that have developed in the English language over time.

But a foreign language is more than its words. It integrates cultural knowledge and understandings of the world that are particular to it and perhaps to no other language. Shakespeare integrated knowledge of classical mythology into his plays that is no longer considered meaningful in the modern world. Only scholars pay particular attention to classical mythology today and children who are introduced to a limited number of the myths that are charming and fanciful but have no more meaning for them. Despite the passage of time and place between the classical peoples who believed their myths and his own time Shakespeare found they had profound meaning for his time and provided compelling metaphors that explained behaviour.

Christian mythology and ideas are integrated into all of Shakespeare’s plays to some degree or another providing him with a powerful tool to explore the Christian view of right and wrong behaviour for his audience. Shakespeare also built on the stilted conventions of the Miracle and Morality plays of his Christian English past to develop three dimensional characters that still live today when they are read or performed.

Possibly the most difficult aspect for a reader, actor and audience member of Shakespeare’s plays today is his use of blank verse. This, combined with the fact that the characters often speak in the third person when they are talking about themselves, the personification of inanimate objects and ideas as well as the metaphorical treatment of his subjects makes for a text that is very difficult to read. As a person qualified in Drama and English at a tertiary level with many years of teaching Shakespeare’s plays and poetry I still found translating his work a long and difficult process with many decisions to be made. Over the years it has taken, the process became easier and I hope that the effort I have made to get to grips with Shakespeare’s texts at a deep level will be of benefit to readers, audiences and performers.

This translation stands in its own right. The original text has not been provided to go along with it. The intention behind this is to provide a text that can be read quickly and easily without constant checking with the original. A translator of a work from Russian or French for example expects that the translation will stand on its own. Readers of the translation believe that having read the translation they have read the equivalent of the original work. They do not feel that they have to learn Russian or French to check that what they have read is correct. A very interested reader might read a number of translations to see how they differ and perhaps to get a different perspective on the original work but essentially if the translation is good it should be an accurate representation of the original work. That is where I see this translation standing. Readers or audience members should feel confident that they have read Shakespeare’s play having read a Shake Shakespeare’s Hand and make a friend for life translation. Nevertheless, if readers wish to read the original text this translation will help them to read it more confidently and with a greater depth of understanding.

Some lovers of Shakespeare’s writing may object to the idea that his work needs to be translated. However I believe that their love of Shakespeare argues for a translation rather than against one. It is over four hundred years since Shakespeare’s death. Not only has the English language evolved since this time but so has the culture of the world. Making a translation of the language enables us to appreciate more accurately the cultural differences and similarities between us and the world he lived in. Our imagination is a wonderful tool that enables us to move freely into the past, across cultures and into the future. Drama and other fictional forms exploit this capacity we have to imagine ourselves anywhere and in any time. Shakespeare’s original text is becoming a block to that capacity. A translation can build a bridge to his imaginary world and if a reader wishes to cross it, it can also build a bridge to his language.

Jeanne Arthur, translator

BA (Honours Drama) Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Graduate Diploma of Education, Canberra College of Advanced Education, Canberra, ACT Australia

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By William Shakespeare

Translated by Jeanne Arthur

Introduction to the play; A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Why read or see A Midsummer Night’s Dream today?

Entering Shakespeare’s world

Dramatic and rhetorical devices Shakespeare uses

Greek and Roman people, myths and gods

Shakespeare’s culture and the historical background

Pronunciation of words and names

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Act 1, scene 1

Act 1, scene 2

Act 2, scene 1

Act 3, scene 1

Act 4, scene 1

Act 4, scene 2

Act 5, scene 1

Introduction to the play;

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Hermia, a young Athenian woman, wants to marry Lysander, the man of her choice. Her father Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius, the man of his choice. Egeus demands that Theseus the Duke of Athens apply the law. The Duke who is himself about to marry Hippolyta, an Amazon warrior queen he has defeated in a war with the Amazons, gives Hermia time to reflect on her options of complying with her father’s will, being executed, or forced into a nunnery. She must make the choice by the following day.

Of course a ‘choice’ like this is no choice. If she chooses Lysander Hermia risks execution, or the life of a nun. If she chooses Demetrius she will be choosing cohabitation for life with someone she dislikes. To avoid making these non-choices Lysander and Hermia decide to leave Athens and take refuge with his wealthy aunt who lives in a nearby place unaffected by Athenian law. They agree to meet the following night in the wood outside Athens. They tell Helena, Hermia’s friend, what they intend to do. She tells Demetrius who was in love with Helena before he saw Hermia. He decides to follow Hermia into the wood and because she still loves Demetrius Helena follows him.

Oberon, the king of the fairies is angry with Titania, the fairy queen, because she refuses to give a boy in her care to him. The boy was the child of one of her human attendants and she wishes to take care of him because he was orphaned when his mother died in childbirth. Oberon decides to ‘tame’ Titania into giving him the boy by drugging her with the juice of a flower which will make her fall in love with the first thing she sees. He sends Puck, his offsider who is also known as Robin Goodfellow, to get the flower.

A group of tradesmen meet to prepare a play for Theseus’ wedding based on the classical myth of Pyramus and Thisbe. They agree to rehearse in the wood to prevent competitors stealing their ideas. Watching their play Puck/Robin Goodfellow decides to play a practical joke on Bottom who plays Pyramus. He puts an ass’s head on him frightening away his fellow actors who think he’s been bewitched. Having been drugged by Oberon, Titania wakes and falls in love with the first creature she sees; Bottom, transformed into an ass.

Oberon has also given Puck/Robin Goodfellow the task of drugging Demetrius so that he will fall in love with Helena who is desperate for him to love her. Mistakenly he drugs Lysander who seeing Helena when he wakes up falls in love with her and leaves Hermia sleeping on the cold ground. Oberon realises the mistake and demands that Puck/Robin Goodfellow drug Demetrius who also falls in love with Helena. The two fairies entertain themselves at the expense of the lovers for whom everything is reversed with Helena now being adored and Hermia being despised.

After extracting the child from her, Oberon releases Titania from the drug before the night ends. He also gets Puck/Robin Goodfellow to release Lysander from the drug’s effects. The lovers fall asleep and are discovered by Theseus and Hippolyta while they are out on an early morning hunt.

Theseus invites the couples to marry at the same time as he and Hippolyta do, suppressing Egeus’ objections now that Demetrius has fallen back in love with Helena. After the wedding they look for some amusement before bedtime and select the Comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe by the tradesmen. Following the tradesmen’s play, Oberon, Titania and the fairies sing a song wishing the couples’ the best in their marriages and Puck/Robin Goodfellow asks forgiveness for the actors if the play has offended the audience.

Why read or see A Midsummer Night’s Dream today?

Despite the passage of hundreds of years A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains one of Shakespeare’s most loved plays being read by students worldwide and performed regularly by acting companies. Its supernatural characters and magic are as attractive to audiences as they once were when Shakespeare wrote the play. The confusions of the male lovers as they change feelings randomly without apparent reason leads to great slapstick comedy that is as entertaining for the audience as it is for Oberon and Puck/Robin Goodfellow. Audiences today still appreciate the naïve, inexperienced tradesmen trying to earn extra money by putting on a play for the Duke who are victims of the trickery of wily, manipulative fairies.

Shakespeare’s skill as a comic writer smooths over the proposed forced marriage that begins the play. The father/daughter conflict about a choice of marriage partner is a repeated theme in Shakespeare’s work. The stark choices Hermia must make are brilliantly undercut by Shakespeare. Through fairy magic he convincingly manipulates Demetrius into falling back in love with Helena leaving Theseus with the freedom to deny Egeus his legal right to force Hermia to marry him. Marriage for love and the daughter’s right to marry the man of her choice are always favoured by Shakespeare. In this play he uses magic to make his point.

One aspect of the plot remains true today. Hermia and Lysander decide to leave Athens to go to his aunt’s place which is located within walking distance from Athens because there the law is different and Hermia will be free of the punitive Athenian law. Human beings can find themselves living in a country which is supportive of their goals or in conflict with them. This is the luck of birth that sometimes forces people to leave their country of origin to go to a place which may not be very far from their original birthplace but the law and the human environment there is more supportive of their lives.

Oberon uses the weapon of magic to force Titania to relinquish the boy he wants in his court. Using a plant infused with love from Cupid’s arrow he drugs her into falling in love with Bottom who has been transformed into an ass by magic. In this state she happily does what she was unhappy to do in her own normal frame of mind. Consent given under the influence of a drug is not consent. Once again Shakespeare glosses over the conflict between these two fairy monarchs. Titania seems willing to forgive and forget once Oberon has got his way and they are reunited despite their infidelities and the forced removal of the child from Titania’s court.

At the same time as she falls in love with Bottom as a result of the influence of the love drug Shakespeare tucks into Titania’s dialogue her sympathy for women who endure rape.

I think the moon is looking at us with watery eyes and when she weeps every little flower mourns some raped woman.

Likewise Helena’s speeches reveal sympathy for women who are unloved and in Helena’s case, as she sees it, being taunted by her friends for her loveless state. The female characters are the losers in this play. Hippolyta lost the war against Theseus; Titania loses the ward she is trying to protect and when Demetrius and Lysander are under the influence of the love juice both Hermia and Helena are bewildered by their odd behaviour with Helena thinking she is being picked on and Hermia shocked by Lysander’s abandonment and hatred of her.

Despite the underlying psychological violence of this play, Shakespeare’s fairies provide us with an enduring romantic comedy that still enchants. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most enduring plays with supernatural characters. Film and television dramas of all kinds include supernatural characters and themes. We still watch and read ghost, vampire and superhero stories, for example. They are a staple of modern entertainment.

Entering Shakespeare’s world

Dramatic and rhetorical devices Shakespeare uses

Shakespeare used dramatic and rhetorical devices to shape his plots and to entertain with word play. Dramatic devices he used include dramatic irony, foreshadowing, the exchange of rings, a play within a play and set pieces. Rhetorical devices he used are literary techniques such as metaphor, paradox, puns, symbols and oxymorons.

Dramatic devices

Rhetorical devices

Word play is a literary technique in which words themselves are used to amuse. Puns and malapropisms are examples of word play that can arise from the use of words that are homophonic (words that sound the same), homographic (words that have the same spelling but different meanings and origins), metonymic (a word which is used instead of something which it is closely associated), or figurative (metaphor, simile etc).

Greek and Roman people, myths and gods