Shakespeare in Succession: Translation and Time 9780228016502

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shakespeare in succession

Shakespeare in Succession Translation and Time

Edited by Michael Saenger and Sergio Costola

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023 isb n 978-0-2280-1649-6 (cloth) isb n 978-0-2280-1650-2 (epdf ) Legal deposit first quarter 2023 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

mqup acknowledges the financial contribution of Southwestern University toward the publication of this volume.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Shakespeare in succession: translation and time / edited by Michael Saenger and Sergio Costola. Names: Saenger, Michael, editor. | Costola, Sergio, editor. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220425256 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220425280 | isb n 9780228016496 (cloth) | isb n 9780228016519 (eP U B) | i sbn 9780228016502 (ePDF) Subjects: l c sh : Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Translations—History and criticism. | l csh : Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Adaptations—History and criticism. Classification: lcc pr2881.s53 2023 | ddc 822.3/3—dc23 This book was typeset in Minion Pro.

Contents

Figures | vii Acknowledgments | ix Introduction | 3 part 1: translation and adaptation | 27 1 In the Beginning Was the Verse: A Personal Testimony on the Adventurous Task of Translating Shakespeare’s Metre into Brazilian Portuguese José Francisco Botelho | 36 2 Stage or Page? A Momentous Choice Niels Brunse | 62 3 “My Restless Discord Loves No Stops Nor Rests”: Translating “The Rape of Lucrece” for the Stage Marcus Kyd | 72 4 A Riverplate Translation of the Sonnets Miguel Ángel Montezanti | 90 5 Taming and Timing: Translating The Taming of the Shrew into Italian Iolanda Plescia | 102 6 Entangled and Embodied Knowledge(s) in the “many strange dishes” of Much Ado about Nothing in Performance Sarah Roberts | 123

Contents

7 Lyric Reflection: Translating the Script of a kunqu Romeo and Juliet into English Zhiyan Zhang and Carl A. Robertson | 155 part 2: theorizing translation | 195 8 Celebrating Life: Translation as an Act of Survival Zoltán Márkus | 202 9 Shakespeare’s Fathers and the Undead Renaissance Michael Saenger | 219 10 Commedia dell’Arte Translations: Three Pantalones in The Merchant of Venice Sergio Costola | 239 11 A Mirror up to Hamlet: Translations of Shakespeare in Japan Hiromi Fuyuki | 258 12 Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China Rangping Ji and Wei Feng | 284 Translingual Shakespeare: An Afterword Alexa Alice Joubin | 298 Contributors | 309 Index | 315

Figures

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11.1 11.2

Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580). Cambridge University, University Library, E.5.3. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580). Cambridge University, University Library, E.5.3, front cover outside. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580). Cambridge University, University Library, E.5.3, front cover inside. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. The Japan Punch (Jan. 1874). Written and drawn by Charles Wirgman. Published by Yushodo Co. Ltd., Tokyo, 1975. Reproduced courtesy of Maruzen-Yushodo Co. Ltd. Hamlet, Bungakuza production, directed by Tsuneari Fukuda, at the Toyoko Hall, Tokyo, 1955. Hiroshi Akutagawa as Hamlet. Reproduced courtesy of Bungakuza.

Acknowledgments

The present volume is the culmination of a decade-long collaboration that started in 2012 when we worked on Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Italy. The collaboration continued at two conferences of the European Shakespeare Research Association, first in Gdansk in 2017, and then in Rome in 2019, where we led a seminar that included several authors featured in this volume. We are very grateful for those original voices, as well as the authors who joined our group as we moved forward with this volume. We are both deeply grateful for the support of our institution, Southwestern University, especially for the generous help of our Dean, Alisa Gaunder. We have included several students along the way, and worthy of particular note for concrete improvements in the present text are Kayla Ingram, Zoe Forde, Erin Flessner, Madeleine Barlow, and Kay Teekell. At McGill-Queen’s University Press, we were welcomed by Mark Abley, who then passed us to Richard Ratzlaff. Both are editors with imagination, acumen, and judgment. We are further indebted to the patient, meticulous, and elegant work of our copyeditor, Zubin Meer. Michael would like to thank his sons, Devin, Noah, Leo, and Yasha, and his dear wife, Svetlana. Sergio would like to thank his wife, Rebeka, and daughter, Giana.

shakespeare in succession

Introduction Michael Saenger and Sergio Costola

This book addresses the transfer of poetic and theatrical paradigms, as well as actual plays, both to and from the Swan of Avon. We position Shakespeare on a continuum of transfers that can be understood from cultural, spatial, temporal, or linguistic points of view. The present study joins some unfamiliar approaches, looking at writing before Shakespeare as well as after, at theatrical and linguistic adaptation in addition to historical study. We seek to advance the thriving field of study surrounding how the text of Shakespeare is transformed into other languages, even as we examine Shakespeare himself – and Ben Jonson, in one essay – as a kind of translator of previous times, older stories, and prior theatrical and linguistic systems. This collection of essays addresses the place of Shakespeare in the context of translation, and it contains a wide variety of approaches to a set of basic questions: How can Shakespeare be offered to the multicultural present in which we live? How did Shakespeare participate in translations of the past? And how might we relate our position to that of our iconic poet: by analogy, adaptation, imitation, memory, or rebellion? Underlying these questions are broader theoretical concerns, particularly with respect to the varied array of studies that fall within the category of presentism, and how these approaches might be connected to the theory of translation. Presentist methodologies have predominated Shakespeare studies in recent years, and that work has served to interrogate and frame more traditional methodologies.1 If presentism is by its nature aware of modern cultural environments of reading, teaching, and performance, how can it cope with Shakespeare’s own sense of his present moment, and what does it stand to gain by doing so? What

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sorts of rifts between the present and the past coincide with gaps of language, then and now? To what extent is the past, including Shakespeare, “present”? And finally, what do we do with the strangely ordinary word at the end of the last question, between scare quotes, a word that denotes both physical existence – not absent – and temporal immediacy – neither past nor future? Presentism by necessity copes with who is present in our society, theatres, and classrooms, and it also copes with what is present, what is happening in our moment. Are such concerns fundamentally in tension with historical approaches? It is tempting to see the concerns of our current, quite chaotic social environment as fundamentally at odds with the grammar and vocabulary of the past, which at least have the appearance of being comparatively stable. One recent critic has made a case for linguistic study in tones that sound unmistakably plaintive: “How can the plays speak to us at all if we forget their language?”2 That notion of forgetting pointedly registers the sense of a widening gap between the current and the political and the old and the linguistic. The overarching aim of this book is to challenge the apparent gap between our world and the archive by offering some readings of translation as a bridge between those two ostensibly diverging positions. Translation, in the widest sense of the word, links previous texts with more recent ones, but also history with our moment, foreign worlds with native ones, and determined pasts with indeterminate futures. Some of the chapters that follow are written by prominent translators of Shakespeare in Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Japan, and China, some are written by theatrical practitioners, and still others are written by historians of literature and translation. Indeed, one of the gaps that we seek to bridge is between people who “do” translation and people who study it. In the first half of this book, we include the perspectives of people who wrestle with linguistic translation as it has been traditionally defined, and we also include directors who work to put Shakespeare on stage in a different kind of transformation. In the second section, we include a contrasting and complementary set of chapters from literary scholars who study how translation and Shakespeare have crossed paths. In light of such questions, this introduction can be framed by an examination of two very different topics: the first is a few instances of the word now in Shakespeare, and the second involves a particular early modern book (more on that later) that carries the traces of previous temporalities in its physical form. What did “now” mean for Shakespeare? In a variety of moments, Shakespeare either particularizes or generalizes his sense of immediacy. In the former, he gives his characters language that either insists 4

Introduction

on an intense present or almost as emphatically rejects the present for a sense of another time. In the latter mode, he offers the “now” as a diffuse, generalized reference to the way things are, broadly. As an example of first category, the intensification of the present, Iago wants to share vividly with Brabantio (via enargia) a scene he imagines to be taking place elsewhere in Venice, where the senator’s daughter is (supposedly) in the carnal embrace of a racialized other: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe” (1.1.86–7).3 Physically speaking, Brabantio cannot see this, because it is not happening here, and of course under the veil of metaphor probably not happening at all. In another instance of a character intensifying her experience and eliding her surroundings to grasp at an imagined future, Lady Macbeth greets her husband thus: Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant. (1.5.52–4, italics added) Lady Macbeth discards the “present” in favour of the “now.” She does so not so much to erase the moment of her speech, but rather to experience it, quite intensely, as a fusion of itself and the future she imagines; she wishes to collapse time in a way that is similar to how Iago wants to collapse place. Indeed, her character often hovers between temporal frames, as she does when she attempts to wash blood from her hands after it is physically absent, and indeed she also seems to live in the future when she proleptically describes the “murky” nature of Hell (5.1.31). In the instance above, she claims her present as a kind of dull substitute for a more vital “future” and past (“have transported”), frames that seem more eidetically real. Her point is similar when she chides her husband, suggesting that when he lacked an opportunity to kill Duncan, he could more easily be motivated to do so, but once time and place have made that action convenient, “They have made themselves, and that their fitness now / Does unmake you” (1.7.53–4, italics added). Like Iago, she casts eroticism as something that is most powerful when imagined and abstract, a rejection of the present and tangible, connecting Macbeth’s lack of manly performance to his physical and temporal proximity to the deed. Iago and Lady Macbeth thus offer sexually connotative ways to understand the present, and for both of them it is something to escape, either through an erasure of physical distance or by seeing the temporal present as mere diaphanous veil to a more real past or future. 5

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By contrast, the second range of meanings associated with the word now in Shakespeare can be witnessed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bottom offers a more flexible approximation of the present experience of other times. As he entertains the amorous Titania, Bottom comically opines that “reason and love keep little company together nowadays” (3.1.281–2); the joke, in part, is that while he sees Titania’s love for him at that moment to be irrational, we in the audience know his aperçu on the estrangement between love and reason to be true for other characters in the play, and also for a much wider theatre, and a much larger span of time. The point is not so much that love is irrational at that particular moment, but rather that Bottom is calmly assessing how love works. Something like the effect of Bottom’s line is felt in 2 Henry IV, 1.2; some context is required. In the latter part first part of Henry IV, Hotspur had gone to battle with the promise that his father Northumberland would accompany him, and when that promise was not fulfilled, Hotspur died in rebellion. At the beginning of the second part, the false news of hope precedes true news of loss. Relative to Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2 Henry IV has very different reasons to disrupt the direct flow of time onstage, but a similar configuration of the present time can be found. When Northumberland finally hears the true report of his son’s death at the hands of Prince Hal, he launches into a speech of rage and grief that is both real, in that his son is dead, and simulated, in that he expected this outcome and is largely responsible for it. As he knowingly abandoned his son on the battlefield, he should not be surprised to hear that an overmatched rebellion met a bloody end. The tension inherent in his effort to assert immediacy in his reaction is evident in his repeated use of the word “now.” Over the course of lines 143–4, he uses the word four times, marked by my italics. ... my limbs, Weakened with grief, being now enraged with grief, Are thrice themselves. Hence therefore, thou nice crutch! A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel Must glove this hand. And hence, thou sickly coif! That art a guard too wanton for the head Which princes fleshed with conquest aim to hit. Now bind my brows with iron, and approach The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring To frown upon th’ enraged Northumberland! Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature’s hand Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die! 6

Introduction

As noted, the third instance is when he exclaims, “A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel / Must glove this hand” (1.2.146–7). Whatever the word now means in that sentence, it certainly does not refer to the moment when it is spoken: no effort to don armour occurs in the scene. The extravagant melodrama of his announced grief is evident in the final instance. Umfrevile responds to this speech drily, “This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord” (1.1.161).4 The joke is darker than that involving Bottom, but the structure is similar. Both scenes contain characters who use the word now in such a way that the themes in their respective speeches shine on the speaker as well as the respective plays more generally. Northumberland’s broken promise, hypocrisy, and tendency to ostentatious histrionics echo much more broadly in the play as a whole, just as the casual alignment of love and madness resonates much more warmly toward Bottom’s comedy. 2 Henry IV, after all, culminates in an awkwardly timed truce that results in a slaughter, and in general the play exists in a liminal space between Hal’s reformation and his succession as king; Hal repents his loose living, then returns to it. “Now” is deeply displaced in the play as a whole. A similar use of the word is notable in the first line of The Tragedy of Richard the Third. In that moment, Hal’s cousin, at that moment Richard, duke of Gloucester, famously laments, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York” (1.1.1–2). Like Northumberland, Richard uses the word to refer to the general condition of his life; the meaning of the sentence would be the same if Richard’s “now” were replaced by Bottom’s “nowadays.” The key difference between these two valences of the word now is that the first is particularized and physically immediate. Iago and Lady Macbeth may not be referring to events that the audience can literally see, but they put intense pressure on the imagination of other characters, and the audience, to see them as present in the physical sense, even if they are not visible – to see them. Bottom and Northumberland, on the other hand, speak not of themselves so much as of the worlds from which they come, and they speak not so much from the immediate present as from a position displaced from physical and temporal immediacy. They ask, whether honestly or not, that we know things, not that we see them.5 Several years ago, Jonathan Gil Harris, following the work of Michel Serres, offered a seminal bifurcation of the critical understanding of material objects and their relation to time. Anchoring his work on the Archimedes Palimpsest, Harris distinguished between the polychronic and the multi-temporal.6 Essentially, a polychronic object bears physical traces of multiple times, in the form of ink, partial erasure, damage 7

Shakespeare in Succession

and refabrication, while the multi-temporal alludes to the different ways of understanding time prompted in the present moment by such objects that protrude from the past into our world. That distinction has proved particularly useful, as the past decade has been fascinated with materiality and also with presentism; Harris’s work bridges the two. It is a presentist approach that acknowledges the often-urgent force of the moment in which we live, while it offers a particularly useful way to frame the objects of our study. In a sense, all literary artifacts are palimpsests, and if framed thus, we are encouraged to consider the present even as we take leaps into the history and texts of the past. This kind of theory is as productive to the historical study of Shakespeare as it is to the modern performance of his plays. While it may once have been possible to study the past without acknowledging the present, and to stage Shakespeare in ways that ignore current events, the ethics of such archival work are at least conservational, if not conservative, and as such they now being openly questioned, and with good reason. More recently, Zachary Lesser has examined a rather odd instance of textual transfer known as “Xerox books,” as an instance of a “polychronous” object that speaks not only to the early modern books it preserves, and to the modern scholars who use them, but also to many other stages of mediation between the two.7 He outlines how early modern books were photographed – and those images transformed into microform reels – and then subsequently reassembled in a form both like and unlike the traditional codices from which they came. His examination points to the ways in which those “polychronous” and now digital objects bear traces of various intermediary times and in turn influence subsequent historiography; those Xerox books mediated the early modern texts that helped to shape the perception of the past in the days of New Historicism. In his history of the critical experience of the past, he calls attention to the “vestigial materiality” of different stages of transfer, as a way of understanding how the normative media of one time, in this case that of the Xerox machine, can affect the material by which we understand the distant past through the lens of the Early English Books Online (eebo ) database. Zachary Lesser can be said to offer an accounting for the connective tissue that binds the polychronous with the multi-temporal. By documenting an epistemological history of critical methodology and the (im)material forms of evidence, Lesser provides an accounting for the various interventions that mediate and qualify transfers that appear to be photographic, imminent, and “searchable.” Such historical work does 8

Introduction

not really touch on translation, traditionally understood. The sort of transfer that such historicist work examines is marked by temporality, not language, and if history is the goal, it is understandable, if limiting, to conceive of the transfer of textual transfer narrowly: “Every copy introduces the possibility of error,”8 and such errors can only be compounded upon each other, like a game of telephone, or like an original that is photocopied to produce a piece of paper that is in turn copied, producing an ever-receding trace of the original form. It was once common to understand the whole idea of translation as such a process of loss and recovery in these terms, but the theory of translation has long since moved beyond that model of lapsarian reproduction. It is now accepted that original versions of early modern texts must be, to some extent, “translated” via typography and annotation to be legible even to native English speakers. Furthermore, the ethnocentrism inherent in viewing linguistic translations of Shakespeare as derivative or inadequate has given way to a revaluation and celebration of the ways in which Shakespeare has been welcomed in languages, idioms, and cultures around the world. As Linda Hutcheon puts it, in such transplantation, “Local particularities become transplanted to new ground, and something new and hybrid results.”9 To complement this valorization of the adventitious and the new, a re-examination of Shakespeare himself is overdue. The familiar fact that he was a creator of poetry but not stories generally is worthy of more careful attention; his role as an intermediary creator, a translator, can usefully be revived. Lesser’s concept of vestigial materiality can usefully be applied to the broader array of textual transmission, including language transfer. Such a claim might appear at first to be self-evident. Languages are historically bound, related to one another in genealogical patterns, and marked by internal transformations of the kind that differentiate early modern English from Middle English and so on. Any artifact from the past could be seen as polychronic in its language, inasmuch as it contains words, grammar, and lexically bound concepts that originate in multiple times, societies, and epistemes. It could also be seen to result in the modern edition, which is a quintessentially multi-temporal object, reflecting and producing multiple understandings of time and its relation to the poetic imagination. What lies between the material artifact from the past and its epistemic configurations in the present is a vestigial materiality that is as much linguistic as it is technological.10 During what is sometimes called the “twelfth-century renaissance,” theologians found great inspiration in the works of Aristotle. Aristotle’s 9

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habit of organizational clarity was deeply compatible with an expanding and increasingly ambitious Catholic culture. As that movement gave way to the development of Scholastic philosophy, the prominent English cleric Robert Grosseteste warned of the danger inherent in embracing the pagan philosopher through intermediary Latin versions and incorporating them into church teachings. Clerics interested in Aristotle should, in Grosseteste’s view, take care to go to the Greek original and also be mindful of the spiritual gap that corresponds to the linguistic one, between a heathen and foreign world, on the one hand, and a Catholic and native one, on the other. Non igitur se decipiant et frustra desudent ut Aristotilem faciant catholicum, ne inutiliter tempus suum et vires ingenii consumant, et Aristotilem catholicum constituendo, se ipsos hereticos faciant.11 They should not deceive themselves and toil away at making Aristotle into a Catholic, or they will fruitlessly use up their time and strength of mind, and while they make a Catholic of Aristotle, will make heretics of themselves.12 Grosseteste’s concern was doctrinal and soteriological but also linguistic and historical. There is no such thing as a neutral translation or a timeless one, so it is impossible to import Aristotle’s philosophy into the Catholic Church without bias, without investment, without risk of gain or loss. To ignore that gap is to risk stepping into it. The bias that Grosseteste warns of is clear enough: it was the prevailing assumption that, from the point of view of the medieval present, all great past thinkers must inevitably think something similar to, or something that inevitably leads to, what the present thinker knows to be true. So a Catholic commenting on Aristotle is tempted to assume that the Greek philosopher could see an obscured and partial but fundamentally true perspective on the world. Grosseteste warns that this is not necessarily so. Just as originals can be lost in bad translations, so too can translators be lost in good ones. In other words, if the (for Grosseteste) modern cleric seeks to make Aristotle his own, he must do so in a chiastic encounter that can easily be reversed. In seeking to harmonize the pagan with the Christian, the credulous cleric can risk overlooking the gap between the two, a gap that should be fundamental to the ancient philosopher’s work as it arrives in the present. It would seem at first that Grosseteste’s perspective is very different from ours. He saw the study of the past as fundamentally an issue of 10

Introduction

spiritual health, and that way of approaching literature is not the mode of the modern university. But from another perspective, his trepidation resonates with our moment. Shakespeare is to us what Aristotle was to Grosseteste: a source of tremendous cultural authority and creative energy that belongs to a world that precedes us, something taken to authorize us, and something that draws inexorably further away from us. Some modern translators might want to lose themselves in translation and thus to present Shakespeare in a form that feels directly and powerfully real, even if it takes place in a language Shakespeare never heard of, or with theatrical genres he did not know. But other translators, including some whose work contributes to this present book, do not wish to erase themselves but instead want to see their ethical position as, if not salvific, clearly distinct from the early modern white English past.13 To borrow from the vocabulary of Grosseteste, they wish to translate Shakespeare with care and suspicion, and quite deliberately to avoid reproducing harmful effects that the Bard arguably could not foresee or fully understand – to name just one ethical problem (addressed in this book by Iolanda Plescia), the potential for Taming of the Shrew to advance misogyny. Misogyny is a heresy that we justly want to reject, as is the anti-Semitism inherent in The Merchant of Venice and the racism that echoes through Titus Andronicus and Othello. If we try too hard to salvage an image of Shakespeare as somehow above these problems, we risk advancing the problems ourselves. If, through euphemistic nuances of translation, footnotes, and performance, we try to hide the problems of the original plays, we are being loyal to the Bard and heretical to the ethical imperatives of the present. One of our contributors, José Francisco Botelho, meditates on the Italian maxim, “Traduttore, traditore” (Translator, traitor). Sometimes, treason is good, or, to put it another way, sometimes a translator must choose between treason and heresy. At this point it is useful to examine a particular book. Claudius Hollyband (a.k.a. Desainliens) was a prolific Huguenot teacher and author of French primers, including the octavo A Treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the French tongue (1580). As he explains in one of the prefatory epistles, this book is part of a four-part series, including “de pronūtiatione linguæ Gallicæ, for the learned in the Latin tongue: and in my frenche Litelton, for th’unlearned,”14 and his most recent French-English dictionary. He offers a conceit of these three books constituting three walls of a house, which receives its fourth wall in his present book, for which he uses the word declining where modern grammarians would say conjugating. The conceit is a bit forced, since it takes four walls to make a complete house, 11

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and any particular reader would either know Latin or not, so one of the walls would be unnecessary. Nevertheless, if the point of instruction is generalized, this book seeks to complete the English reader’s skills in French usage, and the text that follows this conceit provides practical skills in applying French skills to engender that. An obvious challenge is how to communicate the French use of the subjunctive mood, which has only a weak place in English usage. Some insight into how such tutelage happens can be found in an internal page. In Hollyband’s French primer, the page is laid out with vertical and horizontal text (on p. 63, fig. 0.1). Hollyband intends these perpendicular texts to enable the active construction of sentences; through the vertical English text, Hollyband is trying to explain what the subjunctive is, in a functional sense. The challenge is that the mood is often invisible in the English sentences this layout describes. For example, a reader could construct the sentence, using vertical and horizontal texts, “I pray to God that we will go,” and its French equivalent, “Ie praie à Dieu que nous voulions aller.” In order for the reader to learn French, she must understand her English sentence to contain a subjunctive that would not otherwise be evident; “we will go” looks like a future indicative. The vertical text helps to explain but also disrupt the native use of English in order to situate a form that French uses much more. In addition to this, some confusion appears to result from the choice of the verb “vouloir” here. This could be translated as either “want” or “will,” and for this reason the page ends up being very difficult to process into fluency. French uses conjugations for the future, whereas English borrows a modal auxiliary in such a way that it can be ambiguous whether one is referring to desire or futurity. “Will you go in?” is a question that could mean either alternative; in French, more clarity is required. One can say in English, “I pray to God that he will [future] go” or “I pray to God that he wants [desire] to go.” All of that makes it difficult for this page to establish an equivalence that would allow an English speaker to learn French. Further, the English subjunctive can be introduced by a verb that looks exactly like the future modal auxiliary, “will.” For example, in 2 Henry VI, the king says, “We give thee for reward a thousand marks, / And will that thou henceforth attend on us” (5.1.79– 80). In that quotation, the conjunction “that” is crucial. It is hard to tell precisely what sentence is intended to be shown on the page reproduced here. Reading the page directly, the section titled “Subjunctive present” appears to be, in fact, the indicative present – though the horizontal text under that phrase might be intended as a reminder on how to conjugate 12

0.1 Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580).

0.2 Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580).

0.3 Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580).

Shakespeare in Succession

the verb that frames the subjunctive. At any rate, it is very possible that the printer of this book was confused about how to transfer Hollyband’s notes into type. The copy of this book that resides at the University Library in Cambridge (belonging to the Peterborough Cathedral Library) is bound in a vellum manuscript fragment of St Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, with textual affinity to the eleventh lectio of the fifth book of Aquinas’s Commentary (figs. 0.2, 0.3).15 It constitutes a witness to Aquinas’s text that as far as I know has not been noted by recent editors. I am indebted to my uncle Paul Saenger for his assistance in identifying and dating this fragment, which in its own right warrants further study. Here I want to observe that its status as a material object shows the traces of different times, languages, and perspectives. The leaf was evidently used indiscriminately, but what we now have is a curiously preserved book containing pages from at least two centuries, the turn of the fourteenth and the turn of the seventeenth, and texts from three: those two times and the underlying age of Aristotle. It is beyond the scope of the present introduction to place this manuscript in relation to the textual transmission of Aquinas. Its survival is a happy accident; it was almost certainly used simply as a protective cover. The book it forms a part of, however, is a fascinating example of Harris’s concept of a polychronic object. Aristotle’s Greek is the basis for Aquinas’s Latin, in whatever degree of derivation from the original this may turn out to be. The covering is both a material shield and an adventitious text. As vellum, it protects Hollyband’s book, and that book by Hollyband mediates between the reader’s known English and a tentative exploration and acquisition of French, and thus between the clumsy and relatively simple English system of mood and tense and the more structured and formal conjugations necessary to speak French. If we read the volume as a whole, as one object, it thus captures a moment, probably during Shakespeare’s lifetime, when various layers of the past were captured in a book that points toward future fluency, a book that further navigates, from various positions of intent and knowledge, Greek, Latin, English, and French. It thus offers a window into the past that testifies to the inchoate nature of the moment of when it was read, and it carries the intentional and accidental traces of the past even as it offers a potential of future fluency in a different tongue. Like the plays of Shakespeare that anchor and inspire this volume, it was intended to create future speech,16 and it bore known and unknown stowaways from the past.17 16

Introduction

One could discuss the book as a historian of the book would, dividing an analysis into sections of descriptive and analytic bibliography, provenance, and content. But such divisions would force odd distinctions on to the object of study: Is it a manuscript or a book? It is obviously both. Is the author Hollyband or Aquinas? Again, both. What was its intended use? That last question is even more complicated, because answering it would require us to prioritize one moment of its textual life among a set of such moments that are mutually incongruous, and also to prioritize one text over another, and to establish a relationship between various moments of intentionality and accident. If that book can be seen as a polychronic object analogous to Shakespeare, it can also be seen as a piece of evidence from the past that usefully challenges the boundaries engendered by academic disciplines. The exploration of Shakespeare’s use of the word now points to two different ways of understanding the present, and the following analysis of the Cambridge book points to different ways of understanding the past. Broadly speaking, the now of Iago and Lady Macbeth is a model of the present that pertains to performance, which forms the first half of this book, and the now of Bottom and Gloucester points to a mode of reflection that permits the contemplation of historical change, strangeness, and succession in the past, which forms the second half. The discussion of Hollyband, Grosseteste, and Aquinas adumbrates some of the ways in which we can look at Shakespeare’s relationship to previous and subsequent languages, cultures, and points of view, which helps to explain the title of this edited collection. The first part of the title frames the overall project as a study of the relationship between Shakespeare and succession: How does Shakespeare process earlier modes? How do subsequent cultures process his work? How do those relationships connect with competing models of agency, language, and culture? Such a challenge to disciplinary boundaries is at the heart of this collection of essays. The origin of this volume was a seminar that the editors of this book organized in Rome at the European Shakespeare Research Association conference in the summer of 2019. There, we shared papers from translators with papers from literary historians and found that we were discussing many of the same issues, chief among them a keen interest in the present moment. Our interest in the present moment shared some common elements: the translators wanted to make Shakespeare relevant to modern readers, not only by speaking their language but also by recognizing and in various ways signalling the debt that the present moment owes to the past. The literary historians, on the other hand, 17

Shakespeare in Succession

were conscious of at least two moments in history: the moment in the past when Shakespeare encountered translation, and our own moment, when that encounter is analyzed and discussed. All of us shared a concern for multiple languages and the ways in which they destabilize and are destabilized by senses of time, which explains the title of the volume. By “Shakespeare in Succession” we point to the ways in which historical frames of reference come after previous ones, a sequence that could be seen as causal, expansive, progressive, regressive, or simply different. By that phrase, we point to Shakespeare’s relationship to literary development (thus the relevance of Rome and Jonson), and also to Shakespeare’s presence in subsequent translation (successive versions of Shakespeare).18 The second part of the title alludes to the two issues that dominate this volume. Interdisciplinarity is at the heart of this study. Translators of Shakespeare normally write about their own translations in the introductions to those volumes, and the voices of theatrical practitioners are rarely integrated into collections such as the present volume. That separation may be due to academic departmentalization and the business of publishing and theatre, but it makes little sense given how much shared interest exists between translators, theatrical practitioners, and literary historians working on Shakespeare’s debt to previous authors. Theatre historians who study the adaptation of Shakespeare – indeed, many of the authors of the present volume (notably, Botelho, Sergio Costola, Plescia) – belong to more than one of those categories. To connect Shakespeare with the theory of translation, we have joined these four perspectives by including translators and practitioners in the first half of the book, and by including both work on Shakespeare’s treatment of language and the history of translating Shakespeare in the second half. We offer the essays from translators and practitioners first, because these authors are most immediately concerned with questions of relevance and the impact of texts now, and we have followed with the section of chapters from literary historians, who write in a different idiom but share many of the same concerns.  Such a collaboration should be situated within the field of Shakespeare and translation, where there has been a discernible tendency to disrupt any association between the Bard and nationalism. Based on grounds of historical accuracy alone, studies by Anne Coldiron and Richard Hillman and others have for some time viewed Shakespeare as an interlingual, European writer.19 That interest in a decentred, and to a large extent denationalized, Shakespeare has been fuelled more recently by the urgency of immigration as an ethical and political imperative. To this has 18

Introduction

been added a renewed interest in language as it relates to immigration and translation, as recorded in the early modern period and as experienced in our time and at many intervening points of interest. When such studies have focused on European perspectives on Shakespeare, they have, understandably, often adopted something like a chiastic design, such as Shaul Bassi’s Shakespeare’s Italy and Italy’s Shakespeare.20 Much of this work provides the basis of the current collection, but no other monograph or collection integrates the kind of multidisciplinary perspective that we offer here, which holds a great deal of promise as a way to approach this set of issues. Shakespeare has been decentred with respect to the idea of a nation, as well as the idea of national languages, as witnessed by an increased interest in dialect and hybrid media of various kinds; the former is reflected in the chapters of Miguel Ángel Montezanti and Botelho, and the latter in the chapter by Zhiyan Zhang and Carl A. Robertson. In general, the interest that has proliferated in Shakespeare in translation operates without any consensus or universal trend as to how Shakespeare should be translated or performed, or even how to understand those translations and performances. While we have tried to draw from various continents, we have made no mandate that the authors speak about a national tradition of receiving Shakespeare. We conclude with Alexa Alice Joubin’s discussion of the profound and radiant panoply of spaces and gaps between languages, gaps of time and place that both trouble and enrich the production of meaning. The preceding discussion of the meaning of the word now in Shakespeare established that the word can either invoke an intense, vivid sense of urgency or allude to a generalized, static assessment of how things are. Harris offers two ways of understanding time from a critical point of view, and they both align with those two ways of understanding the word now. The polychronic is like Iago’s deictic conjurations, in that it presents an object, in that case an imaginary one, as part of an irrevocably linear progression of time: Brabantio might or might not be able to stop that event, but its progression is presented as a given. The multi-temporal, on the other hand, aligns with the way “now” is used by Bottom: his own moment of saying the line is merely an instance of a reflective and paradoxical relationship between the past and the future. Bottom’s physical experience of his moment is not particularly distinguishable from the past or future, but it invites such multi-temporal reflection; his “now,” like Northumberland’s, is not really an event at all. That alignment between Shakespeare and Harris can be taken as emblematic of the 19

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analogy between poet and critic; each of them confront these two senses of the present moment, though they do so from different perspectives. That parity between creator and critic is a key organizing principle of this book, which contains the voices of creators, followed by those of critics. However useful, that division is also necessarily reductive. The second section is titled “Theorizing Translation,” but of course many of the essays in the first section do that, and similarly the first section is focused on adaptation, though many essays in the second section concern more historical perspectives on that same idea. The perspectives of Lesser and Grosseteste provide another layer in the foundation of the chapters that follow. In different ways, Lesser and Grosseteste look at the distortions that come with differences in time, material, and language. Both of them put a sharp focus on the moment when the historian looks at the past; she sees something from the past she thinks is clearly visible – the eebo book, Aristotle – but that sense of clarity hides gaps and adjustments that intervening events have caused. The perspectives of Lesser and Grosseteste are thus useful in a way that builds on the two senses of time outlined above. Translators, theatrical practitioners, and literary critics must all cope with distortions and loyalties; Lesser and Grosseteste provide two useful ways of approaching how that can or should be done. Put together, all these authors explored in the introduction demonstrate that the present moment is both urgent and historical, both linguistically ours (whoever “we” are) and strange, both mediated and immediate. We have divided this volume into contributions by practitioners and historians, broadly speaking, and such a division accurately captures the themes addressed in a wide variety of languages, cultures, and artistic forms. The essays could easily have been grouped in other ways. Several of the essays here address the aurality of translation. Botelho’s discussion of verse forms, as well as Marcus Kyd’s discussion of music and rhythm, are notable examples. In addition, Sarah Roberts’s engagement with how English and African languages sound in a collaborative theatrical space resonates with Montezanti’s experimentation with a rendition of Shakespeare in a dialect that does not carry the same weight of cultural value afforded to peninsular Spanish.21 Parody can easily be perceived even when it is not intended, because texts often find themselves caught between languages and dialects that have a pre-existing mutual bias; as Linda Hutcheon observes, “If an adaptation is perceived as ‘lowering’ a story (according to some imagined hierarchy of medium or genre), response is likely to be negative.”22 Both Niels Brunse and Hiromi Fuyuki 20

Introduction

are concerned with how a translated text might sound, in Danish and in Japanese, and both are accordingly concerned with how the text can be read on the page, a process which no translator, and no author, can fully control. We might, as well, have organized essays to cohere with the theme of the place and time of the interpreter. Costola draws attention to the history of theatrical scholarship, how the position of the current historian of Shakespeare is in part determined by preceding centuries, as well as the emphasis once placed on interpreting English texts as primarily autonomous. In similar ways, Zoltán Márkus addresses his own position as an interpreter of a Shakespeare who seemed to shift from Hungary to England, and also the interpretation of Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Task of the Translator” as it inherits previous mistranslations. From a more activist point of view, both Plescia and Roberts see their roles as interpreters who owe an ethical debt to the present as well as the literature of the past. Certainly, Zhang and Robertson, as well as Fuyuki, focus on the adaptor as an agent who acts on behalf of a native culture at least as much as of an imported text. Finally, several of these essays could be grouped together under the theme of liminality. Michael Saenger posits Roman theatre as itself liminal, and both Shakespeare and Jonson as similarly liminal creators who both imitate and create on the basis of Plautus and Terence. For Rangping Ji and Wei Feng, the role of the Lambs’ Shakespeare is a fascinating case of liminality, as it permits a translation into Chinese that is free to embrace native artistic forms and title formulas. Finally, for Montezanti, the Argentinian Riverplate dialect is itself a liminal linguistic space, offering both opportunities and challenges for translation that mediates between the original text of Shakespeare and the subjective connotations of non-peninsular Spanish. That these essays could be seen as cohering to these themes, each of which cuts across the binary we have used to structure this volume, underlines the fecundity of this field of study, as well as the fundamental coherence of the variety of authors represented in these pages. notes 1 For a particularly incisive definition of presentism, see Gabriel Egan, “The Presentist Threat to Editions of Shakespeare,” in Shakespeare and the Urgency of Now: Criticism and Theory in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Cary DiPietro and Hugh Grady (Basingstoke, uk : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 38–59. In

21

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2

3

4

5

6

7

capturing how presentism has been both a pejorative and a methodological term, Egan suggests that that tension reflects a binary that remains a defining feature of the term, in reality as well as perception. As he puts it, “There are good and bad ways to be Presentist” (38), thus avowing an open moralism that would rarely be allowed of any other critical approach. While defining the approach primarily in terms of objectivist historiography as well as various forms of historicism, Egan is continually aware of its potential to fold into solipsistic celebrations of the present rather than foreground sophisticated mediations of criticism with a past, cultural tradition, and moment of reading. At another point, Egan sets forth presentism as a kind of historiography and frames this distinction again in moral terms: “Done properly, historicism bridges the gap between past meanings and present ones” (40, my italics). Lynne Magnussen, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Language, ed. Magnussen with David Schalkwyk (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), ix. Citations to Shakespeare, unless otherwise noted, are to Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, and Gabriel Egan, eds, The New Oxford Shakespeare (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). In a number of cases, contributors to Shakespeare in Succession work from other editions, and in these cases the editions used have been noted. Umfreville refers to Northumberland’s reception of the news as a “strained passion” in the line that follows 1.2.160. The editors of the New Oxford Shakespeare print that line but do not give it a line number because, they argue, it may have been marked for deletion. This distinction between valences of the word now is lexical in other languages. For example, there is a distinction between the words ahora and ahorita in Spanish, but that distinction varies widely between different dialects of Spanish. In Mexico, ahorita most often means “soon.” Mendel Marasow notes in personal conversation that “in Yiddish ‫ רעטציא‬mean right away and ‫ טצעי‬or ‫ רעדניצא‬can mean it’s just happened or just was. ‫ דלאב‬... has a much broader meaning [than the] ... English now.” Jonathan Gil Harris, Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 1–25. Joshua Smith has recently used this distinction and refined it. In his terms, the polychronic is linear, and “each moment builds upon the past” whereas the multi-temporal mode admits for a much more flexible experience of the future, past and present. Smith, “The Ring as an Object Lesson in Temporality and Genre in Romeo and Juliet,” English Literary Renaissance 49 (2019): 74. Zachary Lesser, “Xeroxing the Renaissance: The Material Text of Early Modern Studies,” Shakespeare Quarterly 70 (2019): 3–31.

22

Introduction 8 Ibid., 4. 9 Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2006), 150. 10 Paula Blank has made this argument, suggesting that even the most educated native speakers of English cannot read Shakespeare’s words without also reading the ways in which a shared culture “hears” those words; she suggests that such an encounter should not be repressed but, rather, discussed and made a more openly theorized part of our research and pedagogy – this is what she terms intrelinguistics; Blank, “Introducing ‘Intrelinguistics’: Shakespeare and Early/Modern English,” in Interlinguicity, Internationality and Shakespeare, ed. Michael Saenger (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), 138–55. 11 Robert Grosseteste, Hexaëmeron, ed. Richard Dales and Servus Gieven (London: Oxford University Press, 1982), 61. 12 Robert Grosseteste, On the Six Days of Creation: A Translation of the Hexaëmeron, trans. C.F.J. Martin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 59. 13 Miguel Ramalhete Gomes has suggested that the response of Portuguese theatre to the financial crisis following 2008 pointed to opportunities and problems of presentist translation. In a production of Timon of Athens, references to debt present in the original play were elided in favour of an emphasis on gold; this strategy produced a play that fused the intentions of Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, and a younger Marx in an effort to confront capitalism. A different take was attempted in a more radical updating of Macbeth, where personal and even psychological greed was set forth as a metonym for the structural problems of the trade in derivatives. Such efforts, in Gomes’s view, sideline both economic information and Renaissance theatre in the rendition of “naïve cultural translation of the financial crisis into Shakespearean theater” (91); “Presentism and Its Discontents: Cultural Translations of the Financial Crisis through Macbeth and Timon of Athens,” Shakespeare Studies 46 (2018): 84–93. 14 Claudius Hollyband, A treatise for declining of verbes, which may be called the second chiefest worke of the french tongue (London, 1580). The copy in question is at the Rare Books Reading Room at the University Library, Cambridge University. It belongs to the Peterborough collection. There are two copies of this book there; the one given attention here is shelfmark E.5.3. The other copy is E.5.4. This quotation is from the recto of Aiii, which is also marked page 5. 15 Compare with Thomae Aquinatis, Complectens Expositionem: In Decem libros Ethicorum et In Octo Libros Politicorum (Rome, 1570), 98; also see Thomæ Aquinatis, Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1875), 388. 16 Play texts, like language primers, offer a text that is designed to be spoken naturally by the reader, whether that reader is a connoisseur of plays or an actor in the months after the play was written. They thus point toward the

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17

18

19

20

future, and though Shakespeare’s plays have extended much further than many could have imagined, his continued life in translated form can be seen as an extension of texts that were from inscription designed to be spoken. Margaret Tudeau-Clayton argues that Shakespeare consciously advocated for a pluralistic vision of the English language, suggesting that he saw “‘our English’ as a mobile, inclusive, mixed language/community”; Tudeau-Clayton, Shakespeare’s Englishes against Englishness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 6. An important precedent for this kind of work is Oana-Alis Zaharia’s, which has studied the path texts took to Shakespeare in conjunction with the subsequent transformations and “reworkings” that other cultures performed in adapting and translating Shakespeare. Zaharia attributes some of Shakespeare’s fecundity to his choice to receive previous texts, like those of Machiavelli, from neither a positive nor negative perspective, but rather from both. Like Michel de Montaigne, Shakespeare embraced the “duality and ambiguity” (21), of contentious writers and traditions he encountered. This, in turn, facilitated the efforts of subsequent translators. Zaharia also locates Shakespeare’s particular interest in the place of language in relation to national identity as another pivotal commonality that subsequent translators would exploit: “Like the English sixteenth century, the Romanian nineteenth century is a period marked by the emergence and forging of a national language and identity” (28). Her first point is an extension of Keats’s concept of negative capability into a range of political issues. Her second justification for this kind of study of Shakespeare across translations that precede and follow him is especially interesting, because she implies that Shakespeare’s very particular and overwhelming investment in English as a linguistic and cultural medium is, ironically, an asset to subsequent translators working in other cultures and other languages. Zaharia, Cultural Reworkings and Translations in/of Shakespeare’s Plays (Bucharest: Pro Universitaria, 2015). Anne Coldiron, Shakespeare without Borders: Translation and Textuality in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Richard Hillman, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Politics of France (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). See also Michael Saenger, Shakespeare and the French Borders of English (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Shaul Bassi, Shakespeare’s Italy and Italy’s Shakespeare: Place, “Race,” Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). See also Ruben Espinosa and David Ruiter’s edited collection, Shakespeare and Immigration (Farnham, uk : Ashgate, 2014), which comprises essays about immigrants in Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as an overt concern for immigration now. In the most recent volume of Shakespeare Studies, András Kiséry writes of the essays in a special

24

Introduction topic issue: “Some of the essays [in Espinosa and Ruiter’s collection] rely on notions of literary systems, [and] they emphatically invoke polysystems rather than unitary or hierarchical structure”; Kiséry, “English among the Literatures of Early Modernity,” Shakespeare Studies 48 (2020): 22. 21 Sameh Hanna has explored a similar field of linguistic transfer in the translation of Shakespeare into Arabic. Hanna notes that the use of Classical Arabic (fusha) has for some time been used for tragedies, whereas Egyptian colloquial dialect (‘ammiyya) has been used for comedies. Although linguists tend to view such distinctions of legitimacy to be irrelevant to the function of dialects and languages, translators are keenly aware of them and often find themselves challenging the bases of the social hierarchies with which they are associated. Hanna, “Othello in the Egyptian Vernacular: Negotiating the ‘Doxic’ in Drama Translation and Identity Formation,” Translator 15 (2009): 158. 22 Hutcheon, Theory of Adaptation, 3.

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part 1

Translation and Adaptation The first half of the volume includes authors who have recently translated Shakespeare into another language, and also those who have translated the Bard in a more theatrical sense, moving the plays into modern performance spaces. These chapters are largely dependent on the authors’ personal work, so they are not generally saturated in the typical citation style of academic essays. As editors, our hope is that these chapters will be particularly useful to readers who are interested in historical stagecraft and linguistic translation, and also to the academic study of these plays and the theory of translation in relation to Shakespeare. There has been at times an unfortunate division between literary scholars, theatrical practitioners, and working translators. We find these gaps to be counterproductive, and we have arranged this book so that our authors can speak in conversation with one another and with a wide range of readers. In “In the Beginning Was the Verse: A Personal Testimony on the Adventurous Task of Translating Shakespeare’s Metre into Brazilian Portuguese,” José Francisco Botelho describes the choices he made in his attempt to create translations of Shakespeare’s plays into Brazilian Portuguese that could simultaneously work both for the stage and for a silent reading. More interested in metre for its aesthetic rather than technical aspects, Botelho’s main goal was to find a new way to successfully translate Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter into verse rather than prose. However, one of Botelho’s main obstacles was the antipathy toward literary metre that has characterized the Brazilian academic and publishing worlds because of the insistence on free verse advocated by modernism. This kind of poetic endeavour, however, was not new to Brazilian translators of Shakespeare: as Botelho reminds us, after

Shakespeare in Succession

the first “integral,” all-prose translation into Brazilian Portuguese of a Shakespearean play in 1933 – the first recorded translations specifically made for the stage in the 1830s were instead adapted not from English but from pre-existing French translations – Brazilian translators have in fact experimented with the Bard’s verse in four different ways. The first is verse translations in ten-syllable lines, which sometimes requires adding extra lines relative to the number of lines found in the original. The next two options involve either reproducing the same number of lines found in the original or adding extra lines when necessary. Finally, another possibility is verse translations in twelve-syllable lines, either following the classic rules of the French alexandrine or applying them more freely. After clarifying what are the main differences between English and Portuguese metre systems, Botelho observes that, if on the one hand, an iambic rhythm can be successfully reproduced with a ten-syllable line (decassílabo), on the other hand, it does not solve what the author has named a volumetric dilemma, that is, that, more often than not, words in English tend to be shorter than their equivalents in Portuguese. Having grown up as a fronteiriço in an area of southern Brazil that borders with Uruguay and Argentina, Botelho decided then to take inspiration for his Shakespearean translations from the pajadores, the popular poets of the pampas that can still be seen and heard giving impromptu presentations during popular holidays. For many of these pajadores the metre of choice is the redondilha maior, a seven-syllable line characterized by a rhythmic latitude that allows for a variation from line to line in the position of stressed and unstressed syllables. To achieve a translation that could be condensed, without being compressed or hermetical, Botelho decided then to utilize a double-metre method, combining the decassílabos and dodecassílabos and utilizing, like the pajadores do, several stress patterns. While alternation between verse and prose can already be found in the original, through this double metre Botelho was also trying to reproduce the degree of latitude that also characterized Shakespeare’s poetry, one that fluctuated “between the conversational and the overly poetic.” Thus, Botelho explains, the double metre was not used in an arbitrary way, but rather to translate something that was already in the original text. On a lexical level, Botelho draws attention to the question of how to preserve a joke when Shakespeare’s original text depended on an association of denotation and connotation that does not exist in the target language.1 In “Stage or Page? A Momentous Choice,” Niels Brunse addresses the choices made in his translation into Danish of all Shakespeare’s plays – some commissioned by theatres and others by book publishers – and 28

Part 1: Translation and Adaptation

a problem that most theatre translators will recognize: should the translation be aimed at “actors and audiences, or at the scholarly or pleasure-seeking quiet reader?” When a theatre commissions a translation for the stage, three main options are available: The first is to commission a translator or a playwright who is fluent in both the source and target languages. The second is to commission a literal translator – someone who speaks the source language, provides an annotated translation to the playwright, speaks the target language, and in turn creates a version or adaptation of the original. The third is to develop the translation through a collaborative process involving the actors, director, dramaturg(s), and the translator(s) during a series of readings, workshops, and rehearsals.2 Brunse clearly belongs to the first group, being a translator who is knowledgeable of both the source and target languages and who decided from the start to aim his translations at actors and audiences. However, this “simple choice,” Brunse states, led to “an avalanche of conflicts with Danish orthography and punctuation,” owing to the fact that Danish is a rather conservative language, one that follows a grammatical punctuation rather than a logical-semantic one as in English. This resulted, Brunse states, in countless battles with “fanatic comma zealots” in the publishing industry when he opted instead for a punctuation “as a kind of musical notation to indicate tempo and pauses in a speech.” After all, the only extant manuscript that might be in Shakespeare’s own hand, the scene for Sir Thomas More, now in British Library, shows few commas and almost no periods. In addition, the spelling of some monosyllabic words might lead some people to pronounce them as disyllabic, creating thus problems with the versification. Brunse, rather than resort to apostrophes which, given their frequency, would have made “the text look as if it had been assassinated with a shotgun,” opted instead for a non-standard Danish spelling, referring more to how the line should be pronounced. The last choice analyzed by Brunse goes beyond orthography and punctuation, and it has to do with those passages in the original Shakespearean text that are ambiguous and might give leeway to directors and actors in interpreting characters and key scenes. Brunse’ choice has been to keep those ambiguities open while, at the same time, recognizing the problem of translating crucial elements in a way that allows for such differences. In “’My Restless Discord Loves No Stops Nor Rests’: Translating ‘The Rape of Lucrece’ for the Stage,” Marcus Kyd explores and theorizes the relationship between written text and performance by chronicling Taffety 29

Shakespeare in Succession

Punk Theatre Company’s translation for the stage of Shakespeare’s poem, a work that was performed, in constantly evolving versions, about eight times: the first time at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival in 2008 and the last time on 11 June 11 2016 at St Stephen’s Church in Washington, dc , headquarters of Positive Force dc . Kyd focuses on translation as an empirical process, and his chapter is an account of first-hand experience of the experimental methods used in rehearsal to open new spaces for the performative dimension of the poem’s language and audience reception.3 As Cristina Marinetti, Manuela Perteghella, and Roger Baines have pointed out, “It is indeed this very practice underpinning translation for the stage – complex, multi-faceted, diverse, cultural and often personal – that translation scholars have tended to shy away from, preferring to focus on how translated plays function as cultural products.”4 Kyd instead brings practice back to the centre of discussion on translation and looks at the intricate network of collaborative processes that characterizes the performance of texts not originally meant for the stage. Presented with a band of actor-dancer-musicians shifting between movement phrases, staged scenes, and sections of music, alongside an ever-present narrator at the central microphone and a backing rock trio, Taffety Punk’s main artistic goal for the often-ignored poem was to “illuminate those things that are inherently” in it, and “to recognize something of ourselves in the work.” The company added movement experiments based on repetition to plumb “the depths of the inner life of the characters and imagery,” sonic discoveries through the use of microphones and a cascade of effects to emphasize the musicality of language, together with live original music. These were just a few of the strategies used by the company to “enhance the narrative for an audience who may not be used to sitting still and listening to an epic poem for an hour and a half.” All the choices made, Kyd concludes, are offered in detail “to illustrate what sorts of choices can go into an adaptation like this,” and to show that, while making sure not to stray away from the original story, the company hoped to find a balance of movement and music “to support Shakespeare’s text and give the audience a more tactile experience of it.” In “A Riverplate Translation of the Sonnets,” Miguel Ángel Montezanti reflects on the difficulties he encountered with his own poetic translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets when he decided to abandon what can be referred to as the “standard literary Spanish” – used in his first translation of the sonnets in 1987 – for the “deviant or heterodox” Riverplate (non-peninsular) Spanish of his 2011 translation. As 30

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Antoine Berman notes in his “negative analytic” of translation, every translator is “inescapably exposed” to a play of “deforming forces,” a system that is the “internalized expression of a two-millennium-old tradition, as well as the ethnocentric structure of every culture, every language.” Thus, Berman continues, only languages the are “cultivated” translate.5 When a non-standard written – or non-cultivated – language is used, a triangulation between the source text, “standard translation,” and new “deviant or heterodox” translation becomes unavoidable. In this case, however, the “deforming forces” – ethnocentric, annexationist, imperialist, etc. – might better characterize the reader’s expectations, rather than the translator’s being or intent. This is particularly true for a translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets, which constitute such a rich field, as Manfred Pfister notes, that they have become “a classical test case for the historian and theorist of translation, and for Translation Studies in general.”6 In fact, as Montezanti states, even though his translating Shakespeare’s sonnets into the local, Riverplate variety of Spanish is serious and has no comical intent, it nonetheless sounds like a “parody translation,” since the reader’s expectation is to hear Shakespeare’s sonnets in the cultivated or literary Spanish. Montezanti analyzes and describes his own choices regarding, for example, the use of assonant rather than consonant rhymes, the use of the pleonastic pronoun, the preference for a “made,” stereotyped or colloquial phrase rather than a “literary” choice, the preference for the colloquial or popular variant to the more cultured or refined one for cronolectos. These choices show that Montezanti’s translation, despite sounding “deviant or heterodox,” might instead be closer to what Pfister characterizes as a “Übersetzung (‘translation’)” on his sliding scale characterizing the various degrees of the “translator’s autonomy” in relation to “the source text.”7 Discussions of translation have more often than not focused primarily on the author’s choices and the resulting degree of autonomy in regard to the “original” text. Montezanti’s translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets shows us that reader’s reception and expectations might, in some cases, play a bigger role. In her “Taming and Timing: Translating The Taming of the Shrew into Italian,” Iolanda Plescia considers the theoretical underpinnings and related practical choices foundational to her translation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, published in 2018 by Feltrinelli, a major publishing house in Italy. The first translations into Italian took place in the eighteenth century and, since then, Shakespeare’s plays have continued to occupy an important place both on page and stage. 31

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As Plescia points out, her concerns pertained to not only issues related to translation but also the implications of a wave of retranslations that had begun to occur at the turn of the new century. According to Isabelle Collombat, those retranslations were fuelled by the translator’s “desire to leave a trace in cultural history by creating a personal, contemporary, fully acceptable and at the same time artistically innovative interpretation of the big works of World Literature.”8 The Italian publishing world has undeniably promoted this practice and, as a result, more than a dozen versions of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew preceded Plescia’s, making her choices something that had to be measured not only against the original but also this long-standing tradition. Plescia’s approach differs considerably from the one taken by Botelho for two main reasons: the first is that the Italian translator has “almost entirely eschewed metrical patterns based on syllable number,” and has opted instead to work “on rhythm and readability”; the second is that Plescia’s focus has been to produce a translation that, while not necessarily excluding performance, was primarily directed to the silent reader. Rather than striving for adherence or aiming at “domesticating” the source to allow the reader a smooth reading, Plescia’s aim was to produce a text that would press the reader to engage with both “the inherent difference of the source and target languages,” and “with the gaps in culture and language produced specifically by the passing of time.” The translator’s choice was also made possible by the fact that Feltrinelli editions do not completely substitute the source, which is in fact reproduced on the verso side of the book, thus encouraging a constant dialogue between the source and target text. In addition to the creation of an “in-between” space for the reader, the presence of copious notes and commentaries allowed the translator to simultaneously “displace” and “explain” Shakespeare’s linguistic cultural world and the reader to “give up the comfort” of receiving the translator’s choices. According to Plescia, there is something liberating in thinking that no translation will ever be the definitive one, its main purpose being that of transporting something to a particular person in a particular time. Sara Roberts offers us an account of her own effort to lead a performance of Much Ado about Nothing in Johannesburg in 2006. Her praxis gave emphasis to the rehearsal as a creative and improvisational space. Roberts grounds her work on Edward Said’s conception of cultural difference, as well as on Jonathan Jansen’s notion of lived experience; she joins these foundational points of reference with her own experience as an academic traveller who seeks to reconcile objects “with histories” such 32

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as Portuguese cork wood with her own experience of mediating languages, cultures, and races through the dramaturgical process in South Africa. Her approach is situated in relation to the theoretical positions of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o to help shape the higher valuation of oral history and practice in her country’s decolonization. Roberts frankly explains that Shakespeare faces an uncertain place in South African culture. In addition to the general problems of an older English dialect, and the remoteness of elaborate Renaissance stories, Shakespeare is particularly burdened by an association with imperialism and apartheid in her university. A quest for relevance and inclusivity was not so much a goal for Roberts to achieve, so much as a necessary first step before anything could be done at all. A deep integration of improvisational principles was indispensable in establishing group investment and agency. That principles of improvisational performance are present in avant-garde Western theatre, African storytelling cultures, and Shakespeare’s original text allowed for the process to be both relevant and historical, producing an immediate, non-reproducible, and non-literary play. Since so much of Shakespeare’s text is based on finely tuned levels of hierarchy, it became crucial to translate the terms for respect and insult into some of the African languages that were the mother tongues of the performance group. Because distinctions of servitude and respect are both tragically relevant and playfully immediate, the performers were able to locate that energy in the scenes from Much Ado, particularly around the peculiar resonance of the word signor. Here, students were able to draw from their experience of racism, as well as their experience of more light-hearted oral engagement in other languages, to find Shakespeare’s rhythm of grudging respect and sarcasm.9 That navigation, in the rehearsal process, both requires and produces trust among the actors in the moment of adventurous risk-taking. In this, too, they were walking in the footsteps of their author, who also enacted “play” during a historical moment when rigid social hierarchies were attenuated, allowing individuals and groups to claim more freedom in society. Like the characters in the play, her actors were working in the wake of trauma and looking for love. Roberts decentred her own authority, released the play’s text from an association with writing, and allowed the students to find equivalents, not just of words but also of romantic frustration, as well as the humorous and serious ways of invoking anxiety of sexual disloyalty. The ultimate result was not just the recreation of a play, but also the creation of a form of collective enactment, a new and important way to “do” Shakespeare. 33

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Zhiyan Zhang and Carl A. Robertson examine the performance of a Chinese adaptation of Romeo and Juliet performed in 2016 in Edinburgh. This project involved viewing both Chinese and English authors (Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare) as anchors of the original text, and it also involved an engagement with traditional Chinese opera in conjunction with early modern English theatre. Like others in this collection, this chapter is both a collaboration and about collaboration. Dr Zhang is a co-author of this chapter and also one of the hands in the translation in question. While collaborative scholarship is less common in the humanities than it is in other disciplines, it is ideal in this case. Solo critics tend to search for and to see solo creators, whereas Zhang and Robertson are able to articulate crucial distinctions about what might be termed the internal, or intrinsic, features of the opera, and the external, or presentational, aspects, with regard to various positionalities: the director, performers, translators, and audience members (in the last case, discriminating between those who need surtitles and those who do not). Since kunqu opera is antiquated and thus foreign to most modern audiences in China, it might not be overstating it to say that everyone needs an explanation of how to see the performance. Kunqu opera requires a degree of freedom on the part of performers, and part of the project of giving primacy to that Chinese genre in relation to Shakespeare means that the director must not prescribe too much of the final performance. The desired balance between personal freedom and artistic discipline will sound to the Anglophone reader like a version of Hamlet’s advice to the players;10 that association might not precisely be wrong so much as beside the point if we are attempting to read the performance on its own terms. Zhang and Robertson accordingly offer a detailed background on the Chinese lyric operatic tradition, as well as a generous sampling of the final script. The authors address the challenges and opportunities in designing surtitles for the performance in Scotland. In some cases, English text was used that literally translated the Chinese onstage, and in other cases the surtitles quoted the Shakespearean play – or referenced other Shakespearean plays – to engender the functional equivalent of a Chinese literary reference. In this chapter and in others that are particularly invested in local issues of translation, the editors of this book have endeavoured to preserve as much of the various languages involved so that this volume can be useful to those who read Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish as well as to those who cannot. 34

Part 1: Translation and Adaptation notes 1 Such a conscious change was once stigmatized among translation theorists on the grounds of infidelity, but as Erich Fried writes, “It is sometimes better than impoverishing the text where punning seems necessary”; quoted in John Elsom, Is Shakespeare Still Our Contemporary? (New York: Routledge, 1989), 36. 2 See Katalin Trencsényi, “A New Form of Bridge: The Dramaturg’s Role When Working on a Play in Translation,” in The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, ed. Magda Romanska (London: Routledge, 2014), 275–6. 3 This kind of adaptation is an example of what Gregory Currie and Tzachi Zamir have called “reflective adaptations,” which “overcome the tyranny of causal–temporal directedness and allow each work to illuminate the other”; Currie and Zamir, “Macbeth, Throne of Blood, and the Idea of a Reflective Adaptation,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76 (2018): 297. 4 Cristina Marinetti, Manuela Perteghella, and Roger Baines, “Introduction,” in Staging and Performing Translation: Text and Theatre Practice, ed. Roger Baines, Marinetti, and Perteghella (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 2. 5 Antoine Berman, “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign,” in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London: Routledge, 2000), 286. 6 Manfred Pfister, “‘Bottom, thou art translated’: Recent Radical Translations of Shakespearean Sonnets in Germany,” in Crossing Time and Space: Shakespeare Translations in Present-Day Europe, ed. Sara Soncini and Carla Dente (Pisa: Pisa University Press), 22. 7 Pfister, “‘Bottom, thou art translated,’” 25–6. Pfister’s sliding scale includes Interlinearversion (interlinear version), the degree zero of translating; Übersetzung (translation), the most general and modest term; Übertragung (poetic transposition); Nachbildung or Nachdichtung (reworking); Umdichtung (remake); Adaption (adaptation); and Radikalübersetzung (radical translation). 8 Piet Van Poucke and Guillermo Sanz Gallego, “Retranslation in Context,” Cadernos de Tradução, no. 1 (2019): 10. 9 In a similar way, Marguerite de Waal has argued that, in 2013, the Julius Caesar Project at the University of the Witwatersrand relied on “an iteration of ‘open,’ actor-driven Shakespeare in a South African theatre scene which favors director-driven Shakespeare”; de Waal, “Close Encounters: Staging Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra in Contemporary South Africa,” Shakespeare in Southern Africa 33 (2020): 5. 10 Hamlet 3.2.1–34.

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1 In the Beginning Was the Verse: A Personal Testimony on the Adventurous Task of Translating Shakespeare’s Metre into Brazilian Portuguese José Francisco Botelho

Poetic metre, as many of us know, has a bad reputation. In my experience as a writer and translator who occasionally interacts with students and the literary public, the metrical aspects of great literary works are often regarded as an arid subject, some sort of antiquarian eccentricity which we would do well to dispose of in order to concentrate on what really matters. Many elements have contributed to this sad state of affairs. In Brazil, at least, antipathy toward literary metre has to do with the emphasis granted to free verse by modernism, whose influence has been dominant on our academic and publishing worlds since the 1930s. However, there seems to be also another source to the generally unfavourable opinion that hounds literary metre wherever it goes these days: for a long time, metre has been treated as a dead particle of literary speech, a thing to be dissected and gravely studied for the sake of advancing human knowledge. One instance of this phenomenon, which I call philological morbidity, has been aptly described by George Thaddeus Wright in Shakespeare’s Metrical Art. Many scholars have written about poetic meter in the Renaissance, but their interest has usually been technical, not aesthetic, and the subject has constituted a corner of poetic studies that has not much attracted critics. In the nineteenth century it became a matter of concern to Shakespeareans only as a means of settling problems of

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chronology; metrical style, of little interest in itself, provided clues to dating and authorship. Similarly, the study of Chaucer’s verse has been more concerned with whether or not certain syllables were pronounced than with aesthetic effects in the verse. Such concerns were natural when the establishment of texts was necessary to provide a foundation for further literary study. Unfortunately, one result of the primitive statistical methods used in those early days to study rhyme, feminine endings, deviant lines, and similar matters was to render these subjects dry and dull.1 Working as a poetical translator, in my view, forces one to break away from philological morbidity and try – at least try! – to consider verse form in its pristine expressiveness. For, if we are to recreate a poem in our own language, we must first understand – or at least imagine, in a well-informed way – how it did what it did for its original audience or readership. The task is, of course, very complicated, and one might even argue that it is indeed impossible: all the scholarship in the world cannot rewind history, and no one can claim to understand emotionally an Elizabethan play as if they were right there among the pit’s groundlings, experiencing those two hour’s traffic with Adamic purity. Each translator, however, will find their own way around this Gordian knot, without actually severing it. I have been translating Shakespeare for the last four years: my translations of Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar have been published in Brazil by Penguin Companhia das Letras, and my rendering of The Tempest is being done up even as I write this piece. When I set out to translate Shakespeare in 2016, I decided to create translations that could be both staged and read silently. Surrounding myself with Shakespearean scholarship was necessary but not enough; I also had to understand how to use verse as a Janus-like literary form, looking simultaneously at the printed page and at the vast, mysterious, and sometimes elusive world of oral literature. As it often happens in the life of art, the answer was not far but close, in my own cultural and personal background. I grew up in the southern plains of Brazil, where the pampas region blends into Uruguay and Argentina across a border that, for many of us fronteiriços or border-people, was more of a meeting point than a limit (as I write this piece, the border of my country with Uruguay stands closed for the first time in my lifetime, due to the COVID-19 pandemic). In the threeflagged universe of the pampas, oral poetry is not dead, and the spirit of the ancient wandering bards lives on in different forms of popular versification. The payadores (in Spanish) or pajadores/trovadores (in Portuguese) 37

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are the popular poets of the pampas, and in Rio Grande do Sul, where I was born, one can still watch their impromptu presentations on popular holidays or (if you are lucky) in lonely abodes on the wilderness, after a long day of horse-riding and cattle-handling, when farmhands gather around the fire to show off a different kind of skill. My first contact with poetic metre happened among semi-literate people, who scanned lines on the tip of their fingers and wove rhymes (taken from mental files) that had been gathered by hearing, not by reading: I have known people who knew almost an entire book of verse by heart without having seen its printed form. The aim of those improvised lines was to move and to impress, even when the audience did not understand every word in every line. The urgency of diction, the ominous solemnity or the nonchalant bravado or the sudden tenderness, infused into each line created an effect of reality and produced emotional meaning before intellectual understanding; when a pajador sang, their audience felt compelled to view the world in relation to the song. For those who grew up in the forgotten lands of the South, metre was not a dry and dull subject, not a corpse to be dissected, but a fleshy, vivid, burning rendering, an essential part of their own understanding of the universe. In the beginning was the Verse. When I translate Shakespeare, I try to revive this metrical rapture, stamped in my mind even before I learned my first letters; in other words, I try to recreate Shakespeare through not only scholarship but also understanding the effect of metrical verse on audiences for whom the verse form is still a living thing and a part of everyday life. My translating strategy, however, is only a tiny part of a fascinating tradition: the long and variegated history of Shakespeare translations in Brazil. On the following pages, I shall access a small part of that history, highlighting and providing personal commentary on some of the ways different poets and scholars dealt with the momentous challenge of translating Shakespearean metre into Portuguese. In my brief and non-exhaustive overview, I shall rely on the extensive research by Marcia A.P. Martins (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro), an authority on Shakespearean translations in Brazil. The first recorded translations of Shakespeare into Brazilian Portuguese appeared during the 1830s and were made specifically for stage productions. National theatre in Brazil emerged after the country’s transition from colony to independent empire (in 1822),2 and one of the leading figures in that process was João Caetano dos Santos, Brazil’s first “Shakespearean actor” and also an entrepreneur and the owner of a theatrical company. Dos Santos was a leading figure in Brazilian 38

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theatre for almost thirty years (1835–63), and his company staged several Shakespearean plays adapted not from English but from pre-existing French translations. Among the translators responsible for those early indirect adaptations, the best known is Domingos José Gonçalves de Magalhães, whose version of Othello, translated from the French, was finished around 1838 and adopted by João Caetano’s company in the following years. During the nineteenth century, partial translations were also penned by famous authors such as Machado de Assis and Olavo Bilac.3 However, the first “integral” translation of a Shakespearean play into Brazilian Portuguese from the English original (with no omissions or additions above the sentence level) would appear almost a century after Gonçalves de Magalhães’s Othello. In 1933, Tristão da Cunha published his Hamlet translation in Rio de Janeiro (Hamleto, by the Schmidt publishing house), accompanied by a preface where the translator explains his strategies. In those pages we find a question that would occupy Shakespearean translators in Brazil for several decades, sometimes taking the form of controversy: should Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter be translated into verse or prose?4 Tristão da Cunha’s answer was unflinching: prose was the way to go. To bring Shakespeare’s “immortal pages” into “our culture,” Cunha renounced the verse form, arguing that a verse translation would cause “many infidelities.” Besides, writes the author, the rhythmic nature of the English verse is “strange to our syllabic norms” and sounds closer to the “free verse implanted by symbolism.” Cunha’s strategy, then, was to translate the Shakespearean verse into a kind of musical, poetic prose, except for the isolated songs, “whose relative autonomy regarding the drama allowed for more liberty.”5 Two points from Cunha’s preface are of special interest here. Firstly, he argues that remaining faithful to the verse form would be an instance of “infidelity,” rather than a form of faithfulness to the original. Secondly the translator also points the differences between English and Portuguese metrical system as a reason to renounce the verse form. Both questions will reappear in later statements by different translators. Indeed, they constitute an unavoidable set of problems that every translator must tackle when re-creating Shakespeare in Portuguese. By sticking to the verse form, do we set ourselves on the path of loyalty or do we head into the meandering ways of treason? (Traduttore, traditore: the biting Italian proverb seems to hound us anywhere we go...). And can any kind of English verse be recreated into Portuguese metre? Before we get further into any of those questions, and before continuing our review of 39

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the “prose versus metre” dilemma, let us take a look at what Portuguese metre is all about – and why should anyone consider it so alien when compared to its English counterpart. Whereas English poetic lines – which Cunha calls “rhythmic” – are considered as a sequence of feet, each foot being a particular combination of stressed and unstressed syllables, Portuguese metre (like its French equivalent) is based on the number of poetic syllables within each line, and the relative position of a number of stressed syllables within that line. A poetic syllable is different from a grammatical syllable because syllables that are grammatically isolated can be joined into a poetic unity when read aloud or read poetically; thus, the line “e a vida acabou” (and life is over) has seven grammatical syllables (e-a-vi-da-a-ca-bou), but it might be scanned into five poetical syllables (ea-vi-daa-ca-bou). Some words can be scanned in different ways, depending on how a particular poet intends them to be pronounced. Thus, the word piedade might be considered to have four syllables, as indeed it has according to grammar (pi-e-da-de); but the poet might decide to combine the vowels i and e into a diphthong, reducing the word to three syllables: pie-da-de. Poetic syllables within a line are counted up to the last stressed syllable, ignoring the unstressed syllables that come after that. This particular system of counting poetic syllables, similar to the French metrical system, was introduced into Portuguese poetry by Antonio Feliciano de Castilho in Tratado de metrificação portuguesa, first published in 1851.6 Before that, verse in Portuguese was scanned according to a system similar to those still used in Spanish and Italian poetry. Castilho’s metrical system became dominant in Portuguese and Brazilian literature; thus, what a Spanish or Argentinian poet calls an endecassilabo (an eleven-syllable line) will most likely be considered a decassílabo (a ten-syllable line) by a Portuguese or a Brazilian poet. However, as Manuel Bandeira points out, “this is just a matter of names, and does not affect the verse’s structure.”7 As for rhythm, let us take as an example the decassílabo heroico. Much used in epic poetry, it is one of the most important verse forms in Portuguese and Brazilian poetry. As we shall come back to it time and again throughout this chapter, it would be helpful to say something about its history and structure. Also called decassílabo italiano, it was introduced in Portugal by Sá de Miranda in the sixteenth century and famously used by Luís Vaz de Camões in the Portuguese national epic, Os Lusíadas.8 A decassílabo heroico is made up of ten poetic syllables, with two mandatory accents (also called pauses), on the sixth and the tenth syllables. In other words, within a Portuguese decassílabo heroico, syllables six and ten must be stressed. 40

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Because in Portuguese stresses are also considered pauses within the verse, a decassílabo heroico is sometimes described as a combination of two smaller lines and can be represented mathematically as a 6 + 4 pattern. As for the remaining syllables within the line, they might be either stressed or unstressed, thus allowing for a wide possibility of variation within the fixed pattern. Let us consider the first lines of Os Lusíadas. As armas e os barões ões assinalados Que da ocidental pra praia lusita tana ... Por guerras e peri rigos esforça çados Mais do que prometia tia a força huma mana (The feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host, from occidental Lusitanian strand, ... forceful in perils and in battle-post, with more than promised force of mortal hand).9 I highlighted the mandatory accents in bold, and the remaining ones in italic (including a secondary stress in “assinalados”). As can be seen easily even by non-speakers of Portuguese, several rhythmic effects can be arranged around the sixth and tenth accent. The ten-syllable structure makes the decassílabo similar to iambic pentameter, but the succession of iambs is not always present. The second verse, for instance, can be read as a combination of trochee / anapest / trochee / anapest – therefore, no iamb at all. The emphasis on syllables instead of feet explains Tristão da Cunha’s remark about the mutual strangeness of Portuguese and English metrical system. However, an iambic rhythm can be easily built into the decassílabo structure, by placing stresses or “pauses” on the remaining even syllables – two, four, and eight. Let us go back to Camões verse, “As armas e os barões assinalados,” as an example. If we highlight all stresses in bold, primary and secondary, mandatory and optional, we have an almost iambic line. As/ ar ar/ mas/ eos/ ba/ rões rões/ as/ si si/ na/ la la/ dos Also, we must consider that Shakespearean verse is not always perfectly iambic and, therefore, the differences between Portuguese and English metrical system no longer seem so unapproachable. 41

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Cunha’s opinion that verse translations fatefully create some sort of “unfaithfulness” toward the original meaning is thornier. Whenever we turn an English verse into a Portuguese verse of about the same length, we are faced with what I call the volumetric dilemma. Words in English tend to be shorter than their equivalents in Portuguese: thus, head translates as “cabeça” (ca-be-ça), road as “estrada” (es-tra-da), arm as “braço” (bra-ço), and so on. Logically, therefore, an English iambic pentameter will generally hold more voluminous information than a Portuguese decassílabo, though both forms might have the same number of syllables. If we take, for instance, Henry V’s resounding appeal, We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (4.3.60) and try to translate it literally into Portuguese, we will come up with fourteen syllables instead of ten. Nós, poucos, nós, poucos felizes, nós, bando de irmãos. Therefore, when a translator tries to render iambic pentameters into decassílabos heroicos, and at the same time respect the exact number of lines that make up the poem or play, he will often be forced to “amputate” words, as another translator has put it.10 And yet a vast number of Brazilian translators has chosen to run that risk and render Shakespeare into Camões’s verse. A robust example is Onestaldo de Pennafort, whose translation of Romeo and Juliet was published by the Ministry of Education and Health in 1940. By then, besides Tristão da Cunha’s, at least two other prose translations had already been published in Brazil (A Megera Domada and O Mercador de Veneza – Berenice de Xavier’s translations of The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice, appearing in 1936 and 1937, respectively). In his introduction to the play, Pennafort makes a staunch, and at some points acid, defence of verse translations. Pennafort reverses Cunha’s argument, stating that prose betrays the original by renouncing the “condensation” and the “compositional discipline” that the metrical line imposes on the written or declaimed text; to translate faithfully is, therefore, to translate in (metrical) verse. Pennafort’s attack on prose translations is emotionally charged, deliciously grumpy, and deserves a long quotation. Because his finality in translating Shakespeare was not “didactic” but “artistic,” writes Pennafort, it was necessary to 42

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observe the same form of the original, that is, the alternation between prose and verse, found in all Shakespeare’s plays. This condition, which seems at first sight secondary, or which is dogmatically considered as unworkable – such is the zeal of prose translators in establishing a priori, and through specious arguments, that all verse translations, of Shakespeare or other similar authors, will be of necessity unfaithful – is, on the contrary, fundamental. Whoever denies it, would be also denying, preliminarily, a truism, namely, that “poetry and prose constitute not only two mechanisms for verbal expression, but two rival tendencies of the human spirit, and the two modes of knowledge that created those tendencies.” Without insisting on the ideal distinctions between those two antipodal experiences, I shall counter that erroneous concept – therefore proving that, oppositely, it is necessary to translate in verse to translate faithfully – by presenting this formal differentiation: among the specific qualities that distinguish poetry from prose, the poetic form has an expressional condensation, determined by the metre, which is not only impossible to convey into prose, but actually negates the very finality and the very fundaments of prose writing... That condensation, that expressional economy creates the imponderable element that is everything in a work of art and that disappears in prose versions... Thus, to translate faithfully ... it is essential that the translator submit to the same composition discipline under which the original work was born. That’s why, when I translate Shakespeare, I translate in verse ... If the translation is bad, it is not bad because it was made in verse, but because the verses are bad; if it is good, it owes its quality especially to the very circumstance of being a verse translation.11 Let us now consider the Prologue’s sonnet in Pennafort decasyllabic translation: Duas famílias nobres e inimigas Em Verona, onde vai passar-se o drama, Renovam lutas por questões antigas, Em que o sangue do povo se derrama. Dessas duas famílias que o ódio afasta Implacável, nasceu um par de amantes Cuja má sorte, tragica e nefasta, Levou a paz ás casas litigantes. 43

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Desse odio de família e seus extremos, E o infausto amor, que ainda ao morrer, mais forte Do que o odio, sepultou o odio na morte, No palco, em duas horas, trataremos. Queira o auditorio dar-nos atenção E relevar a nossa imperfeição.12 Pennafort’s verse is muscular, resounding, and certainly condensed, with a recurring iambic rhythm. Some of the lines can be read as iambic pentameters, such as “Renovam lutas por questões antigas” and “Levou a paz ás casas litigantes.” It’s evident, however, that the translator had to “amputate” words to respect the metre: in Pennafort’s sonnet, Verona is not “fair,” and the two houses are not said to be “both alike in dignity,” but, simply, “noble.” One might argue, of course, that sometimes the translator uses fewer words to convey the same meaning: if the houses are said to be noble, than they are logically “alike in dignity.” The volumetric question, however, was very far from over, and some translators, while agreeing with the necessity of translating verse into verse, would look for a longer verse line, capable of holding more information than the terse and valiant but fatefully short decassílabo. That’s the case with Péricles Eugênio da Silva Ramos, whose translation of Hamlet was published in 1955, also in Rio de Janeiro, by José Olympio. In the third appendix to his translation, Ramos seems to be on the same track as Pennafort, criticizing translations that turn Shakespeare’s verse passages into prose, a procedure which, according to Ramos, effaces the combination of blank verse, rhymed verse, and prose found in Shakespeare’s plays.13 For Ramos, however, the ideal Portuguese verse for translating Shakespeare’s pentameter is not the decassílabo but the dodecassílabo. This twelve-syllable line is sometimes called alexandrino, a reference to the Roman d’Alexandre le Grande, a work begun by Lambert Licors in the twelfth century and finished by Alexandre de Bernay in the following century.14 The dodecassílabo was introduced in the Portuguese language in the mid-nineteenth century; in the first edition of his Tratado de metrificação portuguesa, Castilho does not even mention it, though he includes a section on the newly introduced verse in later editions. The dodecassílabo was fervently adopted by the Brazilian literary movement known as parnasianismo (from the French Le Parnasse Contemporain). The parnasianos, as those poets are called in Brazil, used the dodecassílabo according to strict rules learned from the French classics: to be considered a perfect alexandrino, the 44

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twelve-syllable line must be divided in two hemistiches of six syllables; the first hemistich must never end with a proparoxytone; and, when the first hemistich ends in a paroxytone, the second must begin with a vowel, as in: Dava-lhe a custo a sombra / escassa e pequenina ... The alexandrino’s structure is much stiffer and more complicated than that of the decassílabo; but the less straightforward verse has the advantage of being longer, therefore holding more semantic information than its heroic rival. Ramos’s solution – adding two syllables to each line, to keep the verse form without amputating meaning – was not of his own invention. The alexandrino had already been used by Artur de Sales some years earlier, in his translation of Macbeth, published by Clássicos Jackson (1948). As an example, consider the excerpt below, taken from act 1, scene 2:

duncan

Que homem será este assim ensanguentado? Ele que vem da luta e chega nesse estado Pode desta revolta informar, a contento, Das ocorrências mais recentes.

malcolm

É o sargento Que, intrépido soldado e certo companheiro, Se bateu, vencedor, contra o meu cativeiro. Salve, meu bravo amigo! E dá ao rei precisa Relação da batalha, ao deixá-la.

sargento

Indecisa. Justamente, quais dois nadadores cansados Que se vão agarrando um ao outro e agarrados Paralisam de vez seus esforços e acção. Esse implacável Macdonaldo, com razão Digno de ser rebelde – as vilezas sem par Da natureza estão sobre ele a enxamear – Uma vez que se viu suprido fortemente De Kernes e também de galowglasses, gente 45

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Que lhe chegou de lá, dessas ilhas do oeste, Eis que de novo assim nossas tropas investe.15 Besides respecting the strict rules of the French alexandrine (except for the verse “Esse implacável Macdonaldo, com razão”), the translator went as far as to transform all the lines into rhymed couplets. And that is not a momentary lapse: Sales indulges in the same licence throughout the entire play – thus creating, in Brazilian Portuguese, a Gallicized Shakespeare that sounds pretty much like Racine. The decassílabo, however, was too renitent and too culturally ingrained in our literary tradition to be peacefully and quietly displaced by its French cousin. Indeed, most verse translations published from Pennafort’s time onward use the ten-syllable line as an equivalent to Shakespeare’s pentameter. That was the case with Carlos Alberto Nunes, author of the first translation of all Shakespeare’s plays in Brazil, published in three volumes by Melhoramentos, and also with Barbara Heliodora, who likewise translated the thirty-seven plays of the traditional cannon (published by Aguiar). While Heliodora keeps line length and verse number, Nunes sometimes adds extra lines to make up for the lack of space within the decassílabo. The same strategy can be found in the work of other translators such as Geir Campos, who explained the procedure in a paratext to his translation of Macbeth (Civilização Brasileira, 1970). As it is not easy to convey in Portuguese, with same number of syllables, the content of the Shakespearean verse in English, my translation did not make a point of following the original line by line; hence a slight increase in the number of translated verses, so as not to omit information or valuable images.16 Prose translations did not go away, either. Tirstão da Cunha’s cause found a vehement paladin in Geraldo de Carvalho Silos, translator of Hamlet (1984) and Antony and Cleopatra (Antônio e Cleópatra, Tobooks, 1999). In his “Preliminary Note” (“Nota Preliminar”) to Antônio e Cleópatra, Carvalho Silos states that prose translations are the only way to properly translate Shakespeare. I see no possibility of translating Shakespeare into verse. Metrics and rhyme (which appears occasionally) create a veritable straitjacket that binds the translator’s hands and, more often than not, 46

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makes it impossible to convey the original meaning with subtlety or even with accuracy. Verse translations either ruin the Bard’s poetry or destroy the plays’ “scenic form.” The magnificent power of Shakespeare’s poetic genius, once released from the plate-armour of verse rendering, can permeate prose translations, whose flexibility facilitates the transfer of meaning with the maximum of poetry.17 Interestingly enough, Carvalho Silos proposed that renouncing metrics, the most visible manifestation of “external” poetic form, is a necessary way to preserve “the Bard’s poetry.” What is meant by “poetry” in this instance? Certainly, something different from Pennafort’s ideas about the expressional condensation afforded by the metrical line. Be it as it may, prose translations are still being made in Brazil. One fine example is the work of Beatriz Viégas-Farias, who translated nineteen tragedies, comedies, and romances between 1998 and 2012 (for L&PM). As for decasyllabic translations, one should mention a number of excellent works by José Roberto O’Shea, whose first translation was published in 1999 (Antônio e Cleópatra, Mandarim) and whose more recent works include Os Dois Primos Nobres (Iluminuras, 2016). A fascinating middle-stance between metre and prose has been recently developed by Lawrence Flores Pereira, whose translation of Hamlet was published by Penguin Companhia in 2015 (Pereira’s Otelo came out in 2017, and Rei Lear in 2020). In his “Nota sobre a Tradução,” Pereira argues that Shakespearean verse “did not have a single form, but several ones. His iambic pentameter became, so to speak, a kind of prose, though written in verse.”18 Aiming at a translated text that could be naturally recited on stage, Pereira uses the alexandrino as a “basis” to his translations, but he does so “with liberty, as Shakespeare himself used his meter.”19 According to Pereira, the dodecasyllable is the best option for those who intend to stage Shakespeare’s drama with a “fluctuation between the hyper-poetic and the conversational, avoiding an excessively audible rhythm.”20 One of Pereira’s innovations is a more liberal approach to the twelve-syllable line, without sticking to the strict rules of the Parnasian verse – Pereira’s verse has a low-key rhythm, that ebbs and flows, avoiding unnatural contractions of grammar and allowing melody and information to flow and easily fit into the timing of dramatic speech on stage. The effect afforded by different rhythms within the lines can be observed in the following passage, taken from Hamlet, act 1, scene 5: 47

Shakespeare in Succession

espectro

Ah, aquele monstro adúltero, incestuoso, Com feitiços e ardis, com traiçoeiros brindes – Oh, tétricos ardis e brindes sedutores – Aliciou pra sua lascívia obscena os fogos Da rainha que parecia tão virtuosa. Oh, nobre Hamlet, mas que queda foi aquela, De mim, cujo amor era de tal dignidade Que andava até de par co’os votos que lhe fiz Em nosso casamento, descer a esse baixo Cujos dons naturais são pobres e mesquinhos Comparados aos meus. Mas assim como o bem não se deixa mover, Por mais que o vício o chame co’a entonação dos céus, A lascívia, mesmo ligada a um anjo fúlgido, Sempre se saciará num leito celestial Rapinando na imundície. Mas, espera, estou sentindo o aroma da manhã: Eu serei breve. Dormindo em meu pomar, O meu hábito sempre no final da tarde, Em minha hora segura teu tio se insinuou Com o lúgubre suco de ébano num frasco, E nas portas dos meus ouvidos entornou A estilação morfética, da qual o efeito Impõe ao sangue humano tal hostilidade Que, rápido como azougue, corre, cruzando As portas e as veredas naturais do corpo, Num súbito vigor, talhando e coagulando Como ácida gota pingada no leite, O sangue tênue e são. Assim fez com o meu. E uma súbita pústula se abriu e incrustou O meu corpo macio com uma crosta leprosa Vil e repulsiva. Assim fui, ao dormir, pela mão de um irmão, De trono, vida e dama privado de vez, Ceifado em plena brotação de meus pecados, Sem sacramento, sem unção, sem confissão, Sem nem ter feito as contas, repleto de débitos, Com meus defeitos todos pesando na alma. Oh, terrível, terrível, oh, peso terrível! 48

In the Beginning Was the Verse

Se tu amas teu nascimento, não suportes, Não deixes que o régio leito dinamarquês Seja um divã funesto de luxúria e incestos. Mas qualquer que seja a forma de tua vingança, Não manches tua mente, nem tua alma trame Nada contra tua mãe. Entrega-a para os céus E deixa que os espinhos que habitam seu peito A piquem e espicacem. Adeus, de uma vez: O pirilampo mostra que a alba se anuncia E já lhe empalidece a luz ineficaz. Adeus, adeus, adeus. E lembra-te de mim.21 Throughout Pereira’s rendition of the meeting between Hamlet and the Ghost, we find several different rhythms worked seamlessly into the twelve-syllable line. The lines “Com feitiços e ardis, com traiçoeiros brindes / Oh, tétricos ardis e brindes sedutores” are classical alexandrines, with two hemistiches of six syllables. In the next line, however, “Aliciou pra sua lascívia obscena os fogos,” the stronger pauses lie on syllables four, eight and twelve, thus creating a tripartite rhythm: 4 + 4 + 4. In “De mim, cujo amor era de tal dignidade,” we find yet another distribution of stressed and unstressed syllables, the pauses falling on syllables two, five, nine, and twelve. There is a vast difference, then, between Pereira’s alexandrines and those used by Sales, whose rhythm is mostly regular, with two equal beats in every line: 6 + 6. To recapitulate, we have five ways of dealing with Shakespearean verse in Brazilian translations: 1 2 3 4 5

Prose translations (one should also mention free-verse translations, where the text is divided into lines but without following metrical rules). Verse translations in ten-syllable lines, reproducing the same number of lines found in the original. Verse translations in ten-syllable lines, adding extra lines when necessary, to preserve the informational and imagistic as much as possible. Verse translations in twelve-syllable lines that follow the classic rules of the French alexandrine. Verse translations where the twelve-syllable line is used freely, with different kinds of rhythm worked into each line. 49

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Let us now turn to my own translations and how I dealt with Shakespeare’s metrical challenge. When I set out to translate Shakespeare, I was determined to search for what Pennafort called expressional condensation, the terseness and melodic rigour of metrical speech; on the other hand, I wanted the verse to be condensed, but not compressed or hermetical. As I stated earlier, I turned initially to popular poems of southern Brazil in search for inspiration. I was especially interested in the work of Jayme Caetano Braun (1924–1999), a popular poet known for his extraordinary skill in improvising long poems. When I was a kid, I learned to recite Braun’s most famous poem, “Bochincho,” a partly epic, partly picaresque, partly romantic account of a rambunctious tavern brawl.22 This is how it begins: A um bochincho certa feita Fui chegando de curioso Que o vício é que nem sarnoso Nunca pára nem se ajeita ... (Once upon a time I happened upon a ballroom in the wilderness and out of curiosity I came in, because Vice is like a flea-bitten dog never resting, never quiet) It was only many years later, as an adult living in the big city, that I got to read the printed version of that poem. I was amazed that the verses worked as beautifully on the page as they did when recited. I realized that, when I listened to the declaimed poem as a kid, I did not understand all the words and references, most of which come from the gaúcho dialect spoken in rural areas of the borderlands. And yet, I did understand the emotional appeal of the poem, so much so that even its most obscure bits became stamped in my mind like some sort of liturgy. When I got to read the printed version, more slowly and introspectively, I discovered new layers of meaning, though I had known that poem for years. And when I read it aloud again, I realized the silent reading had changed my oral understanding of the poem. It was the same, yet richer, or maybe I should say that its endlessness was now made more evident. I decided to infuse a similar effect to my Shakespeare translations. Braun’s metre is the redondilha maior, a seven-syllable line, traditionally associated with popular poetry.23 It’s the Portuguese equivalent to the octosílabo used by José Hernández in the Argentinian national epic 50

In the Beginning Was the Verse

Martín Fierro (as I explained earlier, a Spanish and an Argentinian poet will count eight poetical syllables where a Portuguese or a Brazilian will see only seven). An important trait of the redondilha maioris its rhythmic latitude: the position of stressed and unstressed syllables might vary from line to line, as in the first lines of “Bochincho.” Aum/ bo / chin chin/ cho/ cer cer/ ta/ fei fei/ ta Fui/ che/ gan Fui gan/ do/ de/ cu/ rio rio/ so Queo/ ví ví/ cioé cioé/ que/ nem nem/ sar/ no no/ so Nun/ ca/ pá Nun pá/ ra/ nem nem/ sea/ jei jei/ ta In each of the lines above, there is a different stress pattern: 3-5-7; 1-3-7; 2-3-5-7; and 1-3-7. The rhythmic ductility allows for different emphasis, therefore creating the impression that metre follows meaning, instead of meaning contracting to fit metre. This is, of course, the artifice of artlessness: a skillful payador will impress upon his or her audience the feeling of particular accounts and ideas that could not have been expressed otherwise. I couldn’t, of course, translate Shakespeare into seven-syllable lines; but what I could do was to look for a similar latitude of rhythm. Initially, I decided to use the decassílabo, mainly because of its association with narrative poetry. I would not, however, stick to the single rhythm of the decassílabo heroico. There are, at least, two other rhythmic possibilities within the ten-syllable metre, though not as widely used as the heroic type: the decassílabo sáfico stresses the fourth, eighth, and tenth syllables, whereas the gaita galega stresses the fourth and seventh. I set out to use all the decassílabos I could get, in order to create different possibilities of dramatic emphasis. However, I still had to deal with the volumetric question. Because I did not want to trim important pieces of information nor to curtail Shakespeare’s linguistic opulence, I decided to follow Nunes and Campos, adding extra lines when I found it necessary. And yet, there seemed to be something missing: at times, the different kinds of decassílabo generated the desired effect; but, at other moments, I felt I needed a stronger contrast, a wider range of rhythmic expression, or a different kind of melody to recreate Shakespeare’s protean qualities. For a moment, I considered switching from decassílabos to dodecassílabos. After a period of inner artistic turbulence, I finally decided I did not need to choose one metre over the other. I could use them both. I had already done it in the past – tentatively. My translation of The Canterbury Tales (published by Penguin Companhia in 2013) was mostly made in decassílabos. However, I had used twelve-syllable lines to translate 51

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the peculiar stanzas in “The Monk’s Tale.” Now I decided to combine both metres throughout Shakespeare’s plays. The alternation between verse and prose was already in the original; also, as Pereira pointed out, Shakespeare used his metre with a certain degree of latitude, fluctuating between the conversational and the unduly poetic. I set out to expand that diversity of intonations, using different metres and rhythms to translate Shakespeare’s versified passages. However, my double-metre method – namely, a combination of decassílabos and dodecassílabos with several stress patterns – was not meant to be used arbitrarily. I decided to use the alternation of metres to convey meaning and artistic effect; in other words, the double metre is meant to translate something that is already in the original text, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate. In Romeu e Julieta (Penguin Companhia, 2016), I used the alternation of metres to create different tempos within the play. The ten-syllable line imbues the drama with speed and propels it forward; I used it in most dialogues, especially those charged with witticism and derision; Mercutio and the Nurse, for instance, almost always speak in ten-syllable lines. Scenes of galloping intrigue and bellicose bantering are also infused with the same quickening spirit. There is, however, a counterpoint to this velocity: the dodecassílabo makes things slower and more solemn, creating a deeper rhythm, signifying metaphysical speculation, erotic musings, and the steady workings of Fate. Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech is rendered in quick-witted decasyllables, pointing to the dizzying oscillation between scornful delirium and suddenly ominous suggestion. E assim ela galopa toda a noite Por cérebros de amantes, que então sonham Com coisas amorosas; pelos joelhos Dos cortesãos, que sonham reverências; Por dedos de advogados, suscitando Oníricos salários; pelas bocas Das damas, cujos sonhos viram beijos ... Trota então no nariz de um palaciano, Que sonha em farejar petições gordas; Usando o rabo de um leitão de dízimo, Ele titila as ventas de um vigário, Que então sonha em ganhar novas prebendas; 52

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Ela corre na nuca de um soldado, E ele sonha pelejas e degolas, Tocaias, cercos, lâminas de Espanha E cruas, desbragadas bebedeiras; Mas ela tamborila em seu ouvido, E ele acorda, assustado, e se persigna E então volta a dormir. É a mesma Mab Que ajuda os elfos a dar nós nas crinas Dos cavalos, no campo, urdindo agouros; Ela é a sombra que cobre e aperta o corpo Das donzelas, à noite, sobre a cama. (1.4.84–109)24 When Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time, the rhythm is totally different: the sonnet-like exchange amid the masquerade is rendered in rhymed dodecassílabos.

romeu

Se profano este altar, assumo o meu pecado; Mas pequei gentilmente ao estender a mão. Meus lábios, palmeirins de aspecto encabulado, Hão de apagar, num beijo, a rude intromissão.

julieta

Ofendes tua mão, honrado peregrino; Mas ela foi correta e agiu com devoção. Um toque é o suficiente ao santo e ao paladino: Beijam-se os palmeirins tocando mão e mão. (1.5.104–7)25 In the above passage, the longer line signifies a widening of time: whereas in Mercutio’s speech words flowed like a rapid river, the lines now expand like the ripples on the surface of a lake. The contrast between longer and shorter lines aims at juxtaposing the brevity of human drama and the unending cycle of life, love, and death that surrounds and finally drowns the star-crossed lovers. In my translation of Julius Caesar (Júlio César, Penguin Companhia, 2018) the double-metre method is used to convey different rhetorical effects. Caesar himself, more often than not, speaks in longer verses that contrast with the decassílabos used by the surrounding characters: by 53

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creating a particular rhythm within Caesar’s speech, I point to his own self-centred gravity, unaffected by the conspirator’s decasyllabic furor until it is too late. Just before Caesar’s arrival at the forum, Brutus, Casca, and Cassius exchange nervous ten-syllable lines.

cássio

Em guarda, Casca: estamos em perigo. E agora, Bruto? Se nos descobrirem, Ou César tomba agora, ou tomba Cássio, Pois eu vou me matar.

bruto

Cássio, serena. Polílio está falando de outro assunto; Olhem só, está sorrindo enquanto fala, E o semblante de César não mudou. (3.1.19–25)26 That background buzz, however, does not affect mighty Caesar, who then delivers his northern-star speech in fixed, resounding, unflinching alexandrines.

césar

Se eu fosse igual a vós, talvez me comovesse; Mas súplicas não movem quem jamais suplica. Eu sou constante como a estrela boreal De cuja natureza firme e inamovível Não há qualquer rival em todo o firmamento. Com fagulhas sem conta o céu está pintado; Todas são fogo e, como fogo, todas ardem; Porém, apenas uma é fixa e não se move. Assim, no mundo: é vasta a provisão de homens, Homens de carne, e osso, e alma, e pensamento; Mas na constelação humana eu só conheço Um único capaz de se manter imóvel Alheio às mutações, perene: e ele sou eu, Conforme lhes darei uma pequena amostra: Constante, decidi banir o irmão de Címber, Constante, manterei igual o banimento. (3.1.60–74)27 54

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However, after Caesar has fallen before Pompey’s statue, stabbed thirty-three times, the conspirators celebrate the bloody deed by replacing Caesar’s stately cadence with a violent outburst of joyful, exhilarating, slightly deranged decasyllables.

cina

Liberdade! Está morta a tirania! Vão, corram! Anunciem pelas ruas!

cássio

Proclamem já nos púlpitos do povo: “Rompeu-se a servidão, estamos livres!” (3.1.79–82)28 In some cases, the choice between longer and shorter verses was determined by specific characteristics of a single phrase or line. One example is the moment, by the end of act 3, scene 1, when Mark Anthony is finally alone with Caesar’s corpse and gives vent to his vengeful feelings. When I got to this passage, I first tried to find a suitable rendering of its most famous line, “Cry ‘havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war” (3.1.277). Initially, I had decided to translate Anthony’s outburst in the longer verse form, thus connecting his words with Caesar’s last speech. I then came up with the line,“Grita devastação e solta os cães da guerra,” translating “havoc” as “devastação” (devastation). However, I soon realized that “devastação” is too long a word to be used as a battle cry. The stress falls on the last syllable, making for a loose, awkward exclamation. I felt I needed a shorter, more explosive word, and finally decided to translate “havoc” as “matança” (carnage). A shorter word, however, made for a shorter line; so, instead of “Grita devastação e solta os cães da guerra” (a dodecassílabo), I now had “Grita matança e solta os cães da guerra” (a decassílabo heroico). The whole passage was then adapted to fit the shorter metre, making for an aggressive, pulsating rallying call. Perdão, gleba de terra ensanguentada, Por ser gentil com esses açougueiros. És a ruína do homem mais sublime Que já passou sobre as marés do tempo. Ai de quem derramou sangue tão caro! Eu profetizo, olhando tuas feridas ‒ Que abrem os rubros lábios, bocas mudas, 55

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Pedindo fala e voz à minha língua ‒ Terrível praga há de aleijar os homens; Fúria interna e feroz guerra civil Vão atrofiar toda a extensão da Itália; Sangue e destruição serão rotina E o terror será coisa tão comum Que as mães só poderão sorrir ao verem A mão da guerra esquartejar seus filhos, Toda a misericórdia sufocada Pelo hábito dos fatos hediondos; E à caça de vingança a alma de César, Junto a Atê, fumegante ainda do inferno, Corre a terra e com voz de soberano Grita “Matança!” e solta os cães da guerra, Até que o miasma deste crime horrendo Se misture à carniça pestilenta Dos mortos suplicando sepultura! (3.1.280–303)29 In the end, I felt Anthony sounded more convincing in the quicker, nervous, and volatile rhythm of the decassílabo, and therefore I used it also in Anthony’s speech at Caesar’s funeral. When translating that passage, I came across a very rare occasion: a line which, translated literally, is shorter in Portuguese than in English. As may be gathered from previous pages, that’s the kind of thing a translator would come across once or twice in a lifetime – if ever. The line in question is none other than the most important one in Anthony’s speech: “And Brutus is an honourable man” (3.2.79). A literal translation would give us,“E Bruto é um homem honrado,” a line that might be scanned in eight or nine poetical syllables but not ten. Therefore, to fit metre, I saw myself forced to stretch the line, instead of compressing words – a refreshing dilemma indeed! In the end, I opted to make a virtue out of necessity, adding the word muito (very) to the line, thus rounding up a decassílabo: “E Bruto é um homem muito honrado.” In Brazilian Portuguese, the word muito might be used ironically; thus, the phrase “Ele é muito meu amigo,” depending on intonation, might convey two opposite meanings: “He is a great friend of mine” and “He is not my friend at all” (he is most likely just pretending to be a friend). That change in meaning will generally depend on the relative dilation of the letter u in the first syllable: the longer that u is pronounced, the more ironical the statement will sound. My addition 56

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to Shakespeare’s line, therefore, functions as a wild card whose meaning may change along the stanza according to an actor’s intonation when pronouncing that single word. What begins as an apparently earnest affirmation of Brutus’s honourability might then be gradually turned into a biting denial of that same quality. Irmãos, romanos, conterrâneos, ouçam! Eu venho enterrar César, não louvá-lo. O mal que os homens fazem vive sempre, Mas o bem é enterrado com seus ossos. Que assim seja com César. O bom Bruto Disse que César era ambicioso. Se isso é verdade, foi um crime grave E César foi punido gravemente. Com permissão de Bruto e os outros todos ‒ Porque Bruto é um homem muito honrado; E os outros todos, homens muito honrados ‒ Venho falar no funeral de César. Foi meu amigo, justo e bom comigo; Mas Bruto diz que ele era ambicioso E Bruto é um homem muito honrado. Vários cativos César trouxe a Roma, Cujo resgate encheu os cofres públicos: Isso em César parece ambicioso? Ele chorava ao ver chorar os pobres; A ambição deve ter metal mais duro: Mas Bruto diz que ele era ambicioso, E Bruto é um homem muito honrado. Vocês viram, nas festas lupercais, Que ofereci três vezes a coroa; Três vezes recusou. Isso é ambição? Mas Bruto diz que ele era ambicioso E, claro, ele é um homem muito honrado. Não venho contrariar o que ele disse, Só vim dizer o que eu conheço e sei. Todos vocês, um dia, amaram César, E não foi sem razão; então me digam: O que os impede de chorar por ele? Ah, Juízo! Fugiste às bestas-feras E os homens estão loucos! Um momento; 57

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Minha alma está com César, no caixão; Devo calar, até que ela retorne.30 (3.2.77–112) As much as I consider metre a riveting subject, I would like to finish this chapter on a lighter note – though not necessarily a less laborious one. Allow me, then, to say a few words about the funny but excruciating job of translating Shakespearean humour into Brazilian Portuguese. In Brazil, we used to say there is nothing less amusing than having to explain a joke; and one might add that, the more minute the explanation, the less amusing the joke. A footnote, therefore, can be rightly considered as the cemetery of fun. There is, of course, a kind of humour that is easily translatable: I refer to logical tirades, whose efficacy do not depend on words but on some sort of oblique reasoning. Things are totally different, however, when we must translate a joke based on the “promiscuity” of words – on arbitrary phonetic similarities, on the fluctuation of approximative meanings, on the contrast and surprise sometimes engendered by the mere vicinity of certain names. A great deal of Shakespeare’s humour falls in the second category – and, in most cases, a literal translation would efface any sort of comical effect. Consider, for example, Mercutio’s joke on the “open-arse” and the “poppering pear” in Romeo and Juliet. Now will he sit under a medlar tree And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call medlars when they laugh alone. O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were An open-arse, and thou a popp’rin’ pear. (2.1.34–8) An “open-arse” in Portuguese is a “nêspera” – a fine, resounding word, but, alas, not a bit salacious or suggestive. A “poppering pear” might be translated as “pera de Flandres,” but then the only way to associate it with a male organ would be ... well, in a footnote! Faced with such a riddle, a translator must either accept the death of humour and explain away the wordplay or try to convey a similar level of fun with different elements. Word-based humour is one of those cases when faithfulness can be reached only through betrayal; so to keep the comical element in that passage, I altered Shakespeare’s form and content in two ways. First, I performed an exchange of vegetables. I needed some fruit with penis-like connotations to replace Mercutio’s pear. After judicious consideration, I opted for the word glande – which means 58

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“acorn” but can also refer to the penis’s extremity (glans). To make the joke even clearer, I added the adjective inchada (swollen). Although the pun in “open-arse” might refer to a female organ, I added a line creating a visual joke more to the liking of Brazilian bawdy humour: “Cujo fruto parece um par de nádegas” (Whose fruit looks like a pair of buttocks). The result is: Romeu, senta-te ao pé da nespereira, Cujo fruto parece um par de nádegas – Como as moças gracejam quando a sós. Que ela seja uma nêspera polpuda E tu, uma glande inchada! Boa noite!31 (2.1.39–43) It is not by chance or by whim that I finish a chapter about translating metre with an example of translated humour. In my work as a translator, I realized that sometimes changing Shakespeare’s metre is an efficacious way of re-creating its verbal and rhythmic opulence. Similarly, changing Shakespeare’s words is sometimes the only way to convey his humour. In both cases, a translator is brought to the outmost limits of language and meaning and forced to rework, into his or her own trade, a paraphrase of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s famous maxim from Il Gattopardo: Sometimes, things must change to remain the same.32 notes 1 George Thaddeus Wright, Shakespeare’s Metrical Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), x. 2 José Roberto O’Shea, “Early Shakespearean Stars Performing in Brazilian Skies: João Caetano and National Theater,” in Latin American Shakespeares, ed. Bernice W. Kliman and Rick J. Santos (Vancouver: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005), 25. 3 Marcia A.P. Martins, “A tradução do drama shakespeariano por poetas brasileiros,”Ipotesi 13, no. 1 (Jan.–Jul. 2009): 27–40. 4 Marcia A.P. Martins, “A voz dos tradutores shakespearianos em seus paratextos,”TradTerm 26 (Dec. 2015): 93–4. 5 Tristão da Cunha, “Prefacio do Traductor,” in William Shakespeare, Hamleto, trans. and pref. Cunha (Rio de Janeiro: Schmidt, 1933), 5–7. Quoted in Martins, “A voz dos tradutores,” 94. 6 Antonio Feliciano de Castilho, Tratado de metrificação portuguesa (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1851).

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Shakespeare in Succession 7 Manuel Bandeira, “A versificação em língua portuguesa,” in Enciclopédia Delta Larousse (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Delta, 1960), 538. 8 Ibid., 541. 9 Luís Vaz de Camões, The Lusiads, trans. Richard Burton, ed. Isabel Burton (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1880), 1–2, 5–6. 10 Péricles Eugênio da Silva Ramos, “Apêndice C,” inWilliam Shakespeare, Hamlet, trans. and ed.Ramos (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1955), 11–30. Quoted in Martins, “A voz dos tradutores,” 95. 11 Onestaldo de Pennafort,“Introducção,” in William Shakespeare, Romeu e Julieta, trans. and ed. Pennafort (Rio de Janeiro: Edição do Ministério da Educação e Saude, 1940), 13–15. 12 Ibid., 18. The English original is widely available and thus uncited. 13 Ramos, “Apêndice C,” 277. Quoted in Martins, “A voz dos tradutores,” 95. 14 Bandeira, “A versificação em língua portuguesa,” 542. 15 William Shakespeare, Macbeth – Rei Lear, trans. Artur de Sales and J. Costa Neves, pref. de Sales (Rio de Janeiro: W.M. Jackson, 1948), 5. 16 Geir Campos, “Do Texto e da Tradução,” in William Shakespeare, Macbeth, trans. Campos (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1970), ix–xiii. Quoted in Martins, “A voz dos tradutores,” 100. 17 Geraldo de Carvalho Silos, “Nota Preliminar,” in William Shakespeare, Antônio e Cleópatra, trans. Carvalho Silos (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1999). 18 Lawrence Flores Pereira, “Nota sobre a Tradução,” in William Shakespeare, Hamlet, trans. Pereira (São Paulo: Penguin Companhia, 2015), 45–6. 19 Ibid., 46. 20 Ibid., 47. 21 Pereira’s Hamlet, 77–9. 22 Jayme Caetano Braun, Paisagens Perdidas (Porto Alegre, Brazil: Martins Livreiro Editor, 1997). 23 Bandeira, “A versificação em língua portuguesa,” 540. 24 William Shakespeare, Romeu e Julieta, trans. and ed. José Francisco Botelho (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016), 4–85. 25 Ibid., 90–1. 26 William Shakespeare, Júlio César, trans. and ed. José Francisco Botelho (São Paulo: Penguin-Companhia das Letras, 2018), 87. 27 Ibid., 88. 28 Ibid., 89. 29 Ibid., 95–6. 30 Ibid., 101–2.

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In the Beginning Was the Verse 31 Botelho’s Romeu e Julieta, 95. 32 Lampedusa’s original quotation is “tutto cambia perché nulla cambi (Everything must change in order for everything to remain the same). I would not go that far!

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2 Stage or Page? A Momentous Choice Niels Brunse

Translating Shakespeare into Danish has been a major preoccupation for me for the last thirty years or more. In 2018, the sixth and last volume of my new translation of all the plays – the canonical thirty-seven – was published.1 It has been a long, arduous, and immensely rewarding journey, but from the very outset I faced a problem that most Shakespeare translators will recognize: should your version be aimed at actors and audiences, or at the scholarly or pleasure-seeking quiet reader?

stage or pag e? The first of my translations were commissioned by Danish theatres, so the choice was easy: stage, of course. I would have opted for that, however, even if I had been asked to do the translations for a book publisher. Shakespeare was a man of the theatre. Traces of theatrical experience and built-in stagecraft are abundant in his texts, and he probably never worried much about seeing his plays in print; the first cheap, flawed, and hastily produced quartos of the texts were theatrical spin-offs, the copyright, if any, was owned by the actors’ company and not by the author, and the first serious edition of the plays, the famous First Folio, was published seven years after Shakespeare’s death. Unlike Shakespeare the poet, who seems to have prepared the first editions of his long narrative poems very carefully, Shakespeare the playwright did not care much about printing. And even though the last few of my translations were plays that have only a slim chance of being staged in Denmark (Pericles, anyone? Henry VIII? I wouldn’t put my money on it), I stuck to the principle of treating them as stage texts. Which means that I hear the words in my mind the way they would be spoken on stage, and this simple choice leads to

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an avalanche of conflicts with Danish orthography and punctuation. When it comes to such rules, Danish is a rather conservative language. The actual pronunciation is not always in accordance with the spelling, and commas have become a national trauma after the so-called comma war from 1996 to 2003 or thereabouts, in which reformers tried to replace the traditional Danish grammatical punctuation with a “new comma” along logical-semantic lines, as in English. The reason was that few people really mastered the grammatical comma. But the outcome was that nobody knew what to do with commas, and eventually the reformers backed out and the authorities reintroduced a very slightly revised version of the grammatical comma into school curricula and public use. Ever since then, editors have been obsessed with “correct” punctuation, and I have fought countless battles with fanatic comma zealots in the publishing industry, because I tend to be incorrect and (gasp!) inconsistent. I have sometimes defended myself by saying that I use “expressive punctuation,” and though the term is purely my own invention, it may at least give me a little breathing space until the zealots discover that it does not exist. If you are familiar with the erratic spelling and pronunciation of early modern English, you would hardly raise an eyebrow over such matters, but in an age of pedagogical punctiliousness you must fend for your faults. Or rather, your conscious transgressions. Let me give you a brief example. In Hamlet 3.3, King Claudius is alone, he thinks, praying, regretting and not regretting his fratricide, immersed in thoughts and pangs of conscience, not noticing Hamlet behind him, ready to draw his sword and revenge his father. Hamlet says: Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. (3.3.74)2 The line is an iambic pentameter and must be so in the Danish translation as well. “Pat” means “conveniently” and is not really necessary to understand the situation; by omitting it, I could make the rest of the words fit in. The line, with correct contemporary spelling and punctuation, would look like this: Nu kunne jeg gøre det, nu, mens han beder. And since most of you will not know Danish, here is a very approximate phonetic transcription of how it sounds: Noo coo yie goruh day, noo mens han bear. 63

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Stresses are fully regular, on every second syllable, even though the first “Nu” can be accentuated, just like the first “Now” in the original. This single line is not extraordinary in any way and yet illustrative of several problems. To begin with, the “correct” second comma in the Danish line breaks up the rhythmic flow of the original line, which clearly falls into two parts, not three. Most Danes would pronounce the line just like that, making only one pause before the second “nu,” but a hypercorrect actor (or reader) might add a totally unnecessary pause before “mens.” I deleted the second comma. Next, the spellings kunne and beder might lead some people to pronounce or imagine the words as disyllabic, as indeed they were a very long time ago. In modern Danish, they would be perceived as monosyllabic. The normal way of indicating such contractions is by an apostrophe. Then we get: “Nu ku’ jeg gøre det, nu mens han be’r.” But such words – other examples would be gi’r instead of giver (gives), ta’r instead of tager (takes), li’som instead of ligesom (just like), and many more – appear very, very frequently, and I quickly grew tired of all these apostrophes, which made the text look as if it had been assassinated with a shotgun. So I decided early on to omit the apostrophes. And now the line has changed to: Nu ku jeg gøre det, nu mens han ber. This is not regular Danish spelling. A few writers have experimented with contractions, and in Swedish and Norwegian, which are closely related to Danish, such short forms are already the norm, so they are not totally unfamiliar to Danish readers. The point is that the spelling does not aim at perfect correctness but rather at a kind of notation of sound, an indication of how the line should be pronounced. I feel a little bit justified that Shakespeare’s own texts quite often have traces of phonetic notation, for example, i’th’ for in the, or a for he. I have quoted the line in question as it appears in the First Folio, but at least three editions of Hamlet3 prefer the second-quarto reading: Now might I do it pat, now a is a-praying. This is probably what Shakespeare wrote, and what was spoken on stage. The apparent irregularity disappears if you pronounce “a is” as [uz], a contraction like the still current “he’s” – and I like the idea of 64

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Shakespeare writing not only the words the actors had to say but also the way he wanted them to say them. The Folio version of the line, then, represents a later, corrected stage of the text’s life, and I feel a little bit closer to Shakespeare when I allow myself these phonetic hints. Similarly, I use punctuation as a kind of musical notation to indicate tempo and pauses in a speech. Shakespeare’s own punctuation is as good as impossible to discern, because scribes and compositors had their own habits and ideas of correctness at the time – in the early editions you sometimes find parentheses where we would use commas, or commas in unusual places – and the only extant manuscript that might be in Shakespeare’s own hand, the scene for Sir Thomas More, now in British Library, shows a remarkable lack of punctuation, with very few commas and almost no periods at all. If anything can be deduced from this, it would be that Shakespeare considered punctuation a thing for the page, while he wrote for the stage and trusted the actors to find the phonetic phrasing themselves. A modern-day translator, however, must make decisions on punctuation, and my choice has been to provide guidance for actors (and readers) rather than grammatical fastidiousness. Compare the two following speeches: They are both in prose, but in style and function they are very different. The first one is the opening speech of The Winter’s Tale. The two courtiers Camillo and Archidamus meet, and the latter says: If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. (1.1.1–3) The second one is from The Comedy of Errors, where Dromio of Syracuse complains to his master about the kitchen maid who claims him as her husband: Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she’ll burn a week longer than the whole world. (3.2.94–8) Archidamus speaks, just as Camillo does, in convoluted, syntactically complicated sentences. It is an expression of politeness, and an indication of their social standing as well, and the pace is slow. Dromio rattles 65

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off his words at breakneck speed, for comic effect, but also to indicate that he is a servant and anything but intellectual. I admit that my sense of pace in this comedy is probably influenced by Trevor Nunn’s very funny 1976 production, which was shown on tv in many countries, including Denmark. At any rate, I have tried in both speeches to use punctuation as hints – words not separated by punctuation marks should be spoken in one breath, whereas frequent commas break up the speech in several elements with minor pauses in between, to clarify the syntax. It would make little sense to quote my translated versions in full here; let it suffice to say that I put a total of seven commas into Archidamus’s speech of forty-two words in Danish, that is, a comma in every six words, whereas Dromio’s speech has a total of 6 punctuation marks (not counting the final period, as in Archidamus’s) and sixty-nine words, equalling a pause every 11.5 words. Commas, periods, and semicolons are of course not heard as such on stage, but both a reader’s perception and an actor’s delivery are clearly slowed down by a higher frequency of them in the written text. Hence my artistic inconsistency in using them and my subsequent battles with comma warriors of all kinds. There is one passage in the Shakespeare canon, though, where the use of commas and periods must be absolutely meticulous. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream (5.1), when the “rude mechanicals” begin their performance at the duke’s court, the Prologue – Peter Quince, their playwright, and director – is so nervous that he gets it all wrong and in fact ends up saying the opposite of what he means to say. If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. (5.1.108–11) And so on. The correct, intended version of the same: If we offend, it is with our good will That you should think we come, not to offend, But with good will to show our simple skill: That is the true beginning of our end. Whichever way, it is a pretty clumsy piece of writing, and Shakespeare the parodist probably enjoyed penning it. He did not invent the mis66

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punctuation trick, but he certainly used it here; no wonder that Duke Theseus reacts with a quip: “This fellow doth not stand upon points” (5.1.118). In my translation, though, I had to stand upon points, and I did. I made the prologue a complete set of sentences wrongly paired, whereas the original is a bit more fluffy and a bit more dependent on double meanings. “End,” for instance, means both “purpose” and “destruction.” This is not possible in Danish, and I chose to rely on the comic effect of pauses in the wrong places all the way through. A case of hypercorrectness, perhaps? Or just the regular fulfillment of the author’s intention? At any rate, it works on a Danish stage, as I have witnessed several times. Punctuation aside, there is another aspect of translating with the stage in mind that deserves attention. Actors and directors must have a certain leeway to interpret characters and key scenes, and if Shakespeare’s original text is ambiguous, as it often is, the translator must take care to keep ambiguities open. It sounds easier than it actually is. The first problem is to decide which scenes (or characters) are crucial to different interpretations, and which are not. The second problem is to translate the original text of these crucial elements in a way which allows for differences. Take Hamlet. When King Claudius plots with Laertes against Hamlet’s life, he asks Laertes, “What would you undertake / To show yourself in deed your father’s son / More than in words?” – and Laertes answers, “To cut his throat i’th’ church” (4.7.119–21). This drastic remark is an example of a speech with practically no room for interpretation. Laertes is furious and vengeful, he will do anything, and it does not really matter whether he understands or not that he is being used by the king. The translation must be as literal as possible. For metrical reasons, and because a recurrent problem in translating from English to Danish is that monosyllabic words – “cut,” “throat,” “church” – must be rendered with words of two or even more syllables and not contracted, I had to give Laertes a whole pentameter instead of the three iambic feet in the original: “Alt; skære struben ud på ham i kirken” (In back-translation: “Anything; cut out his throat in the church.”) The initial “Alt” is an addition but covers the meaning and occupies the single syllable that was left of the metre. And I chose the Danish word “struben” for “his throat” instead of the slightly more common “halsen,” because the latter may also mean “neck,” and the former is by connotation a little more dramatic; all in all, Laertes’s reply comes across in Danish as marginally more deliberate and bloodthirsty, but still in character and in full accordance with the situation. 67

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In contrast, another brief answer contains the key to two very different interpretations of the same character – Queen Gertrude. In 5.2, where Hamlet and Laertes have their fencing match, the king has prepared a plan B, a poisoned cup of wine to give to Hamlet, if Laertes does not kill him first with his equally poisoned rapier. But after a few bouts, the queen rises, and with the words “The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet,” she takes up the poisoned cup. The king warns her: “Gertrude, do not drink.” But she replies, “I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.” And then she drinks (5.2.250–1). Why? The traditional explanation is the simple one – that she is unaware that the cup is poisoned. In that case, the meaning of her reply to the king is: “I will, pardon me for not obeying your command.” A matter of formal court etiquette only. But there is another possible explanation, which has intrigued quite a few performers and writers over the years. Gertrude may drink the poison on purpose because she knows the real story behind her late husband’s death and now, suspecting foul play, chooses death as the only way out of a situation where all is lost. Eileen Herlie, playing Gertrude, indicated as much in Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet film in 1948, and Margaret Atwood in “Gertrude Talks Back,” a short-story rewriting of the “closet scene” in 1992, famously let the queen tell Hamlet the truth about his father’s murder: “It wasn’t Claudius, darling, it was me.”4 Gertrude may be either innocent and naïve or guilty and chillingly clear-headed. Shakespeare’s own text leaves both interpretations open, and so should the translation of it. I had several Danish options, ranging from undskyld (“excuse me” or “sorry”) to tilgiv mig (“forgive me” in the very emotional and tragic sense). What I chose was “Jo, herre konge, tilgi mig min frihed” – in literal back-translation “Yes, my lord King, forgive me for [taking] this liberty” – with a missing v in “tilgiv” to indicate the usual, everyday pronunciation of the word and thus the insincere formality of court rituals. It may, however, also be understood as “forgive me for [choosing] my freedom,” which in turn can be construed as Gertrude’s farewell message to Claudius: “I will not be bound to you anymore.” The potential in Gertrude’s answer should neither be minimized nor exaggerated, and my solution hovers between these two poles and allows the two different approaches to coexist: in other words, it leaves the decision to the performer and the director. It goes without saying that not every speech in a play should be treated with such care, otherwise you would never be able to finish a translation – but in key moments like this, care and analysis are required, because the translator who translates for the stage is neither the sole nor the final interpreter. 68

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One more thing about translating for the stage: sometimes the action will take a dramatic turn, something unexpected will happen – and the translation should support these explosive moments, because they are very efficient in the theatre. Stage business is stage business, meaning that the translator cannot “translate” the physical things happening without words between the actors. But spoken reactions to them must be translated, and the translation may blur these reactions (meh) or make them stand out (wow). I’m for the wow. Let us first take one more example from Hamlet to illustrate this, an example from the smallest-calibre category. When the Ghost appears to Hamlet, it is not its first appearance on stage. We, the audience, have seen it before. But it is Hamlet’s first encounter with it, and his reaction transforms the spectre from a spooky apparition to a terrifying harbinger of fate. Hamlet’s first words at the sight of it are these: “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” (1.4.40). This is a beautiful example of one of the rules of pentameter writing. You are allowed to invert, so to speak, the first metric foot of the line, changing it from iambic to trochaic, thus beginning with a stressed syllable. Hamlet’s reaction is an outburst, and of course the first sound he utters carries all the weight of shock and fear: “AN-gels.” (Shakespeare could have written “Angelic ministers of grace…” to keep the metre neat and tidy, but that is precisely what he did not do.) I might have translated those first words as “I nådens engle” (You, angels of grace), or “I Himlens engle” (You, angels of Heaven), or “Åh, nådens / Himlens engle” (Oh, angels of grace / Heaven), or even “Himmelske engle” (Heavenly angels), but my final choice was “Himlens engle, stå os nådigt bi!” (Heaven’s angels, aid us graciously!) Apart from the semantic relocations of some of the elements, and apart from the urge to invoke Heaven instead of a “grace” that would be more secular and less divine in a modern context, it is obvious that the pentameter in Danish here is missing one syllable at the beginning. But I did this consciously to achieve the outburst effect. The missing syllable may be perceived as a stunned pause, maybe even a gasp, but in all probability the audience will not notice it, except that Hamlet’s reaction comes with the maximum phonetic stress and not with the usual unaccented beat at the head of the verse. In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s goriest play, there is an explosive moment of a very different kind. At the notorious banquet at 5.3, where Titus serves a meat pie to the Roman empress and only afterward reveals that it contains the flesh and bones of her two villainous sons, who have 69

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raped and mutilated his daughter, he begins the ensuing chain of disclosures and killings with a question to the emperor. “Was it well done of rash Virginius,” he asks, “To slay his daughter with his own right hand / Because she was enforced, stained, and deflowered?” (5.3.36–8) The story of the centurion Virginius and his dishonoured daughter is one of many which will have been more familiar to Shakespeare’s contemporaries than to us, but just in case, Shakespeare gives us the gist of it. And the emperor, the guardian of traditional Roman moral values, answers as he must: “It was, Andronicus” (5.3.39) “Your reason, mighty lord?” asks Titus and gets the expected answer: “Because the girl should not survive her shame” (5.3.39–40). Titus commends the answer, declares that he will follow this good example, unveils his daughter, who has been present but unrecognized all the while – and kills her. This is an extremely shocking moment. To an audience with an early modern instead of an ancient Roman outlook, it is unthinkable that a father should kill his own child in cold blood, and even those in the audience who may have had a hunch will feel the unveiling as an additional visual jolt. The emperor, unable to keep his composure, exclaims: “What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?” (5.3.47). These two last epithets are a challenge to the translator. In Shakespeare’s day, “natural” and “kind” meant a lot more than they do now, and both were linked to family and kinship (“natural” meaning what you were born, natus, into.) In a society without insurance or public-health systems, family was everything, and violation of duties and obligations toward one’s family were considered even worse than transgressions toward strangers. If I had chosen the translations you will find in any modern dictionary, the emperor’s reaction would sound almost ridiculously weak (“Now what a strange thing to do – that wasn’t very kind of you, was it?”). More emphasis was needed, and I considered various adjectives from the good old wicked-vile-unscrupulous-vicious drawer in my toolkit, but it was still not really satisfying. In the end, I decided to have the emperor say: “Hvad har du gjort, perverse psykopat?” (What have you done, you psychopathic pervert?) – which is what a modern-day audience would feel like yelling at such outrageous behaviour. It is also absolutely out of sync with the conventions of “Shakespearean” language in Danish, and solutions of this kind should be avoided except in the most extreme cases. But this was one, I thought. Titus’s action has cracked up the decorous façade of the gathering, everybody is on edge, and after a few more clarifications (including the one about the meat pie), the murderous end game sets in. Titus kills the empress, the emperor kills Titus, Titus’s son 70

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kills the emperor and, after a suitable amount of kerfuffle, is proclaimed the new emperor of Rome. The play is violent but not dignified. It has an almost grotesque quality reminiscent of a Tarantino movie, and I thought I would rather whet than blunt the feeling of disruption and chaos in this crucial scene – and so I allowed myself this translational maneuver, even though it goes basically against my principles. I still have not had the opportunity to see whether my fling is a flop. My translation of Titus Andronicus has not been staged yet. But if it happens someday, and if I live to see it, I will consider it a test, not of the actors or producers, but of my own work. Because no matter how much energy and conviction you put into a drama on the page (or on your computer screen), the life-giving source of its viability is what happens on the stage. You can do the most magnificent armchair productions in your mind when you read a play, but real theatre exists only in the fleeting magical moment when words and acting and audience come together. Shakespeare knew this, and no Shakespeare translator should ever forget it. notes 1 William Shakespeare, Antonius og Cleopatra, Pericles, Coriolanus, Vintereventyret, Cymbelin, Stormen, Henry VIII, trans. Niels Brunse (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2018). 2 The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). 3 See, for example, the Arden Hamlet, ed. Harold Jenkins (London: Methuen, 1982); the New Cambridge Hamlet Prince of Denmark, ed. Philip Edwards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); the Arden Hamlet, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006). 4 Margaret Atwood, “Gertrude Talks Back,” in Good Bones (Toronto: Coach House, 1992), 15–18. More on this in the 2006 Arden Hamlet, 130 and 454n274.

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3 “My Restless Discord Loves No Stops Nor Rests”: Translating “The Rape of Lucrece” for the Stage Marcus Kyd

One, two, three, go! We start hot and driving. Just like Shakespeare. Drums, bass, and guitar set the pace for the narrator and dancer to soar over the music and swiftly bring the audience into this audacious and devastatingly relevant poem. Forgive us if we feel it needs a kick. We are up against a set of formidable obstacles. William Shakespeare’s “The Rape of Lucrece” sits impatiently at the back of nearly every complete works edition waiting to be noticed (I am ashamed to say I managed to ignore it for years.) The poem lacks the popular currency of Romeo and Juliet or even the slightly more esoteric currency of Measure for Measure. It is rarely noticed outside of the most thorough of Shakespeare courses and journals. The very story of Lucrece, so well known in the Renaissance, has drifted off our contemporary radar. The vagaries of time have left it largely on its own, occasionally brought forward by specialists. Taffety Punk Theatre Company started working on this poem in 2008.1 It struck us as an important work that people needed to hear, but these days inviting people to hear an epic poem is a great way to clear a room. We know this because at our first reading of this work, in a two-hundred fifty seat house at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival, only twelve people came (company member Lise Bruneau still endearingly calls it the greatest show no one saw.) This trepidation on the part of the audience is not the poem’s fault, of course. We think it has something to do with the audience’s idea of what is in store. The

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popularity of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Hunger Games, and so many more stories we consume via books and film proves that people still love a good epic tale. But offer to recite an hour or two of Homer, or Dante, or one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known long poems, and one will be met with a lot of blank stares. So this is our task: to translate this work for the stage and make the staging compelling. The artistic goal is to illuminate those things that are inherently in the work and find places where we can enhance the narrative for an audience who may not be used to sitting still and listening to an epic poem for an hour and a half. The ultimate goal is to produce empathy and understanding, to recognize something of ourselves in the work. There is all too much of our age in the action and consequences of “The Rape of Lucrece.” To all of us in the company, that is why the story is most tragic – and most necessary. Our current and still fluid staging of “The Rape of Lucrece” is presented with a band of actor-dancer-musicians who take turns shifting between movement phrases, staged scenes, and sections of music, around an ever-present narrator at the central microphone just in front of her backing rock trio. How did we get here? How did we agree on such an array of tools and skill sets to tell Shakespeare’s tale of Lucrece? From the very first encounter with this text, we were moved to tears. How do we stage such a thing so that it carries this pathos to our audience? These are daunting questions, always. Because it is not a play, we were even more off our footing. We decided not to force it. The first choice we made all those years ago was to protect the primary thrust of this work as a narrative poem. We decided to give the poem time to tell us what it wanted of us. Our early performative experiments with “The Rape of Lucrece” were just as much about giving us a chance to listen to it as well as anyone. Being punks, we soon pulled out the microphones and we amplified it. The more we listened to the story, the more we fell in love with the sounds Shakespeare used. So that was the next element we chose to explore. We invited Sean Peoples, a frequent collaborator, to play with us. Sean is in love with sound. He is the founder of two record labels, co-founder of a dj Collective, and member of a punk band. We met him while he was pursuing his solo project, FFFFs, where he would create melodic compositions out of vocal and unconventional noise loops. We asked him to connect us to his array of effects and sound tools and let 73

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him do his thing. With Sean, we found an opportunity to push our love of the poetic sounds to the point where the assonance of a phrase can bounce around the room, or where rhymes reverberate in layers over neighbouring phrases. As an example, combining effects proved useful in an early speech of Tarquin’s. We found that an amplified whisper, with a simple distortion pedal, yielded focus on the fricatives and sibilants of As from this cold flint I enforced this fire, So Lucrece must I force to my desire. (181–2) The Narrator interpolates, and the action gives Tarquin a chance to relent. The effect of the pedal, which overcompresses the microphone signal, continues its work. Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not To darken her whose light excelleth thine; (190–1) This compressed whisper gives us the feeling that this is a prayer somehow too weak to be useful. The distortion effect also has a crunching quality that brings the sharpness of the t’s and d’s to the fore, letting us clearly define Let fair humanity abhor the deed (195) before grasping between the airy catches of That spots and stains love’s modest snow-white weed. (196) The sounds of the last phrase of the stanza force him to slow down a bit to clarify the thought, and in doing so resurrect it as a thought to be further scanned. He begins again, “What win I if I gain the thing I seek?” (211). And in the following lines, Sean enjoyed playing with cascades of additional effects. These effects came in and out and drew attention not only to the oscillating argument being entertained but also the insincerity of it, as Tarquin worms his way toward his inevitable conclusion in a pallid show of noble considerations. For another example, much later in a deep lament of Lucrece, Sean set up a layering of echoes on the stanza beginning 74

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“To kill myself,” quoth she, “alack, what were it But with my body my poor soul’s pollution?” (1156–7) As the stanza proceeds the effect builds, subtle but strong enough to make the u sounds – “pollution,” “lose,” “whose,” “confusion,” “conclusion,” “two” – return and linger in the room in varying pulses like a background wail. In early rehearsals we admittedly pushed this sort of exploration to the limit of tolerability hoping for such discoveries. It helped us get out of our analytical brains and into a place where the musicality of language was all. Giving Sean free rein over where and when to alter and reuse the sounds from the microphones allowed us to go even further toward listening to the poem in new ways. The Kennedy Center allowed us to follow such a course in their Pageto-Stage festival. Somehow, beneath all the effect manipulation, Sean was also able to pull random sounds out of the microphone signals and redirect them toward his own background compositions. By creating these tone poems, generated from the sounds of the poem itself, he gave us the first suggestions of music populating the expanses of poetic passages. His work allowed the three actors to commit to telling the story as clearly as possible. Arguably, those twelve lucky people who dared to come to that very first reading heard the most sonically obsessed rendition of “The Rape of Lucrece” ever shared. We did not know there was a reviewer there. Curiously, the reviewer claimed, or moaned rather, that we started the work a third of the way in. We were surprised because we skipped only the dedication and argument of the printed text and dived right into the action, as Shakespeare does. Here, there are no invocations to the muses to sing through the poet, no character introductions or lavish settings; the inciting incident is already behind us, and we are racing at full speed with the story’s villain. The reviewer’s complaint confirmed for us how unfamiliar the public is with this Shakespeare, “this Pamphlet without beginning”2 (Maybe we should have kept that dedication in.) We would perform such living experiments two more times, marking the discoveries we made in rehearsal and onstage as we recombined the cast and added possibilities. The next element we experimented with was movement. We felt that by adding dance to our experiments we might plumb the depths of the inner life of the characters and imagery. We asked company member Paulina Guerrero, a choreographer and dancer, to play with us. 75

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Paulina found rich textures of possibilities in what could best be described as movement underscores to Lucrece’s text. She focused on Lucrece’s protestation sequence at first – surrounding “End thy ill aim” (579) – and then returned sporadically during Lucrece’s laments escalating toward the moment she later rends the painting with her nails. The movement experiments, presented alongside our sonic discoveries at the 2009 conference of the Shakespeare Association of America, and later that year in a cafe at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, pushed us further toward understanding how we might fully stage this story. The story was starting to take root in us. We knew by the end of 2009 there was a show to be had from this poem. We also knew that sound and movement can help the audience track the story we are telling even when things get a bit complicated. Audiences have a great knack for collecting and sensibly sorting information. We knew that what we needed to do next was to commit to staging the scenes and assemble a full cast of performers adept at moving, acting, and music. All that considered, we put it away for another year and a half. We were still actively producing other shows that needed our focus. But a break of a year and more gave us time to digest all the work we had done and to dream on the work we could do. When we recollected ourselves in 2012 with the plan to create a full show, we had some big ideas in store. Working as an ensemble theatre company has its graces. Knowing each other and each other’s work so well, we can make adjustments fairly quickly. Lise Bruneau (our original Narrator) was not available in this time frame, so Tonya Beckman stepped in as Narrator. With the loss of Sean to a larger film project, Kimberly Gilbert (our Lucrece) and I decided to add live music, so we invited Dan Crane in on drums while she and I played bass and guitar. Thinking that the music load would be a lot while I was also directing, I asked Joel David Santner to perform Tarquin and Kelsey Mesa to assistant direct. With the loss of Paulina to finish her PhD in folklore, we asked Erin Mitchell Nelson to choreograph for us, and invited Katie Murphy to dance with us as well. So, a bit reshuffled, with more options for bodies and voices, we now had our working ensemble that would create this show. And we come back to our initial question: how do we translate this for the stage? “From the besieged Ardea all in post” (1) – As opening lines go, this one is a great wtf ? moment in literature. Who is talking? Where is Ardea? Why are we leaving? What is happening? 76

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We have maintained through every reading, and every incarnation, the character of the Narrator, who is centre stage telling the story. As we have learned, it is her job to bring the audience in, welcome them, allow them to trust us, establish the action, and get them over the listeningto-verse-is-easier-than-you-think threshold. She must do this with only Shakespeare’s text, in these peculiar rhyme royal stanzas. As all actors in classical plays know, she has about two minutes before they get frustrated and ten minutes before they give up. The villain’s journey to Lucrece’s home launches like the start of a race. So we choose to do likewise. With a quick tempo, a dancer before us, we open full tilt. The pace is set. We use the opening music to get the audience through the gate. This eruption is brief, two passes at the full phrase. As the dancer recedes, bass and drums take themselves out in a tight halt; only the guitar maintains the driving riff, though muted, under the Narrator who now launches into the poem with just as much energy. The quick collapse into the muted guitar keeps the Narrator in the clear. The story is under way. “When at Colatia this false Lord arrived” (50), the Narrator logically drives this section in our show. For the audience whose ear may still be tuning to the verse, Tarquin steps forward into the playing space, Lucrece steps in as well, and we see a greeting between the two, innocuous enough, choreographed on the key words – “Beauty” and “Virtue.” As Tarquin is isolated, we clear the stage. Lucrece moves back to the bass, Tarquin to the microphone. The Narrator details more of his intentions. The band supports the lines building to “thieves, and cares, and troubled minds that wake” (126) with a series of chopped discordant tones. The bass and drums then come in with a slower version of the opening riff. This might now strike the audience as Tarquin’s theme. The bass line, played by the actor playing Lucrece, is slower and oddly more menacing because slow. His dark purpose now “madly tossed between desire and dread” (171) he speaks to the flame. One of the devices that has stayed with us from the early experiments is the vocal effects on this passage. We have placed specific effects pedals between the actors’ microphones and the mixer. The actors can now trigger the effects themselves. In sections such as this, the pedals get turned on and off in rapid succession in a distinct order that allows for overlapping applications. We had to make time for the actors to practise their speeches with these jabs at the pedals many times to set the proper order, then practise even more to make it fluid enough that it would not interfere with the characterization and movement of the text. 77

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Joel maintains the whispered choice of earlier versions for the “Fair torch” speech (190–245). The sounds drive his choices. While words such as “divine,” “shrine,” “spots,” and “stains” carry large concepts, the sounds themselves are soft and without definitive ends. He moves quickly into the debate with “What win I if I gain the thing I seek?” (211). The actor jumps to a wide and very deep flanging effect on his voice. For the uninitiated, this effect gives the illusion of sound circling a room, almost like a doppler effect in long cycles. The distortion comes and goes alongside this. The drummer punctuates these thoughts with sharp drum hits buttressing the line endings. Joel and Dan use the natural percussiveness of the text and the drums to propel each other, almost challenging each other to go further. For the highly observant, or the return-viewer, it may hover in the back of their minds that the drummer is also the actor playing Collatine and this duel is perhaps Tarquin’s conscience wrangling with the memory of his friend. We listen as his mind rotates away from all sense. He is utterly “graceless” as the narrator warned us, “’Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will” (246–7). We do not break the metre lightly here at Taffety Punk, but we did so a handful of times in this production and I will try to explain why. While the next section starts, Tarquin and Lucrece are on stage and the guitarist steps toward the microphone. The narrator has told us “what is vile shows like a virtuous deed” (252). She then cues us, “Quoth he” (253) and Tarquin repeats it saying again, “Quoth he,” and the guitarist then picks it up saying again, “Quoth he.” Then the guitarist continues, “She took me kindly by the hand” (253), and continues these next three stanzas, all Tarquin’s lines, while Tarquin and Lucrece play this skewed memory of their greeting in movement. This brief device, though breaking the metre, allowed us to quickly establish for the audience that the text was being reassigned, and that Tarquin was still the speaker though it was coming vicariously through another person. This also sets up that the actor playing a part can have a double (as we found earlier in the choreography). We invoke the device again when Lucrece needs to employ it. I think all told, we used this baton-pass maybe three times in the show. Here Tarquin arrives at that disgusting and all-too-common justification that rapists have used for centuries, that it is her own fault because she is too beautiful: “All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth” (268). The actors part, and she continues moving while he watches. Objectifying her this way he walks back to the microphone, which is returned to him. Blaming her, he so deceives himself that he insists not only that he can do this but also that it is his right to do so. 78

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The Narrator, too, uses occasional effects. As she details Tarquin’s walk, breaking the lock of each door on the way to Lucrece’s room, she employs a megaphone effect, narrowing the breadth of her tonality. She eventually adds a hint of an echo effect; the combination of these pushes her consonants and vowels about the room, backed with tones emanating from the musicians. When the music and effects and speaker come to a stop, the quiet achieved is markedly greater than it would have been otherwise. The room seems too quiet. “Now is he come unto the chamber door” (337), says the narrator, and she sets up his final impious prayer. “Quoth he,” and here without the baton-pass, Tarquin speaks flatly, “I must deflower. / The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact. / How can they then assist me in the act?” (348–50). He strikes the flanger again and is met with a pulsing drumbeat. He is nearly chanting in his insistence, driving ever toward his proclamation The eye of heaven is out, and misty night Covers the shame that follows sweet delight. (356–7) The drummer has been establishing a steady beat. Steady, in common time, allowing the band to anticipate what is next. The last syllable of “sweet delight” lands on the four. The audience gets a swift silent four, and then the room explodes in music. “This said, his guilty hand plucked up the latch” (358). This is the first full song in the show, sung by the Narrator, backed by this rock trio. All our preceding sound experiments led us to the music for the show, but much composition needed to be done. There were lots of attempts at song fragments before we winnowed the material into usable forms. It is hard to describe how to write music together as a band. Like acting, it involves trust and listening. It requires one to reserve judgment, and it requires a playfulness that is also a bit serious. The fragments that come and go are gifts whether we use them or not. Knowing your bandmates well helps with the unspoken internal cueing that is possible in those magic moments when you all know it is time to move to a new passage, and you do it together. Knowing the text as well as we did, we thought we might pick sections that needed to be sung and then write music for those. It seems a little foolish in hindsight. What truly happened is that we started a sort of free-form composition period, trusting that our text would guide us. For that next section – Tarquin’s approach to sleeping Lucrece, and her terrified awakening – Kimberly had been toying with a lyrical phrasing 79

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of the verses over a song we had written. She showed Tonya the first bits of it to get the Narrator incorporated into it as a vocalist. The music here needed to be brash and quick-paced, but it also needed to support the Narrator’s job. These stanzas are a lot to cover. But the rhyme-royal structure worked very well in the context of a song. The repetition of eight music phrases gave Tonya time to sing seven lines with an extra breath to enjoy the last line of each. The song had one variation that followed a set of stanzas, chorus-like, where the Narrator was joined by other voices. It was the most song-like of songs and we initially thought we might follow that structure until the end of it. However, one night late in the rehearsal process, the song ablaze, an impulse came over me to change the main riff into something that was hopelessly unlike the song we were playing, and I just followed it. Luckily it was rehearsal, where admittedly crazy choices like this can be risked. At first, the new riff from the guitar filled the room with dissonance, and then when Dan and Kimberly noticed what was happening, they looked at me aghast. Dan tried to jump in with me, but we were ruined. I had thrown things out of whack so badly, it sounded truly horrible. However, we all agreed there was something about that impulse that felt right. Especially the introduction of a jarring dissonance that matches Lucrece’s inner life. So, we spent the rest of that rehearsal pursuing it until we found out how to make such a change, where the guitar would deviate, where the drums and bass should join, and how that might affect the vocals. This became a beast that we came back to tame many times. The band stops, the final chord ringing out aloft as the Narrator utters, “To make the breach and enter this sweet city” (469). Now in full silence, Lucrece puts her bass down, steps into the space and lies on the floor. Tarquin enters from stage right. We observe his slow approach in silence. We have been told, “The grim lion fawneth o’er his prey” (421), and so he kneels beside her, feels her breath, strokes the air over her form, places hands on either side of her, and leans in to steal a kiss. There is the slow crescendo of a drumroll on an open springless snare, and then she wakes, alarmed. The silence is broken, and the narrator tells us, “First like a trumpet doth his tongue begin” (470). What follows is probably the most stageable section of the poem, the most play-like. We have two consummate actors, trained in classical material, ready to jump in and work these scenes. They have scanned each line, defined each word, and plumbed the possibilities that actors must of biography, setting, objective, obstacle, tactics, action, and consequence. Had we merely let them play the scene it would have been 80

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crystal clear. But none of us wanted to do just that. We were in a poem after all, and we had so many other options. Our choreographer guided them through a set of movement phrases that were based in the realistic circumstances that they were playing. She had them remove the words and perform just the movement they were doing, and then isolated the movement to its essential qualities, and had them practise it again and again until they could do it without thinking. Now the actors had a movement vocabulary, a set of ten phrases, that variations of the scene could live in. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

she is on the floor he hovers over her she wakes he covers her mouth they struggle to a seated position they struggle to a standing position they move toward the stage right wall she is pinned, he brings her arms up she struggles in struggling she ends back on the floor

Then it repeats. She is on the floor, he hovers over her, and on. We have used a bit of visual repetition before, and here we choose to use it to its height. But she with vehement prayers urgeth still Under what colour he commits this ill. (475–6) “Thus he replies,” says the narrator, and the guitarist takes the first part of Tarquin’s text. Joel could do it, but we want the audience to focus on the movement for the first pass since the movement is going to become so much of what this scene is about. We see Tarquin’s version of what he is doing first, as he continues to blame her. “Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night” (485). The voice is elsewhere, at a remove from reality, like the action we are witnessing. As the Narrator looks on, we witness his desire coming to fruition in the way he hopes – that she will want it, that it is her fault and she invites him in, and ultimately accepts him. Thus, we witness that the mind of the rapist has not changed. His unconvincing “I have debated even in my soul” (498) falling flat as he strives “to embrace” his “infamy” (504). 81

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The ten parts of the movement phrase is played in these four stanzas. It establishes what follows. After this first pass, this mockery of love, Lucrece returns to her pose asleep, and he then hovers over her again. To cue that something has changed and that we are back in a truer representation, we used the triple “Quoth he” device to pass the text back to Joel, our Tarquin. Adding a crescendo cymbal, we now have an audio cue for the audience that we are back at the top of the movement to see the scene from a different perspective. Tarquin starts, “This night I must enjoy thee” (512) and here the horror comes to the fore, and the movement is more realistic. Lucrece struggles, shocked and scared, while he states his purpose and offers his threats. Carefully choreographed, the quality of this movement is harsh and violent. The actors return to the floor, him over her, she asleep. On the crescendo of cymbals, the narrator prompts again, “Quoth she” (575). Lucrece awakes, and for the first time in the poem, she speaks. Here we attempt another physical quality for what is happening. The shape of the movement remains, but in this version, she occasionally gets the upper hand. These repetitions allow us to view this argument of monologues as if divided into multiple perspectives. By repeating the movement, we return to the start, we remember what we have seen, what was said before, and now we see the struggle again with her rebukes; and in this way we can reconstruct the whole event as a scene in our minds. Repetition allows us to free ourselves from the constraints of time on stage. It allows us to see more of what we see and hear more of what we hear. We like to think the repetition amplifies her voice, so important in this section of the poem. When she says, “To thee, to thee my heaved-up hands appeal” (638), we have seen her at this point three times; the difference here is that she throws her hands up of her own will to start this appeal, rather than having them thrown up by Tarquin as before. These differences of possibility and intention give even more visual weight to this difficult passage. Tarquin then shouts, “Have done” (645), and she is thrown back to the floor. He hovers over her again, and we now see the movement again, with a new quality, more of a combat than an overpowering. So far, these changes have been subtle, based on the actors’ intentions and obstacles. At last, we offer a sizable variation: as he pushes her to the wall again, we hear her say, “there falls into thy boundless flood / Black lust, dishonour, shame” (653-4), and it stops him in his tracks. The change in the pattern sets up the height of this conflict. The distance between them is palpable, 82

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he momentarily cannot bridge the distance. As an audience we feel and hope that she may be able to stop him. He interrupts, “No more” (667). The threat that follows is delivered coldly and clearly. There is no more fighting. For this final pass of the final part of the movement phrase, the guitar enters with controlled feedback and a low drum roll. Lucrece starts a slow deliberate walk to the position on the floor where she slept. She lies down, gasping. Tarquin resumes the posture over her. As the sound peaks, the lights fall from the image of them – “he sets his foot upon the light” (673) – and we progress to almost a blackout with just a sliver of light on the Narrator. For many reasons, we chose not to stage the actual rape in the poem. We let the Narrator provide the details Shakespeare gives us. The near stage-combat level choreography that preceded this moment has told the story of his violence, and the repetition escalated the horror of it. It was already a lot to endure for both the actors and audience. After that, the audience’s imaginations would be far more personal and effective than any staging we could have composed. Having spent so much time in Tarquin’s head, what we needed now was an advocate for Lucrece, a voice that can empathize with her in full as only Shakespeare can. The Narrator continued, a voice in the darkness. I offer the details of the staging above to illustrate what sorts of choices can go into an adaptation like this. We begin with a great trust of our audience. We continually consult the text to make sure we are not straying from the story. We hope that we find a balance of movement and music that supports Shakespeare’s text and gives the audience a more tactile experience of it. Similar choices are made as we resume, and Tarquin slinks away. We now come to the most amazing part of this poem, and perhaps the thing that compelled us to stage it. The rest of the story is Lucrece’s, primarily alone in her grief, in her anger, and ultimately her determination of what to do. Shakespeare chooses to give us this, her story, with so much emotional detail it feels as though she is with us today. When Tarquin is gone, “She stays, exclaiming on the direful night” (741) and begins to feel, as victims often do, guilt, and self-blame, and shame. She speaks in her microphone. The dancer, who we will start to see more of, returns and moves through a stylized sequence representative of these thoughts. Dance is perhaps the purest of theatrical forms. So much can be shared about the human condition that need not be spoken. In this show, the choreographer worked with Kimberly and Katie on the next set of movement segments much like the band had rehearsed the music. There 83

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were many sessions where the movement was all they focused on. The text was ever present in their minds; however, as with the music, they did not follow the language line by line and attempt to find a sort of matching pantomime. Erin composed with them extensive dance phrases that welled up from the material we were working with. Freeing her choreographic impulses made room for choices that were right but not necessarily obvious. Like the music rehearsals, much material is generated and ultimately the collaborators begin to know which is right for the poem. We take a moment here for the audience to hear Lucrece’s voice, while the dancer moves through a sequence. The visual interpretations again are numerous. The dancer begins to seem a part of Lucrece, an essence of her that is now externalized, or perhaps her memory, or her conscience, or these overlapping as our sound effects do when we engage them. We suggest these possibilities to the audience by dressing the dancer and Lucrece the same. In the rehearsal process we began calling Katie’s character Lucrece’s shadow. These sorts of choices were laid in years ago with Paulina’s previous movement experiments. Before the dance goes on, the lament of Lucrece builds and we discovered the need for more music. It seemed to us that there is a sort of trilogy of laments against 1) night and guilt, 2) time, and 3) words. So we applied different qualities of music to each section to create a trilogy of songs. The first of these emerged simple and trancelike. As we move toward the lament against time, we change the timbre and shift slowly into what becomes more of a “shoegazer” style, more melodic, with complimentary vocals shared between the bassist and the guitarist. With a crash of cymbals, we arrive at the third song. “Out, idle words” (1016), Lucrece sings out and appropriately we move into a ballad, stark on chords, driven by the vocals. This song is the exception mentioned earlier. It arrived nearly intact the very first time the chords came forward and Kimberly attempted to sing. This is not to say we did not have to refine it, but in one of those rare moments of songwriting bliss, the structure of it arrived whole. As Lucrece and the Narrator proceed further into the text away from the songs, the dancer returns with a solo. In the stanza that begins “To kill myself ” (1156), we have retained the echo effect from early experiments; the final words of each line pulse through the room and around this shadow of Lucrece moving through stages of her internal conflict. The choreographer has given us lyrical sweeps with remnants of the earlier phrases punching in like memories, from which the dancer attempts to flee. 84

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Then, “With untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid” (1214), and the dancer briefly assumes this character. The flexibility of dance allows for so many variations that this is an easy transition to make; so Katie can enter the stage as Lucrece’s spirit, and the next minute resolve into focus as a character in the story. (As a side note, the more we worked through this, we came to the fanciful idea that perhaps all of this story was transmitted through the maid. It is the description of the maid’s empathy that gave us this notion. Four years later, we mentioned this while collaborating with Wolf Trap Opera on yet another adaptation of our adaptation. Composer David Hanlon and director Louisa Muller wrote an original – and particularly moving – duet in which the Maid and Collatine grieve the death of Lucrece. The song made its world premiere at our joint show in 2016.) With a brief exchange, and with Lucrece’s urgent letter to Collatine soon written and dispatched, we come at last to a section of the poem that truly vexed us as a thing to stage. It should come as no surprise that over the years of performance and studying this work, we have chosen to cut certain portions of the text. While we would certainly love to carry through each and every word, there is a curious consideration of how much time an audience can be engaged with a thing. That can be hard to determine. We Taffety Punks tend to move through our Shakespeare verses at a pretty good clip, but even then, our experience with this piece told us that our audiences are happier with about an hour and ten minutes of material versus a full hour and a half. Cuts had to be made. To make things harder, we realized early on that it was near impossible to cut just a word or a part of a line here or there as is common in the theatre. The stanzas fall apart if they are not whole. So every adjustment had to be weighed carefully because if we lost something, seven lines would go. We were not butchers. I like to think we made judicious cuts in the interest of time. An easy and tempting solution to this time constraint would have been to cut the entire section where Lucrece beholds the Trojan War painting. There are just the sorts of archaic references that some modern audiences struggle with. We know most people will know Helen, and some still may know Hecuba, but by the time we get to this Sinon person will we have lost everybody? Will we need to insert dramaturgy notes in the program just to get through this? Thankfully, further exploration moved us to keep it in. The scene is, as Shakespeare knew, utterly necessary – even Sinon. Obviously, it helps some time pass before Collatine arrives, but the scene is necessary for more than logical believability. Lucrece, in her desire to “mourn some newer way” (1365) cannot escape her trauma. 85

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Our solution for this section was to bring fragments of what has preceded back. A brief set of friezes of Tarquin and Lucrece’s shadow figure appear. He is still there, polluting everything she sees. As his figure recedes, Lucrece and her double are together, and the Narrator takes us through the visions in this painting. We have a new duet; there is a seeking quality to it, a need to be unalone as Lucrece finds Hecuba. We invoke the triple “Quoth she” device to pass Lucrece’s text to the Narrator, and the duet proceeds with passionate reach, swirling and developing into a frenzy as she warns that she will “scratch out the angry eyes / Of all the Greeks” (1469-70). By this time Katie is on the ground, and Kimberly is standing before the Narrator’s depiction. She looks at the painting and finds “perjured Sinon” (1521). Tarquin enters from right, into her eyeline, slowly approaching the bed of Lucrece again (where her double lay) giving us the direct link of Sinon to Tarquin that is brewing in Lucrece’s mind. Kimberly, now back at the microphone utters, “It cannot be ... that so much guile” – and the Narrator interrupts, “She would have said ‘can lurk in such a look’, / But Tarquin’s shape came in her mind the while, / And from her tongue ‘can lurk’ from ‘cannot’ took.” Lucrece again, “It cannot be, I find, / But such a face should bear a wicked mind” (1534–40). The beat starts, the text from Lucrece at a quicker heated pace. Joel and Katie start to rapidly re-enact the movement phrases from the argument to her isolation. Then Lucrece “tears ... with her nails” (1564) the image of Sinon as the drum is accompanied by the coarseness of pick slides from both bass and guitar. Katie returns close to Kimberly, where “ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow” (1569) and the drums shifts to a clocklike ticking at the end of each line: the last stanza in which Lucrece is alone. We “see time how slow it creeps” (1575). Collatine returns. We hear he is attended with many others. Dan gets up from behind the drums and addresses Lucrece from the stage right microphone. “What uncouth ill event / Hath thee befall’n that thou dost trembling stand?” (1598–9), he asks while a guitar accent that has appeared at nearly every mention of his name plays beneath his words. In a simple delivery, Lucrece begins to unravel the story of what happened. Katie slowly walks centre, isolated and still. Our focus is now all on her. Dan, a Collatine in speechless woe, resumes his place behind the drums. We take advantage of the emotional bent of this final speech to reprise Lucrece’s “Out, idle words” ballad, and she sings beginning with “What is the quality of my offense” (1702). The reprise is not as full as the original, but the music simultaneously matches her brokenness of spirit and the lift in her resolve. 86

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Speaking again, “She throws forth Tarquin’s name” (1717) and Katie plays the action of Lucrece’s suicide, while the musicians accentuate the scene with growing sonic turmoil. Lucrece is dead. The shock of it reverberates through the music with the sight of a single woman collapsing slowly on the stage, “and through her wounds doth fly / Life’s lasting date from canceled destiny” (1728–9). The Narrator’s words ring out in a series of echoes over the decaying sustain of the final notes of music, and the lights fade to black. We had to stop the show here. In early readings, we tried to save what follows among the men who remain, but (for us) it is a theatrical deadend. Too many unknown characters collide in debate here while we are still grieving Lucrece’s death. We have to trust that the audience’s grief will carry over into their understanding of how those assembled will react. While the denouement may work in a strict recitation, it weakens in staging. The audience’s connection to Lucrece is of utmost importance. And she is gone. The gift of time has allowed us to bring all these elements together. It has been said but is perhaps important to note again that in rehearsal, working toward this full staging, we did not begin at the beginning of the poem and work through methodically line by line until the end. There was a lot of table work where we did that, but much of this work happened piecemeal. The sections of the poem inspired us at various points over a set of years, and we are so grateful that we have been able to immerse ourselves in it again and again to hone our interpretation. As the director of this show, I feel that I often get too much credit for something that was very much a collaboration. I am indebted to all the who have been a part of the eight performances of this production as it has constantly evolved since 2008. They are Megan Ball, Tonya Beckman, Lise Bruneau, Tracy Cox, Dan Crane, Maia DeSanti, Hollis Evey, Daniel Flint, Kimberly Gilbert, Paulina Guerrero, David Hanlon, Summer Hassan, Ellen Houseknecht, D’Ana Lombard, Kelsey Mesa, Lee Anne Myslewski, Erin Mitchell Nelson, Louisa Muller, Katie Murphy, Shea Owens, Sean Peoples, David Polk, Joel David Santner, Rob Stahley, and Susan Stone Li. I thank them all. Without them, so much would have been impossible. notes 1 Taffety Punk has returned to Shakespeare’s “The Rape of Lucrece” eight times in public performance. The first reading was at the Kennedy Center’s Page-toStage Festival in 2008, with the following cast: Lise Bruneau (Narrator, Maid),

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Shakespeare in Succession Kimberly Gilbert (Lucrece), Marcus Kyd (Tarquin, et al.), Sean Peoples (Music and Sound). In 2009 we performed a staging with dance at the Shakespeare Association of America’s annual conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, dc , with the following cast: Maia DeSanti (Narrator, Maid), Kimberly Gilbert (Lucrece), Paulina Guerrero (Dancer, Choreographer), Marcus Kyd (Tarquin, et al.), Sean Peoples (Music and Sound); and later that year we performed this version again at the University of Maryland, Baltimore College, at Flat Tuesdays in the Commons, where Lise Bruneau resumed the role of Narrator and Maid. In 2012 we presented a fully staged production that performed from 26 September through 6 October at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in Washington, dc , with the following cast and production team: Tonya Beckman (Narrator), Dan Crane (Collatine, Drums), Kimberly Gilbert (Lucrece, Bass), Marcus Kyd (Director, Guitar, Voice of Tarquin), Katie Murphy (Dancer, Lucrece, Maid), Joel David Santner (Tarquin), Erin Mitchell Nelson (Choreographer), Kelsey Mesa (Assistant Director), and Ellen Houseknecht (Stage Manager). Early in 2013 we were invited to play for one of the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Happenings at the Harman where the cast included Tonya Beckman (Narrator), Dan Crane (Collatine, Drums), Kimberly Gilbert (Lucrece, Bass), Marcus Kyd (Tarquin, Guitar), and Katie Murphy (Dancer, Lucrece, Maid). Two months later we were invited to perform a truncated version of the poem (no more than twenty minutes of material) for American University’s Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium with the same cast. That summer we then performed the show at the Black Cat in Washington, dc , with the same cast except that Lise Bruneau returned as Narrator. In 2016, we collaborated with Wolf Trap Opera on a new staging that combined our work with additional operatic works by Respighi, Handel, Britten, and Hanlon and Muller. The operatic portions were performed by Wolf Trap Opera’s ensemble of singers: Summer Hassan, D’Ana Lombard, Shea Owens, and Rob Stahley. The show was produced by Lee Anne Myslewski and Susan Stone Li, and stage managed by Megan Ball, with choreography by Erin Mitchell Nelson. David Hanlon played piano. Taffety Punk’s cast was Tonya Beckman (Narrator), Dan Crane (Collatine, Drums), Hollis Evey (Lucrece, Dancer), Daniel Flint (Tarquin Double), Kimberly Gilbert (Lucrece, Bass), Marcus Kyd (Tarquin, Guitar), and Katie Murphy (Lucrece, Dancer). This show was titled Hear Lucrece. It included a spoken-word performance by Tracy Cox, and a reading by Taffety Punk–company member Teresa Spencer from her book Too Like the Lightning: Prose Poems to My Almost Loves, which is a set of fabulously sardonic poetic responses to her catcallers. Hear Lucrece was performed on 11 June 2016 at St Stephen’s Church in Washington, dc , headquarters of Positive Force dc . We were joined by several organizations that

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“My Restless Discord Loves No Stops Nor Rests” assist women in times of crisis to encourage all who came to help stop violence against women. More recently our original narrator, Lise Bruneau, has returned to record an audiobook version of the poem in its entirety, directed by Danielle A. Drakes, recorded by Don Zientara at Inner Ear Recording Studios, with dramaturgical assistance by Tiffany Bryant, text assistance by Tonya Beckman, and production management by Donna Reinhold. 2 Quoted from the dedication of the poem, p. 677.

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4 A Riverplate Translation of the Sonnets Miguel Ángel Montezanti

In this chapter I offer an account of my poetic translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets into Riverplate Spanish. In some noteworthy cases, I examine the difficulties that I have faced and I briefly state results that seem acceptable, with the purpose of mitigating the repeated judgment about “what is lost in the translation.” I have published two poetic translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The first (1987 and 2003) uses so-called standard literary Spanish, whereas the second (2011), an experimental one, is a translation into the Riverplate (non-peninsular) Spanish.1 This translation can be termed divergent or heterodox. My knowledge of Argentine translations of the whole collections of the sonnets shows that, for some reason or other, the translators seem to have been unsatisfied with their first publication and tried a second one. This is partly my case. In fact, I did not try to improve my first version but to change it utterly. In the prologue to his edition of Shakespeare’s “global” sonnets, Manfred Pfister offers a report of the reception of the sonnets, which in some cultures have a very long tradition,2 and he notes that some translations are, in fact, parodies. The Riverplate dialect reflects a more or less personal outlook. The usage of the pronoun vos, instead of tú, together with the displacement of the verbal stress are its outstanding characteristics. Since the “expected” translation of classical authors is the cultivated or literary Spanish, a dialectal variety deviates from the norm. Since vos as opposed to tú, implies familiarity or informality, this translation ends up “sounding” like a parody translation, and not because it is mainly concerned with humour. I understand the term parody as kind of “rewriting.” However, for the same reason that it deviates from the cultured literary norm, the comic result is impossible to hide. The

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displacement of the verbal stress, demanded by the use of the pronoun vos, has left the imprint on a greater number of oxytone rhymes: that is, the stress falls on the last syllable of the verb instead of falling on the previous one, as it happens in peninsular Spanish and the Spanish of other Latin American countries. I first consider phonic aspects. The more noticeable Argentine features are the so-called seseo and yeísmo. The former implies pronouncing c before e and i and pronouncing z as voiceless sibilants such as s. In peninsular Spanish c (before e and i) and z are pronounced as the voiceless interdental fricative, whereas s is a voiceless palatal or alveolar fricative. In my translation, just by the way of example, a word such as esposo (husband) would rhyme perfectly with gozo (delight). This phenomenon – i.e., to utter s for both letters s and z – occurred in Latin American Spanish as early as the seventeenth century and then became generalized, though peninsular Spanish makes the difference between s and z. In the case of yeísmo what is written with double l (ll), and pronounced as a voiced lateral, becomes similar to what is written with y, and pronounced commonly as a voiced palatal fricative. Perfect or consonantal rhyme is considered to occur in words such as caballo (horse) and rayo (ray), for example. This phonetic transgression would not be easily accepted by speakers belonging to different linguistic areas. Yet in sonnet 72.7,3 I have allowed myself a prosodic mischief by displacing the tonic syllable at the end of a line to produce the rhyme with “embrollo” (imbroglio): “muerto yó” (deceased I) is the correct pronunciation, whereas in my translation you should pronounce “muertó yo” (And hang more praise upon deceased I). This displacement is the only case in my translation of the sonnets. In other cases, I have relied on popular, naïve pronunciations of people not knowing English but using very common English terms. This phenomenon tends to disappear as English becomes better known through teaching and the media. Such people would pronounce what they “read,” using Spanish sounds to decode the letters of an English word. For example, “affaires” sounds such as it is written – according to Spanish phonology – to make the word rhyme with “aires”: “dónde estás ni imagino tus afaires” (“Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,” 57.19). The same applies to the word “nurse,” which is a disyllable in Spanish, in sonnet 22.12, “como una nurse cuida a su bebé,” (As tender nurse her babe from faring ill). A short clarifying concept as regards to rhyme: in Spanish the so-called consonantal or perfect rhyme requires the coincidence of all the sounds 91

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following the tonic vowel, including the tonic vowel itself. Any deviation would transform the rhyme into the so-called assonant (or imperfect) one, in which only the coincidence of vowels, not of consonants, is demanded. Strictly speaking, therefore, my rhymes are not consonant but assonant. However, the discrepancies are almost insignificant: for example, the final sound of a word in plural, a final s in the case of a noun or the final n in the case of a verb. In sonnet 151 “salta” (jumps) rhymes with “faltas” (“misconduct,” 151.2, 4 in back-translation); the final s of the latter being the only one discrepancy. In sonnet 106 “roce” (contact) rhymes with “voces” (“voices,” 106.13, 14 in back-translation), the same phenomenon as before, an extra “s.” Other examples of these “slight” transgressions against perfect or consonantal rhyme are “aposentan” – “sienta” (sonnet 5), “encono” – “tonos” (sonnet 8), “desguace” – “pases” (sonnet 11), “ido” – “gemidos” (sonnet 44). There is a sonnet in which I deliberately used four pairs of assonant verses: it is the famous sonnet 130, the well-known, non-idealized description of the beloved. In this case, I decided not to diminish the effect of the underrating of stereotyped Petrarchan comparisons, thus creating a humorous effect. This implies that I made up my mind to be more faithful to the tone than to the translation restraints I have imposed upon myself for the whole sequence. Words not perfectly rhyming are “soles” – “morochones,” “brecha” – “mechas,” “ninguna” –“perfuman,” “cachetes” – “expele,” etc. Consider my two versions of this sonnet and how I use italics for examples coming from the Riverplate one. No son soles los ojos de mi amada, junto al coral su boca es bien modesta la albura de sus pechos no es nevada negros cordones crecen en su testa. He mirado a la rosa damasquina, no encontré en sus mejillas esa grana, y más de algún perfume hay, que alucina más que el aliento que su boca emana. Cuando la oigo hablar mi oído goza: la música mejor sonido encierra; no he visto caminar ninguna diosa mi amada al caminar pisa la tierra. Y sin embargo es tan sobresaliente que la comparación con ella miente. 92

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Los ojos de mi amada no son soles de su labio al coral hay buena brecha sus pechos son tirando a morochones sus pelos negros son ... son casi mechas. Yo he visto rosas lindas. No hay ninguna que resplandezca tanto en sus cachetes. Y es cierto que hay perfumes que perfuman más que el aliento que su boca expele. ¡Cómo me gusta oírla! Sin embargo la música es mejor en mis oídos. No visto andar de diosas, me hago cargo. mi amada afirma el paso sobre el piso. Pero a pesar de todo es tan coqueta que no hay otra que a coquetear se meta.4 The stylistic aspect is undoubtedly the richest and the most disturbing for an unprepared reader who hopes to encounter a “classic” translation of a classic. The Riverplate “vos,” implying a more intimate or familiar interpersonal relationship, is accompanied by some lexical, stylistic, and grammatical liberties. One of these features is the use of pleonastic pronouns, either dative or accusative or both. The subjective nuances are subtle, sometimes ungraspable. In general, a skillful use of the pleonastic pronoun reinforces the subjective intention of the speaker. By way of example, sonnet 12.13 “No le parás al tiempo la guadaña” (And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence), sonnet 14.5 “No me le atrevo a profecía alguna” (Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell); sonnet 21.14 “Lo que no vendo no lo faroleo” (I will not praise what purpose not to sell). The pleonastic pronouns allow not only slang or informal diction but also the required metre. For example, sonnet 15.13 reads: “Por tu amor lo peleo al tiempo experto” (And all in war with time for love of you). This means that as a translator I allowed myself the introduction of a new syllable to fit the pattern without resorting to padding. In common, casual speech, and even writing, these redundant pronouns occur frequently. Normally they weaken rather than reinforce the utterance. The strength of these pronouns is not easy to describe. They are idiosyncratic.5 Another feature of style has to do with diminutives having an aesthetic and intimate character. These choices, I feel, are not capricious if the respective English contexts are taken into account. Thus, sonnet 14.2, “aunque un poquito sé de astronomía” (although I know a little of 93

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Astronomy) translates as “and yet methinks I have astronomy.” In sonnet 18.3, “El viento bate al capullito enano” (The wind beats the dwarf bloom) translates as “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.” In sonnet 25.6, “pero al sol, igual que una florcita” (but to the sun, like a little flower) corresponds to “But as the marygold at the sun’s eye,” reinforcing the idea of the weakness of the flower. Finally, in sonnet 73.4, “coros donde no cantan pajaritos” (choirs where little birds do not sing) translates as “bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.” Overall, I would say that in interpreting the texts I have tilted in favour of a “made,” stereotyped, colloquial phrase, rather than in favour of a “literary” choice. It is true that the colloquial phrase could reflect what Shakespeare expressed in a cultivated literary register. In other cases, however, the original idea becomes blurred or transformed into a somehow reckless result. For example, in sonnet 11.7, referring to the reluctance of the celebrated young man to create an offspring, the poet warns that “if all were minded so, the times should cease,” which is translated as “si vos pensás así se acaba el cuento” (if you think like this the story is finished). In sonnet 26.14, when the poet reveals that his bonds with the “Fair Youth” will not be apparent, “Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me,” becomes “pero entretanto, mutis por el foro,” a proverbial expression in Spanish which, by the way, is taken from the theatrical jargon, which is not completely distanced from the atmosphere pervading the sonnets. It means, “In the meanwhile to disappear from stage without uttering any word.” In sonnet 3.7, “Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,” is translated as “¿o quién que por quedarse en piel y hueso” (or who will be reduced to skin and bones), where “skin and bone,” “piel y hueso,” currently evokes somebody extraordinarily lean, next to death by starvation. In sonnet 82.2, “And therefore mayest without attaint or’erlook,” the translation reads “y así podés hacer la vista gorda” (and so you can turn a blind eye), where the Spanish idiom corresponds almost exactly to “overlook,” although in almost a domestic, informal register. In sonnet 104.4, when the poet registers the cycle of nature, stating that three winters “have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,” the translation says “le han bajado el copete a tres veranos,” where the popular expression “bajar el copete” means to put in the proper place somebody who is boasting or pompous. The colloquial phrase is hardly exempt from a comic nuance. This is sometimes more obvious, though it does not exactly match the sense. In sonnet 140.11, regarding “Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,” the translation reads “y como el mundo anda mal del coco,” 94

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something like, “and as the world is going nuts,” “coco” being a substandard, familiar or cozy way to mention “head.” Another case in which humour reflects an image invoked is that of sonnet 37.3, “So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite,” translated as “yo, que por mala pata ando cojeando” (I’m limping because of a bad leg), where “mala pata,” “bad leg,” as nobody in Spanish ignores, means, in addition to the literal sense, “suffering hard luck.” Another example is the couplet of sonnet 151, with a strong sexual innuendo: “No want of conscience hold it that I call / Her ‘love’ for whose dear love I rise and fall.” The translation reads: “Mi conciencia al final no se rebaja / sirviéndole tu amor de subibaja,” something like “My conscience in the end is not diminished, and your love serves it like a seesaw.” Subibaja is the Riverplate word corresponding to the peninsular balancín, a device used in public places for playing children; it means “see-saw.” Other expressions are temporal dialects, or cronolectos, as they are called in Spanish. In my example “de movida,” means “from the beginning,” “immediately,” “without delay.” In sonnet 90.11: “But in the onset come; so shall I taste” is turned into “venite of movida, y yo primero…”; sonnet 61.10’s “It is my love that keeps mine eye awake” becomes “es por mi amor por el que no pego el ojo” (literally, “I don’t stick my eye,” meaning “I absolutely cannot sleep”). Shakespeare sometimes uses legal technicalities to illustrate amorous passion or intricacies. The choice of this vocabulary or expressions implies a contrast between the sophisticated and the colloquial. The most obvious sonnet in this regard is 87, where the poet shows his will to renounce his privilege, denouncing a tricky agreement or bond based on the donor’s misapprehension of the situation. “My bonds in thee are all determinate” (87.4), becomes “se te acabaron las obligaciones.” And “and so my patent back again is swerving” (87.8) becomes “que vuelva a vos, por tanto, mi patente.” Concrete expressions in the translated text can try to match more cultured, processed, or abstract items in the source text. Sonnet 4.11: “Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone” is turned into “y así cuando te llamen al osario” (and so, when you are summoned to the ossuary). In sonnet 35.2: “Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,” becomes “barro en las fuentes hay, pinche en la rosa,” where “pinche” is more colloquial than “espina” (thorn). A very popular comparison appears in the translation of sonnet 108.9 “So that eternal love in love’s fresh case,” becomes “fresco mi amor como lechuga” (fresh my love as lettuce). Some degree of intimacy is achieved in sonnet 65.4, “Whose action is 95

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no stronger than a flower”; “si su acción, como flor, es debilucha” (if its action is as weak as a flower). The suffix “–ucho/a” is sometimes pejorative and sometimes affectionate, as in the present case. In specific lexical issues the general rule may be defined thus: I have preferred the colloquial or popular variant to the more cultured or refined. For example, in sonnet 1.12, “churl” is turned into “amarrete,” a commoner word than “avaro” or “tacaño” (And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding). In sonnet 3.3, the young man’s behaviour is stubborn as he refuses to have a son: the word “tozudez,” used in the translation, is a bit rougher than “empecinamiento” or “obcecación,” meaning almost the same (Whose fresh repair, if now thou not renewest). In sonnet 5.6, when time leads summer “to hideous winter, and confounds him there,” the Spanish colloquial verb “embarulla” displaces the so-called standard “confunde”: “triste lleva al verano y lo embarulla.” In sonnet 12.10, “That thou among the wastes of time must go,” the idea of eroding time becomes “el sopapo del tiempo te derriba” (Time’s slap knocks you out). “Sopapo” is in the Riverplate area a blow with open hand on the face. In sonnet 17.2, “And stretched meter of an antique song” is somehow boldly translated into “ritmos de algún calenturiento bocho” (Rhythms out of some feverish head). “Bocho” is another substandard or slightly slang item for “head.” The effect is downgrading the furor poeticus implied in Shakespeare’s “And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage” (17.11). In sonnet 23.1, “As an unperfect actor on the stage” is translated as “Como un actor chambón sobre las tablas”: “chambón” is a popular word indicating clumsiness or lack of training and finesse for a task. Some lexical choices may achieve a humorous effect because of anachronism. Such is the case of the famous sonnet 116 and the controversial line 4, “Or bends with the remover to remove.” Through many translations consulted, we see only one employs in Spanish the word for remover. The line appears in my translation as “o si se quita con removedor” (or if it is removed with a remover). This noun refers to a chemical used to remove old paint. It is not necessary to declare that it is an anachronism. But it is not far away from the predominant image in sonnet116 in relation to the solidity and immutability of true love. Along with centuries-old considerations about what, how, and how much can be translated, I feel entitled to say that the experiment of a Riverplate domestication of the sonnets surmounts insurmountable difficulties. There are sonnets with such a lyrical intensity that it does not seem possible to “lower” the language level to the colloquial expression. Comparing both my versions, 1987/2003 and 2011, and the latter 96

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with other translators’ versions, my new version does not differ significantly from the germane Spanish range of expectations. Examples of this include sonnets 7 and 33, referring to the solar cycle in relation to behaviours or attitudes that involve the “Fair Youth.” The latter compares three related phenomena, the end of a year, day, and fire, with the decline of the celebrated poet. I have not found ways to “colloquialize” these expressions. By way of example, I offer the first line of each of these sonnets as derived from my 1987/2003 and 2011 translations: sonnet 7.1, “Lo, in the orient when the gracious light”; “Mira, cuando la luz en el oriente” (“Look, when light in the East” (1987/2003); “Fijáte, cuando el sol en el oriente” (2011). “Fijate” is a colloquial term calling one’s attention to something, but the rest of the line remains almost the same. In sonnet 73.1 “That time of year thou mayst in me behold” becomes “Puedes mirar en mí la época del año” (1987/2003) and “Podés mirar en mí la temporada” (2011); the local mark is only given by the displacement of the verbal stress. There is a nuance of a more popular style in the choice of “temporada,” but not much more. As regards to metre, some hendecasyllables, the eleven-syllable line used in Spanish sonnets, are not “perfect” in some cases, at least according to norms recommending which are the stressed and the unstressed syllables. These faulty lines are included on purpose and have to do with the overall target of this version. For example, in sonnet 44.2 “las leguas no me frenarían el paso” (leagues would not stop my step), there is a slight stress on “no,” which should go unstressed (Injurious distance should not stop my way). Similarly, in Sonnet 32.11 “sería su posición más acceptable” (its stance would be more acceptable) demands the pronunciation of “sería” as “seriá.” (A dearer birth than this his love had brought). I should end with several remarks: 1

I have not used so-called dirty words, with only one very “innocent” expression, a verb that in Riverplate Spanish means to disturb, to bother or to upset, and is said everywhere: sonnet 94.1: “Los que pueden joder y no te joden” (They that have power to hurt and will do none). 2 I have not resorted to the so-called gauchesco, the jargon used in the literatura gauchesca. It must be borne in mind that this sophisticated language was devised by cultivated writers trying to imitate the rural or gaucho register and lexis. The best example is the most popular gauchesco book, Martín Fierro, by José Hernández.6 97

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3 My third observation relates to lunfardo terms. Lunfardo is jargon used in the big cities of Argentina, originally in the suburbs. The definition is more or less controversial. For years, it was understood as language employed by outlaws to cheat the police. Nowadays this idea has been “softened” by scholars who view lunfardo as a language of emergent social confidence and upward mobility. Many words of the lunfardo that have formerly been considered taboo or substandard have come into use again by people today and few remember their prohibited or non-recommendable usage. In my translation I have not used lunfardo terms except in one case, “jovato” (sonnet 138) meaning an old man. 4 I have been using the words “humour” and “humorous.” But my purpose was not to arouse wry smiles or laughter but to translate Shakespeare’s sonnets into our local, Riverplate variety of Spanish. The result cannot help being humorous, as I said before, on the strength that deviation from standard literary language achieves quizzical effects. But I insist that my intention was not comic. 5 Something that vividly caught my attention was that some critics stated (privately) that my version resembled tango lyrics.7 It was not, again, my purpose to imitate tango lyrics. But one thought came into my mind: whenever you express the main characteristics of love –jealousy, complaints, infidelity – in Riverplate Spanish, the result is something like tango lyrics. Can we imagine a Buenos Aires singer singing a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets? In fact, one critic, a friend of mine, said that the translation is interesting though unnecessary: tango has better lyricists, for example Homero Manzi, a true tango poet.8 I admit that the translation of sonnet 141.11, “Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,” “Sólo me queda de hombre el cascarón” (I am reduced to the shell of a human being), seems to expect the end of the musical notes “sol-do” to conclude a plaintive mood of tango after a passionate relationship. 6 I insist that my translation has been an experiment. In fact, I do not recommend my second translation to my students who are starting to become acquainted with Shakespeare’s sonnets. Only when they seem to know them with some depth do I ask them to have a look at this version. As professor Juan Jesús Zaro, from the University of Málaga, argues, “It is possible that in Spain this 98

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translation will be considered primarily an experiment, bold and unprecedented, but the truth is that in Argentina it acquires other nuances that, from this side of the Atlantic, we cannot overlook: the hybrid, close, intimate and irreverent character of the text is emphasized, which interrogates the supposed inviolability of the verses of Shakespeare as the written standard coming from Spain.”9 7 The word Riverplate must be taken with some caution. I intended to define a linguistic variety common to both shores of the river, Argentinian and Uruguayan. Both share many cultural features, such as drinking mate, dancing the tango, playing football, and employing the same pronunciations. It is true, however, that some slight differences may appear. For example, the typical Argentine pronoun “vos” is not universally used in Uruguay. For example: Argentina “vos hablás” (you speak); Spain “tú hablas; Uruguay “vos hablas,” that is, a combination of the previous two.10 Riverplate, therefore, would not represent properly the whole area. Ana Sebastián suggests the adjective “porteño,” the Buenos Aires variety, instead of “Riverplate.”11 Perhaps “Traducción porteña” would be more accurate than “Traducción rioplatense.” The current, “Los Sonetos de Shakespeare en traducción rioplatense” could have sounded a bit unfair to Uruguayan readers. 8 Any translation is a hybrid. Rephrasing the sonnets into Riverplate (or Porteño) dialect does not mean adaptation of cultural items. “Old December” (sonnet 97.4) has not been transformed into “old July,” which is winter in the Southern Hemisphere; “Philomel” (sonnet 102.7), meaning “nightingale” (Spanish “ruiseñor”) has been kept in the translation, though there are no nightingales in Argentina. No local bird has been substituted. A final remark: after Sólo vos sos vos was published, I translated and published The Rape of Lucrece (La violación de Lucrecia, 2012),12Venus and Adonis (Venus y Adonis, 2014),13 and A Lover’s Complaint (Quejas de una enamorada, 2016).14 None of these poems are much known in Argentina. Some people asked if I would dare to translate The Rape of Lucrece into the Riverplate idiom. My answer was that the sonnets have a tradition of translations in Argentina. In some university and even secondary-school subjects they are included as a topic. Sometimes, they have been staged. I judged they were “ripe” for a different approach, especially, the one I attempted in Sólo vos sos vos. I imagine that after 99

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some time the other poems might be “ripe” for a translation that, as I said, appears like a parody. In the case of The Rape of Lucrece, there is an extra ingredient: that of modern sensitiveness toward women’s rights, sexual assault, and patriarchal societies. In fact, The Rape of Lucrece has been staged through an adaptation, and some local officials (municipal and provincial) have welcomed and recommended the show on account of gender matters. I do not think that Argentina is prepared to digest a parody of The Rape of Lucrece. Parody would work, perhaps, in the case of the other poems, but Venus and Adonis combines comedy and tragedy and A Lover’s Complaint refers to a girl cheated by her lover. In the course of time – ripeness is all – somebody might make a tour de force translation of these poems into the Riverplate variety. Not now, I think. notes 1 Respectively, Sonetos completes de William Shakespeare, trans. Miguel Á.Montezanti (La Plata, Argentina: Universidad National de la Plata, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, 1987; Buenos Aires: Longseller, 2003) and Sólo vos sos vos: Los Sonetos de Shakespeare en traducción rioplatense, trans. Miguel Á. Montezanti (Mar del Plata, Argentina: Eudem, 2011). 2 William Shakespeare’s Sonnets: For the First Time Globally Reprinted: A Quartercentenary Anthology 1609–2009, ed. Manfred Pfister and Jürgen Gutsch (Dozwil, Switzerland: Edition Signathur, 2009; new edition with dvd, 2010). 3 The number following the decimal point identifies the line. 4 Sólo vos sos vos, sonnet 130. 5 If you say, “No vengas con eso” (Don’t say that, Don’t show such an excuse), the utterance can be strengthened by the dative pronoun, “No me vengas con eso” (Don’t tell me that); or by the second-person pronoun, “No te vengas con eso” (something like “Don’t you yourself tell me that”); and even both: “No te me vengas con eso,” which is strongly emotional. I do not find a proper equivalent in English for these deeply subjective ingredients, unless you rephrase the occurrence utterly. Obviously, gestures and intonation may achieve strengthening effects. 6 José Hernández was born in 1834 and died in 1886. Among his many activities, he composed a poem, El gauchoMartín Fierro in 1872, which was followed by La Vuelta de Martín Fierro (Martín Fierro’s Return) in 1879. The whole poem is generally known as Martín Fierro. It is mainly concerned with injustice and discrimination suffered by the gauchos. Martín Fierro is considered to be Argentine’s national poem. In the prologue to the “Second Part” (i.e., La Vuelta

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7 8 9

10

11 12 13 14

de Martín Fierro), Hernández states that the gaucho did not know the elements of his own language. This means that the gaucho was illiterate. Hernández and other gauchesco writers tried to imitate these informal linguistic features. Among them, Jorge Dubatti, a critic of theatre. He offered his comment in a private letter. Leandro Wolfson, a translator and critic. He is the author of El placer de traducir. He offered his comments in a private letter. Juan Jesús Zaro, “Sólo vos sos vos,” El trujamán. Revista diaria de traducción (15 Nov. 15, 2011), Centro Virtual Cervantes, https://cvc.cervantes.es/trujaman/ anteriores/noviembre_11/15112011.htm. Translation from the Spanish is mine. Incidentally, the following utterance has just been reported from a Uruguayan source: “¿Qué hacen en tu país, que están poniendo, es que no saben quién sos tú?” “Sos tú” is a curious feature. Peninsular Spanish would say, “Eres tú,” and Argentine-Porteño Spanish, “Sos vos.” See Sebastián Fest, “‘¡Están quemando mi marca, creen que soy una terrorista!’: el descargo de Carmela Hontou, la diseñadora uruguaya que contrajo coronavirus y fue a un casamiento,” Infobae, 15 Mar. 2020, www.infobae.com/america. Ana Sebastián, El porteño: Identidad y reivindicación de la lengua metropolitan (Buenos Ares: La autora, 2010). William Shakespeare, La violación de Lucrecia, trans. Miguel Á. Montezanti (Mar del Plata, Argentina: Eudem, 2012). William Shakespeare, Venus y Adonis, trans. Miguel Á. Montezanti (Mar del Plata, Argentina: Eudem, 2014). William Shakespeare, Quejas de una enamorada, trans. Miguel Á. Montezanti (Mar del Plata, Argentina: Eudem, 2016).

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5 Taming and Timing: Translating The Taming of the Shrew into Italian Iolanda Plescia

The verb to tame, which the title of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew plays upon, cannot but capture the attention of a student or practitioner of literary translation, as it evokes the well-worn debate concerning the tension between foreignization and domestication – taming, in other words – which are also distinct strategies in translation.1 The title immediately calls us, as researchers and translators, to think long and hard about our own cultural assumptions about the texts we translate. Connecting the act of taming with the idea of domesticating a text is not mere free association in the case of The Taming of the Shrew: the play is laden with translation imagery and seems to be particularly preoccupied with the act of “construing,” that is, the exercise of translation and interpretation. As Margaret Ferguson has recently argued, “The play text ... has a number of translations woven into its highly malleable text. It also features the process of translation in a dizzying multitude of ways. Chief among these are the play’s explorations of translation as a transformation of character with social, economic, sartorial, and (perhaps) ontological results; and as the dramatization of a humanist exercise in translating ... Ovid in Act 3, scene I.”2 When dealing with Shakespeare, the temptation to adopt a self-effacing, so-called transparent style in translation can be hard to resist. After all, he is a global literary icon, and the translator can only ever offer a pale imitation to anyone wishing to approach the text without a certain mastery of English (and early modern English at that). Or so the translator’s requisite humble posture prescribes. Before the rise of translation studies as a discipline and the rejection of concepts such as

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faithfulness in translation – a necessary corrective, to be sure – striving for adherence to the source text would have been a prevalent way of dealing with a venerated author.3 Some of the questions which run through this chapter as an undercurrent are whether such an effect can ever really be achieved; whether this can be considered a desirable goal; and whether a translator should domesticate a text to make for a smooth reading or theatrical experience. Can we, indeed should we, ever tame a text in translation? In this chapter I look back at my own translation of The Taming of the Shrew into Italian, published in 2018 by Feltrinelli, a major Italian publishing house based in Milan, to reframe the experience a posteriori within a theoretical context that draws on historical-linguistic awareness as well as translation studies. While the field of translation is still often starkly divided as to the opinions of practitioners and scholars of translation theory, I attempt here to bridge the gap by using this opportunity to foreground and give fuller expression to theoretical questions that loomed in my mind throughout the translation process, as well as to consider some practical problems I encountered while working on the text. Many of these reflections are expansions and reconsiderations of issues I dealt with in the afterword included in the Italian edition of La bisbetica domata.4 One principle was very clear to me from the beginning: I wanted to produce a text that would engage, critically and philologically, not only with the inherent difference of the source and target languages but also with the gaps in culture and language produced specifically by the passing of time. In this I have long been inspired by Paula Blank’s work on contemporary understandings – and creative misunderstandings – of Shakespeare’s language.5 On the other hand, as my work progressed, I was constantly made aware of the temptations of domestication, as if the very title of the play was challenging me to think about my own situatedness in time and place as a translator: to think, in other words, about the place of the source text within a receiving history (the Shrew has often been translated for the stage by displacing it into the Italian fascist period, for example); about the translator’s place in contemporary history, working within a specific culture and tradition of translation; about my own perspectives as a woman who has enjoyed the privileges of a higher education and translated the Shrew in the twenty-first century; and last, more generally, about the position of translators vis-à-vis the material book they have been commissioned to produce, in this case a printed, bilingual and parallel text edition for an Italian publishing 103

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house in a widely marketed paperback format. This final kind of situatedness, which depends on the book market and the potential audiences of translations, is one that literary translators may be reluctant to engage with in reflecting on their work. But in truth it informs a number of choices which should be accounted for fully and freely. What I hope this chapter ultimately provides is a perspective on translation and time that is alert to both practical and theoretical concerns while acknowledging that these concerns sometimes overlap, with one or the other inevitably prevailing at different textual junctures.

italian shrews Translating Shakespeare into a Western language invariably means engaging in retranslation, an understanding which has recently gained momentum in translation studies. Whether or not the twenty-first century will prove to be “the age of retranslation,”6 it is certainly true that the Italian publishing world vigorously endorses the practice, with retranslations of prestigious authors regularly commissioned by publishing houses, especially of works that have recently gone out of copyright, such as those by Virginia Woolf or James Joyce (three new translations of Ulysses have just come out, between 2020 and 20217). Shakespeare has long been translated in Italy, from the first manuscript translations in the eighteenth century to the most recent re-editions, both in single-play and Complete Works formats. Chief among the latter is Giorgio Melchiori’s complete Meridiani Mondadori edition (9 volumes, 1981–91), which has long held an important place in the Italian Shakespearean canon as a prestigious “staple” edition. No mass-market product, this deluxe set has been complemented by a full range of Shakespeare plays as affordable single paperback editions, often translated by academics, professional translators, and even theatre directors. Among these, Feltrinelli has enjoyed an excellent reputation thanks to the quality of many translations carried out by the late founder of its Shakespeare series, English professor Agostino Lombardo, as well as by his successor as general editor, Nadia Fusini, also a professor, literary critic, and translator. The first Italian translations of the Taming of the Shrew are to be found in complete editions produced in the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth: Carlo Rusconi’s prose edition (1837–40), as well as the verse editions by Giulio Carcano (1875–82) and Diego Angeli 104

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(1911–33). The play was then retranslated in the 1960s and included in Gabriele Baldini’s complete Shakespeare (1963) as well as Mario Praz’s edition (1964), translated in this case by Carlo Linati. The version included in Giorgio Melchiori’s Meridiani comedies volume (vol. 1 of his Teatro Completo, 1977–92) is by Masolino D’Amico; the recent complete Shakespeare edition coordinated by Franco Marenco for Bompiani includes a translation by Rossella Ciocca (2015). Several single-play editions have been produced over the years, by Maria Antonietta Andreoni D’Ovidio (1948), Cesare Vico Lodovici (1955), Enzo Giachino (1980), Sergio Perosa (1992), and Guido Bulla (2007). A crowded stage of at least a dozen Italian Shrews, then, preceded my 2018 edition, so that each fundamental choice had to be measured against a tradition. The first of these was certainly my reluctant acceptance of the established Italian title for the play, La bisbetica domata. It was strongly recommended by the publisher because of its long-standing consecration within the Italian literary landscape, despite its being in many senses inadequate from a linguistic point of view, as I discuss in the second part of this chapter. But first we should consider the historical situatedness of the retranslation experience, which occurs at a specific point in time and cannot exist outside a dialogue with the translations that have come before it.

transl ation in / a n d time In Shakespearean translation, the complete otherness of the source text – an accepted fact of translation that the translator is called on to resolve or at least deal with – seems to be distributed in several layers of difference. The differences separating us from the source text relate, in fact, not only to its language and culture but also to the specific phase of the historical development of English to which Shakespeare’s texts belong. While this may be said of all texts produced in the past, Shakespeare wrote at a time in the development of English that generates a special paradox for us: early modern English may be considered both unmistakably modern (as David Crystal has argued) and alien to some contemporary audiences (as Susan Bassnett and Paula Blank have maintained).8 This enigmatic linguistic status has affected retranslations of Shakespeare, as translators either adopt archaizing solutions to enhance the effect of temporal distance or decide to familiarize and update the language to make it more amenable to contemporary spectators. Within 105

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such a context, the translator’s stance becomes a defining factor that should be openly declared: a philologist or language historian will lean toward solutions that may be very different to the decisions that a director, or actor, or poet might make. Recognizing the character of early modern English has meant that my translation has at times moved toward source-oriented solutions that aim to bring the Italian audience closer to the Elizabethan world, rather than the opposite. This too can be considered a paradox, one that almost flings the translator into a kind of time warp, for the very reason that retranslation exists to produce a text for the translator’s own time. Shakespeare is a historical author, but it is important that we include ourselves in a linguistic history – both in the language we translate from and the language into which we translate – as Blank intriguingly argues in the essay in which she proposes a fourth category of translation to be added to Roman Jakobson’s classic tripartite model: intrelingual translation, or the translation from one period of the history of a language to another.9 Blank goes on in her subsequent book to quote Alessandro Serpieri, who thus reflected on the value of the foreign experience of Shakespeare’s language: “To [the foreign translator], Shakespeare’s texts present a distance which is only partially perceived by a native speaker ... A foreigner ... is forced to question every single semantic trait of the texts, and this may sometimes be rewarding.”10 I found Blank’s proposal useful as I kept thinking about the twofold task of moving between languages, interlingually, and moving between historical periods of linguistic development, intrelingually. Agostino Lombardo, founder of the Feltrinelli series, also reflected on the temporal paradox, placing emphasis on the ephemerality of any act of translation. The problem of translation is that ... it must always be “in time,” because it speaks to a specific, historically determined audience, and this certainly imposes a limitation to its duration. I think [my] translation of Hamlet is good, but I am also convinced that it will be possible to use it for fifty years at most; when the language changes, and it no longer fits that particular audience, the translation will become a literary document ... which will no longer be performed ... There is a duration of translation that is linked to its historicity ... And this is also an existential fact. Translating gives you a sense of human limitation, and of the limited duration of a human artifact.11 Shakespeare, in other words, is a classic, while the translated text occupies a precise place in the history of culture that will then give way to 106

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new generations of translators and audiences. Accepting this fact does not necessarily mean reverting to a passive, secondary position devoid of creativity and originality: however, it certainly frees the translator from any delusions and clearly marks the scope of her task. The translation – and this is a liberating fact – will not have to be definitive. No ultimate solution needs to be found, and no translation will be the only possible one. A good translation might well become a classic in its own right, but its main responsibility is to transport, as its Latin etymology affirms, something to a particular someone, in a particular time. Layers of time and stratifications of meaning were a chief preoccupation of mine during both my experiences translating Shakespeare. Before the Taming of the Shrew, I had published a new version of Troilus and Cressida, also with Feltrinelli, in 2015, in which the opening features the Latinate “orgulous” – to give one example – a word already out of fashion in Shakespeare’s time and which he exhumed for the sake of its exotic, defamiliarizing character in the highly formal context of the prologue. The translation, orgoglioso, a familiar, cognate Italian word, loses this effect, though I decided to retain it for the sake of its sound and rhythm. That the text and the translator belong to different times is of course not specific to Shakespearean translation, but the construction of Shakespeare as universal, as “a man for all time” in Jonson’s celebrated definition,12 still looms large in the translator’s mind, as publishers call for readable, sellable versions. It is easy to forget, however, that native speakers of English also experience the “difference” and the foreignness of Shakespeare. The many simplified editions of his works (No Fear Shakespeare, Shakespeare for Dummies) used by students in the English-speaking world attest to this. Almost as an answer to Bassnett’s plea in favour of translating Shakespeare into English, in 2016 the Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioned “translations” into English of all the thirty-nine plays attributed to him. David Crystal, on the other hand, argues that people need to be taught to “speak Shakespeare,” rather than having it translated for them into modern English, and that the main problem is that modern culture has lost touch with poetic language. Linguists and language historians, not to mention many literary critics, would certainly agree. Russ McDonald, for one, echoed this position when he categorically stated, “Shakespeare in other words is not Shakespeare.”13 My own position on the matter has wavered between acknowledging the need for sensitivity to difference and difficulty (as recognized by Blank) and the conviction that the beauty of Shakespeare’s English can and should 107

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be experienced as closely as possible to the original. This perspective has certainly informed the translation choices I discuss in the second part of this chapter. At the same time, while Shakespeare’s language may be experienced as distant temporally and culturally,14 it is also a clue into what conversation in early modern English may have looked like, as some historical linguists have argued. Although it is artificial, highly wrought language, it is still meant to look and sound like dialogue. Jonathan Culpeper has defined this kind of language as “speech-purposed”: conveyed in a written medium but meant to be spoken,15 and one of the few text types to bear testimony to what spoken language must have sounded like in Shakespeare’s time, together with sermons, trial transcripts, and personal or familial letters. There is, then, something both artificial and natural – or artificially natural – in Shakespeare’s poetic and dramatic language, which is perhaps the biggest challenge to a translator. If translators mostly work to enable audiences to hear or read Shakespeare in other languages, we can also value attempts at trying to convey a sense of the ways in which the language is structured, and operates, in its original form. To this end an annotated critical edition is a tool with significant potential, as it can become a way of putting audiences in touch with what George Steiner defines as nothing short of an existential condition, the constant movement of language in and through time. Every language-act has a temporal determinant. No semantic form is timeless. When using a word we wake into resonance, as it were, its entire previous history. A text is embedded in specific historical time; it has what linguists call a diachronic structure. To read fully is to restore all that one can of the immediacies of value and intent in which speech actually occurs.16 And, further: The process of diachronic translation inside one’s own native tongue is so constant, we perform it so unawares, that we rarely pause either to note its formal intricacy or the decisive part it plays in the very existence of civilization.17 The main task of a translator is to deal with language-to-language transference. But when faced with the prospect of a new translation of Shakespeare, I felt that accounting for the constant process of diachronic 108

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translation within English (something that occurred before even setting down the first words in Italian) was the one of the most exciting aspects of the work, and I wanted to make my readers aware of this process as much as possible, mostly in the running commentary of the notes I provided in the book.

taming in i ta l ia n : proble ms and open qu estion s My overarching concerns in translating, which I illustrate in the second half of this chapter by discussing some of the challenges I faced, were certainly influenced by my main professional role as a teacher of English and of Shakespeare’s language. My intentions as a translator were well aligned with the format of the series: Feltrinelli editions do not aim to substitute Shakespeare’s text, which is always reproduced on the verso side of the book, creating a side-by-side dialogue and stimulating readers to go back and forth from source to target text. While the bilingual experience is supported by the editorial format of the entire series, it was enhanced in the case of The Taming of the Shrew by the rich multilingual environment of the play, which features Italian, Latin, and even some Spanish, languages which create their own set of translational problems. The multilingual atmosphere of the Shrew is, of course, not an entirely special condition, as early modern English itself was an extremely malleable receptacle of diverse linguistic material, coming from the foreign languages spoken in London (French and Italian in particular),18 as well as from constant interchange with Continental texts which were being translated in that great effort of “Englishing” that has been considered a defining feature of the age. The question then becomes how to produce a translation that will not flatten linguistic diversity in the passage toward a Romance language that does not offer the same possibilities of tension between Romance and Germanic roots. What to do, for example, with the ungrammatical Italian of simple expressions such as “Mi perdonato” (1.1.25)19 placed in the opening Paduan scenes in the play? These serve a clear characterization purpose in the original, signalling that a swift geographical transfer has occurred and that the play is no longer set in Warwickshire, at the tavern where a drunken Sly is duped into thinking he is a lord and is shown a shrew-taming play. It is thanks to that sprinkling of Italian words20 that the audience realizes the scene is now set in Padua. The effect, which 109

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is “foreignizing” in English, might have been lost on Italian ears, so I took some care to preserve a little of the awkwardness of the source expression. I changed the conjugation to the correct “perdonate” (the verb “forgive” in the second-person plural), but preserving a somewhat clumsy syntactical structure: “Mi perdonate” (as opposed to the correct “perdonatemi”). The distance from contemporary Italian was also flagged by using italics for the expression in the translation, and the choice was explained in a footnote. While these are localized textual problems that do not influence the general understanding of the text, philological and historical-linguistic concerns, perhaps amiss in a translation for the stage, took precedence here. A parallel text edition with accompanying notes and commentary facilitates this kind of decision: mine attempted to preserve the effect that the Italian language may have had on Elizabethan ears at this point in the text. A choice like the one I have just described, which also relies on italicization, can be fully appreciated only through reading, which is of course the main purpose of parallel text translations. While a translation produced to this end does not necessarily exclude performance, the left-hand page containing the source text has a profound effect on the final product, and I do not consider my translation ready to be used on stage. The presence of Shakespeare’s English, constantly enticing the reader to at least glance at the text on the left side, entailed a number of general decisions: when possible, I tried, for example, to reproduce the approximate length of Shakespeare’s lines, so that the length of the translation roughly parallels that of the original. To do this, while tending to preserve the sounds of words (using similar roots when available), I almost entirely eschewed metrical patterns based on syllable number, preferring to work on rhythm and readability, which is also the case with most of the other titles in the series. I find that Shakespeare’s blank verse reads in a free, almost conversational way at times, especially in comedy – much freer than Italian versification (in hendecasyllables, for example) would allow. This is not a general rule and there are some excellent metrical translations of Shakespeare in Italian. But as might be expected these are often forced to give up some of the content and thus some of the powerful imagery of the English version. The only instances in which I tried to follow a Shakespearean pattern more closely are the rhyming couplets that mark the end of important scenes or convey some kind of irony or double entendre, since these are linguistically foregrounded with respect to the rest of the blank verse. A parallel text edition complete with notes and commentaries, as mentioned, allows the translator to take advantage of other, paratextual 110

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“spaces” in which the linguistic and cultural world of Shakespeare can be displaced, explained, and translated. I do not wish to discount that Shakespeare comes truly alive on stage, but I believe reading Shakespeare brings its own special kind of pleasure, one that can be enjoyed at one’s own pace, in an expanded time that allows for reflection and true contemplation of his use of language. Translations for the stage and for the page respond to very different needs and must adapt to the aims for which they are produced: temporality once more becomes a central point in the experience of the text, referring in this case to the internal sense of time of the reader, and to the amount of time he decides to spend with the text. In a parallel text edition, we aim for the reader to accept the idea of inhabiting an in-between space, constantly moving between texts and languages, and giving up the comfort of simply receiving the translator’s decisions. Depending on the reader’s skills in (early modern) English, the translation is constantly destabilized by the many other possible renditions that it may help the reader to glimpse. If, on the other hand, a translation is to be prepared for performance, a set of entirely different decisions must be made, as the text undergoes the stress test of the stage, and one word must be chosen definitively above all other possibilities – the “alternate endings” that notes often create are not available. The Feltrinelli edition is, thus, admittedly a translation to be read. At the same time, despite the exegetic space offered by notes and commentaries, something always remains that resists translation and can only be paraphrased or explained. Rather than emphasizing the solutions I was most satisfied with, I believe the challenges of translation are best highlighted by discussing some of the limitations or shortcomings of the final translation. These problem areas arise not only from structural linguistic and cultural differences, but also from those spaces between historical-linguistic periods that Paula Blank encourages us to consider.

the li mits of tra n sl ation The foremost of these cases, hinted at in the opening section of this chapter, concerns the title of the play. After lengthy deliberations with the publisher, we chose to confirm La bisbetica domata, the most recognizable title in Italian. However, its back-translation, “The Tamed Shrew,” allows audiences to imagine only one, very partial, side of the picture and this fact made me somewhat uncomfortable. “Domata” is in fact an adjective formed from the passive voice of the verb “domare,” to tame, and cannot therefore fully render the ambiguity of the gerund form 111

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“taming,” whose logical function as a noun connects it to “of,” which may support the idea of both an active and passive role of the shrew. In English, the gerund form of an intransitive verb can only be interpreted in one way (as, for example, in the expression “the rising of the sun”), while the gerund form of a transitive verb (such as “to tame”), referring to a reversible action that can be exchanged between people, for example, is inherently ambiguous: the taming of the shrew, therefore, is here either a process done to the shrew or, possibly, at a second glance, a process carried out by the shrew. Or both: Shakespeare as always invites us to decide for ourselves, and while the former is the most immediate interpretation, one that perhaps an Elizabethan audience might select with not too many qualms, the grammatical structure still admits a more modern interpretation that we might wish to reflect on today. English allows the “taming” to be characterized as a process involving two agents, where the roles may at times be reversed, as the text actually allows us to conclude if we place some weight – as I do – on the “Petruccio is Kated” quip pronounced by Gremio in act 3, scene 2 of the play. Indeed, as Margaret Ferguson reminds us, most interpretations of the play hinge entirely on deciding who has tamed who in the end, and whether Kate’s final monologue, in which she appears to finally accept the part of the submissive wife, is to be taken seriously or as a tonguein-cheek statement designed to help her husband win a bet, or even as merely sarcastic.21 So much of what we choose to believe about this controversial play depends on whether we believe Petruccio has himself also been tamed by the reality of marriage and by the wit of his bride. And though I wonder to what extent the passage of time and changes in cultural history have shaped our perception of the play and of the grammar of the title – would it really have been ambiguous in Shakespeare’s time? – I believed we should validate our own contemporary responses to Shakespeare’s language and agonized over the title before capitulating. As stated, this was a point I was unable to resolve in the translation itself, for a number of technical reasons. The grammatically correct yet not entirely satisfactory option would have been to use a noun in Italian – such as “doma,” or “addomesticamento” (thus: L’addomesticamento della bisbetica). These two nouns refer to the idea of training an animal, but they seemed too concrete and less open to metaphorical implications; “addomesticamento” in particular lacked the conciseness and rhythm needed in a title. Another possibility would have been to use the verb in an infinitive verb form – Domare la/una bisbetica – to emphasize at least the process of taming rather than the concluded act of having 112

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tamed (though “bisbetica,” the shrew, remains the unequivocal object of the sentence). The second title got so far as to have a cover mock-up made. But since neither of the new titles completely resolved the problems described, and the publisher leaned strongly toward the traditional title, perhaps also for marketing reasons related to the work’s recognizability, the series editor and I finally decided to let it stand. The term shrew itself was also highly problematic. This was due both to its cultural specificity and to historical-linguistic reasons: the word might be said to belong to the category of realia, or terms that can be so cultural-specific that they become untranslatable in their full dimension. A shrew, per Oxford English Dictionary, is an Old English word that doesn’t seem to be found elsewhere in Germanic, designating “a small insectivorous mammal[s], belonging to the genus  Sorex  or the family Soricidæ, much resembling mice but having a long sharp snout” (oed , n. 1). The shift, which probably transferred the predatory characteristics of the animal to the type of an intractable, headstrong woman, occurred thanks to the belief that supposed that that animal was capable of exerting a malignant supernatural influence on the world (oed , n. 2). The possibly related Middle High German word schröuwel, devil, seems to testify to this. The Italian language does not have an adequate cultural equivalent for such a word – bisbetica, in its common acceptation today, has no connection to the animal world or to the idea of the devil, and was imported relatively recently into Italian (in the seventeenth century) from the Greek amphisbētikós, meaning “contentious.” Interestingly, the Greek word indicates the act of walking in two different directions, and is etymologically linked to the word amphisbaena, a two-headed serpent in classical mythology capable of movement in opposite directions: it would, thus, in theory have some interesting animal connotations, which, however, are lost to the general public today. The word is not particularly common in many parts of Italy, and I would venture to say that its most frequent collocation is precisely with “domata,” thanks to the well-known Shakespearean title. However, apart from the issue of equivalence – which is never exact in translation – the main issue with this word is again the particular position it occupied in the history of the English language when Shakespeare used it: until the middle of the sixteenth century, the word shrew was gender neutral and could indicate either a man or a woman. There are many attestations of the word used to refer to a masculine form, but it is in Shakespeare’s time that it begins to specialize and apply to women: the first authoritative use in this sense is to be found, according to oed , in 113

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Chaucer (1386), and other literary uses are reported until the middle of the eighteenth century, with some attestations in the nineteenth. In this second sense, the use of the word becomes so specialized as to be simply a jocular synonym for wife (oed 3a, b). For quite some time, in any case, the word shrew was used in different contexts to refer to both genders, and Shakespeare’s audience may well have been aware of this, with interesting implications. On the one hand, the word supports a certain degree of indeterminacy, so that there is some degree of ambiguity as to who really is the shrew of the Petruccio-Katherina couple; on the other, the audience was also well acquainted with the “shrew-taming” comedic genre. There can be no doubt that, if both characters can be said to have shrewish qualities, there had been a cultural shift which was placing more and more emphasis on female shrews, to be tamed and kept within certain bounds. This is one example of the rich linguistic history of a word – intertwined, as is always the case, with important cultural shifts – that is simply lost in the “bisbetica” translation. I would argue that in Italian the word bisbetica in its feminine form might be more familiar to the public precisely because of the play’s resonance; in other respects, it is a noun with grammatical gender just like any other in the language. By dwelling on this example, I do not mean to imply that a better equivalent might have been found; this is one case in which the grammar of a language heavily influences the possible outcomes of translation. The same ambiguity of the source text would have been impossible to convey into a language with grammatical gender. However, I do wish to point out that bringing to light the “diachronicity” of language, well before asking the question of what the best rendition might be in the target language, is a critical exercise that makes us aware of the processes of language change and enables us to participate in the historical moment in which Shakespeare was working – at a time when the English language was still fluid and in many respects pre-standardized, and could support a variety of different interpretations. Although many of those are inevitably lost in the transition into contemporary Italian, it is worth the effort of producing an edited translation to be read, if only to be able to convey a sense of that lush linguistic panorama within the notes, in a sort of parallel commentary that brings readers closer to Elizabethan English rather than trying to make them forget that Shakespeare spoke early modern English and could not have been born in any other language or context. This reflection on the term shrew brings me to other epithets variously attributed to Katherina. The nicknames and appellations Katherina receives throughout the play – not only from Petruccio but also from the 114

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other men who come into contact with her – deserve a chapter to themselves, but I will give a few examples to illustrate some of the difficulties I encountered. Katherine is above all “curst”: this label is particularly effective as it is both terse and evocative of a variety of senses that range from being “perversely disagreeable or cross,” “malignant” (oed 4a), to being “fierce, savage, or vicious” (oed , 4b) – a sense that goes well with the rest of the play’s pervasive animal imagery – to the actual condition of having been placed under a curse, excommunicated (oed , 1). Katherine is in fact, for all intents and purposes, excommunicated from society until she will bend to its rules, the first of which is to find a husband: indeed, “curst” almost forms a collocation with the word “shrew,” and co-occurs with it at least twice (“curstest shrew,” 2.1.317, “thou hast tamed a curst shrew,” 5.2.194). Finally, the monosyllable “curst” is well suited from a rhythmic point of view to be used as a title: “Katherine the Curst” is repeated twice in 1.2.126–8 (see also “Kate the curst” at 2.1.185), and identified explicitly as a title – “a title for a maid of all titles the worst” – with a convenient play of assonance on the sounds /k/, /r/, and /t/. I have not been able to identify a modern-day Italian equivalent to all these senses at the same time: this is one of the classic cases in which a range of semantic nuances must be displaced into different words in the target language. Since the title appears twelve times throughout the play, I adopted a strategy of diffusion in which the various senses are disseminated throughout the text in different contexts. I used “scontrosa” (bad tempered, contrary) in some instances, to obtain the same phonological effect of the original, but I am well aware that the idea of an almost biblical curse (which identifies Katherine with Eve?), completely vanishes in this translation. When “curst” is used as a formal title, as in “Katherine the curst,” I introduced “stramaledetta,” with the reinforcing prefix “stra-” adding both emphasis and the /t/ and /r/ sounds that attempt to reproduce an assonance with the character’s name. The sharpness of the monosyllable “curst” is of course lost, though that is perhaps less noticeable in a language as rich in polysyllabic words as Italian. Katherina is a shrew, but she is also “shrewd,” according to Tranio (the servant of Lucentio, suitor to Bianca, Katherina’s sister), and Hortensio (Bianca’s other suitor). In this case, too, it is important to take into account the historical phase of linguistic development to which the text belongs: the word “shrewd” had not yet completed the semantic amelioration process that has now given it certain positive connotations linked to ability and cleverness. In Shakespeare’s time it often had a negative sense, though the idea of cunning skill is also present in many cases (“He has a shrewd 115

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wit,” says Pandarus in describing the warrior Antenor in Troilus and Cressida, 1.2.160). However, in Shakespeare and certainly in The Taming of the Shrew, when the adjective is referred to a woman, it is almost unquestionably synonymous with shrewish. The different nuances of words associated with the two genders as they undergo semantic change are lost in translation. But we can make that information available in a philologically informed edition: one, that is, in which philology helps to reconstruct a “linguistically informed cultural history.”22

l i n g u isti c e ne rgy i n th e tam ing of the shrew If this is, as I believe, what we are also doing – or should be doing – when translating a classic into a modern language, we must be willing to take certain risks and accept realities that challenge established myths about Shakespeare’s language. The idea of Shakespeare as a linguistic innovator has been touted in countless books and documentaries: it sounds good, and it is a simple, convenient explanation for his genius. Shakespeare as an inventor, indeed, as the inventor of the English language, and of Englishness itself: but when looked at through hard data, as linguists are now doing, it appears that Shakespeare really invented a very small number of words and, what is more, he actually seemed fond of older, archaic, or disappearing senses of words. He went out of his way to unearth words that had long slipped out of common use if they served his purposes, or picked a word whose range of meanings was changing. Rather than innovation, it might be more fitting to talk about renovation, a process in which available linguistic material is used in new, surprising, and thought-provoking ways.23 What is new and thought-provoking in The Taming of the Shrew, to my mind, is the way in which language is employed to reconsider the relationship between the sexes, and it is to this question that I devote this last section by way of a conclusion. It is true that over time, possibly because audiences have lost touch with early modern punning mechanisms and double entendres, actors have tended to represent the tension between Petruccio and Katherina by resorting to extreme physicality and farcical antics, as well as a number of outrageous stage props such as the whip brandished by Petruccio in some productions. This is a pity, in my opinion, since the energy between the two is essentially linguistic: verbal tension is the true outlet of sexual tension in this play. The witty repartees, the reciprocal teasing, the repeated violations of politeness codes, the sexual puns, even the lovers’ violent outbursts, all function as a contest of words, a tenzone, which in effect sweeps away social expectations and 116

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allows Petruccio and Katherina to find common ground as a couple. In this case too, there are grammatical barriers that limit what can be conveyed into modern Italian: one example is the couple’s creative use of the t/v distinction, which still existed in early modern English, though the second-person singular pronoun thee/thou was rapidly dropping in usage and giving way to the omnipresent you in all social contexts. Shakespeare does not follow the linguistic trend of the moment. Rather, he uses both singular and plural forms of address – both the more intimate and more courteous and distant options – in ways that might seem fluctuating and casual but are actually revealing of Katherina and Petruccio’s courtship dance as they draw close and then suddenly pull away. Thee and thou are used to express a desire for intimacy (especially on Petruccio’s part), but also, in some cases, for contempt and anger (Katherina). The simultaneous presence of both sets of pronouns, which in Elizabethan English could be used in a shifting rhythm without having to commit definitively to one or the other, is interesting from a socio-linguistic standpoint as it can serve to underpin changing social relations and power dynamics. This is not the case with modern Italian, which has a t/v distinction that is followed quite rigidly, where the plural (voi) or courteous form (lei) is abandoned once the relationship is established as an intimate or familiar one. This is one instance of a culture-specific grammatical structure that might get lost in translation. I made the choice to keep to the distinction as much as possible by using “voi” and “tu,” even when the result is unusual in Italian: for example when Katherina suddenly uses “thee” as an insult to Petruccio (“Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command”/ “Va’ là, scemo, gli ordini dalli a quelli che comandi,” 2.1.259), reverting to the more polite “you” form just a few lines later (“Where did you study all this goodly speech?” / “Dove avete studiato, per fare discorsi tanto mirabili?” 2.1.264). This swift reversal, moving back from “tu” to “voi,” would be impossible in modern-day Italian, but here I was more preoccupied with letting Katherina’s linguistic unruliness shine through in the new version. The fast-paced tempo of the couple’s lines, as they fire responses back and forth, posed one of the most difficult challenges of the translation, and I do not deny that some of the philological concerns discussed above may have taken precedence over rhythm in my translation, since slightly lengthier solutions were sometimes necessary to preserve imagery, metaphors, and linguistic strategies. I accept this as a difficult decision I had to make, though I always tried to mediate between what I felt to be two opposite pulls of this kind of language: one that enables the banter to present itself as a natural conversational 117

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exchange, and one that never lets us forget that this is also poetry with a strong dramatic tension. My constant concern was to try to do some justice to what I have come to see as Shakespeare’s true linguistic energy – which lies not in his debatable neologisms, but rather in his ability to reinvent syntactical relationships, to use grammar with the freedom allowed by a language not yet codified to the point of prescriptivism. As Jonathan Hope finely argues, Shakespeare shows great interest in the relationship between life and inanimate things, in activating what is inanimate, in attributing agency to processes, and reconfiguring meaning and syntax to reflect new, startling relationships between subjects and objects.24 This is the case, for example, with his use of functional shift, a possibility that early modern English used, and contemporary English still allows much more frequently than contemporary Italian does. The device, which consists in changing the function of one part of speech, endowing it with the qualities of another, creates a vivid image in this play. Lucentio: Mistress, what’s your opinion of your sister? Bianca: That being mad herself, she’s madly mated. Gremio: I warrant him, Petruccio is Kated. (3.2.244–6) Gremio’s transformation of a proper noun, Kate, into the verb “to Kate,” is not merely a clever grammatical game. This line contains a profound truth of the play, one which, to my mind, is the key to an interpretation of Katherina’s final speech that endows her with real agency: the ability to decide to participate in the “game” of courtship and marriage in order to explore a true partnership with one whom, after much resistance and conflict, she has chosen (and also tamed, to an extent). Of course, this is not the only possible interpretation of this text, but it would be naïve on my part to pretend that, having subscribed to this view, it had no effect on my translation. Some have called this a proto-feminist position, though it seems to me that Shakespeare is positing the idea that both Katherina and Petruccio are extraordinary people who will find a way to shape marriage according to their own rules, and at the very least manage to establish a pact that allows them to take their place in society and even “dupe” it in mutual solidarity (as happens in the wager scene, in which Katherina earns them both a nice sum of money after Petruccio bets with the other couples of the play that his wife will be the only one to come to him at his bidding). 118

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Be that as it may, this entire reading of the final act is prefigured in that line, “Petruccio is Kated,” which comes almost exactly in the middle of the play, and I felt the need to force the Italian language a little to tease out the grammatical transformation of the English version. Barbara Hodgdon notes that the line can also be taken to mean “‘Afflicted with the Kate,’ as if with a disease”:25 Petruccio has ‘Katherinitis,’ in other words. In Italian, it is possible to derive verbs from nouns and vice versa. But functional shift is much less frequent, and it is necessary in any case to conjugate the verb one has obtained, which can create an unnatural effect. Italian translators have generally accepted this outcome, to retain the force of the newly coined verb to Kate, adopting various solutions: I chose “Caterinizzato” (literally, “Katherinized”). Shakespeare has not coined a word here, but he has forced grammatical relationships to obtain a special effect – he has “invented” a new verb which will never enter the general language but conveys with extreme precision what he means: he has taken an idea, the very concrete idea of love as an illness one can catch, and has turned it into a process, humanizing it. Hamlet’s famous “It out-Herods Herod” (3.2.10-11), Rosalind’s “She Phebes me” (As You Like it, 4.3.39) follow the same pattern, which reconfigures relationships between human beings, reality, and their very ability to act on reality itself. These are decisive textual moments, I believe, in which the translator must abandon the pretense of conveying Shakespeare into “natural-sounding” language – whatever that means – first and foremost, because Shakespeare himself stretches language to its limits. I have tried in this second section to illustrate some significant examples of the ways in which I chose in my translation of The Taming of the Shrew to deal with a language that is distant in time yet supremely communicative. We will never be able – or at least I know I will never be able – to exhibit the same level of deftness or nimbleness in manipulating language, but I have faith that there is something in Shakespeare’s language that tends to “keep” well, even in translation, whether it is because of the vivid imagery or its inherent theatricality. Performance certainly enhances and lets the original power shine through, as anyone who has seen a Shakespeare production in an unknown language can attest. However, the experiment carried out in this annotated version is based on the idea that we should at least try to introduce readers to Shakespearean English by measuring and reproducing distance and difference – if we are concerned with a historical sense of language, with language change over time, and with the ways we ourselves are involved in this change and in the constant process of “construing” that it entails. 119

Shakespeare in Succession notes 1 See especially the book that sparked the debate, Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (London: Routledge, 1995). 2 Margaret Ferguson, “Translation and Homeland Insecurity in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: An Experiment in Unsafe Reading,” in Early Modern Cultures of Translation, ed. Karen Newman and Jane Tylus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 118. 3 On Translation Studies as an empirical discipline, see James S. Holmes’ classic article, “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies,” in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 172–85. 4 William Shakespeare, La bisbetica domata, trans. and ed. Iolanda Plescia (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2019). 5 Her first reflections on this issue are found in her chapter “Introducing ‘Intrelinguistics’: Shakespeare and Early/Modern English,” in Interlinguicity, Internationality, and Shakespeare, ed. Michael Saenger (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2014), 138–56. Blank went on to produce a fascinating book on the subject, Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare’s Language (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), published posthumously. 6 Isabelle Collombat’s definition is reported in an excellent introduction to the question of retranslation, investigated in a special issue of Cadernos de Tradução, “Retranslation in Context,” edited by Piet Van Poucke and Guillermo Sanz Gallego, no. 1 (2019): 10–22. 7 Mario Biondi’s 2020 translation was published by La Nave di Teseo; Alessandro Ceni’s was brought out in 2021 by Feltrinelli; Enrico Terrinoni published a new, annotated version with Bompiani in the same year. 8 David Crystal’s compelling argument is found mainly in “Think on my Words”: Exploring Shakespeare’s Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). See also Susan Bassnett, “Shakespeare’s in Danger: We Have to Act Now to Avoid a Great Tragedy,” Independent, 14 Nov. 2001, www.independent.co.uk/ news/education/education-news/shakespeares-in-danger-we-have-to-actnow-to-avoid-a-great-tragedy-9159195.html; and Blank, “Introducing ‘Intrelinguistics’” and Shakesplish. 9 Blank, “Introducing ‘Intrelinguistics,’” 140–1. 10 Quoted in Blank, Shakesplish, 21. The original reference is to Alessandro Serpieri, “Translating Shakespeare: A Brief Survey on Some Problematic Areas,” in Translating Shakespeare for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Rui Carvalho Homem and Ton Hoenselaars (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), 27–50.

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Taming and Timing 11 Maddalena Pennacchia, “Tradurre Amleto: Intervista ad Agostino Lombardo,” in La traduzione di Amleto nella cultura europea, ed. M. Del Sapio Garbero (Venice: Marsilio, 2002), 166 (my translation). 12 Ben Jonson, “To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author Master William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us,” in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, ed. David Bevington, Martin Butler, and Ian Donaldson, 7 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 5:638–42. 13 Russ McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1996), 180. 14 While the focus of this chapter is linguistic, I do not wish to suggest in the least that language barriers are the only ones that the translator struggles with. As Dirk Delabastita insightfully remarks, “Regardless of the question whether Elizabethan English and contemporary English should be regarded as different languages (necessitating modern-language ‘translations’ of the Shakespeare Made Easy kind, which indeed exist and seem to fulfil a real function), it is obvious that any understanding and evaluation of Shakespeare rests on textual, cultural, and ideological codes which are largely independent from the linguistic barrier as such ... Any comparison of English stage versions or critical editions with translations made abroad will reveal the extent to which the factor of linguistic conversion as such need to be put into perspective. And ... it will highlight the necessity to stop viewing translation as a purely linguistic process and to regard it instead as a culturally determined intertextual operation showing many intrinsic similarities to other forms of (intralingual, interlingual, intersemiotic) rewriting”; Delabastita, “Shakespeare in Translation: A Bird’s Eye View of Problems and Perspectives,” Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literature in English and Cultural Studies, no. 45 (2003): 107. 15 Jonathan Culpeper and Merya Kytö, Early Modern English Dialogues: Spoken Interaction as Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 14–18. On theatrical dialogue and its conversational dynamics, see also Vimala Herman, Dramatic Discourse Dialogue as Interaction in Plays (London: Routledge, 1995). 16 George Steiner, After Babel Aspects of Language and Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975/1992/1998), 24. 17 Steiner, After Babel, 29–30. 18 On the relationship between early modern English and French – a relation so close and complex that Michael Saenger has argued that the “cognitive borders” of the former were constantly negotiated with the latter – see Saenger, Shakespeare and the French Borders of English (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); on Italian and other languages, see John Gallagher, Learning Languages

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19

20

21 22

23

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in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); on the multilingual environment of Shakespeare’s plays, see also Multilingualism in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, ed. Dirk Delabastita and Ton Hoenselaars (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015), as well as Interlinguicity, Internationality, and Shakespeare. References to the source text in this chapter are to The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Barbara Hodgdon (London: Methuen, 2010). I also follow this edition in matters of spelling, in particular for the name Petruccio (Petruchio in the Folio). There is another brief exchange in 1.2 (2.24–5): “Petruccio: Con tutto il cuore ben trovato, may I say. Hortensio: Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato signor mio Petruccio.” Ferguson, “Translation and Homeland Insecurity,” 118–9. See Peter Petré and Hubert Cuyckens, “Introduction: Philology as Linguistically Informed Cultural History,” in Sociocultural Dimensions of Lexis and Text in the History of English, ed. Petré, Cuyckens, and Frauke D’hoedt (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2018), 1–14. Debunking myths about Shakespeare’s language is the main mission of the already cited book by David Crystal, “Think on My Words.” On Shakespeare’s neologisms, or lack thereof, see Jonathan Hope, “Who Invented Gloomy? Lies People Want to Believe about Shakespeare,” in The Shape of a Language, ed. Memoria di Shakespeare: A Journal of Shakespearean Studies (special issue: “The Shape of a Language,” ed. Iolanda Plescia), 3 (2016): 21–45. Jonathan Hope, Shakespeare and Language: Reason, Eloquence and Artifice in the Renaissance (London: Methuen, 2010), 138–69. The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Barbara Hodgdon (London: Methuen, 2010), 239.

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6 Entangled and Embodied Knowledge(s) in the “many strange dishes” of Much Ado about Nothing in Performance Sarah Roberts our beginnings never know our ends

T.S. Eliot, Portrait of a Lady

I do much wonder, that one man seeing how much another man is a fool, when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love, and such a man is Claudio ... [H]e was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose (like an honest man and a soldier) and now is he turned orthography, his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing (2.3.7–17)

This chapter reflects on the process of preparing and presenting Much Ado about Nothing in the amphitheatre at the University of the Witwatersrand campus, Johannesburg, in 2006. My thinking is firmly anchored in theatre-making as a critically informed cultural practice rather than Shakespearean scholarship per se: my primary contention is that rehearsal studio and stage offer platforms for reading and interpreting a play through embodied improvisations in which orality displaces the printed word. Character identities, interactions, and understandings that emerge through play and presentation are a negotiation between subjective experience and the structure of spoken utterances, between

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what is known and the unfamiliar. The series of unfolding exchanges between performers may prove to be a tool for collapsing apparent cultural distances between players and a text shaped by its origins. Contemporary creative practice may fuse aspects of aesthetic and cultural theory, traditional dramaturgical scholarship and theatre history, Western and African perspectives, and received knowledge and personal experience as a form of “prior learning” or understanding. This interdisciplinary conceptual framework may be readily outlined at leisure in a rehearsal studio in which juxtaposition, simultaneity, and sedimentation are integral to a process of probing the play and efforts at expression remain provisional. The subsequent articulation of the intertwined scaffolding in a coherently structured argument may require some accommodation on the part of the reader.

an ane cd otal i nt rodu ction A recent personal experience undergirds this focus on grappling with words, languages, translations and transpositions, and contexts and meanings. The anecdote encapsulates these issues and performs an introduction to a focus on the notion of “entangled” and “embodied” knowledge, terms derived from Edward Said1 and Jonathan Jansen,2 respectively. Briefly, the former has considerable purchase in relation to what Said terms contrapuntal perspectives associated with cultural differences and values, while the latter prioritizes the significance of lived experience and encounter as forms of learning to affirm the value of what Jansen terms “knowledge in the blood.” In 2019, I left the winter chill of Johannesburg for a first visit to the Iberian Peninsula. My luggage included three well-worn paperbacks: English translations of plays by Federico Garcia Lorca and Don Quixote. I had no sense of what I was to discover in returning to the familiar texts and how these would chime with the pleasures produced by the single word – “Signor” – that had memorably surfaced in a Jo’burg rehearsal room. In Lisbon, I began rereading Don Quixote (as respite from the stimulus of daily conference papers) and enjoyed long walks of discovery in the city that so demonstrably contrasts with the urban landscape and lifestyle of the Afropolitan hub of Jo’burg. Both Miguel de Cervantes’s novel and my encounter with street life provided a playground to counterpoint the flow of complex and sometimes earnest viewpoints of the conference papers. Partly the flâneur, I engaged in reading and wandering in search of fresh adventures. One window display with its mass 124

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of cork products captured my attention. Inside, the homage to cork (as natural material) astonished me in the range of artifacts made from this eco-friendly quintessentially Portuguese product. I had no prior cause to contemplate the properties of cork as material other than grieve for its replacement by plastic screw tops on wine bottles, so I began to marvel at its origins and properties. Serendipitously, that night I reached chapter 11 in which Don Quixote and Sancho encounter the goatherds shortly after the adventure with the windmills. Cervantes’s shaping of a semi-Arcadian idyll struck me with fresh force. Spontaneously, out of sheer courtesy, the sturdy cork-trees shed their light and broad bark, with which men first covered their houses, supported on rough poles only.3 Days later, in Sintra at the panoramic vantage point of Santa Maria e São Miguel, our guide pointed to a cork tree in the immediate vicinity. As though in obedience to Cervantes’s text, it was, much to my delight, “spontaneously shedding” its bark. This physical introduction to the cork oak produced a visceral sense of gratification. That evening I returned to Don Quixote to register how cork trees recur with ubiquitous regularity throughout the Man of La Mancha’s quest. Each time I encountered this tree on the page, my relationship with the diegetic world had shifted: I too had rested against the hardy trunk of the tree that so thoroughly dots Cervantes’s landscape. The ubiquity with which cork trees appear contrasts vividly with Jorge Luis Borges’s observation that the quintessential Arab text, the Quran, makes no mention of camels to proclaim its cultural identity. Borges cautions against “local colour” as a guarantor of cultural authenticity: current creative practice in South Africa, however, tends to adopt the opposite view to emphasize the value of that which is local, specific, and African.4 I wanted a reminder of this convergence of things, experiences, and ideas, so I carried a fragment of the corky bark of this Quercus suber home from Sintra as a memento. This bit of bark acts as a material reminder of how an unfamiliar word or phenomenon may be insignificant, meaningless, or even alien, but the potential to collapse that distance depends on chance convergences. As an artifact it is a tangible reminder of a concrete realization, a daily reminder of the crucial import of an embodied sense of connections with words and their capacity for a gratifying expansion in understanding the world, its multiple landscapes, cultures, and languages. 125

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The value of experiential knowledge, rather than investing exclusive credibility in formal received education, undergirds political and pedagogical projects of redress in contemporary South Africa. This phenomenon aligns with outcomes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which (with its tripartite public hearings) was implemented as a mechanism to bridge the apartheid past with a future democratic dispensation. Among its achievements was the nuanced conceptualization of “truth” that prioritizes the value of personal or narrative truth in conjunction with social or dialogic truth in which diverse and multiple perspectives are affirmed and valued alongside forensic or data-based empirical evidence. Lived experience and orally transmitted forms of knowledge have subsequently been inscribed and reincorporated within the South African archive. Resituating African wisdoms and customs has been increasingly prominent in the fields of education and cultural practice. Cultural plurality is vividly in evidence within teaching and learning institutions prompting debates about curricular structure and content. These debates commit scholars – in varying ways – to address the complex issue of transformation with its varying conceptualizations. Within the arts and humanities, issues of cultural identity and language consistently intertwine in respect of Africanization, decolonization, decoloniality, and indigenization that variously advance transformation objectives. Lodged within these contested definitions of transformation is all that the “intertwined” legacies of imperialism and colonization represent. Edward Said proposes that intertwined socio-political histories have produced “entangled” knowledge(s) in which texts produced within the dominant discourse and the embeddedness of asymmetrical socio-political and economic histories offer scope for contrapuntal reading.5 My inflection of “entangled” knowledge(s) expands the concept to accommodate the interdisciplinary framework that underpins the shifting viewpoints that surface throughout this discussion. One of the chief instigators of the decolonization project (and one of its most rigorous African theorists), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, sets out the impact of the imperial and colonial projects with their systematic devaluing of indigenous languages and cultural forms.6 His ideas are currently influential in shaping the nation-building and decolonizing projects that gather momentum in South Africa. Two core propositions (drawn from Ngũgĩ’s writing) inform ways of thinking about relations between writing and speech, literature and orature, and they are inseparable from privileging English-language use and the association of Shakespeare with the imperial project. Ngũgĩ calls for repositioning the rich repertoire of 126

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popular narratives and poems reproduced through performance rather than reserved in print. It is tempting to ask if, perhaps, this emphasis on orality as a medium for public dissemination chimes with Shakespeare’s predilection for writing play scripts that equally depend on public presentation, embodiment, and orality. Pursuing the interdependence of Shakespeare’s position in respect of tensions between writing and performance is, however, beyond the ambit of this chapter with its focus on what his plays might mean today. Playwright John Arden’s propositions regarding “rehearsing” and staging new productions at the Globe by Shakespeare’s company does, however, lend credence to the proposal of improvised presentations.7 I defend the value of Shakespeare’s texts as tools for presentational performance training via the unlikely figure of Ngũgĩ himself. He provides a potent example of “speaking back” to authority by drawing on the figure of Caliban, who has not only learnt Prospero’s language but is able to curse his master using that language. In comparison with subsequent treatments of the Caliban trope, Shakespeare’s Caliban – imagined before the imperial project of territorial conquest – Ngũgĩ demonstrates, has considerable agency.8 Much Ado about Nothing is the veritable feast or “very fantastical banquet” of words and the southern tip of Africa is about as remote from Shakespeare’s world as the exotic spatially distanced “world’s end” that Benedick so fantastically imagines: Will your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a tooth-picker now form the furthest inch of Asia, bring you a length of Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. (2.1.201–6) Dover Wilson claims that the play is “generally dated 1598” and is “written by a dramatist at the very height of his powers, both as a poet and as a craftsman of the theatre.”9 Our urban twenty-first-century lifestyle, values, and customs are seemingly at an inestimable temporal remove from those of sixteenth-century England and are compounded by the legacy of imperialism, colonization, and apartheid separatism. If the production was to offer any pleasure and value to performers and audience alike, our rendering would need to affirm the immediacy of our own context and perceptions. Our lively first “rehearsal” produced an extended debate about the place of Shakespeare in South Africa. Issues 127

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of cultural distance and the ideological reluctance to perpetuate “unrelatable” texts announced a cautious resistance to the play, augmented by concerns regarding outmoded acting styles and linguistic expression. In the studio, multiple improvisations of fragments resolved some of this initial resistance to suggest a model for collapsing distances in space, time, and cultural and linguistic differences as, increasingly, we learnt to appreciate readings and renderings that were provisional and contingent. The project unexpectedly raised questions around the desirability of fixing or settling interpretations as we pursued the alternative of remaining open and flexible to the presenting variations. This adventure in theatre-making in which chance variables continued to play out seemed “a risk worth taking.”

th e “ pl ac e ” of shake spe are in c on tem p ora ry s ou t h afri can the atre : a territory in which “ ou r be gi nni ngs neve r kn ow ou r en d s.” Although full scale local productions of Shakespearean repertoire in South Africa in the twenty-first century have declined demonstrably, small theatre-in-education projects persist in direct response to the continued place of a select range of Shakespeare’s texts that are prescribed in the high-school syllabi. Typically, these are edited ensemble renditions presented in conjunction with question-and-answer sessions aiding study and revision. While Shakespeare’s texts continue to feature in English departments at tertiary institutions, within theatre-training programs their place is strongly disputed. The 2006 production predates the 2015 #Rhodesmust Fall and subsequent #FeesmustFall campus disruptions and campaigns for radical curricula transformation: fundamental and irrevocable changes continue to be implemented. In retrospect, in 2006 conditions were more accommodating than they currently appear to be. Mandated to “direct” a Shakespearean text, I rejected a colleague’s proposition of Antony and Cleopatra. The tragedy – heavily loaded with familiar set-speeches and frequently nominated as a prescribed school text – expressly addresses imperialism and cultural difference. As an alternative, I nominated the less weighty and less familiar Much Ado about Nothing. This comedy – celebrated for its reliance on intensified prose, rather than iambic pentameter – is structured around young, playfully intelligent energies which chimed more readily with a multi-ethnic and multilingual ensemble. The company comprised Thomas Dancer, Gabi Harris, Jemma Kahn, Atandwa Kani, Jerry Mntonga, Lebo Modiba, 128

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Sefakho Mohalanyane, Raymond Ngomane, Gontse Nthegang, Lunga Radebe, Bradley Reynolds, Kabelo Seane, Scotness Smith, Bryan van Niekerk, and Johlene Villet. This list of names points to the trope of the “rainbow nation” that captured the imagination in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. Despite differences, all voiced similar reservations regarding playing Shakespeare. Not without precedents from leading “establishment figures.” Director Peter Brook identifies productions of Shakespeare’s plays as primary examples of what he terms the Deadly Theatre in which we see his plays done by good actors in what seems to be like the proper way – they look lively and colourful, there is music and everyone is all dressed up, just as they are supposed to be. Yet secretly we find it excruciatingly boring.10 These sentiments resound strongly to offer a critique of a number of acclaimed local Shakespeare productions (including those designed by me): accomplished and visually rich, perhaps these were ultimately little more than a spectacle illustrating the play rather than breathing contemporary life into the dynamics of the action. Brook relentlessly probes the consequence of formal solutions being reproduced as stale, imitative reproductions of some supposed ideal. In a living theatre, we would each day approach the rehearsal putting yesterday’s discoveries to the test, ready to believe that the true play has once again escaped us. But the Deadly Theatre approaches the classics from the viewpoint that somewhere, someone has found out and defined how the play should be done.11 Jonathan Miller’s critique of presentations by institutional establishments similarly suggests degrees of incongruity and anachronism that may be magnified when traditional staging is perpetuated at a colonial distance. He comments on the huge centralized cathedrals of English drama [which have] encouraged an episcopal largeness of style which is believed to be commensurate with the importance of the plays. The National and the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company] see themselves as flagships and centers of excellence. The result is a style of performance and production that reflects the view of the management (and 129

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those performers invited by the management) that what they are doing is too important to be performed in a slipshod casual way. Consequently, a lot spontaneity and fluid speed of the acting is lost.12 Miller stresses how Shakespeare’s plays have served as preferred vehicles for displaying expert craft to assert, sustain, and extend reputation and construct a legacy of generations of leading actors and directors whose eminence serves as a guarantor of value. The persistence of this hegemony in South Africa demonstrates the resilience of Western culture at the expense of the discovery or revelation of the richness of hybrid interpretations, simultaneously embedded in playing Shakespeare and celebrating local cultural sensibilities. Strategies for achieving Ngũgĩ’s goal of “moving the centre” include challenging this received theatre-making model. The university campus, geared toward training an emerging generation, is fertile terrain for testing orthodoxies to redefine what theatre – and Shakespearean drama in particular – might mean here and now through a process of dismantling. Director Robert Lepage is on record as saying, “The essence of Romanticism and the Renaissance is that you’re building a new world on the ruins of the old one, and that’s creative, that’s rich.”13 Other than a commitment to playful, collective embodied storytelling, I had no fixed production concept and an orthodox process of casting rehearsals initiated with a play reading followed by “blocking” would clearly have been counterproductive. Our first discussion had urged the necessity for discovering the pleasures, games, and wordplay of Much Ado as a crucial precursor to attempting any form of staging. The production concept evolved organically, largely in response to the need for immediacy or a quest for relevance. For approximately six weeks, daily sessions advanced toward developing skills in confident, embodied, and collective storytelling. No roles were assigned to any individual and no interpretation was resolved. Fragments were staged “on the floor” in a playful, non-sequential order as a means of generating goodwill and a spirit of fun. Some “decisions” were tacitly arrived at: participants would self-nominate roles, role-allocations would be shared between players who might also double within a single performance, and most important, the staging would be improvised each night. These principles affirmed the conjoined responsibility of all participants to one another and to the audience. The aim of our performances would be to share a process of continual discovery and rediscovery, to demonstrate the confidence 130

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of the ensemble in owning the production. Ultimately, their pleasures would be lodged in Shakespeare’s text and the reciprocally attentive interplay between one another. The outcomes of this project became a template for subsequent theatrical experiments in testing ways in which the staging of a received text can be improvised each night as in Julius Caesar (2013), Oedipus Tyrannos (2014), and The Flies (2015). As practice-led research projects, these productions have variously produced data for subsequent documentation. I have, until now, resisted efforts at documenting Much Ado with its quality of sheer liberated abandon as the most joyous of these ventures. Aleatory theatre not only celebrates spontaneous iterations generated through collectively improvised “staging(s)” that are structured and shaped by a script committed to memory by an entire ensemble; it also advances the participatory aesthetics that characterize both traditional African performance forms and Western avant-garde experiments. These both challenge traditional acting and staging orthodoxies to advance the agency of performers through the spontaneous physical use of the stage, which expands on John Barton’s guidelines for verbal delivery. Heightened speech must be something that the actor or rather the character he’s playing, finds for himself because he needs those words and images to express his intention ... The vital thing is that the speaker must need the phrase at the very moment it is uttered. He must not think of such phrases as simply words that pre-exist in the text. They have got to be words that he finds as he utters them.14 It seems to me that the robust disposition of the spirit of the adventure urges reinstating as a vital component of popular theatre. This quality has been traduced and tamed by the escalation of contemporary therapy discourse – or, as Frank Furedi terms it, “Therapy Culture” – through heightened sensitivity to “stress and anxiety,” fragile mental health, trauma, and its triggers.15 The desire and the need for security and predictability is understandable but – in theatre, conjoined with the need for assured success – the tendency to caution minimizes creativity. Individual and collective agency or accountability along with embracing risks embedded in adventure and the unforeseeable are, after all, embedded in all forms of innovative cultural expression. It seems crucial to declare core propositions regarding theatre as a medium to undergird any discussion of preparing Shakespeare’s play for presentation to an audience. Accordingly, the focus shifts to sketch 131

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conceptual propositions on which my practice is based, first in respect of relations between text and performance and subsequently vis-à-vis the value placed on process – specifically that which is provisional and contingent – which is addressed in relation to the adventure. The project of theatre-making is addressed here as both a formal undertaking and in terms of the disposition or attitude toward that commitment to encompass a dual-aspect focus, on conceptual considerations in conjunction with their application.

“ wri ti ng on the wi nd”: a f f irm in g the a l e atory e phe me ralit y of theatre as an eve nt and e n c ou n ter Theatre as a public medium celebrates both the spoken word and kinetic imagery to create expressions of identity, behaviour, and feeling. My position regarding the poetics and politics of practice draws on an eclectic range of experiences and reference points. Raymond Williams’s views on the dynamism of cultural forms and tensions between upholding tradition and innovatory relations between text, context, and performance remain pivotal to my thinking.16 I link these ideas with Jorge Luis Borges’s arguments and ideas to offer a specific means of negotiating decolonization.17 These propositions undergird some decisions that I have made vis-à-vis orality and literacy to advocate for the value of improvisation technique in performer training. The dialogue between African and European performance legacies is a strategy for developing a non-hierarchical ensemble that operates as a model for a community whose storytelling objectives and process depend on robust participation. An adaptation of Keith Johnstone’s interpersonal, outwardly focused technique of improvisation training has proved viable in promoting reciprocal interdependence, playfulness, and joint ownership of a scene.18 The interplay between tradition and innovation is unavoidably contextually and ideologically determined. Williams introduces the term “structures of feeling” to account for changes in conventions and styles that are textured by largely amorphous sensibilities emerging from life as lived and experienced by performers and audience alike. Williams appears curiously reluctant to define the term explicitly. He writes: It is as firm and definite as ‘structure’ suggests, yet it is based in the deepest and often least tangible elements of our experience. It is a 132

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way of responding to the world which in practice is not felt as one way among others – a “conscious” way – but is, in experience, the only way possible.19 These ideas (which chime with Jansen’s notion of “embodied knowledge” and Barton’s “need” to speak rather than “recite” or reproduce phrases) operate in productive dialogue with Jorge Luis Borges’s 1951 propositions advanced in “The Argentine Writer and Tradition” to support approaches to staging Shakespeare in the spirit of transformation. The negotiation of tensions between local and global is lodged at the heart of decolonization in terms of developing and accruing cultural capital. Borges suggests that rather than resisting texts that might be considered tainted by an imperial legacy, an inclusive model of counter-appropriation might be adopted. He writes, “We cannot limit ourselves to Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine,” and claims, “Our tradition is all of Western culture.”20 The bold proposition is undergirded by a rationale that is subtle and persuasive in appeal: “We can handle all European themes, handle them without superstition, with an irreverence which can have, and already does have fortunate consequences” (my italics).21 This stance argues for a mode of cultural self-sufficiency that is marked by assertive choices that puncture the presumed authority of the Western canon and thoroughly displaces what these texts represent. The right to the rearticulation of Western texts, rather than their uncritical consumption, becomes a strategic means of “speaking back” to canonical authority. “Irreverence” suggests a strategy that shapes a liberated sensibility and chimes with what Jonathan Miller champions when he writes, “I think the theatre should be a much more careless business of doing plays with a disrespectful and flamboyant energy.”22 Miller’s stress on “doing” promotes the value of craft in action rather than valorizing a conceptual interpretation. The force of “disrespectful” and “flamboyant” reiterates the quieter terms favoured by Borges in his more restrained articulation. Both positions assert resistance to discourses of domination. Traditional African performance modes celebrate the human agent as the focus of the mise-en-scène, performance energy over literary quality, celebrating what Malaika Mutere terms “kinetic orality,” which she explains as crucial to the African oral-aesthetic in which movement expresses the generative power that constitutes life, that is transported in rhythmic sound, and then is transformed into the visual motion patterns of the flesh.23 133

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As a professional production designer, I witnessed how the 1986 production of Sarafina! was rehearsed and presented by an ensemble of twentyfour without any written record. Rehearsals required neither script nor score as documents but depended on shared retention of the whole. The text existed solely in the collective cognitive map of the company as a cohesive unit testifying to its non-literary origin and form. This experience invited revisiting the goals of Western avant-garde projects. In his essay on Antonin Artaud’s vision of an alternative model of theatre, Jacques Derrida observes: “All theatrical audacity declares its fidelity to Artaud, correctly or incorrectly, but with increasing insistency.”24 He cites The Theatre and Its Double to advance the goal of celebrating the singularity – rather than reiterative – potential of each performance. Let us leave textual criticism to graduate students, formal criticism to esthetes, and recognize that what has been said is not still to be said; that an expression, does not have the same value twice, does not live two lives; that all words, once spoken, are dead and function only at the moment when they are uttered, that a form, once it has served, cannot be used again and asks only to be replaced by another.25 And thus comments: This is indeed how things appear: theatrical representation is finite, and leaves behind it, behind its actual presence, no trace, no object to carry off. It is neither a book nor a work, but an energy, and in this sense it is the only art of life.26 Improvisation training promotes a form of animated spontaneous “unrepeatable” vitality that is quintessentially non-literary in its celebration of that which is provisional and fluid. Training in improvisation techniques contests actor-training that valorizes character as a psychological construct and prime exponent of individual action. Rejecting this paradigm also promotes collective action as a means of countering solipsistic introspection and a self-expressive tendency toward virtuoso display of craft and personality. Moreover, the rewards and pleasures of active collaboration in an impromptu “shared-experience” corresponds with what Judith Lütge Coullie terms the “smudged authorship” of traditional izibongi or praise poems that are characterized by a “lack of distinction between self-composed praises and those composed by 134

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others.”27 Joint ownership of the theatre project promotes the agency of the actor as individual and member of a group. Simultaneously, it advances the ensemble as microcosm of a community in which inclusivity and interconnectedness (or bonds between players) affirm the instrumentality of collective action. Theatre-making in this spirit takes a cue from activist politician and public intellectual Mamphela Ramphele, who writes, Dialogues start with acknowledgment of the presence of others. The isiZulu greeting captures it best; “Sawubona,” literally, “we are seeing you.” Being seen and acknowledged is an affirmation of being connected with those around one.28 Just as the speaker and addressee are affirmed as members of a community, the individual playing within an ensemble according to the tenets of an outwardly focused interpersonal model of improvisation experiences participatory reciprocity. The model – rather than nurturing solipsistic self-expression – advances collective decision-making and action. Keith Johnstone’s model of interactive play provides a foundation for introducing and advancing skills in improvised performance. In Impro, he emphasizes the significance of status interaction that animates all interpersonal encounters and routines before tackling spontaneity and strategies for liberating performers from studied and self-conscious presentation. In a Johannesburg studio (1994–2017), it proved productive to reverse this sequence to neutralize the embedded status differences that are the living legacy of apartheid social engineering. The inequities play out across a range of variables to strain efforts toward equitability. Liberated from the demands of focusing on text-based performances, spontaneity depends on honing observation and attentive skills as a prerequisite to affirming the offers initiated by another. Adaptations of Johnstone’s exercises emphasizes reciprocal interdependence to promote response-based interaction and kinetic orality. A medley of multiple languages best describes the assembled players in a Jo’burg performance studio: English is a second language for most of the participants. Linguistic proficiency and confidence, or the lack thereof, inserts inequitable competencies. It is prudent to introduce “status play” only once equitable status relations and a collective-of-equals – or ensemble – sensibility has been fully established. Positions of dominance and subservience – high and low status in Johnstone’s lexicon – reproduce the dangerous hierarchies of privilege and oppression that 135

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have long constructed place and position in South Africa. Paradoxically, improvising positions of status difference is best introduced via scripted fragments. The strategy serves two objectives. First, using a fragment of script detaches or depersonalizes the source of marking status difference and thereby displaces the issue of individual accountability from participants; second, it becomes a means of fusing improvised staging with sections of an extant text, and multiple iterations of the same scene emphasize the generative interpretative scope of the play through “doing.” As the short exchange becomes increasingly familiar, the rhythm and tension embedded in the structured dynamics of the interplay acquire nuance: as performers gain confidence, fluency, and skill, so the pleasure and delight in the rhythm of an interaction becomes part of the performance. In Romeo and Juliet (1.1.31–51), the altercation between Samson and Gregory, with its “relatable” street-scene vibe, is an accessible fragment through which status dynamics can be introduced. The brief exchange of twenty short lines provides scope to enjoy playing an “insult” that integrates physical attitude and vocal delivery: the lines themselves serve as a directorial guide and allow performers to generate organic and spontaneous encounters between rival factions on a public street. The improviser draws on the world with which they are familiar, and the agency embedded in referring to a personal frame of reference not only mobilizes an invested performance but also produces a hybrid that infuses the text with local idiom. Multiple iterations offer scope for variation as tools for affirming the structure and rhythm of interaction. The range of status interactions in Much Ado about Nothing made the text attractive to the company as it provided opportunity to apply improvisation skills to a full-length play. I was keen to test its capacity for extending the value of a shared discovery and mastery of an unfamiliar text in terms of its structure, rhythm, situation, and expressive forms. Like a finely coached soccer team taking to the field and knowing the rules of the game but unable to predict the outcome of play, our “rehearsal” process evolved as a series of experiments with fragments. Endless possibilities were presented and discussed by a company that had learnt to value variations of interpretation and staging rather than obey the imperatives of executing exact moves through the predictable sameness of conventional blocked staging. Just as rules determine the game, the script provided a blueprint for interaction, and as the play remains unpredictable, so too the improvised use of space and time on stage resisted fixity, generating increased participatory focus, anticipation, and tension. 136

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Initiatives in collaborative theatre-making abound locally and globally as templates on which to draw. The reflections of internationally celebrated contemporary theatre-maker Robert Lepage offer the trope of journeying, adventuring, and discovery through and across different territories in encountering cultural differences. The autotelic value anchored in the dynamics of a process unfolding in experiential terms informs Lepage’s approach. In “Travel Log,” he writes, Christopher Columbus’ travel log reveals two things. First he was aware of the need to document, on a daily basis, a risky adventure whose outcome was still unclear. Second, he was aware that the adventure was bigger than he was ... Theatre is an adventure that’s bigger than we are; an adventure which we embark on with many questions, but virtually no answers.29 Lepage designates Columbus (1451–1506) – navigator, explorer, and archetypal colonist – an adventurer. This dual-aspect identity is inescapably problematic, bound up as it is with the project of imperial territorial conquest. But what is at stake in Lepage’s analogy is the trope of the journey and the value of logging that process, rather than the figure of Columbus himself. Paul Carter’s postcolonial study The Road to Botany Bay allows for reflecting on the sea-farer’s log as a form of expository writing that stresses the value of the provisional and contingent. Carter proposes a notion of “spatial history” to counter the linear trajectory of imperialist historical project and what it effaces through fixing via the twin projects of mapping and naming. Carter also mobilizes the trope of the landscape as a stage or platform on which events play out for the benefit of the (visible or invisible) spectator to legitimize conquest through obscuring the underlying historical process. His distinction between “exploration” and “discovery” declares the European perspective of the “known.” For him, Cook’s status as “founder” of Australia as an outcome of his naming places is at odds with his “credentials as navigator” primarily committed to the process of a journey.30 He writes, Cook’s knowledge of the Australian coast was a product of his mobility and his active engagement with its waters, reefs and horizons; at the very least, his casual and special names represent the conditions under which he aimed to make history. They underlie the active nature of the explorer’s space and time.31 137

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Cook’s names are provisional markers that function as “a conceptual space in which to move.” [The place names] claimed no finality or universal validity. On the contrary they were deployed contextually, strategically ... They alluded to the journey itself, as it unfolded horizontally.32 Two botanists (Joseph Banks and Daniel Charles Solander) journeyed alongside Cook on the Endeavour. Both documented flora encountered on the voyage through implementing the Linnaean system of classification to stress species difference and “fix” identities. Carter compares Bank’s method and outcomes with Cook’s objective of surveying “uncharted territory”: “Banks was preoccupied with the typical; Cook was concerned with the singular.”33 Not unlike Cook’s log and Lepage’s propositions of the adventure, theatre-making may be a collaborative exploration in which the play is encountered collectively in the rehearsal room rather than as a fully conceived conceptual treatment in the mind of the director pending mere implementation through rehearsal. Just as Cook’s place names serve as provisional markers mapping relations between that which is known and that which is unfamiliar, so too the encounter with a play text may be animated through a shared acceptance of unknown variables. Lepage addresses this important property of the collective creative project in “There and Back Again.” Often when we seek out the unknown, we end up discovering what we already know ... The obsession we have with discovering other cultures is usually intimately linked to the discovery of our own culture.34 The “discoveries” made during Much Ado attest to Lepage’s statement.

the adve nture : a tem pl ate f or t h eatre - maki ng and knowl ed g e ac qu isition Georg Simmel’s essay “The Adventurer” conceptualizes the adventure as an abstract phenomenon. For him, artists, philosophers, gamblers, and lovers exemplify the prototype with the figure of Casanova and his multiple amours as the primary example. For Simmel “The adventure, in its specific nature and charm, is a form of experiencing and the content of 138

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the experience does not make the adventure” (my emphases).35 Simmel’s propositions have purchase in relation to all that improvised performance proposes. Ultimately, the adventure is not a series of fragmented encounters, which in supplementing one another tend toward an integrated meaning, “but rather that incomparable experience ... between what we conquer and what is given to us.”36 Simmel conceptualizes the adventure in terms of the syntagmatic relationship of a part to a whole. Each segment can be valued as a self-contained episode in addition to being assimilated into a continuum. This formulation applies equally to a performance mode in which the smallest fragment of action (rather than the trajectory of the entire text) acquires prominence and serves to establish a rehearsal method. Simmel further posits that the adventure resists integration within continuities of experience: meaning is invested in temporal fragmentation and dispersal, heightening the perceived intensity and value of the episode in and of itself so that “[the adventure’s] deeper meaning, [is] that it occurs outside the usual continuity of this life.” Simmel explains why he nominates Casanova as the personification of the adventurer on the grounds of his capacity to inhabit time rather than relationships: “His perspective on the future was wholly obliterated in the rapture of the moment.”37 The notion of celebrating that which is transitory and ephemeral provides another way of understanding the gratification of being immersed in the autotelic form of improvised play: the source of pleasure is located less in affirming social cohesion but lies in an intensified appreciation of what it means to “inhabit time.” Having established the temporally bounded form of the adventure, Simmel introduces the element of the extraordinary, which corresponds with the porosity between rehearsal studio and everyday life. The transition from the everyday to the world of play and adventure is analogous with improvisation classes in which fragmentation, continuities, integration, and separation operate constantly. Risk, reward, and pleasure are also interwoven as in Jeffrey Masson’s use of the term funktionlust. Masson explains the term as “pleasure taken in what one can do best – the pleasure a cat takes in climbing trees ... [, which] may increase an animal’s tendency to do these things.”38 The ability to inhabit, even exult in fully being in the present moment, in precisely the terms Simmel advances, explains why improvised performance appeals to some performers but not to others. Keith Johnstone writes, “There are people who prefer to say ‘Yes,’ and there are people who prefer to say ‘No.’ Those who say ‘Yes’ are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who 139

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say ‘No’ are rewarded by the safety they attain.”39 Citing Arthur Couch and Kenneth Keniston,40 he accounts for consensus and co-operation as alternatives to resistance: The yeasayer’s general attitude is one of stimulus acceptance, by which we mean a pervasive readiness to respond affirmatively or yield willingly to both outer and inner forces demanding expression. The “disagreeing” naysayers have the opposite orientation. For them impulses are seen as forces requiring control, and perhaps in some sense as threats to general personal stability. The naysayer wants to maintain inner equilibrium ... Thus, as opposed to the yeasayers, the naysayers’ general attitude is one of stimulus rejection.41 Aspects of nominative determinism accrue to the identity of the performer as actor, schauspieler, improviser, or even player among other designated role players in theatre, as Lepage observes.42 The last – the term that I, following Shakespeare, privilege because of its associations with agency and pleasure – aligns with the adventurer who embraces the interface of chance and predictability and the continuum between agency and passivity. It is in relation to the promised security of what has been predetermined (in contrast with the hazards and risks of the unpredictable) that Simmel places the gambler among the adventurers because he “clearly, has abandoned himself to the meaninglessness of chance ... chance for him has become part of a context of meaning.”43 The connection with improvisation is reinforced: unforeseen and unpredicted possibilities of encounters are the hallmarks of extemporized play and require a penchant for risk-taking. The inclination to enjoy the uncertainty of outcomes, including potential conflict and failure, depends on recognizing that pleasures located in the chance encounter that intensifies the transient moment as oppositions between certainties and uncertainties contend with one another. The improviser, as player, is an adventurer in social encounters and behaviour: the play script maps a public journey in space and time. It verges on unthinkable to approach any text without reference to previous productions or recourse to the critical responses generated in the past: interpretation profits from intertextual reference. The task of mediating relations between text and context in any proposed presentation of a script culled from the global repertoire is enriched by dramaturgical analysis, and some aspects of Shakespeare’s glorious comedy must be addressed before discussing any experiment with this text in the studio. 140

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di s c ove ri ng “re levanc e ”: “d oin g ” m u ch ad o in th e t we nti eth ce ntury in repeated iteration s I listened to the formidable Jonathan Miller speak about theatre-making (without notes) at a function during the construction of the Santa Fe Opera House: a year or so later I chanced upon his “self-authored script,” Subsequent Performances. He writes, as he spoke, that Shakespeare wrote during a period marked by significant paradigm shifts in notions of cultural and individual identity. These ideas have considerable purchase in relation to the way in which life is experienced and shaped in South Africa in recent decades. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, as in South Africa’s recent history, the model of relationship based on status (binding individuals to inherited class positions) was beginning to give way to a social order in which relationships based on contract neutralized privilege and allowed for forming bonds on a more egalitarian basis. These observations chime with Dover Wilson’s comment about the play and its teasing out the distinctions between relationships predicated on position and on contractual grounds: “marriage in those days was first a matter of business, and only secondarily (if at all) a matter of love.”44 The ideas of an experienced, celebrated director offered a dramaturgical and theatrical departure point for understanding the core structure devices, motifs, and themes of Much Ado about Nothing. Issues of place, position, and status reverberate throughout: characters consistently announce or display an acute sensitivity to the intricate web of relationships in which they encounter one another. Citizenship and position are determined by class, but there are other significant matrices in which status dynamics – the constant “see-saw” between positions of dominance, subservience, or equivalence according to forms of capital and agency beyond social position – play out, through wit, intelligence, skill, self-assurance, and desirability. Don Pedro occupies an unchallenged position at the apex of the social hierarchy of the Much Ado world. Beatrice, despite the handicap of gender, presents herself to him with an authority grounded in intelligence, ready wit, and delicious self-confidence.

beatrice

I may sit in a corner and cry, “Heigh-ho for a husband.”

don pedro

Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. 141

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beatrice

I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands if a maid could come by them.

don pedro

Will you have me, lady?

beatrice

No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days, your grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your grace pardon me, I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

don pedro

Your silence most offends me, and to be merry, best becomes you; for out o’ question, you were born in a merry hour.

beatrice

No, sure, my lord, my mother cried. But then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. (2.1.242–5) The banter is underscored by a firm sense of propriety and a gracious reluctance to abrogate ways in which birthright determines place, position, and entitlement. At the other end of the social hierarchy, Dogberry’s assured sense of citizenship – based on inviolable human rights as a set of contractual obligations – allows for scenes structured around social asymmetries to be played out more boldly. These two characters and their interactions with others provide entry points for exploring the complex way in which status relations undergird our social dynamics. If the imperatives of the political correctness refute – and sometimes deny – the persistence of asymmetries in status, Shakespeare’s plays reinscribe complex dynamic differences and inequities across multiple matrices. In the play, the sunny climate of newly reconciled opposing parties frames the action: Don Pedro and his mates are a bachelor group who enjoy the luxury of time to devote themselves to personal pursuits and pleasures. The play diverges from what Dover Wilson describes as Shakespeare’s other “Happy Comedies” in several respects: first, the action is confined to a single place – Leonato’s villa – with no literal or metaphoric escape into another world, such as the forest or woods. Rather, the mechanism of “disruption from routine protocols” plays out in an interstitial zone defined in temporal terms. Don Pedro declares a holiday period of a month’s stay: the young men gamble on love with little more than their own resources on which to draw. The action demonstrates a marked lack of dependence on objects or things as catalysts 142

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to promote action: there is no magical flower creating havoc, no ass’s head, no cross-gartered yellow stockings. In the world of Much Ado, it is the human agent who in multiple and gloriously varied ways manipulates language, situations and other individuals. And, though the motif of disguise (as a mask that facilitates a playful misrepresentation of self) is embedded in the action, none of the complications arises from the cross-dressing motif so thoroughly developed elsewhere. The capacity to misrepresent, distort, to fabricate evidence through words – spoken and written – is the central motif of a play that delights in language as the primary constituent of social appearance and interface. Although Shakespeare’s relevance in South Africa today had been pronounced a pivotal problem, fortuitously Valentine’s Day loomed, inviting the question of how everyone proposed to celebrate the occasion. Ten young men and five young women became delightfully animated in discussing red hearts and romance, sentiment and desire, frustration and pleasure, the rewards and tribulations of love. Penetrating observations about the “relevance” of St Valentine and questions regarding how his legacy crystallized into acknowledging how romance had been mythologized and commodified. Concerns about how the play might appeal were eclipsed by the intrigue around celebrating love or desire and its disappointments and frustrations. These energetic young performers embodied a spirited correspondence with the characters of the play who, in the main, are remarkably confident in their expectations of living the good life in the aftermath of social unrest. Reservations about the accessibility of the spoken language remained: it would be our task to retain this sensibility at the forefront of our project during rehearsals reminding us that “how” the words would be delivered rather than “what was said” – or even the character’s identity and inner life – would be a performance priority.

pl aying with word s as “s o many strang e dishes” At the level of technical training, one of the objectives of the project was to develop competency in the delivery of heightened text. We resolved to resist adaptation, paraphrasing, or translation in favour of delivering words so that meanings would emerge through paralinguistic aspects of pronouncement and responses to the utterance. The script with which we were all working was a provisionally edited version culled from the complete works without footnotes exposing the degree to which the play 143

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abounds in antiquated words no longer familiar to a contemporary ear. Tackling language at the level of a single word was a precursor to dealing with the intricate grammar and rhetorical declarations. The rationale was clear: an audience would hear the words only once without recourse to a glossary necessitating a sure command of expression. The custom of a static first reading of the play in its entirety had been displaced by debate at the end of which I asked everyone to read one or two scenes at random and come to the session the next day with a single unfamiliar word. In a permutation of the game of charades, each individual was then asked to speak this chosen word. If anyone recognized the word, they could adopt it and use it repeatedly in addressing another. Only when the person who had nominated the term was confident that they too now understood the meaning (through physical demonstration) would we move on to the next word. Definition or explanation was prohibited: what was unfamiliar was to be communicated solely through tone, inflection, and attitude. Memorably, “Signor” was one of the first words shared. Pronounced “Sig-nor” with equally stressed syllables and a hard g as in “fig” with an s, followed by “nor” as in neither/nor, its unfamiliarity was baffling. No one recognized the word. “Good Signor Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble?” (1.1.71) provided a clue to resolve the mystery. One by one cast members greeted one another using inflection, attitude, and gesture in an exaggerated display of deference. Complete command of the word was ultimately demonstrated in a hybrid form that fused the isiZulu approach to a superior with a deliciously ironic awareness of borrowing from a continental lexicon. The game of conqueringforeign-words-one-word-at-a-time subsequently gained momentum thanks to the sheer delight of one young man’s joy at understanding “signor” as the equivalent of the isiZulu “nkosi.” The mediation of that which is specific and local with a vocabulary that originates elsewhere, as foreign or imported, guided our practice on multiple levels. Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy is documented in The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre in which he describes the fusion of word and improvised action as what he terms “mimodynamics” which, he asserts, “[puts] the poem into motion in a way verbal translation can never attain.”45 He focuses on specific expressive nuances, making two observations: verbs and nouns need to be understood as functioning and operating differently from each other as “living organisms” that urge corresponding treatment in delivery. In exemplifying this proposition, he cites the difference between the “French le beurre already spread, whereas in English 144

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‘butter’ is always in a packet.”46 Additionally, in a multilingual context in which participants rely on French, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and other languages, the subtle nuances in customary use need to be discovered. The English words “taking,” “snatching” and “picking up” invoke qualitatively different gestures. He explains, Words are set in motion by the students, including those who do not speak French. Curiously they soon understand and speak our language very well, since they focus on the dynamics of the word. This suggests a tremendous opportunity for language learning.47 Second-language acquisition is an adjunct to performance training, nonetheless. Lecoq makes the provocative suggestion that far from being disadvantaged, a second-language speaker may prove to be more instrumental in liberating nuances of a text than a native speaker. He suggests, The international dimension of the school brings foreign actors into contact with French texts. It is interesting to observe how an attention to careful articulation brings out the force of the writing. The pains these students must take to rediscover the value of the words reap rich rewards.48 The word “cuckold,” with its associated iconography of the horned beast, offered scope for testing the mimodynamics that Lecoq describes without explicitly drawing on his terminology. The first scene launches this central motif in a playful exchange between happy bachelors confident that in their unencumbered lives they are immune from such stigma.

don pedro

“In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.”

benedick

The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns, and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write, “Here is good horse to hire” let them signify under my sign, “Here you may see Benedick, the married man.” (1.1.191–6). The guarantees of immunity from shaming through a resolute commitment to bachelorhood is subsequently stressed by Benedick’s equal, 145

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Beatrice. For her, as Dover Wilson puts it, “heaven is with the bachelors, because she sets her wits against theirs and beats them at their own game.”49 Her dedication to bachelorhood is emphatic. There will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say, “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven. Here’s no place for you maids.” So deliver I up my apes and away to St Peter ‘fore the heavens, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. (2.1.32–6) The avowed dedication to a single life as a safeguard against possible future betrayal drives the action of the opening scenes to set up the gulling scenes and reversal that follow. The opening scene with its teasing camaraderie between knowing and dedicated “young bucks” was explored through testing forms of rough-and-tumble horseplay that might express all that “cuckold” implies. Playful alternatives proliferated. The most productive reference was the quotation mimicking a bull charging toward the matador’s cape. The dexterous bravado required to evade the horns resolved the challenge of playing the text physically and knowingly. Liberated from reading the script, we had identified a playful orality allowing us to discover the script one or two lines at a time. As a document, the text was declared redundant and none but the stage manager would be permitted a script in the studio. Everyone gained confidence in playing increasingly longer phrases, lines, and speeches acquired through listening to fragments and discovering meaning in physical and relational terms. The whole cast committed the entire script to memory with remarkably little effort and without regard for chronology or sequence. This approach is consistent with improvisation and its focus on single offers that disallows “playing the scene in general” by focusing on the immediate “moment or instant.” In other words, the emphasis on a present beat develops a concentrated intensity that eclipses the quality of engagement produced by playing the overall arc of an entire scene because it promotes active listening rather than waiting for a cue. Such attentive listening is a prerequisite of a culture that prizes orality and relies on acute retentive skills. The preparation process attested to how readily lines could be memorized because they originated as embodied exchanges rather than pre-scripted expressions committed to memory in silent, unpeopled isolation. The happy outcome was that words acquired heightened charge as tools of communication and exchange. 146

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Vocal deliveries and playful variations of a single unfamiliar word proved highly productive in establishing a foundation of confident vocal interaction. Increased familiarity allowed us to progress to isolated sentences then on to vocal exchanges made up of utterance and response. These were arbitrarily selected according to the preference of each participant who committed the sentence to memory. This strategy enabled us to accomplish several technical goals: first, it promoted the role of punctuation in guiding vocal delivery; next, it advanced emphasizing verbs rather than stressing the personal noun; third, participants quickly appreciated the need for reliable breath support to ensure that the last word of the sentence was clear; fourth, sentence structure, length, and register could be compared and contrasted as formal properties of the dialogue that revealed character and situation – playing the contrasts between pithy/direct or convoluted/expansive statements served as a building block for line delivery; fifth, the implementation of mimodynamics fused physical and spatial play with verbal interaction ensuring rapid line retention; finally, pleasure, recognition, and analysis emerged from “doing first” and “reflecting subsequently” as we debated the merits of varied iterations of each single beat. The single line demands that the player identifies who they address along with reference points and the attitude prompting the statement. In groups, participants alternated roles of speaker and addressee while learning to appreciate how crucial the role of the listener might be in supporting speech. Dogberry, with Verges beside him, makes this statement to Leonato: “As they say, when the age is in, the wit is out” (3.5.26–7). The preceding line, “A good old man sir. He will be talking,” sets up the situation and status relationships between characters. The comedy then depends on the impact of Dogberry’s syllogistic pronouncement on the infirmity of age with its play between two sets of opposing terms. One by one, each person deftly offered suggestions that displayed age being lodged in the body and the faculty of critical intelligence departing from the skull: fleeting hand gestures established contrasts between in/out associated with enfeebled physical/mental faculties. Shakespeare’s line acquired extraordinary clarity (with or without explicit reference to the unfortunate partner) and so delighted one cast member that he was observed sharing his mastery and pleasure in Shakespeare’s maxim across campus for the remainder of the day! The momentum and shape of lines along with the interdependence of actors on one another had established the need for attentive listening and subsequently proved indispensable to the interplay of several voices. 147

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Nuances in tone, pace, inflection, flow, and rhythm emerged as dependent on reciprocal attentiveness. As with the single word and isolated sentence, everyone was required to play the same sequence to enjoy the discovery of verbal interplay and collaboration. The trio involving Claudio, Don Pedro, and Benedick demonstrates these demands. The structure of the sequence depends on repetition and progressive escalation as both Don Pedro’s and Claudio’s lines “feed” Benedick’s conclusive pronouncement that is the all-important prelude to his declaration that he will “live a bachelor” (1.1.180).

don pedro

Amen, if you love her, for the lady is very well worthy.

claudio

You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

don pedro

By my troth, I spoke my thought.

claudio

And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

benedick

And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

claudio

That I love her, I feel.

don pedro

That she is worthy, I know.

benedick

That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should be worthy is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me. I will die in it at the stake. (1.1.163–72) The ethos of the rehearsal studio inculcated the value of mutual pleasures in playing together, which made monologues, soliloquies, or set-speeches a concerted challenge. These speeches were relatively few but all the more distinctive for the infrequency with which they punctuated the polyphonic orchestration of the whole. We approached these sections of the text as we had the dialogic exchanges, in pairs with partners delivering alternate sentences to clarify patterns of thought. Line allocations swapped over with each player serving as a prompt to the other as necessary. The simultaneity of multiple partnerships all testing a solo speech made for a chaotic cacophony of sound obliging intent concentration between partners. Finally, whole speeches would be 148

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strung together before each variation was presented to the company: all participants derived inordinate pleasure from adopting a spectatorial role informed by the challenges of playing each section. This motif of the performer-as-spectator inserted a high degree of supportive interconnectedness between players and furthered a level of finely tuned degree of sincere listening. One template of a relatively long speech is Dogberry’s reaction to an insult.

dogberry

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass, though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No thou villain, thou art full of piety as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to, and a rich fellow enough, go to, and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been written down an ass! (4.2.59–68) Keith Johnstone uses the term “over-accept” to describe a heightened or intensified reaction to a stimulus or offer, and performers had revelled in experimenting with this type of response in playing status interactions and were alert to the nuances through which self-estimation may be displayed and asserted. The assault on Dogberry’s dignity prompts a level of overacceptance that so delighted all participants that the entire company – regardless of gender – nominated the role of “the immortal constable,” as Dover Wilson describes him, as the one they most wished to play.50 Ultimately, everyone was astute enough to acknowledge the three performers best suited to share the role, but they all – including those playing the lead roles – demanded to be onstage as members of the watch to share at least one scene (3.3) which they considered a master-class in scripting overacceptance. The pleasure of playing overacceptance, through self-dramatization or as an intensified mode of reciprocal interaction, invites the observation that the title of the play itself pronounces the all-too-human fallibility of making a mountain out of a molehill. This motif shapes the overall action and the trajectories for individual characters. The title dares us to 149

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reflect on excess and its antithesis: great theatre requires little more than the resources a confident and creative performer realizes as individual and as team player.

“ aha”: a dual- re gi st er c on clu sion In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler proposes that the activities of “scientific discovery, artistic originality and comic inspiration” are permutations of what he terms a bi-sociative act in which “two self-consistent habitually incompatible frames of reference ... intersect.” He explains the matrix as a “pattern representing all possible moves” operating according to a code which is the “fixed, invariable factor.”51 The apparent contradiction or paradoxical conflation of improvised staging with a printed script has some correspondence with this proposition. The strategy makes for an infinite range of deliveries. This formulation also provides a useful way of thinking about what Shakespeare represents in South Africa in the twenty-first century. Koestler writes: When two independent matrices of perception or reasoning interact with each other the result … is either a collision ending in laughter, or their fusion in a new intellectual synthesis, or their confrontation in an aesthetic experience.52 The “eureka” moment of reciprocal recognition locates pleasure lodged in – and triggered by – an affirmation of what has been subjectively intuited but not recognized, what has been wordlessly “known.” One might describe as the decisive moment between Beatrice and Benedick (in 4.1) – an extraordinarily compact “love” scene – in similar terms. Entirely lacking in high-flown rhetoric, the exchange is terse and pithy: the evenly balanced ideas suggesting the evident capacity to meet as equals. These simple direct, largely monosyllabic, sentences require attentive interplay between duo to capture the rhythm: a scant eleven lines culminate in Benedick’s declaration.

benedick

Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

beatrice

Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

benedick

I will not desire that. 150

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beatrice

You have no reason, I do it freely.

benedick

Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

beatrice

Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

benedick

Is there any way to show such friendship?

beatrice

A very even way, but no such friend.

benedick

May a man do it?

beatrice

It is a man’s office, but not yours.

benedick

I do love nothing in the world so well as you, is not that strange?

beatrice

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say, I loved nothing so well as you, but believe me not, and yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing, I am sorry for my cousin. (4.1.253–67) The fragment invites acknowledging the extent to which relationships are patterned by what is familiar (or routine) being subject to unpredictability. One notable rendition remains with me to provide a fitting conclusion to these ideas regarding the risks and rewards of adventuring with improvised staging. In a splendidly forthright display of mounting anger Jemma/Beatrice flounced offstage after “man’s office, not yours.” Her vehement and energetic vocal dismissal necessitated, just this once, a corresponding physical action. The momentum of this spontaneous choice left Bryan/Benedick alone centre stage, as in Enobarbus’s description of Antony deserted in the marketplace anticipating his first meeting with Cleopatra. The all-important love declaration had to follow in response to this extraordinarily timed exit. The delivery emerged as a light, teasing, nonchalant call to the empty arena. Fleetingly, Jemma/ Beatrice peeped out from behind the stage left door as though she might have misheard, before disappearing again. Seconds elapsed as Bryan/Benedick waited. Jemma/Beatrice returned breaking the expectant stillness and silence rendering her incredulity in action and quiet words. Only two highly skilled improvisers who know and trust each 151

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other could have tested themselves and each other with quite such an astonishing, unrepeatable moment. The deft, ironically playful handling of the moment remains a memorable performance highlight that is entirely in line with the kind of theatre championed by Miller and Brook. This sequence, singular and spontaneous, offered an insight into playing Shakespeare with a sense of the unfolding present that articulates temporal, spatial, and human relationships. The exhilarating effect of promoting risk-taking through reciprocal support between fellow players produced an outcome that was entirely liberating. This freedom to choose, and the right to make the unexpected choices – with their attendant consequences – may emerge as the hallmark and achievement of an emergent generation of intelligent and robustly confident young South African theatre-makers. The achievements of that single performance returns me to the gratification of learning what a cork oak looked like and the memory of one young man who discovered the correlation between “signor” and “nkosi” on a hot Johannesburg afternoon. Understanding and knowledge – entangled and embodied, on the page and embedded in interaction between bodies – may prove to be a source of empowerment rather than estrangement. The intense gratification of the eureka effect is anchored in the fusion between what is known and familiar with that which is unfamiliar and different, beyond the boundaries of prior conscious experiences. The pleasure of such a discovery remains ineradicable even if the material circumstance of that discovery leaves “no visible trace.” The new coordinates of language and experience are fixed in the expanding subjective cognitive map of the world, its languages and systems of representation. And in a curious postscript to these ideas, a specimen of Quercus suber – an unlikely exotic flourishing in the sprawling park at Emmarentia Dam – was pointed out to me on my regular Sunday walk. This tree continues to activate my ability to reimagine Sintra and Cervantes, Shakespeare and “sig-nor,” on the Highveld in 2020. notes 1 See Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1994). 2 See Jonathan D. Jansen, Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2011). 3 Cervantes, Don Quixote, trans. J.M. Cohen (Harmondsworth, uk : Penguin, 1982), 86.

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Entangled and Embodied Knowledge(s) 4 Jorge Luis Borges, “The Argentine Writer and Tradition,” in Labyrinths (New York: New Directions, 1972), 162. 5 Said, Culture and Imperialism. See, in particular, chapter 1, “Overlapping Territories, Intertwined Histories.” 6 See, in particular, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Moving the Centre (Oxford: James Currey, 1993). 7 John Arden, To Present the Pretence (London: Eyre Methuen, 1977), 171–212. 8 Ngũgĩ, Moving the Centre, 12–24 and 30–41, in particular. 9 John Dover Wilson, Shakespeare’s Happy Comedies (London: Faber & Faber, 1962), 121. 10 Peter Brook, The Empty Space (Harmondsworth, uk : Pelican, 1977), 12. 11 Ibid., 17. 12 Jonahan Miller, Subsequent Performances (London: Faber & Faber, 1986), 88. 13 Quoted in The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, ed. Michael Huxley and Noel Witts (London: Routledge, 1996), 243. 14 John Barton, Playing Shakespeare (London: Methuen 1990), 18. 15 See Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age (London: Routledge, 2004). 16 Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (Harmondsworth, uk : Penguin, 1976). 17 Borges, “Argentine Writer and Tradition,” 158–66. 18 Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (London: Eyre Methuen, 1997). 19 Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, 10. 20 Borges, “Argentine Writer and Tradition,” 164. 21 Ibid., 165. 22 Miller, Subsequent Performances, 89. 23 Malaika Mutere, “Introduction to African History and Culture” (see under “African Culture and Aesthetics”), The Kennedy Centre’s African Odyssey Interactive, http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/history/ao-guide.html (accessed 14 Jan. 2014). 24 Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (London: Routledge, 1993), 233. 25 Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double (New York: Grove Press), 75. 26 Derrida, Writing and Difference, 246. 27 Judith Lütge Coullie, “(Dis)locating Selves: Izibongo and Narrative in South African Autobiographical Production,” in Oral Literature and Performance in Southern Africa, ed. Duncan Brown (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), 68. 28 Mamphela Ramphele, Conversations with My Sons and Daughters (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2012), 183.

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Shakespeare in Succession 29 Robert Lepage, Connecting Flights (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1998), 21. 30 Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 1. 31 Ibid., 4. 32 Ibid., 7. 33 Ibid., 18. 34 Lepage, Connecting Flights, 45. 35 Donald Levine, Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 98. 36 Ibid., 19. 37 Ibid., 190. 38 Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (New York: Dell, 1996), 13. 39 Johnstone, Impro, 92. 40 Arthur Couch and Kenneth Keniston, “Yeasayers and Naysayers: Agreeing Response Set as a Personality Variable,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 160, no. 2 (1960): 151–74. 41 Johnstone, Impro, 107. 42 Lepage, Connecting Flights, 55–61. 43 Levine, Georg Simmel, 191. 44 Miller, Subsequent Performances, 126. 45 Jacques Lecoq, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre (London: Methuen Drama, 2009), 51. 46 Ibid., 50. 47 Ibid., 51. 48 Ibid., 150. 49 Dover Wilson, Shakespeare’s Happy Comedies, 133. 50 Ibid., 130. 51 Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (London: Picador, 1975), 35–40. 52 Ibid., 45.

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7 Lyric Reflection: Translating the Script of a kunqu Romeo and Juliet into English Zhiyan Zhang and Carl A. Robertson1

2016 marked the four hundredth anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, and for the occasion one of the world’s most influential drama festivals, the International Arts Festival of Edinburgh, presented a variety of performances during the “World Shakespeare Drama Week,” where top artists from twenty-two countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Poland, and Austria, presented thirty Shakespearean performances during seven days at five theatres in Edinburgh. The last three performances were of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in the form of traditional Chinese kunqu opera.2 When the artistic director of the festival, Fergus Linehan, chose 2016 because of the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, it was serendipitous because that year also marked the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the great Chinese dramatist Tang Xianzu 汤显祖 (1550–1616). Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu can be arguably regarded as the greatest dramatists in the West and the East, respectively. Tang Xianzu’s main contribution was in the form of opera known as kunqu, which is noted for highly lyrical tales of star-crossed lovers, and thus the performance of a kunqu version of Romeo and Juliet was the perfect encounter for the two writers – even if delayed by four hundred years. This chapter addresses the challenges of translating the Chinese script into English, especially for the subtitles used in these performances. The adapters’ choice to emphasize traditional Chinese aesthetics for their kunqu Romeo and Juliet revealed several differences between Shakespeare and Tang Xanzu – a choice that was reflected not only in the manner of telling a story on stage but also in how this unique

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adaptation was prepared and presented. Since the effort of translation focused on creating a text that would foster cultural resonance in the kunqu libretto and facilitate appreciation of the unique Chinese values in the production, this chapter first addresses the foundations of the kunqu adaptation, then presents the translation of the script undertaken by Zhiyan Zhang and her team, and finally briefly explains the difference and similarities between the respective traditions.

a da p tati on as au the nti c chin ese produ ction Chen Chao 陈超, the director, adapted the Shakespeare play, writing the libretto as a traditional Chinese lyric kunqu opera. On the basis of three interviews Zhiyan Zhang conducted with Chen Chao, we identify three main features of the kunqu adaptation: first, that the external aspects or “husk” of the opera are Shakespearean, while the core remains Chinese and retains the values of kunqu opera. Second, that kunqu opera is primarily focused on the performance of the actors and their spontaneity and artistry; that is, rather than having the actors meet the needs of the director, in kunqu the playwright and director serve the actors. Third, that the adaptation into kunqu opera should maintain its original, native Chinese character when performed outside China, even as part of an adaptation. Among the many Shakespearean plays available, why choose Romeo and Juliet? Chen Chao favoured Romeo and Juliet because it is one of Shakespeare’s most iconic plays, and because it lends itself to comparison with a similar Chinese dramatic tale, as literary critic Hu Shi 胡适 (1891–1962) has pointed out, praising Romeo and Juliet as “The Love of Two Butterflies of the West.”3 Coincidentally, Western writers view The Love of Two Butterflies as “the oriental Romeo and Juliet.”4 Chen Chao followed the suggestion of Fergus Linehan, the artistic director of the festival, to retain only some essential aspects of Shakespeare in his kunqu adaptation and heighten instead Chinese elements,5 a choice that resulted in stronger comparisons between the two cultures and also advanced the culture of kunqu opera in the world outside China. The basic arc of the play as a sad love story is compatible with the style of kunqu opera, of which Tang Xianzu is the undisputed master. He wrote dramas in a poetic style of irregular line-lengths (referred to as “ci-poems”), which were already associated with expressions of romantic love. Tang Xianzu is associated with the lyric qualities of kunqu opera in a similar way to Shakespeare’s association with lyric 156

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drama. Both make heightened use of poetic expression in dramatic performance. But of course, the differences between Shakespeare’s play and the Chinese medium of adaptation are vast. Much Shakespearean content cannot be transferred into standard kunqu lyrics, so the playwright must choose to prioritize either the original or target genre and text. In this case, Chen Chao’s choice was to prioritize the formal diction and delicate combination of variations of short and long linelengths that characterize kunqu opera.6 Every artistic form, according to Chen Chao, has aspects that are susceptible to academic analysis as well as other inner or spiritual aspects that are not easily defined. Kunqu opera does not merely consist of direct translation into genre, stylization, and story. It is important to stage Chinese plays so that foreign audiences can understand them, but along with this imperative comes the risk of losing or distorting Chinese art, even debasing Chinese culture by catering too much to the tastes of Western audiences. One example that demonstrates this risk is the most culturally iconic scene in Shakespeare’s play, that of the encounter at the balcony (2.2); in the adaptation, the balcony scene is made to resemble a scene in the well-known Chinese play/opera The Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭 (Mudan ting). The adaptation thus becomes less a story of two lovers and more like an intertextual symphony or rhapsody of classical Chinese culture. While individual viewers will have various responses, for a Chinese audience the potential associations could include several cultural references, including the ultimate display of romantic affection in Peony Pavilion, the pathos in the play Everlasting Regret 长恨歌 (Changhen ge), and the powerfully shared talents and sympathies of the two unrequited lovers Daiyu 黛玉 and Baoyu 宝玉 in the great novel The Dream of Red Mansions 红楼梦 (Honglou meng).7 The resonance of the references in performance and script beautifully accords with the stage language and rhythm of kunqu, while still leaving enough room for the actors to create their performances freely, which joins tradition and innovation. Chen Chao’s principal goal to retain the form and spirit of kunqu opera presented challenges, because even contemporary Chinese audiences do not have a strong engagement with the form, a problem that is still more pronounced with foreign audiences. There is a logical temptation to modernize the form and simplify the language, but as a Chinese playwright, Chen resisted the pressure to downgrade traditional Chinese culture and arts for gratuitous popularity. He sees that his responsibility to the audience is to guide them to appreciate China’s authentic artistry, with its embodiment of particular philosophies and aesthetics, and to 157

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attempt a serious engagement between the Bard and traditional Chinese culture. Unthinking devotion or simplistic mimicry of Western culture does not reflect a true understanding of cultural interchange or appreciation, as a nation with a vital, living culture cannot sacrifice itself by conformity with others. Even if it adopts the criteria of foreign civilization, it needs its own system of cultural values or intent. The art of kunqu opera embodies not only the cultural heritage of China but also its ideology and spirit. It epitomizes China’s particular emphasis on freedom, as in the common expression in Chinese of “the spirit of independence and freedom of thought,” coined by the notable historian Chen Yinke 陈寅恪 (1890–1969) for the epitaph of the poet Wang Guowei 王国维 (1877–1927).8

the he ighte ne d emphasis on inte rpretive pe rf orm a n ce As both playwright and director, Chen Chao9 firmly believes that the “first creator” (the playwright) and “second creator” (the director) are at the service of players, and the players themselves are the most important part of the performance. In kunqu performance, they have more freedom than they would in spoken drama.10 Chen revived and tailored traditional tunes for particular actors, some of which have not been performed on stage for many years. Choreography and staging, or more appropriately, “dancing and postures,” were arranged meticulously, including the classic ones for the protagonists and prominent roles in the kunqu opera performances. Chen Chao believes that his contribution to the production of kunqu Romeo and Juliet should be attributed to his ability to guide the actors to sing, speak, perform actions, and dance, rather than to enhance his own status as playwright and director. The fruition of a performance of kunqu opera depends mainly on the players’ traditionally based performance, the melodious performance of songs, and regulated yet natural gestures, supported (but not dictated) by direction and text. When it comes to appreciation of a performance, the audience tends to appreciate the story; performers and producers tend to focus on delivery, singing, gestures, and postures – or in other words, they pay attention to the art of the players, and their artistic, conceptual, and spiritual cultivation. If the person who is responsible for the dramatic performance (what the audience calls a director) eclipses the players, the audience’s genuine appreciation of the players can never be achieved. If directors view 158

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themselves in such a central role, Chen Chao contends, they should have become players who receive the applause.11 In the field of kunqu opera, it cannot be true that an actor would naturally aspire to being a director, which might be true for other forms of drama or of cinema. Among other innovations and accomplishments, Chen Chao used an unprecedented range for casting. Partly because of Chen Chao’s decision to prioritize the skills and performance of the performers, and partly because of the sponsorship available from the Chinese government, he broke with conventional practices of theatrical casting to find the best and most suitable actors across the country. Typically, casting is conducted among local troupes, such as the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe and Hunan Kunqu Opera Troupe, but the members of Chen Chao’s opera team come from Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Shaanxi (some cities a thousand kilometres apart). To be more specific, the members come from six state-level key theatres and the most renowned national drama institutions: Shanghai Beijing Opera Theatre, National Beijing Opera Theatre, Tianjin Beijing Opera Theatre, Beijing Opera Theatre, Shaanxi Beijing Opera Theatre, North Kunqu Opera Theatre, and the Chinese Opera Academy. Three of the six leading stars are his students. What he teaches them is not just standard aspects of drama, but more important, how to present talent, insight, cultivation, and skill in the performance through the use of what are known as the “form” and “image” of kunqu opera, which are highly developed patterns of choreography requiring extensive training and talent. To illustrate the significance of the distinctive methods of preparation and performance, there is a traditional set of priorities and values of performance, given the names of “shape, power, mind, and spirit,” which are understood as stages toward a full or perfected performance. Chinese culture often expresses completion on a scale of 10. In kunqu performance, the values of shape, power, mind, and spirit equate with 3, 6, 8 and 10, respectively. With technically correct singing and gestures, or “shape,” a player can achieve a level of 3 on a scale of 10. With the ability to perform with great energy or momentum, or “power,” they attain a level of 6 of 10. As they acquire the ability to add to these qualities their own unique personal interpretation, or “mind,” their performance reaches a level of 8. The highest level of performance is achieved when players demonstrate a sense of natural mastery, conveying a sense of effortless or unintentional internalization, the value known as “spirit,” which is necessary to achieve a full 10. A full score is thus an extraordinary accomplishment. These levels of achievement cohere with standards as 159

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explained by Lu Xun 鲁迅 (1881–1936), the great modern Chinese writer, when he defined the three stages of artistic achievement: “The first can be called [an unadorned] natural object; the second is introspection and thought; the third [stage] is the transformation into [genuine] beauty” (一曰天物、二曰思想、三曰美化).12 In other words, thought and effort are required to bring about the true beauty of native talent. This means that players can use skills on the premise that they ought not overuse them. They are strongly encouraged to pay much more attention to thinking and inner cultivation, thus reaching the highest artistic effect as expressed by Lu Xun. Chen Chao heavily relies on the values of Chinese culture and views international platforms as an opportunity to display them. The perception that Shakespeare is greater than Tang Xianzu demonstrates an insufficient understanding of Chinese operatic culture, which interferes with the ability to make a clear comparison. Tang Xianzu had many occupations, not only that of a dramatic writer, and he inherited a profoundly deep and ancient Chinese heritage that extended beyond opera. For instance, Tang Xianzu’s concept of “ultimate love” derives from a culture of expression of emotion that was already highly developed in the Tang dynasty 唐朝 (618–907), seven centuries before his birth, and discussions on emotion and love during the Tang period derive from even earlier times. If Chinese people do not understand or feel confident about their own culture, it will be very hard to promote Chinese culture in the world, and even if they do, it could be distorted or deformed in different ways. Chen Chao strongly encourages Chinese youth to love Chinese culture and learn more about it. His opinion is that it is essential that Chinese people have fundamental core elements of understanding, which will lead to an enlightened cultural understanding and away from superficial or fickle engagements with their own culture. Only such an understanding of culture can allow a genuinely useful comparison or translation between cultures.

t he ori gins of k unqu in lyric v erse Kunqu opera has deep roots in the history of lyric expression in Chinese language and culture. As early as the Yuan dynasty 元朝 (1279– 1368), a group of literati led by the great poet Yang Weizhen 杨维桢 (1296–1370) revitalized a tradition of creating music through the spoken or recited word without musical arrangement, which they did by reading or chanting northern-style “music bureau” poems (乐府北曲, yuefu beiqu). These derive from music-bureau poetic forms of the Han 160

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dynasty 汉朝 (202 bce –220 ce ), which in turn descended from the Qin dynasty 秦朝 (ca. 221–206 bce ), which are the earliest extant record of music-bureau lyrics.13 In the Tang dynasty, the poet Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846) advocated a genre of poetry called “new music bureau” (新 乐府, xin yuefu), which differs from its antecedents in that it does not imitate the old forms of song lyrics and is not intended for performance in the emperor’s palace. Some of the literati poems in music-bureau style are strictly spoken; they are prohibited from being set to music or sung independently, such as those by two great Tang poets, Li Bai’s 李 白 (701–762) “Bringing in the Wine” (将进酒), and “The Road to Shu is Hard” (蜀道难), and Wang Wei’s 王维 (699–759) “A Song of Peach Blossom Spring” (桃源行). These music-bureau lyrics established newer forms of poetic prosody relying more on the music of the spoken voice and were thus seen as more directly accessible, less formal, and more engaged with the emotions of performers and audience. The dynamic creativity of this genre lies in the combination of music and texts, which develops sophisticated features of lyric expression that translators must acknowledge. In the Yuan dynasty, a period of Mongol dominance, the northern style of music-bureau poetry was the predominant form. Throughout the Yuan, there was a continuous practice of composing poems by filling in set patterns for various song tunes with distinctive rhythms and metres. But after the founding of the Ming dynasty (1368), this practice almost completely died out. The kunqu operas created by Chen Chao for the translation of Shakespeare follow the strict regulations of the music-bureau forms as adapted for drama as “traditional lyric libretto couplets” (传统联套, chuantong liantao). These lyric verses or librettos preserve the reliance on the music of the spoken voice as they adhere to regulations concerning arrangement of the tones of the words, patterned variations between tones that are level (or even) or oblique (or changing), and the maintenance of the same rhyme in every scene. Even without musical arrangements, these lyric verses convey a strong emotional capacity from the dynamics of the sounds. These features of kunqu and its ancient heritage create subtle effects that are difficult or impossible to translate.

the transl ators an d tra n sl ation The translation between English and Chinese cultures can be illustrated by the kinds of cultural “leaps” or translations that one of the players expressed was necessary in his performance. In the performance of the 161

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kunqu version of Romeo and Juliet, Yang Nan 杨楠, who played the role of Romeo, explains that he completed three “leaps” under the guidance of Chen Chao.14 The first was a geographical leap. To allow for more rehearsal time, he frequently went back and forth between Shanghai and Beijing, sometimes twice or three times a week. Fortunately, the support of the organization group and the conveniences of modern transportation allowed him to devote himself to artistic creation while commuting. This production of the kunqu Romeo and Juliet seems to have brought the two cities closer, though the distance between them is more than one thousand kilometres, and he found train carriages were the best place for him to study the singing tune and analyze the script. The second was a leap between artistic styles, from Beijing opera, in which he was very confident, to an entirely different type of performance in kunqu opera. While studying in the Beijing academy, the prominent Beijing opera actress Wang Mengyun 王梦云invited Yue Meiti 岳美 缇, a well-known kunqu actress, to teach Yang Nan about kunqu opera. Later, he learned the kunqu opera called The Hall of Longevity 长生殿 (Changsheng dian) from Mr Cai Zhengren 蔡正仁, another well-known kunqu performer. With the new kunqu version of Romeo and Juliet under the direction of Chen Chao, Yang Nan benefited from this previous guidance in his gestures and singing. The third leap was using traditional Chinese art to express Western love stories. Yang Nan acknowledged the bold artistic treatment of Western themes by the director Chen Chao, which he felt increased his appreciation of China’s cultural artistry. Yang Nan felt that his biggest achievement was to get an in-depth understanding of the same ontology of Beijing and kunqu opera, which both demand adherence to specific rules as well as flexibility in performance. He wrote down the following instructions from Chen Chao: [The goal is] to follow the rules or law [of art] but not to get restricted, to detach from the law but not to oppose it. The ultimate [end] of the rules is to have no law, like Daoism’s highest Dao which is formless [or imperceptible] ... The technique of art is first “understanding and adherence” and then “detachment and conforming.’” [This is what is called] “the rule of no rules,’ which is similar to the Italian idea of sprezzatura, to be natural, spontaneous, and fluent without losing the sense of the rules. It begins with [strict] rules and ends without rules. ‘The rule of no rules’ is the natural destination of the ultimate law or rule, which cannot be achieved by intention. 162

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Therefore, “the rule of no rules” [can only] come after [acquiring] “rules of knowledge and formality.” After extensive artistic training and practice, the highest level of spontaneity, or “the rule of no rules” will be subtly achieved.15 This tutelage from the director benefited Yang Nan in his role as Romeo in the opera, and he felt it would also become the foundation and inspiration for his future artistic path. It also provides an interesting challenge to translators working to convey the expressive fluidity of meaning and performance as embodied in the script. The original Chinese kunqu Romeo and Juliet is composed of about five thousand characters, which Zhang and her team translated into about four thousand English words. Bearing the Edinburgh festival audience in mind, they adopted three translation strategies. Firstly, as most audience members would be British and familiar with Shakespeare’s works, they used intertextuality to arouse the audience’s memory and feeling of familiarity. Secondly, as the English translation only appeared as screen scripts for the audience to quickly reference, they mainly adopted a liberal translation method, occasionally using literal translation. Thirdly, due to cultural differences, amplification was used occasionally to provide the audience with the necessary cultural background. Consider the example below. Note the thoroughly Chinese adaptation, including an explicit reference to the poetic form or tune-name. 罗密欧：（唱【粉蝶儿】） Romeo (Singing to the set tune known as Pastel Butterflies): 昨日里夜难寐，意惹情魔。 “Hit by Cupid’s arrows, I could not sleep last night.” The use of intertextuality in translation here shows an attempt to convey the implicit values discussed above. There is no direct reference to Cupid in the adaptation, for the simple reason that there is not an exact equivalent in the Chinese tradition, especially in kunqu opera (a rough literal translation of the line reads: “Yesterday in the evening sleep was difficult, the will was stirred by an imp of desire”). But intertextuality does lend aesthetic depth. On the one hand, “hit / With Cupid’s arrow” (1.1.208–9) appears in Shakespeare’s original text for Romeo and Juliet and using it can maintain consistency with the play as well as evoke the audience’s memory of previous performances, thus heightening an aesthetic experience. On the other hand, Cupid refers to a myth connected 163

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with romantic love, which can convey the Chinese sense vividly and clearly and which is an effect that can hardly be achieved by word-forword translation. The translators also kept in mind Shakespeare’s other plays, so intertextuality is not restricted to references to Romeo and Juliet. In the example below, the translation of the richly evocative words for 绛烛消 磨 “deep red candles burning down,” inferring the brief time the lovers can spend together, uses a very different intertextual reference. 罗密欧：（唱【泣颜回】） 清歌一曲醉颜酡， 活现有蓬莱一座。 轮杯递盏趁风光， 绛烛消磨。 鸞笙象板列仙阶， 婉转铿锵和。 斗芳菲，半阕春， 生蘸潇湘，六幅裙拖。 Romeo (Singing to the tune of The Palace of Eternal Youth): Elegant songs and rosy faces, Arises a fabled abode of immortals. Brief candles burning out, sweet hours are flying in wine cups. Musical instruments of all kinds, strike melodies sonorous and harmonious. Spring flowers are competing for fragrance, My lady outdoes other splendours, each fold of her dress radiating beauty. Here the phrase “brief candles burning out” echoes Macbeth’s monologue “Out, out, brief candle! / Life’s but a walking shadow” (5.5.22–3). The intertextuality adds richness, though the connotations are very different. Another example of intertextual reference is drawn from As You Like It. The intertextual line provides an appropriate prosody to the similarly extended Chinese line, which a direct translation could not possibly achieve. 罗密欧：（唱【江儿水】） 复睹芳容面， 哎呀我那姐姐呀！ 执手相看泪眼， 164

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厮顾恋换得锥心錾。 骤然琴碎朱弦断， 流苦儿相思情难按。 哎呀姐姐…… 幻梦百年遁溃， 韶华倾负，尘梦破，万物凋残。 Romeo (Singing to the tune of the River Water): Beholding the beauty’s face, Oh, my sister and lover! Holding each other’s hand with tears, The return of passion is heart-stricken death. Suddenly, the zither is crushed and the strings of the instrument are broken. Nothing can pacify my unbearable bitterness and lovesickness. Oh, my sweetheart … Fond illusions are gone, Sans splendour youth, sans earthly dream, and sans everything. The last sentence imitates and recalls the line from the famous text of “The Seven Ages of Man” in As You Like It:

jacques

His acts being seven ages ... Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (2.7.142, 162–5) Even with a quick glimpse at the sentence on the subtitles, the audience can capture an instant sense of the meaning and can then have enough time to appreciate the aesthetic value of the performance.16 The death of Juliet triggers Romeo’s mourning for her illusory life, and this feeling of emptiness foreshadows his death, which is similar to the last stage of a man’s life in As You Like It. Both can in some way evoke the audience’s pity and even horror, causing emotional and psychological catharsis. The translation also uses intertextual reference to other classical British literature. For example, our English translation for “妙舞清歌， 为她家妙舞清歌” (literally: “marvellous dance and clear song, for her, elegant dance and clear song”) is “Refined dancing and elegant singing. / The banquet profound is overflowing with her songs” which echoes lines 165

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from William Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper,” “O listen! for the Vale profound / Is overflowing with the sound.”17 The Wordsworth poem focuses on the eternal beauty of the girl’s song, appreciated through memory, making a perfect parallel to Juliet’s dancing and singing, which continually haunt Romeo. Given the distinctively Chinese form of the verse in the kunqu play, many of the poetic lines in the opera are better expressed by free translation. The translators frequently communicated with the playwright Chen Chao, who supported this strategy. As he pointed out, The essence of the original Kunqu opera is what I want to present. So, I suggest you not use literal translation and not be completely faithful to my original intention. English appears in the form of subtitles, which is functional. By having a quick glimpse at the lines, the audience can focus more on the actors’ graceful singing, dancing, clothing and so on, so as to truly understand, appreciate and love kunqu opera.18 The translators’ approach was to freely translate poetic lines while using more literal translation for prosaic or ordinary lines. When both translation methods were equally applicable, they considered the specific context of the lines. Although they sought to translate the essence of the play as concisely as possible, amplification was sometimes necessary to facilitate cultural understanding. Amplification was primarily applied to give context to allusions to historical figures or to idiomatic or figurative references well known among Chinese audiences. For example, the kunqu version appropriately referred to Xi Shi 西施 and Fan Li 范蠡 (reputed figures from the sixth century bce ), as in this passage: 朱丽叶：【石榴花】 按谱的，移宫换羽，在厅前歌， （朱丽叶边舞边唱，众歌姬和之） 不数那，西施画舸，范蠡烟波。

juliet

(Singing to the tune of Pomegranate Flower) I am singing in the front of the grand hall, with variations of different musical compositions. (Juliet is singing and dancing, with other singers joining in the chorus) The beauty Xi Shi is sitting in the gaily painted pleasure-boat, Her lover Fan Li is rafting. 166

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Xi Shi is known as one of the four great beauties in ancient China, and Fan Li is her lover, both of whom any Chinese audience would instantly recognize. But if the translation does not add information such as “the beauty” and “her lover,” the significance would be completely lost. Another example is the translation of “mandarin ducks” in the line “做鸳鸯栖着渔” (literally, “[We] are as mandarin ducks leaning together, perched on a beam”), which we translate as “We are like the sweet couple of mandarin ducks.” “鸳鸯” (yuanyang) mandarin duck has many symbolic meanings in Chinese culture. Since mandarin ducks are known for monogamous loyalty, they usually symbolize a couple in love, which requires an additional reference, “the sweet couple,” to make it understandable. Generally speaking, the translators mainly adopted the four translation strategies mentioned above: intertextual reference to Romeo and Juliet, to other Shakespeare plays, and to other British verse, but also amplification for context. Occasionally other methods, such as omission, were also applied, especially when the sentence was very long and some information was not suitable for English translation, or it was too minor or too difficult to be relayed. As an example, the line referring to the mandarin ducks also refers to a beam, which creates an allusive context for the Chinese audience, but it was omitted for the added length necessary to convey the connotation.

c onc lusion The performance of kunqu Romeo and Juliet in 2016 provided us an opportunity to consider the act of translation from an unusual perspective. Here, we investigated the translation of a heightened adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, specifically designed to valorize and even recover the high tradition of Chinese kunqu opera, which develops from literary verse traditions and a depth of implicit licence for artistic performance. Chen Chao, the writer and director of this performance, establishes how insistent he has been that the performance derive from a depth of Chinese lyric tradition. This effort and performance gave the translators the opportunity to explore and identify the most effective methods of conveying the heightened expression of this kunqu performance. The examples we have shown demonstrate a few of the methods and reasons for a faithful but freely rendered translation. What we have found is a shared potential of lyric expression in both literary traditions, Chinese and English, but even more telling, we have identified a few minor tech167

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niques that translators use to convey a sense of the living performance, which is to say, the attempt to convey the experience of performer, audience, and even the reader, not merely as a technique of linguistic transfer but also of cultural engagement. The final statements of this engagement properly belong to Zhiyan Zhang, the principal translator, who carefully investigated the thought and methods of Chen Chao, the playwright, director, and the major proponent of the kunqu Romeo and Juliet, as well as the players. In conclusion, she speaks on behalf of all these participants, as follows: This chapter mainly presents the views and experiences of the playwright and director Chen Chao, the actor Yang Nan who played Romeo, and the translators, including one of the authors of this chapter. All of us have communicated many times in different ways. We share a lot of similar views. For example, we all love kunqu opera and Shakespeare’s plays, and we believe they both have their unique features. What we have attempted to do is to bridge the gap, attracting more Chinese people to appreciate Shakespeare’s works and attracting Western people to understand kunqu opera. We hope that a broader view is presented and our mutual understanding will be enhanced. Regarding kunqu Romeo and Juliet, the playwright specializing in kunqu opera and Beijing opera puts more emphasis on presenting the essence of kunqu on the stage while the translators specializing in Shakespeare’s plays put more emphasis on readability of the screen scripts and intertextuality of Shakespeare’s plays, so a balance between kunqu and Shakespeare, and between the stage and the page, are to some extent realized.

appe ndix : e xc e rp ts fro m the scrip t for the k unqu romeo a n d ju l iet 昆曲《罗密欧与朱丽叶》剧本节选

Adaptation written by Chen Chao Translated by Zhang Zhiyan, Ge Junhua, and Yu Sunwen Excerpt 1 兴儿上，欢悦，点手唤出罗密欧 罗密欧：【绕红楼】 家室奇章受宠荣， 垂燕翼，金紫三公。 168

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鼎鼐调和衮无缝， 四海颂元功。 兴 儿：（小童京白） 我说少爷，昨日老爷寿辰，朝中重臣均来贺寿，您在酒席宴 前，一言均赋，四韵具成。 那些官老爷们听得是瞠目结舌，齐声称赞罗太宰公子罗密欧宦 海鹏程！ 就是小的我也觉得脸上有光啊！ 罗密欧：哈哈哈…… 兴 儿：对了少爷，适才您与江南众才子唱和诗文，其中一首《 水调歌头》引得您合掌称道，醉驰神往。 难道说，这作词的女子还能胜出您的才学？ 罗密欧：你哪里知道！ 这词中，极深婉沉着之妙。作词女子语意高妙，似非吃烟火食 人语。 非胸中有万卷书，笔下无一点尘俗气，孰能至此！ 此女才学盛强吾十倍矣！ 我与她虽未谋面，观其杰句，真力弥满，似见眼波眉峰盈盈！ 真个是： 娉娉袅袅十三余， 豆蔻梢头二月初…… 兴 儿：适才听张学士言道，此女姓朱，乃是本城乡绅富户之 女，自幼琴棋书画无所不能。 贵为千金之体，却为人豪爽，时常宴请诗友唱和诗文。 明日朱小姐就在沉芷苑雅集，张学士也要前往。少爷您何 不…… 罗密欧：（兴奋地）兴儿！我正有此意，却被你先说了！ 兴 儿：您瞧，我是谁啊！ 罗密欧：兴儿，带马！ （同下） 罗密欧：（唱【粉蝶儿】） 妙舞清歌，为她家妙舞清歌。 不由咱带青骢，策鞭忙过。 昨日里夜难寐，意惹情魔。 想仙容摹丽质，乔装到， 华府入座。 饱赏那洞府仙娥，抵多少， 掷车潘果。 (Enter overjoyed Page Xing, gesticulating and calling Romeo) 169

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romeo (Singing to the tune of Around the Red Mansion)

Entrenched in high position and receiving privileged treatment, My family has hereditary peerage. The whole country is peaceful, All the Citizens pay high respect to my father’s meritorious deeds.

page xing

Oh, my young master, you composed a ci-poem yesterday at your father’s birthday banquet that all the important ministers attended. Stunned by the elegance radiating from your poetical ci, they all thought highly of your political prospects! As your pageboy, I was much honoured!

romeo

Ha ha ha ...

page xing

Oh, my young master, when you were composing and exchanging poems and ci with the literati from the southern regions of the Yangtze River, you were charmed by the ci with the tune Prelude to Water Melody. So the talent and learning of the authoress outshine even you?

romeo

You are so ignorant! There is depth, euphemism, mellowness, and serenity between the lines. The authoress is too ingenious and transcendent to be an ordinary lady. Only those who have read thousands of books and ridden themselves of earthly coarseness can compose such ci. Her talent is truly ten times greater than mine! Despite not having made her acquaintance, I can in my mind’s eye see her fluid glance and clear brow from the ci. This reminds me of Du Mu’s Poem: “A girl of thirteen, supple and slim; Round cardamom of February, About to bloom ...”

page xing

I have heard from scholar Zhang that the young mistress’s family name is Ju. As the daughter of a well-off squire in the town, she was born with the gift for playing the lyre, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Although she is a noble maiden, she is quite natural and graceful and often entertains poet friends for responsorial poetry. 170

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Tomorrow Miss Ju will give a banquet at Chenzhi Garden that the scholar Zhang will attend. My young master, why not ...

romeo

(exhilarated) Xing! You’ve spoken my heart!

page xing

You see who I am!

romeo

Xing, come on! lead the horse! (They exit) romeo (Singing to the tune of Pink Butterflies) Refined dancing and elegant singing at the banquet. Riding my bluish white horse, I am spurring in a haste. Hit by Cupid’s arrows, I could not sleep last night. No beauty did ever enchant me to disguise, Just to admire her charm and grace, overshadowing sun and moon. Excerpt 2 朱丽叶：（唱【石榴花】） 香袅袅金猊烟篆画堂多， 绣屏外鸟韵管弦和。 翻谱调，移宫换羽，在厅前歌。 不数那， 西施画舸， 范蠡烟波。 奴则仙步蹁跹， 奴则仙步蹁跹， 霓裳一派瑶池堕。 待间销玉漏稳驻银河。 又则盼月瞳瞳， 又则盼月瞳瞳， 照丝竹辉帘帓。 分明有云驻碧嵯峨。 罗密欧：（唱【泣颜回】） 清歌一曲醉颜酡， 活现有蓬莱一座。 轮杯递盏趁风光，绛烛消磨。 鸞笙象板列仙阶， 婉转铿锵和。 斗芳菲，半阕春， 生蘸潇湘， 171

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六幅裙拖。 朱丽叶：（唱【斗鹌鹑】） 态盈盈凤展鸾迴， 态盈盈凤展鸾迴, 艳晶晶云偷月躲。 绣团团绿映红遮， 绣团团绿映红遮， 气馥馥兰熏麝裹。 罗密欧： 端的是，珮解留仙曳绮羅， 眼挫里洛女下凌波。 齐臻臻教演阳阿， 光闪闪风流满座。 诗友甲：啊列位！今日名贤云集，高会成欢，务须畅饮，以永 今夕。 诗友乙：郇厨调味，水陆併供，霓奏仙音，雅歌继起，自然不 醉无归也。 众诗友：请！哈哈哈……

juliet (Singing to the tune of Pomegranate Flower) Fragrances are floating from golden incense burners, Through the embroidered screen birds’ singing is harmonious with orchestral music I am singing in the front of the grand hall, with variations Of different musical compositions. The beauty Xishi is sitting in the gaily painted pleasure-boat, Her lover Fanli is rafting. I am dancing sprightly like a fairy, I am whirling daintily like a fairy. The ethereal wave is pushing and pushing, The marvellous Yaochi high above is almost falling. The sweet dews in Yaochi, like fragmented pearls, are flowing, Immediately transformed to stars in the galaxy, shining. Such a beautiful galaxy is expecting a bright moon, Such a beautiful galaxy is expecting a bright moon, For moonshine illuminates the bamboo and lightens the screen. Clearly we can see clouds flowing around the mountain. romeo (Singing to the tune of The Palace of Eternal Youth) Elegant songs and rosy faces, Arises a fabled abode of immortals. 172

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Brief candles burning out, sweet hours are flying in wine cups. Musical instruments of all kinds, strike melodies sonorous and harmonious. Spring flowers are competing for fragrance, My lady outdoes other splendours, each fold of her dress radiating beauty. juliet (Singing to the tune of Quail Fighting) Phoenixes spread wings to regress, Phoenixes spread wings to regress, The clouds hide and the moon flushes. The green leaves hide and the red flower flushes, The green leaves hide and the red flower flushes, Fuming orchid and musk are dispersing floating fragrance.

romeo

With each rustle of her garments, her jade pendants tinkle. Eyes fall on the maiden from Luo Yang City who is dancing over ripples. She is dancing to the classic music Yang E. In the sparkling light, all seats are taken by romantic wits.

first poet

Today prominent people gather lively here, so I propose a toast to eternalize this joyful moment.

second poet

Since there are exquisite meals, luxurious delicacy, and striking songs, why not relax and drink as we will? poet friends Ha ha ha ... Excerpt 3 罗密欧：（唱【扑灯蛾】） 乍登场娉婷显婀娜， 疾翻身惊燕帘前过。 呈杏脸含姿赛花朵， 亸临风柳枝轻簸。 珍珠滚盘又数颗， 彻底芙蕖现绿波。 敢抹煞夷光舞袖， 对蹁跹影儿，恍如晨昏错。 罗密欧：（唱【黄龙滚犯】） 怏怏的歌云不散， 173

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脉脉的灵山枉过。 得得的恋知音， 迟迟的终酒筵， 千红万紫名花谁个。 耿耿的牛郎意讹， 遥遥的织女情多。 鹊桥没架银河朗亘， 郁郁的相思哑谜待如何！

romeo (Singing to the tune of Moth Flying to the Flare)

Coming on stage she appears graceful and elegant, Her gesture is as light as the flying swallow. The apricot blossoms blush for shame at the sight of her beauty, Such a beauty is swinging and swaying like a willow twig in the gentle breeze, The music sounds like pearls dropping on a jade plate, The lotus comes into its own above the green wave. Her dance surpasses the most stunning beauty, Savouring her whirling in striking elegance, I almost forget the time. romeo (Singing to the tune of Yellow Dragon Rolling) No nightingale did ever chant more haunting notes To Buddhists in Soul Mountain. Obsessed with such a destined soul mate, I wish there would be no end for the enjoyable banquet. Who is the most splendid girl among the crowd? The ingenuous cowherd is moved and the weaving lass is affectionate, And yet the bridge in The Legend of Love is unconnected. Could melancholic love transcend the continuous Milky Way? Excerpt 4 罗密欧：（唱【煞尾】） 管弦一席春风过， 受用煞红裙陌上歌， 抑不住喋咻狂吟， 倒唬得粉黛躲。 罗 荣：【引子】 芦花枫叶响萧萧，晚鸦争叫； 满地落花懒踏扫，有几树半红林枣。 174

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romeo (Singing to the tune of Sudden Ending)

After the feast with the orchestra, spring is gone. I was fascinated by her red dress and her beauty. I could not help but express my ecstasy in shouting, crying, and singing. Which scared my fair lady away. luo rong (prologue) Reeds and maple leaves are rustling, / While at dusk crows are cawing. I do not bother myself to cleaning the fallen flowers. / There are a few half-red dates lingering on some trees. Excerpt 5 罗密欧：（唱【绕池游】） 听歌场杳， 意惹情迢迢， 脉脉此情无靠， 吹尽鸾箫， 烧残凤脑， 寄相思因风到绛绡。

romeo (Singing to the tune of Swimming around the Pool)

The banquet is over And yet my love grows deeper. No way to express my burning affections, I rely on playing phoenix flutes, And recalling the happy hour, Only wind can carry my lovesickness to the red crepe silk dress of her. Excerpt 6 罗密欧：（唱【山坡羊】） 特地里疑魂缭绕， 莫将这良缘脧耗。 则为那词句神交， 赴欢场一霎一霎憐同调。 怪铜台，把芳春收的早！ 俺是醉狂年少， 得遇娥眉淡扫。 则归计无聊， 赠新诗写情好。 175

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含嘲，这风流痛饮浇， 难描，那姿容清梦劳。

romeo (Singing to the tune of Hillside Sheep)

Consumed in a zealous pilgrimage to thee, I will cherish this destined match. We keenly appreciate each other’s poetic talents, And yet happy hours always fly with musical notes. I shall blame the dancing floor which drives the spring braw away! I am an unrestrained lad, Endowed with fortune to meet with such a chaste lass. Not willing to depart, I compose a new poem in the name of thee. With ridicule, the romance could hardly be extinguished The charm of your looks is beyond depiction. Excerpt 7 罗密欧：（唱【山桃红】） 爱惜尽，歌梁音绕， 舞袖香飘。 竭意儿焚香祷， 倚斜阳梦瑶。 掩映这月夕花朝， 受用着鹅笙凤箫， 讨得个鹊在巢，鸠在河， 做鸳鸯栖着渔梁靠，也。 则问你绮席华筵那日娇， 觉分外增欢笑，风光怎抛， 肯信这阆苑天仙云驾遥。 罗 荣：哈哈哈……难得我儿有如此钟情之人，倒也了却为父心 中一件大事！ 罗密欧：全仗爹爹成全！ 罗 荣：如此甚好！为父即刻提亲！不知她是哪家之女？何人之 后呢？ 罗密欧：爹爹若问，她乃本地乡绅巨贾朱复之女，名唤朱丽 叶！ （罗荣大惊，拂袖而去） 朱丽叶：（唱【绵搭絮】） 月容花貌， 虚度可怜宵， 176

Lyric Reflection

红恹绿退， 柔衾情缭缭。 致萧骚，寒入秋毫， 怕得是身躯瘦小，态也苗条。 着些儿梦魇情魔，几个昏朝， 则是怎熬？ 朱丽叶：（白）恐失佳期少年荒， 骊龙秋寒抱珠赏。 有时自患多情病， 难泛鸳鸯水上苍。 （唱【南乡子】） 细雨湿流光， 开朱户， 秋草与恨共长。 最苦梦魂， 今宵不到伊行。 问甚时说与， 佳音密耗， 魂梦悠扬， 任那斜阳。 天便教人， 霎时厮见何妨。 罗密欧：（唱【锁南枝】） 清秋尽转艳阳， 到十月花枝生暗香。 往事自思量， 支着那颐儿想， 无数闲愁乱，旧恨长， 把个好佳人轻轻丧。

romeo (Singing to the tune of Peach Blossom on the Mountain) Sweet hour flies, remote melodies seemingly hang around, I am enchanted by your fragrance and dance. Burning incense, I utter my prayers: Sitting back-to-back to enjoy sunset and a sweet dream. Moonlike night and flowery dawn are inviting. Goose-wind instrument and phoenix-bamboo flute are at our command, The magpie is in the nest, and the dove is in the river. We are like the sweet couple of the mandarin ducks. 177

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On the banquet day, thou art far more beautiful than the Three Graces, Bringing joy, happiness, enjoyment, and bedazzling sunshine. We can surmount the highest hills with wind-swift Cupid wings.

luo rong

Ha ha ha ... It is fantastic for my son to have such an ideal, which fulfills one of my everlasting wishes!

romeo

Please also fulfill my wish, Father.

luo rong

This is wonderful! I will immediately propose for you! I wonder whose daughter she is. Whose descendant is she?

romeo

Father, she is Juliet, the daughter of the local squire tycoon Ju Fu. (Luo Rong is startled and exits with a flick of his sleeve） juliet (Singing to the tune of Cotton Wadding Floc) As beautiful as the moon and flowers, I am wasting the lovely night, Red flowers and green plants withering, I miss him in the soft quilt. Coldness is penetrating, Into my thin body and slim figure. Bedevilled affection in dreams and bewildered dawns in reality, How could I endure such desolation? juliet (Fearing tender love diminishing with elapsing time) I appreciate the folding screen in cold autumn alone. Sometimes I am too affectionate and passionate, Jealous of a couple of mandarin ducks playing merrily about in the water. juliet (Singing to the tune of Hermit in Southern County) The little drizzle wets the flying time. Opening the vermilion gate, I see the autumn weed growing with my regret. Tonight my sleepless dream bothers me. Where is the person in my heart of hearts? Time elapses, when could I tell you my yearning and longing? Regardless of the circulatory sunsets, my soul is wandering and wandering. 178

Lyric Reflection

God, please permit our meeting, even if it lasts just a second! romeo (Singing to the tune of Locking in Southern Branches) Bright sun warms the solitary autumn, Scented fragrance floats in the air when October approaches. Recalling my old days, My thoughts grow and dilate, with my chin resting upon my hands. Melancholy cannot disperse but piles up, I miss that beautiful maiden. Excerpt 8 罗密欧：（唱【前腔】） 休辜负这时光， 只半刻昙花不久长。 朱丽叶： 与散花天女细商量， 采杨枝水将花养， 罗密欧： 流苏帐，百合香， 小心儿捧着香魂放。 朱丽叶：（白）感君多情…… 罗密欧：（唱【前腔】） 真花能笑，玉有香， 再添那风流别样妆。 朱丽叶： 收拾起女儿箱， 迎入芙蓉舫。 鸳鸯被，玳瑁床， 赋三星勾却相思账。 罗密欧：（白）姬姜媲美，笙磬同音！ （罗密欧接唱【前腔】） 云情暖，花貌香， 塑你我捏合难分账。 朱丽叶： 不许的打鸭礙鸳鸯， 红藕花双放， 罗密欧： 卿莲的子， 朱丽叶： 侬莲的房， 同 唱： 编入女郎， 歌踏着莲舟唱。

romeo (Singing to The Previous Tune) Do not waste such a good time, Which is merely a flash in the pan.

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juliet

I shall discuss with the fairy that scatters flowers, To collect sweet liquids to prolong happy hours.

romeo

Tassel curtain, lily incense, I hold you with great gentleness. juliet (spoken) I am touched by your affection and passion. romeo (Singing to The Previous Tune) Shall I compare thee to the blossoming flower Or the transparent jade in my hand? Thou art more cheerful and more fragrant. With the exceptional beauty and grace.

juliet

Pack up the bride’s dressing case, Be welcomed to the lotus boat. Quilt with the pattern of mandarin duck, bed made of hawksbill. A happy ending can clear the debt of lovesickness. romeo (speaking) The fair ladies are competing for beauty; Wind instrument and chime strike the same sound. romeo (Singing to The Previous Tune) The cloud is warm and the flowers are fragrant. I am you, and you are me, inseparable.

juliet

The mandarin ducks are in couple. The flowers of the red lotus blossom as a duo.

romeo

Thou art the lotus seed,

juliet

Thou art the lotus seed pod, Together: Stepping along with the lotus-gathering skiff, The fair lady sings melodies. Excerpt 9 罗密欧：（唱【隔尾】） 休再隔蓬莱弱水三千丈， 今日个梦入梅花魂亦香， 做个赵师雄到那罗浮山把美人访。 众花神：（唱【懒画眉】） 180

Lyric Reflection

漫说瑶台月下幸相逢， 又住了群玉山头第一峰。 耐宵宵参横月落冷惺忪， 又朝朝铜瓶纸帐， 休辜负芳菲生香一线中。 大花神：（白）旗亭向日晚，蔼蔼林岚生。吾乃，花神是也。 只因朱小姐用情甚深，罗相公又非轻薄儿郎，为此成全他二人 云雨之情，不负至诚之心也！正是：莫尽此时欢，为减别时 苦。 众花神：沉醉相拥眠，梦入刘郎处。 （众花神接唱【前腔】） 则这楼头新月夜朦胧， 听尽了曲唱江城一笛风。 相和那帘钩敲戛玉叮咚， 引入离愁离恨的相思梦。 哪顾月落黄昏萧寺钟。 (老管家将”花园私会”之事密报朱复，朱复大怒，囚禁了朱丽 叶……) 朱丽叶：（唱北【新水令】） 闷恹恹捱到白云秋， 任飞花今日残红更旧。 无端的陌头色， 又改做金井碧梧幽。 旧恨，新愁， 倚遍这玉栏杆， 已湿透潸然泪的双红袖。 罗密欧：（唱南【步步娇】） 郁抑萦怀贮离愁， 几个黄昏后。 罗衣不耐秋。 想你也，日转回肠，把姻缘问究。 月上杏花楼。 续前因哪日重能媾。 朱丽叶：（唱北【折桂令】） 甚冤家两意绸繆， 羡煞鸳鸯花底勾留。 偏是他最解温柔， 偏又逢咱不避惭羞。 181

Shakespeare in Succession

想那日碧纱幮后， 记那夕新月楼头。 诉哥哥低语浓愁， 倚卿卿玉软香浮。 这片情怎样儿勾， 这份缘怎样儿收。 罗密欧：（唱南【江儿水】） 雨意浓于染， 云情懒不流。 似长门长信秋风骤， 似离愁离恨黄昏透， 似伤春伤别闲情逗。 想司马茂陵秋瘦。 这一派萧骚， 更无籁夜长残漏。 朱丽叶：（白）如此凄凉萧索，烦闷更深。真个是”无可奈何 花落去”，怎能够”似曾相识燕归来”。唯有此琴，可写我牢骚情 味！ （唱北【雁儿落带得胜令】） 吊文姬胡笳拍未休， 哭明妃雁落寒云岫。 旧宫人闲谈天宝年， 泊浔阳月白江心候。 再弹那， 灞陵风雨秣陵愁。 与上阳怨恨昭阳漏， 更唐宫靡艳汉宫秋， 到伊州繁急凉州骤。 泪流滴落的明珠之声流， 敲碎了玉搔头。 罗密欧：（白）何处妙音啊？ （唱南【侥侥令】） 其人宛若玉， 此曲最宜秋。 几度相思弹来透， 倒话出胡天塞草愁。 （白）一声何满子，双泪落君前。适才似闻怀惋之音，莫非是 姐姐抚琴么？这慷慨余哀，真真令我凄清欲绝…… 朱丽叶：（唱北【收江南】） 呀…… 182

Lyric Reflection

真一曲清泪一声秋， 写离骚香草美人愁， 更凄凉孤伶弄箜篌， 几丝丝绕出离魂瘦。 欲流时不流， 欲休时不休。 陡阴余薄衫寒透独倚楼。 罗密欧：（唱南【园林好】） 毋相妄，恹恹半秋。 长相思，时时泪流。 想一样菊花人瘦， 恁心上有侬逗， 也勿要替侬愁。 朱丽叶：（唱【沽美酒带太平令】） 卓文君怨白头， 卓文君怨白头， 绿珠吟，相思剖， 绘一幅云山惨淡秋。 随征鸿高飞远游， 把一双痴情搭救。 结同心姻缘辐辏， 睇盼着刘郎重又， 但愿得桃花依旧。 俺乎—— 这冷落谁能生受？ 君知否？君知否？ 呀—— 太湖石权当作巫云灵岫。 （朱丽叶、罗密欧同唱【尾声】） 既席间倾吐何妨又， 定再放渔郎不系舟。 想那普天下，不解事的人儿， 怎能够。 朱 能：我，朱能。自幼父母双亡，叔叔朱复将我寄养。这些年 叔父对我倒是爱护有加，虽说算不了掌上的明珠，也算是卖不 了的鸡子儿: “剩蛋一个”。 朱 能：低头走路，抬头看人，怎么往大爷身上撞！吃了雄心豹 子胆啦，也不打听打听大爷是干嘛嗒！别废话了，给我打！ 183

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(朱复听信朱能挑唆，将女儿禁足。) 春 梅：（唱【忒忒令】） 弄春风，海棠挂妍， 響琼钩，虾须帘卷。 你看花稍宿露早，香添书案。 安排着，几叠浣花笺， 琉璃匣，鸳鸯笔， 称崔徽画卷。 朱丽叶：（唱【嘉庆子】） 正是绣床斜倚金针卷， 恰便趁飞燕寻春出画栏。 抹过这秋千庭院， 偷移步海棠轩， 恰好个暮春三月天。 （接唱【尹令】） 那一处垂杨拖线， 这一旁桃花成片。 觑着这荼蘼软， 险被蔷薇刺睆。 忽地里举头， 好一似，身在珊瑚步幛间。 （白）自与罗郎花园一别，何曾安枕窥园。虽有这翠寒阁轻， 闲庭花笑，难解我春病恹煎，难度晨昏也。 （朱丽叶接唱【品令】） 风轻露浓， 娇倚在玉栏杆， 红肥绿瘦， 斜映着画屏山。 笼定疏烟， 捱过春寒， 冷落无人管。 暗香销魂，等侬青眄。 我泪湿颈瓶， 绵绵遗恨洒花笺。 （朱丽叶入座，提笔作诗介） （白）情志堪寥落，悲风诉几重； 相许当年事，浮薄今日萍！ （梦幻中的罗密欧同时出现，亦饱受相思之苦，观朱丽叶作 诗，亦梦亦真） 184

Lyric Reflection

罗密欧：（唱【豆叶黄】） 怕杜陵当日尚没佳篇。 又怕你，泣雨啼风，对面儿将人埋怨。 拈来翠笔，沉吟几番。 猛听得莺歌燕语， 猛听得莺歌燕语， 一霎的崔成满纸云烟。 朱丽叶：（唱【三月海棠】） 凝眄，管春情好处谁人见。 只花光人面，两下留恋。 诗卷，便弃置香奁残蠹满，（罗密欧暗下） 怕黄金价贵光阴贱。 独自留题没个相怜，（春梅急上） 玉钗敲断—— 春 梅：小姐！小姐！老爷、夫人快来——（急下） 朱丽叶：（接唱【三月海棠】） 空 长 叹！ （朱丽叶幻觉破灭，瘫倒桌案之上） 罗密欧：（唱【江儿水】） 复睹芳容面， 哎呀我那姐姐呀！ 执手相看泪眼， 厮顾恋换得锥心錾。 骤然琴碎朱弦断， 流苦儿相思情难按。 哎呀姐姐…… 幻梦百年遁溃， 韶华倾负，尘梦破，万物凋残。 罗密欧：（唱【意不尽】） 空着我，烘烘醉眼迷芳草， 休辜负深情一片。 俺呵！ 好着我，烦恼春心恨杜鹃， 无再留恋！ 从此时时春梦里， 一生遗恨系心间！

romeo (Singing to the tune of the Semi-Epilogue) Never again be separated by the water of Penglai, 185

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Today, in the enchanting dream, the soul of the plum blossom is also fragrant. Like Zhao Shixiong, to visit the beauty in Rofu mountain. Flower Fairies (singing to the tune of Eyebrows Idly Pencilled): Joyful meeting under moonlight; I am residing on the highest summit of the mountains. Every night the moon is declining and it turns cold, Every day I witness various earthly affairs, Do not disappoint the beauty in endless waiting. big flower god (speaking) The flag pavilion is shadowed in the evening. Mountain mist is stemming. I, the flower god, have witnessed Miss Juliet’s affection and Mr Romeo’s sincerity. So I shall fulfill their wish and realize their expectation. Save the present happiness to diminish the possible pain of farewell.

big flower gods

Lovers are indulged in their deep affection, even in the sweet dreams. (All the flower gods singing to the tune of Previous Tune) This crescent moon is hanging over the tower in the misty night, Listen, who is singing with the wind flute alongside the river? Jade hooks of the bed curtains are tinkling like aeolian bells. Grief of parting and hatred of separation are compensated in the dream of lovesickness. Regardless of the bell of temple in the bleak sunset. (The old steward reports their private meeting in the back garden to Ju Fu, who is enraged and locks up Juliet …) juliet (Singing to the tune of New Water Song) Tortured by boredom and weariness until cloudy autumn, I do not care about the scattered flowers and dying sunset. The shadow of the ornate well and Chinese parasols replaces ordinary colours. Old regrets, new sorrows, Leaning on all the jade handrails, I have soaked my red sleeves with tears. romeo (Singing to the tune of Delicate Step by Step) I am still occupied by the melancholy lovesickness after several sunsets. My robe is too thin to resist the chilly autumn. Missing you, day and night, I ask about our destiny. The moon climbs the apricot blossom chamber. When can we meet again to continue our intimacy? 186

Lyric Reflection

juliet (Singing to the tune of Plucking a Cassia Tree Sprig Song) We are sentimentally attached despite the family feud, Even the mandarin ducks playing in the lotus are envious. He cherishes my tenderness, and I liberally take in his love. Behind the voile cabinet that night, On the attic kissed by moonlight. Leaning on my fragrant and soft body, My dear brother murmurs and mopes. How shall I sketch the love scene? How shall I end the destiny? romeo (Singing to the tune of Water in the River) The love between us is thicker than dye, never fading. It comes like autumn wind, fiercely. It lasts like melancholy, immersed with sadness or lovesickness. We are grieving over spring, worrying about departure. The tomb of Si Ma rustles in the air, How bleak! Raindrops leak during this sleepless long night. juliet (speaking) So desolate is the scene. So preoccupied am I. What a pity it is that flowers are withering! It is not a pure coincidence that swallows return at the same season. Only by playing the musical instrument can I express my depressed love. (Singing to the northern branch tune of Wild Geese are Flying down with Victory) Wailing for concubine Wen as the nomad is harassing our border, Crying for concubine Ming let the wild geese fly from the chilly mountain. The old imperial servants are gossiping about the blossoming Tang dynasty. Boats are staying at the Xunyang River when the white moon just rises. Play that again: the songs depicting the stormy years When the upright officer is dismissed and the country is torn down by the war. Awaiting for the once-in-a-blue-moon visit of the emperor, Numerous concubines are full of endless regret and resentment. The most famous emperors cannot protect their beloved concubines. 187

Shakespeare in Succession

In sad tunes maidens expecting the return of husbands. The sound of dropping tears and dripping pearls Makes a jade hairpin broken. romeo (speaking) Where is the wonderful sound, ah? (Singing to the southern branch tune of Good Fortune Song) The person is as pure as jade. This song is suitable in the autumn. Unceasing lovesickness might be exposed in the melody. Pouring out the wild worries of the exiled patriot in the frontier fortress. (Speaking) Once I hear what you have played, tears are welling up in my eyes. I have just listened to the music full of regret. So is my darling playing the lute? The abundant bitterness really makes me feel devastated. juliet (Singing to the northern branch tune of Overlooking the southern regions of the Yangtze River) Ah ... Such unbearable tears, such a bleak autumn. Sorrow after departure demonstrates the melancholy. Even lonelier, one man is playing the oldest plucked-string instrument. There is no company for such a soul which is going to decease. It seems to flow and yet it does not, It appears to end and yet it fails, Leaning against the pavilion, I am eaten up with coldness and loneliness. romeo (Singing to the southern branch tune of Beautiful Garden) No oblivion, the listless mid-autumn. Long lovesickness makes tears endless. Yearning makes a man as thin as the chrysanthemum. You are the soft string on my heart. And yet do not worry for me. juliet (Singing to the tune of Song of Buying Good Wine to Bring Great Peace) Zhuo Wenjun is complaining for the deceased youth, Zhuo Wenjun is complaining for the perished love. Emerald is weeping, lovesickness is exposed. Paint a gloomy autumn picture of cloudy mountains. With the compassion of flying wild geese, 188

Lyric Reflection

The poor couples might be saved from the doomed destiny. To tie the knot with my beloved. Expect Liu Yuxi’s returning, To see the same peach blossoms. I– Who can suffer the desolation? Know thee? Know thee? Ah – Rocks beside the Tai river, Are merely dark clouds and Fairy Mountains. juliet, romeo (Singing the Epilogue) Why not reveal our affection during our date? Like the fisherman untying the boat! In the whole universe, how could we ignore such affection?

ju neng

I, Ju Neng, was orphaned at an early age and my uncle Ju Fu has brought me up. He has taken good care of me over the years. Although I cannot be regarded as the apple of his eye, at least I count as an egg which will not be sold. ... Lower your head to watch the steps and raise your head to watch passers-by. How dare you bump into me! Have you eaten the heart of a bear and the gut of a leopard to be so bold? How dare you not to recognize me! Cut the crap. Beat him! (Convinced by the accusations of Ju Neng, Ju Fu detains his daughter.) chunmei (Singing to the tune of Disturbance Order) With spring coming, Begonia is blooming on the branch. Jade hooks are tinkling on the shrimp-like curtain roll. Look! Morning dews on petals, the fragrance lingers over the study desk. A few stacks of writing paper with the pattern of flowers. Crystal box, mandarin duck pen, On the wall is the picture scroll of the scenery in the middle part of China. juliet (Singing to the tune of Festive Song) Leaning on the embroidered bed, I am appreciating the gold scroll. The swallow flies out of the railings, pursuing spring. Passing by the yard with a swing, 189

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Gliding into the crabapple chamber, I am losing myself in this late spring. (Singing to the tune of Order from Yin) Here, willows are hanging in line. There, peach blossoms are crowded. Watching the soft roseleaf raspberry, I am almost pricked by the thorn. When I am raising my head, all of a sudden It seems that I am walking among the coral clutters. (Speaking) Since the farewell last time, I have neither had a good rest nor taken a glimpse of the garden. The emerald pavilion, the tranquil courtyard, and the smiling flowers can never soothe my spring weariness and illness. I can hardly live till the dawn and dusk. (singing to the southern branch tune of Sampling Song): Gentle breeze and heavy dews. I am leaning on the jade railing. Flowers are blossoming in profusion, overshadowing the green plants, Reflecting the mountains on the painting scroll. Thin smoke is swirling upon the chimney, after enduring the spring chill, No one will care about my inner coldness. Raptured by hidden fragrance, my soul expects your attention. My tears wet the vase neck. Flower writing papers are full of my regret. (Juliet takes a seat and lifts the brush to write a poem) (Speaking) Thwarted is my emotion and ambition. With much grief, the wind is telling sad stories. Yesterday witnessed our loving history. Now we are merely acquaintances, no more than passers-by! (Romeo simultaneously appears in her illusion. Tortured by lovesickness, he is watching Juliet composing poetry. The illusion and the reality are indistinguishable) romeo (Singing to the tune of Yellow Pea Leaf) Fearing that the prominent poet is at wit’s end, Fearing that you are complaining to the wind of lovesickness. Holding my Chinese brush, I am murmuring, lost in meditation. Orioles’ songs and swallows’ murmurs suddenly come to my ears, 190

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Orioles’ songs and swallows’ murmurs suddenly come to my ears. All of them transform to pages of sorrow. juliet (Singing to the tune of Crabapple in March) Staring at the beautiful spring, I have no visitors. Flowers and my beauty, both will fade soon. Works of poems are abandoned in cosmetic boxes, susceptible to erosion. (Romeo exits quietly) Compared to golden treasure, time is likely to be taken lightly, My poems are not appreciated (Chunmei appears in a hurry) And my jade hairpin is broken ... chunmei: My young mistress! Lordship and madam, hurry up! (Exit hastily) juliet (continuing to sing) ... leaving me sighing in vain. (Juliet, disillusioned, collapses to the desk) romeo (Singing to the tune of the River Water) Beholding the beauty’s face, Oh, my sister and lover! Holding each other’s hand with tears, The return of passion is heart-stricken death. Suddenly, the zither is crushed and the strings of the instrument are broken. Nothing can pacify my unbearable bitterness and lovesickness. Oh, my miss ... Fond illusions are gone, Sans splendour youth, sans earthly dream, and sans everything. romeo (Singing to the tune of Endless Love) Leaving me alone bewildered in the grassland of silent spring, Quietly you have left, not even saying goodbye to me. Oh, me! Spring and the cuckoo are annoying in my eyes! Nothing deserves my lingering! I can only meet you in my dream, Leaving eternal regret in my heart!

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Shakespeare in Succession notes 1 This chapter is sponsored by the projects of 19zda 294 and 21vgq 019. 2 Kunqu is a variety of Chinese opera, a performance art merging music, dance, martial arts, and poetry, and it is counted amid the intangible cultural heritages of the world. 3 The play is often referred to by the surnames of the star-crossed lovers 梁祝, or “Liang [Shanbo] and Zhu [Yingtai]” (梁山伯 and 祝英臺, respectively). The title in English is also commonly translated as “Butterfly Lovers.” For a brief discussion on the development of the folk talk into kunqu, see Wilt L. Idema, “Old Tales for New Times: Some Comments on the Cultural Translation of China’s Four Great Folktales in the Twentieth Century,” 二十世紀中國四大民 間故事的文化翻譯, Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 9, no. 1 (June 2012): 25–46; 34–36, https://web.archive.org/web/20141006103301/http://www. eastasia.ntu.edu.tw/chinese/data/9-1/9-1-2/9-1-2.pdf. 4 See Suzee Leong, Asian Folk Tales and Legends (Kuala Lumpur: MPH Publishing, 2015), 22. 5 In one of a series of spoken and electronic-text conversations with Zhang, between April and November 2016, Chen Chao stated that Linehan expressed this view in a conversation with him in November 2014. 6 Chen Chao in conversation with Zhang, Apr.–Nov. 2016. 7 See Cao Xueqin, trans. David Hawkes and John Minford, The Story of the Stone, 5 vols (London: Penguin, 1973–1986). 8 Zhiyan Zhang, Harmonious Melodies, Aesthetic Catharsis: Kunqu “Romeo and Juliet” (Beijing: Zuojia Press, 2018), 69. 9 Chen Chao actually wrote and directed two versions of the play, one for domestic performance in China and another an abridged version, reduced for the time constraints at the international festival (note from Zhiyan Zhang). 10 Zhang, Harmonious Melodies, 70. 11 Ibid. 12 Zhang, Harmonious Melodies, 72. 13 Yuefu or “music bureau” poems are so named from the practice of officials collecting folk songs as a means to assess the effectiveness of government administration. The tunes were not recorded, but the lyrics include differences in prosody and metre that altered court poetry. 14 Zhang, Harmonious Melodies, 77. 15 Yang Nan in conversation with Zhang around August 2016. 16 Junhua Ge and Zhiyan Zhang, “Intertextuality of Kunqu Romeo and Juliet and Its English Translation,” Innovative Research on Foreign Education and Translation Development 7 (2016): 467–72.

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Lyric Reflection 17 See William Wordsworth, “The Solitary Reaper,” in Poems, ed. Richard Matlak, 2 vols (Peterborough, on : Broadview Press, 2016), 153, lines 7–8. 18 Chen Chao discussing issues of translation in a conversation with Zhang, November 2016.

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Theorizing Translation The second half of the book, unlike Part 1, is written in the common mode of academic writing, as is the introduction. The chapters are unified by an interest in the nuances of localities and dialect, as well as a focus on the ways in which a sense of place and time is generated, or at least invoked, as part of the wide scope of creativity that can be linked to the idea of translation, with either direct or indirect reference to Shakespeare. Zoltán Márkus begins his chapter, “Celebrating Life: Translation as an Act of Survival,” with an account of his personal introduction to Shakespeare in Hungary, which began with a sense of affection and kinship for a Hungarian rendition of the Bard, and only gradually progressed into an understanding of the difference between the modern and familiar world of Hungary’s Shakespeare and the arcane and less alive English original text. The reflection on this experience is both paradoxical (Shakespeare goes, in his experience, from Hungary to England, from now to then) and logical (at every moment, Márkus accepted the model of Shakespeare he was guided to see), and it is also both particular and universal – many readers around the world have something like this experience, and such an encounter is not limited to Shakespeare, but is rather typical of the experience of translation in reverse. Thus, that personal encounter offers a bridge to his examination of one of the most central theoretical anchors of translation studies: Walter Benjamin’s “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” (The Task of the Translator). German uses several words for what happens after a point when life encounters something transformative, either by death or a threat to life: Nachleben, Fortleben, and Überleben. Benjamin’s essay discusses what happens after a text is written, after an author dies, and

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after a translation brings new life to the text. He wrote in German, and that poses a problem for translators, because none of those words precisely matches their English equivalents of survival and afterlife, nor the French words survivre and survie. No translation can capture the semantic range of any original, but like all problems of translation that should not stop the translator from attempting to relay what was written. The German words are particularly relevant because of the centrality of Benjamin’s essay to translation studies, and Márkus argues that we have mistranslated them and thus misunderstood Benjamin’s essay.1 Just as our encounter with Shakespeare often begins with a deceptively familiarity, our understanding of Benjamin has also been marked by a similar misunderstanding. Correcting the misreading of Benjamin offers the potential to refigure our reception of Shakespeare, because there has been a tendency to affirm that Shakespeare’s soul can live in other languages, which would be a kind of survival, or that after Shakespeare’s death his works can be given a universal fame and honour that resembles the Christian notion of Heaven, a concept which would be clearly an afterlife. Teasing out the intertexts of Benjamin and his interpreters holds out the possibility that Shakespeare’s work, if not his soul, can be seen as fundamentally surviving both in English and in Hungarian – as well as in Brazilian and Japanese. Márkus tracks the intervenors in Benjamin’s textual remains, chiefly Harry Zohn, Paul de Man, and Jacques Derrida. In Márkus’s analysis, the search for what Benjamin wrote, and what he meant by it, weighs equally with a consideration for how generations of translations wrestled to preserve and transfer Benjamin into subsequent epistemic environments, and other languages – particularly French and English. All that work has value as a critique of, or as a continuation of, Benjamin’s theory itself, as well as an extension of our efforts to preserve, transform, and revive Shakespeare. In his chapter on the theme of paternity, “Shakespeare’s Fathers and the Undead Renaissance,” Michael Saenger takes up some conventional topics for the study of literary influence from an unorthodox perspective. The notion that the Roman drama of Plautus and Terence influenced Jonson and Shakespeare is familiar to Renaissance studies. But that influence is typically understood in linear, diachronic ways: Roman comedy influences Renaissance comedy, and that influence is generally framed as the kind of imitatio that animated so much of late medieval and early modern artistic culture, from Dante to Milton. Instead, Saenger posits a model of intertextual analysis that focuses on 196

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the ways in which Roman drama is itself adaptive of its Greek predecessor, and the ways in which Roman plays integrated authorship of the play with authorship inside the play, that is, fathers who are characters in the plot. He further explores how a particular model of cultural paternity was advanced in Plautus, where the Greek language itself was marked as sinful, and how Terence adapts some of this model of paternity to portray an array of competing father figures who undermine one another and themselves. Jonson’s adaptation of the classics is often framed as honorific, but in Volpone he shows a deeply playful engagement with the fragility of the father as a plot device, even as he adapts Roman comic form to his fundamentally Christian comedy. The final section of the chapter suggests that Roman comedy – and Plautus in particular – exerts an influence on Shakespeare that goes beyond the obvious direct connection to his early comedies. In particular, Saenger argues that Hamlet participates in a formal economy of partial paternity that is traceable back to Plautus. “Partial paternity” is a phrase that is meant to encompass two senses of the word “partial”: in the sense that a partial owner must collaborate with other owners, and in the sense that a partial judgment is a biased one if the judge has an undisclosed interest in the matter. That ambiguity is pivotal because it opens up a way of talking about biological fatherhood, symbolic paternalism, and literary filiation as comparable, if distinct, ways of linking people. Saenger’s overall argument is that influence, paternity, and translation can best be understood as ways of framing interaction between the past (and the foreign) and the present (and native). As many Shakespearean jokes attest, paternity is different from maternity in that one can never be precisely certain who the father is. While those jokes seem démodé, if not offensive, they also point to a wide and productive field of cultural (re)creation. The instability of the father, long hidden or viewed as a gap to be concealed, both points to, and is used as a metaphor for, much wider issues of instability in translation and inheritance. In “Commedia dell’Arte Translations: Three Pantalones in The Merchant of Venice,” Sergio Costola begins by emphasizing that narratives in general, and The Merchant of Venice in particular, did not emerge from one language and one author, but rather were originally created and received in the spaces between nations, languages, and modes of representation. While the play’s intertextual position and its debt to contemporary Italian theatre have been long known, there has been a tendency to give primacy to textual evidence, the English language, and the creative power of Shakespeare, and to consign physical 197

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embodiment, linguistic admixture, and collaborative creation as the basis for creation, not elements of an active dialogue. Costola focuses on the concept of the language-body and the mask of Pantalone from the commedia dell’arte performance idiom to read the play and its construction of Jewish difference. Such an approach entails interrogating embodied moments of the original staging of Shakespeare’s play in relation to issues such as costumes and intonation, and it also entails a revision in the understanding of commedia that is currently operative in Shakespeare scholarship, which has reached scholars of English literature through nineteenth-century theatre historiography. While crucial moments of staging may be irrecoverably ephemeral, Costola builds on more recent work on the nature of early modern Italian semi-improvisational comedy to posit new ways of reading The Merchant. Indeed, such a revision of the relationship between prior texts and contemporaneous performance is necessary at our own cultural moment because we can find a kinship between our moment and the complex ways in which early modern culture celebrated intercultural and interlinguistic contact as a site for appropriation, exoticism, curiosity, empathy, and racism. The ways in which early modern Italian theatre structured character types and stories are as relevant to our readings of Shakespearean comedy as presentist concerns for structural bias in relation to the modern theatre and the modern classroom; one might even say that such historicism complements that presentism. Part of the reason Costola puts so much focus on the moment in the courtroom scene, when Portia as Balthasar asks which litigant is the Jew and which is the merchant, is because that moment calls for a differentiation that is at once sartorial, linguistic, racial, religious, national, legal, and indeed epistemic. As it has become urgent to recognize the racial reality of the present even as we study old books, it is consequently just as urgent that we theorize and historicize the ways in which Shakespeare participated in economies of recognition that, like ours, often performed the symbolic or actual function of a gatekeeper. Specifically in this case, Italian theatrical genres and texts were let in, but Jews and Moroccans were left out. In “‘Mirror up to Hamlet’: Translations of Shakespeare in Japan,” Hiromi Fuyuki offers an account of how translations in Japan coped with the wide gap in theatrical idiom between native genres and Western imports, including the Bard. At stake are genre expectations, such as the fact that in kabuki theatre, if a character is at a moment when their circumstances are in need of revelation, a narrator would recite that explicatory text to musical accompaniment. Thus, the 198

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Elizabethan convention of the stage monologue is so foreign as to feel uncomfortable or silly on the Japanese stage. Fuyuki traces a similar problem on a linguistic level, where the phrase “to be or not to be,” which has enough ambiguity in English already, cannot remain in anything like its original condition when rendered in Japanese. Those gaps, both theatrical and linguistic, were first felt under the weight of parody; Fuyuki examines how the first instance of translated Shakespeare was done by a British expatriate, with an implication that the very idea that the Bard could be performed in Japan was framed as risible. Pivotal figures followed, especially Shoyo Tsubouchi, who completed a translation of all the plays of Shakespeare into Japanese in 1928. The context of what Shakespeare meant in that moment is elucidated both in terms of political and artistic needs at the time. Writing in the 1950s, Tsuneari Fukuda takes his translation in a different direction, moving away from abstruse ambiguity and a strong connection to kabuki styling, and toward a more overt importation of Western realist theatrical styles. In the late 1960s and early 70s, a wave of change happened once more, with Yushi Odashima’s engagement with a more modern, colloquial style.2 The stage director Norio Deguchi, in turn, took Odashima’s translations and performed them in a manner quite antithetical to traditional Japanese theatre, presenting actors in jeans and T-shirts. Fuyuki’s overall aim is to step aside from the overwhelming centrality that is often given to Akira Kurosawa’s iconic film versions, in order to demonstrate how vital and nuanced the broader field of Japanese Shakespeare has been for almost a century and a half. A few examples demonstrate how fruitful such an exploration is. Yusaku Yokoyama’s translation of Hamlet’s celebrated soliloquy anticipates a reading of its meaning not prevalent in the West for almost another fifty years. Other opportunities for insight are similarly local and productive: a translation of the Macbeths’ collusion on the prospect of murder must confront pronouns, but pronouns are used very differently in Japanese. Similarly, a translation of the scene wherein Polonius asks Hamlet what is in his book must cope with the fact that Hamlet has no intent to answer the question in the way that Polonius asks it. These moments, which Fuyuki has rendered eminently comprehensible to readers both with and without fluency in Japanese, are fascinating in their own right and also relevant to other translators of the Bard. Rangping Ji and Wei Feng offer “Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China.” Arriving at the scene of cultural transfer in the late Qing dynasty, Shu Lin’s work challenges modern ideas of 199

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translation. Working from a Chinese edition of Mary and Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and in collaboration with Wei Yi, Lin rendered Shakespeare in Classical Chinese in 1904. In the wake of Chinese cultural seclusion, broken at first by the opium trade, Britain still loomed as a challenge and opportunity for Chinese literature. Some in China wanted to fully westernize, but Lin’s translation tacks differently, adapting Shakespeare to Chinese ethical expectations. Indeed, Lin did not speak English, nor did he understand the relationship between the Lambs’ text and the Elizabethan author. He thus faced criticism within China for not being faithful enough to Shakespeare’s text, but his work merits attention both because of its incorporation of Confucian ethics, and also because of its role as a pivotal text that shaped subsequent understandings of Shakespeare in China. To judge Lin’s text on its “accuracy” is to miss its fidelity to Chinese culture as well as its place in the construction of the image of Shakespeare that would adumbrate more than a century of Chinese responses to the Bard. Ji and Wei show how Lin has a crucial opportunity to craft an impression of Shakespeare with his retitling of the plays. Some plays originally had titles that reflected the names of the protagonists, which appear similarly in the Lambs’ rendition. Those names would have either little or no positive value to Chinese readers, so Li recrafts titles that put the focus on key themes, conflicts, or images. That decision to nativize the titles helps to explain why Lin’s presentation of Shakespeare was so much more successful than an edition anonymously published the previous year, which kept many of Shakespeare’s names. At times, Lin’s choices jar with Western sensibilities, such as his choice to entitle Othello as “The Black Fool.” One could argue that the Western habit of anxious wrestling with the racism of that play is sharply contrasted with a bluntness that even Shakespeare did not use: Lin’s title could be seen as more accurately describing the plot and stereotypes invoked in a play that should have been identified as offensive a long time ago.3 Lin shows a similar indifference to religious sensitivities in the West, relaying The Merchant of Venice with a focus on the contract and the preservation of romantic pairing. Ji and Wei demonstrate how the Lin’s adaptation invokes Chinese proverbs as well as the Confucian ethical principles contained in the Five Relations, Three Obediences, and Four Virtues. In addition to substitutions, such as Duke Frederick in As You Like It becoming a devoted Taoist at the end, these nuanced and reciprocal ethical principles shape his moralization of the plays, as can be seen in particular in the case of Lin’s King Lear. 200

Part 2: Theorizing Translation notes 1 Walter Benjamin’s specific words have remained an active source of fascination in translation theory. One recent critic, for example, has explored the temporality of the translated text in Benjamin’s “metaphorics of fruiting and maturation”; Brian O’Keeffe, “The ‘Saran Wrap’ Theory of Translation: Transparency and Invisibility, of the Kernel and the Envelope,” Symploke 23 (2015): 376. 2 Yoshiko Kawachi has suggested that Japanese “adaptation erases cultural and historical boundaries between Shakespeare and us”; Kawachi, “Introduction: Shakespeare in Modern Japan,” Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance 14 (2016): 8. While this is certainly true, it begs the question of which “us” (in medium, style, and intertextual reference) is joining with which version of Shakespeare. 3 A similar issue has been discussed by Janko Trupej in his comparative analysis of Slovenian translations of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1948 and 1962. While race is registered in the Slovenian alternatives to Twain’s notorious appellation of Huck’s friend Jim, there is no equivalent of the offensiveness of the N-word in Slovenian. Trupej concludes that the 1948 version of the novel intensified the racism of the original (putting racial epithets in Slovenian where, for example, Twain referred only to Jim as “him”), whereas the 1962 version softened the racism of the novel. Neither version was received well. The 1948 version conformed to the pressure of censorship during a time when Yugoslavia was very close to the Soviet Union, and its intensification of racism cohered with a Soviet portrayal of the United States as a racially oppressive state. The 1962 version downplayed the racism of the original book and aligned with the distance Tito had put between himself and the Soviet Union, showing readers a more friendly and egalitarian version of the United States. The 1948 version was politically orthodox but useless as a novel, and the 1962 version, homogenized by race and also dialect, little sense as a narrative. See Janko Trupej, in “Translating Racist Discourse in Slovenia during the Socialist Period: Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” in Translation and the Reconfiguration of Power Relations: Revisiting Role and Context of Translation and Interpreting, ed. Beatrice Fischer and Matilde Nisbeth Jensen (Graz, Austria: CETRA, Centre for Translation Studies, 2012), 91–107.

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8 Celebrating Life: Translation as an Act of Survival Zoltán Márkus

As a child growing up in Hungary, I believed that Shakespeare was somehow Hungarian. I understood that he had never lived in Hungary, but much like other famous émigrés who had made it in the West, such as John von Neumann, Ferenc Puskás, Béla Lugosi, Zsazsa Gábor, or Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz), I figured he, too, must have been, in one way or another, Hungarian. In older publications, I had even seen his name in its proper, “original” form: Lándzsarázó Vilmos. He was both foreign and domestic, a lot like the German writer Karl May’s Wild West heroes whom I so much admired as a child: Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, Old Firehand, and the others. Then, in middle school, I was disabused of this misunderstanding. I learned that Shakespeare had been an English genius, whose incomparable dramatic works had been translated by the best Hungarian poets of the nineteenth century. A particularly well-informed teacher proudly let us in on the academic trivia that the Hungarian Shakespeare Association was founded in 1860, which had even preceded, by four long years, the foundation of the German Shakespeare-Gesellschaft! After I had developed a profound admiration for the Bard, I realized it was high time I started reading him. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (or more precisely: Szentivánéji álom, for I was reading it in Hungarian) was my first. I could not help noticing that the strange comedy indeed had a distinctly nineteenth-century flavour to it. Now it seemed that Shakespeare had been a nineteenth-century author: somewhat archaic, elegantly cumbersome, but quite comprehensible. I was, yet again, utterly dismayed when, in high school, I encountered Shakespeare in

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English for the first time. His plays seemed arcane, overwrought – and, frankly, overrated. I start my chapter with this personal account to remind us that Shakespeare in different geographical and historical contexts can indeed be something quite different from what one might imagine him to be in Britain or the United States. Shakespeare as a catalyst of nationalistcultural mythologizing, which so clearly informed my personal initiation into Bardolatry in Hungary, was even more powerfully evoked by the German poet laureate Gerhart Hauptmann during the First World War: “There is not a people, not even the English, that would have as much right to claim Shakespeare as the Germans. Shakespeare’s characters are part of our world; his soul became one with ours; and if it is in England where he was born and buried, Germany is the country where he truly lives.”1 In times of international conflicts, this German, even Nordic, Shakespeare was deployed as a token of German genius and cultural superiority: unser Shakespeare is obviously not “our Shakespeare,” but theirs. Similar appropriations of Shakespeare abound in other countries as well – after all, the translation of Shakespeare has often been considered a special test and the highest standard of a language’s cultural maturity. A particularly controversial and poignant chapter of this wide-ranging history concerns “The Martyred Knights of Georgian Shakespeariana.” In an article for Shakespeare Survey, Nico Kiasashvili offers a moving commemoration of Georgian Shakespearian translators and actors who all met early and violent deaths since their dissemination of Shakespeare in Georgian language and culture was seen as a perilous act of subversion by their Russian oppressors.2 Despite globalization and the dominance of English as its primary vehicle, Shakespeare lives in many parts of the world in translations. Translated Shakespeare, however, is frequently considered secondary and inferior to English Shakespeare in the same way in which we generally consider translations derivative and inferior when compared with original texts. One of the most powerful analytical observations, or clichés, regarding translation originates from Walter Benjamin’s famous essay “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” (The Task of the Translator);3 it claims that translation belongs to a virtual “second life” or post-mortem “afterlife” of the original. My chapter here aims to demonstrate that this perception is based on an imprecise translation of Benjamin’s text. In fact, translation is an act of survival and a celebration of the life of the original, not a macabre evocation of its “afterlife.” 203

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I In the introduction to his recent book, The Afterlife of Texts in Translation (2019), Edmund Chapman explains that the term “afterlife” comes from Benjamin’s 1923 essay on translation “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers.” Benjamin’s (1996d: 254) statement that “a translation issues from the original – not so much from its life as from its afterlife” implies that a text must already be within “afterlife” to be translated. “Afterlife” makes translation possible.4 The reference in the parenthesis indicates that Chapman quotes Walter Benjamin’s famous essay in Harry Zohn’s translation into English (1996, originally published in 1968); he uses this specific passage to explain his book’s title and to consign translation to the “afterlife” of the original text. When we discuss Shakespeare adaptations and translations in light of Benjamin’s essay, we all seem to agree that these belong to the original’s afterlife, or, in German, Nachleben. In a fine scholarly article on recent German cultural references to Shakespeare, Tobias Döring discusses the German words “Nachleben [afterlife],” “Nachwelt [the other world, posterity],” and “Nachreife [“after-ripening,” “maturating process”], and points out that, “in a transferred sense, Nachleben and Nachreife have come to serve a special purpose in the theory of language and translation, as proposed by Walter Benjamin in his much-cited 1923 essay ‘The Task of the Translator.’”5 In a fascinating personal account, furthermore, on “The Experience of Translating Shakespeare,” Maria João Pires compares translation to a palimpsest in which “Shakespeare’s English had been almost completely obscured, blocked out, covered by the Portuguese” and observes that Benjamin’s “Task of the Translator” speaks of this process in terms of the essential historicity of literary works – their “Fortleben” or “Überleben” or “Nachleben,” that is, the way in which works of the past continue to survive, or pursue afterlives.6 It is evident that adaptations and translations are created ex post facto: their creation follows (from) the creation of the original. By emphasizing that translations belong to the original’s “afterlife,” or “Nachleben,” we add a metaphysical dimension: translations assume – instigate even – the death of the original and exist only in its ghostly, post-mortem life. 204

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This is exactly what Paul de Man suggests in his lecture on Benjamin’s essay when he contends, “The process of translation, if we can call it process, is one of change and of motion that has the appearance of life, but of life as an afterlife, because translation also reveals the death of the original.”7 De Man claims that a series of linguistic disjunctions alienate the work from its translations and bring about “the death of the original.” For him, the process of translation is relegated to the realm of the original’s “afterlife.” By following de Man, there appears to be a consensus about Benjamin’s essay, asserting that, suspended in the cultural and historical context of their creation, translations belong to an “afterlife,” or “Nachleben,” that is significantly detached from the original.

II After having established all this, however, we are in for a few surprises when we turn to Benjamin’s original text, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” in German. The first surprise is that the word “Nachleben” (or “afterlife”) never appears in Benjamin’s text. Instead of “Nachleben,” we find the nouns “Überleben” (survival) and “Fortleben” (continuing life). The next surprise is that these words get translated as “afterlife” by Benjamin’s most famous English-language translator, Harry Zohn. So wie die Äußerungen des Lebens innigst mit dem Lebendigen zusammenhängen, ohne ihm etwas zu bedeuten, geht die Übersetzung aus dem Original hervor. Zwar nicht aus seinem Leben so sehr denn aus seinem ›Überleben‹. Ist doch die Übersetzung später als das Original und bezeichnet sich doch bei den bedeutenden Werken, die da ihre erwählten Übersetzer niemals im Zeitalter ihrer Entstehung finden, das Stadium ihres Fortlebens. In völlig unmetaphorischer Sachlichkeit ist der Gedanke vom Leben und Fortleben der Kunstwerke zu erfassen.8 (my italics) Harry Zohn translates this passage in the following way: Just as the manifestations of life are intimately connected with the phenomenon of life without being of importance to it, a translation issues from the original – not so much from its life as from its afterlife. For a translation comes later than the original, and since the important works of world literature never find their chosen translators at the time of their origin, their translation marks their 205

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stage of continued life. The idea of life and afterlife in works of art should be regarded with an entirely unmetaphorical objectivity.9 (my italics) As we can see, Zohn translates Benjamin’s “Zwar nicht aus seinem Leben so sehr denn aus seinem ›Überleben‹,” as “not so much from its life as from its afterlife.” “Überleben,” meaning survival, is translated as “afterlife.” “Fortleben,” meaning also a kind of survival or, more precisely, continuing life, is first translated as “continued life” and then, second, as “afterlife”: for Benjamin’s “der Gedanke vom Leben und Fortleben der Kunstwerke,” Zohn offers “the idea of life and afterlife in works of art.” Benjamin uses the word “Überleben” only once in his essay; more often, he refers to the original’s “Fortleben” (continuing life) manifested (and generated) by a translation. Zohn’s surprising choice of “afterlife” for the German “Fortleben” alternates with the occasional “continued life.” Benjamin’s words: Und ist nicht wenigstens das Fortleben der Werke unvergleichlich viel leichter zu erkennen als dasjenige der Geschöpfe? Die Geschichte der großen Kunstwerke kennt ihre Deszendenz aus den Quellen, ihre Gestaltung im Zeitalter des Künstlers und die Periode ihres grundsätzlich ewigen Fortlebens bei den nachfolgenden Generationen. Dieses letzte heißt, wo es zutage tritt, Ruhm. Übersetzungen, die mehr als Vermittlungen sind, entstehen, wenn im Fortleben ein Werk das Zeitalter seines Ruhmes erreicht hat.10 (my italics) Zohn translates these sentences as follows: And indeed, isn’t the afterlife of works of art far easier to recognize than that of living creatures? The history of the great works of art tells us about their descent from prior models, their realization in the age of the artist, and what in principle should be their eternal afterlife in succeeding generations. Where this last manifests itself, it is called fame. Translations that are more than transmissions of subject matter come into being when a work, in the course of its survival, has reached the age of its fame.11 (my italics) Benjamin uses the same word, “Fortleben,” three times here, which Zohn surprisingly – and inconsistently – translates twice as “afterlife” and once as “survival.” 206

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This inconsistency results in surprising translations of Benjamin’s sentences. An important statement toward the middle of the essay, for instance, claims, “Denn in seinem Fortleben, das so nicht heißen dürfte, wenn es nicht Wandlung und Erneuerung des Lebendigen wäre, ändert sich das Original” (my italics).12 Zohn translates this sentence as, “For in its afterlife – which could not be called that if it were not a transformation and a renewal of something living – the original undergoes a change” (my italics).13 Benjamin’s “Fortleben” (continuing life), which can be called as such precisely because it is the product of “a transformation and a renewal of something living,” is rendered confusing when it is translated as “afterlife.” These examples demonstrate that the idea that a translation belongs to the – quasi-metaphysical – afterlife of the original does not exist in Benjamin’s article. In fact, Benjamin clearly insists that “the idea of life and its continuation [“Fortleben,” and not “afterlife”] after translation” of works of art “should be regarded with an entirely unmetaphorical objectivity.” The word afterlife, or Nachleben, does not exist in the essay; it is Harry Zohn and his influential translation into English that have projected this notion into Benjamin’s work. It is an intriguing cultural phenomenon that the English translation, which has likely been circulated in greater numbers worldwide than the original German text, has been more influential than the original. Harry Zohn’s proficiency in German was excellent (he was born in Vienna); he might have claimed that he used the word afterlife simply to indicate the temporal deferment that is inevitable for the creation of any translation. It is later readings of Zohn’s translation that have projected the opposite of “an unmetaphorical objectivity” on Benjamin’s “Fortleben” of the original. Benjamin’s work discusses translation as “a form” (eine Form), which Zohn – not entirely wrongly – translates as “a mode,” and questions the concept of “fidelity” as the measurement of success of a translation. Instead, Benjamin argues that both translation and the original are expressions of “pure language” (reine Sprache). In Zohn’s version in English: In the same way a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel.14 In a lecture series Paul de Man gave at Cornell University (and posthumously published in the volume The Resistance to Theory), de Man takes 207

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issue with Zohn’s translation, and (following Carol Jacobs’s corrections15) proposes the following translation of this passage: “So, instead of making itself similar to the meaning, to the Sinn of the original, the translation must rather, lovingly and detail, in its own language, form itself according to the manner of meaning [Art des Meinens] of the original, to make both recognizable as the broken parts of the greater language, just as fragments are the broken parts of a vessel.”16 This translation is more precise than Zohn’s.17 More important than the derivative and hierarchic relationship between the original and its translation is that they are both parts of a larger, though broken and fragmented, system of being and speaking: “pure language.” In this sense, Shakespeare adaptations and translations are all fragments of a larger unit that is not identical with English Shakespeare. Although de Man calls attention to other problematic places in Zohn’s translation of Benjamin’s essay, it is astonishing to me that he never criticizes Zohn’s incorrect and inconsistent translation of “Überleben” and “Fortleben” into “afterlife.” It is clear in de Man’s text that he does not simply ignore Zohn’s decision; he condones it. In a brief passage on “Nachreife” (late ripening), de Man points out that this word “is associated with another word that Benjamin constantly uses, the word überleben, to live beyond your own death in a sense.”18 But überleben does not mean “to live beyond your death” in any sense: it does indicate a temporal structure that assumes the survival of a potentially traumatic event, but it does not refer to an otherworldly existence. Although the noun Überwelt does mean an “afterlife” after death, the verb überleben means to “survive,” to avoid death, and its noun form das Überleben means survival, the act of avoiding death. In other words, de Man purposefully amplifies Zohn’s translation and helps misread Benjamin.

III Why does de Man do so? In his own reading of Benjamin’s “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” Jacques Derrida offers a fascinating clue, even though without referring to de Man. In his essay, “Des Tours de Babel,” Derrida argues that Benjamin’s work, practically a preface to his translation of Baudelaire, “circule sans cesse entre les valeurs de semence, de vie et surtout de ‘survie;’”19 which Joseph F. Graham translates by saying that Benjamin’s essay “circulates without cease among the values of seed, life, and especially ‘sur-vival.’”20 Graham translates the French word “survie” 208

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as “sur-vival.” He explains his decision right after his translation of Derrida’s essay in a “Translator’s Note” with the following commentary: “survie. The word means ‘survival’ as well as ‘afterlife;’ its use in the text also brings out the subliminal sense of more life and more than life. The hyphenation of ‘sur-vival’ is an admitted cheat.”21 Graham recognizes the potential metaphysical double entendre of the French “survie” (“the subliminal sense of more life and more than life”), and he tries to recreate it by the hyphenated, and admittedly contrived, “sur-vival.” While Graham proves to be a reliable translator from French into English by reproducing the metaphysical sense of “afterlife” of the word “survie,” he needs to ignore that Benjamin’s German words “Überleben” and “Fortleben” do not mean “afterlife.” In “Des Tours de Babel,” Derrida uses the original German text and, especially, Maurice de Gandillac’s French translation of Benjamin’s essay.22 He reminds his readers that the German words “Übersetzen” (translation) and “Übertragen” (translation, transfer) resonate with the word “Überleben” (survival) and quotes Benjamin’s passage that includes the word “Überleben” in Gandillac’s French translation: De même que les manifestations de la vie, sans rien signifier pour le vivant, sont avec lui clans la plus intime correlation, ainsi la traduction procède de l’original. Certes moins de sa vie que de sa ‘survie’ [Überleben]. Car la traduction vient après l’original et, pour les oeuvres importantes qui ne trouvent jamais leur traducteur prédestiné au temps de leur naissance, elle caractérise le stade de leur survie [Fortleben, cette fois, la survie comme continuation de la vie plutôt que comme vie post mortem]. Or c’est dans leur simple réalité, sans aucune métaphore [‘in völlig unmetaphorischer Sachlichkeit’] qu’il faut concevoir pour les oeuvres d’art les idées de vie et de survie [Fortleben].23 Joseph F. Graham translates into English Gandillac’s French translation from the German that Derrida quotes and annotates here in the following way: Just as the manifestations of life are intimately connected with the living, without signifying anything for it, a translation proceeds from the original. Indeed not so much from its life as from its survival [Überleben]. For a translation comes after the original and, for the important works that never find their predestined translator at the time of their birth, it characterizes the stage of their survival 209

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[Fortleben, this time, sur-vival as continuation of life rather than as life post mortem]. Now, it is in this simple reality, without any metaphor [“in völlig unmetaphorischer Sachlichkeit”], that it is necessary to conceive the ideas of life and survival [Fortleben] for works of art.24 As Derrida’s interlinear comments in square brackets point out, Gandillac translates both “Überleben” and “Fortleben” with the French word “survie.” Derrida, however, draws a distinction between these two words: “Überleben” means “survie” as “afterlife,” “life postmortem,” whereas “Fortleben” means “survie” as “continuation of life.” Graham translates both into English as “sur-vival.” Derrida’s (mis)identification – following Gandillac – of the German “Überleben” with the French “survie” as “afterlife” offers a helpful pointer to de Man’s (mis)reading of Benjamin’s essay in Harry Zohn’s translation. But Derrida’s reading is more precise than de Man’s. Derrida would not agree with de Man that “translation also reveals the death of the original.”25 Instead, he points out that translation entails “the sur-vival of works, not authors.”26 Derrida reads Benjamin more precisely when he realizes that a translation provides, in fact, more life and entails the death of not the original but the author. He claims, “Telle survie donne un plus de vie, plus qu’une survivance. L’oeuvre ne vit pas seulement plus longtemps, elle vit plus et mieux, au-dessus des moyens de son auteur.”27 In Graham’s translation: “Such sur-vival gives more of life, more than a surviving. The work does not simply live longer, it lives more and better, beyond the means of its author.”28 By drawing distinctions between “survie” (“sur-vival”) and mere “survivance” (“surviving”) (as well as “vie” [life]), Derrida insists on a metaphysical fullness of “survie” – not as an “afterlife” but as a “more and better” life of the original that necessitates the death (and afterlife) of the author. Derrida places translation into Benjamin’s discourse of “pure language”: “a translation espouses the original when the two adjoined fragments, as different as they can be, complete each other so as to form a larger tongue in the course of a sur-vival that changes them both. For the native tongue of the translator, as we have noted, is altered as well.” This is what Derrida calls his “own interpretation,” his own “translation,” or his own “task of the translator.”29 He refers to it as “the translation contract: hymen or marriage contract with the promise to produce a child whose seed will give rise to history and growth,” and he adds, “Benjamin says as much, in the translation the original becomes larger; it grows rather than reproduces itself – and I will add: like a child, its own, no doubt, but with the power to speak 210

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on its own which makes of a child something other than a product subjected to the law of reproduction.”30 Instead of imagining translation as a post-mortem, apocalyptic event that assumes the death of the original, Derrida offers a progenitive view that sees a procreational relationship between the original and its translation.

IV The way in which Benjamin posits the relationship between translation and the original is so intricate, however, that a somewhat oversimplifying (I use this adjective with trepidation with reference to Derrida) genetic (or genealogical, even) model cannot do justice to it. In a posthumously published, book-length study on Benjamin’s essay, Antoine Berman complicates Derrida’s schemata further. Berman quotes Benjamin’s sentence “Zwar nicht aus seinem Leben so sehr denn aus seinem «Überleben»,” and remarks, “Let me immediately stress that Benjamin does not mean that translation is the text’s mode of survival.”31 Berman also uses Maurice de Gandillac’s French translation, but he is more critical of Gandillac’s work than Derrida had been. Berman emphasizes the difference between Benjamin’s usage of “Überleben” versus “Fortleben” and suggests that “we cannot translate Fortleben as ‘survie’ if we (perfectly correctly) translate Überleben as ‘survie’ earlier on. Fort is less semantically charged than über.” Berman further explains that “Fort ... contains the simple idea of continuation. The Überleben that precedes it in the text designates an act (that of surviving), whereas Fortleben appears to express merely a state of continuation. It would therefore be better to tentatively translate überleben as ‘survivre’ [survive – verb] rather than ‘survie’ [survival – noun], reserving the substantive form for fortleben.” As Berman puts it, “Certes pas tant de son vivre que de son «survivre».” In other words, Berman argues, “This sentence pronounces that the translation bursts forth – organically – from the ‘ survie ’ [Fortleben], the active ‘survivre ’ [Überleben] of the text.”32 The English translator of Berman’s text, Chantal Wright, offers the following in English: “Indeed not so much from its vivre [living > life: vivre is the verb meaning ‘to live’] as its survivre [surviving > survival: survivre is the verb meaning ‘to survive’].”33 Like Derrida, Berman underlines that “Benjamin is clearly linking the survie of the text to the death of the artist here.”34 Berman claims, “The continuing life of the text is therefore the time when the text becomes glorious on its own terms and enters the sphere of its autonomy” [italics in the original]. And he concludes that 211

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these two characteristics – the fact that the text has to wait for the death of the author for its glory; and that it possesses an anticipatory temporality – explain, quite aside from Benjamin, why a true translation of a text, one that does justice to its grandeur, is not really possible at the time of its birth.35 Berman, furthermore, draws a distinction between “Überleben” and “Fortleben” similar to the one that Derrida has suggested. Fortleben simply indicates that the text has entered into the period of its ongoing reign. It continues on through time and this continuation is a phenomenon of maturity leading to fame. With translation, the text suddenly accedes to a more elevated life. Translation takes the text, or rather its sur-vival, to another level. The über of translation lifts the über of the life of the text – which was only a fort, a continuation – to an elevated state. Because über means above and beyond.36 For Berman, however, the relationship is not as much genetic or progenitive as qualitative or metaphysical: translation as an “Überleben” of the original entails an elevated existence, which is a more significant recognition than the simple assumption that translation as a “Fortleben” of the original is a continuation – or simple survival – of the original. In other words, Berman further explains, there is a shift here from a perpetual temporality to an elevated temporality, that is to say to a different temporal ‘sphere,’ a sphere where it is always the text that changes – it becomes, if not complete, at least imbued with the promise of completion ... From this point on we can say that the text itself is moving to another level.”37 (italics in the original) In an endnote referring to this sentence, Berman further adds that “this is a level where one has to think of Entfaltung, this de-velopment, this de-ployment, this un-folding of the work effected by translation – and the neverending re-translations of the work. Translation shifts the text from Fortleben to Überleben.” Berman admits that his understanding of Benjamin’s words is pushing the envelope: “We are twisting Benjamin somewhat with this formulation. But the fact remains that he used these two terms, Fortleben and Überleben. For me, Fortleben is not Überleben.”38 212

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In an erudite and helpful introductory note to Berman’s passage quoted above, Chantal Wright explains that “Benjamin is contrasting Leben, Überleben and Fortleben, all of which represent different stages of the literary text’s existence. A text’s Fortleben is the fact of its continued existence over time, beyond the era in which it was created and, we are led to understand, after the death of its author.” As we have seen, “Berman argues that ‘Fort is less semantically charged than über ... The Überleben that precedes it in the text designates an act (that of surviving), whereas Fortleben appears to express merely a state of continuation.’”39 As discussed above, Gandillac has used the French word “survie” (survival) for both “Fortleben” and “Überleben.” “Berman,” on the other hand, Wright points out, initially translates Überleben as survie, but then argues the need to differentiate between Fortleben and Überleben, coming to the conclusion that survie, the nominal form, should be more properly reserved for Fortleben, and survivre, the verbal form, used for Überleben, to indicate the act of surviving, as contrasted with mere continuation. French is able to mimic the structure and semantics of the German with its sur-vie [above-life]. It is all clear and helpful: Berman’s distinction between “Fortleben” as “survie” and “Überleben” as “survivre” is revealing. Wright, however, does not stop here: she reminds us that “sur-vie also has the religious connotations of ‘afterlife’ that the German does not.”40 Similarly to Zohn’s unfortunate translation of both “Überleben” and “Fortleben” as “afterlife,” “survie” also offers a metaphysical connotation that the German words do not offer. The paradox of Chantal Wright’s project is that, as the editor and translator of Berman’s French study in English, her task (or, with Benjamin’s word, “Aufgabe”) is to present – as precisely as possible – Berman’s argument, in which he claims that Benjamin’s “Überleben” can be properly translated into French with the word “survie,” which, beyond its denotative meaning “survival,” also has a connotative (primarily religious) meaning as “afterlife.” Chantal Wright is well aware that the German original “Überleben” and “Fortleben” do not have this metaphysical meaning at all. In her prefatory notes, Wright calls attention to Harry Zohn’s mistranslation of “Überleben” as “afterlife” and points out that, 213

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the resulting widespread adoption of the term ‘afterlife’ in the English speaking world in its reception of Benjamin’s essay has been accompanied by the erroneous reading that translation creates an ‘afterlife’ for the literary text. What Benjamin actually argues is that translations emerge from the Überleben of the text. The English ‘afterlife’ is problematic on a number of levels.41 At the same time, as we have seen, Berman maintains that the French “survie” – or “sur-vie” – is a correct translation of “Überleben,” even though Wright clearly sees, as she reminds us, that “sur-vie also has the religious connotations of ‘afterlife’ that the German does not.”42

V What is the solution then? Wright explains that she has decided “to translate Fortleben as ‘continuing life’ and Überleben as ‘sur-vival’” (thus following – as we have seen above – Joseph F. Graham), and adds, “the latter is a more artificial term than either the German term or the French translation, but it gestures towards the über of Überleben while remaining a homonym of the everyday word ‘survival.’”43 As to renditions directly from German into English, we should recall that überleben is a transitive verb (to survive something, such as an accident, a trauma, or other difficulty), while fortleben is intransitive (to live on, to continue living). Most important, however, the most satisfying way out of this conundrum is to avoid the mistake of translating either Überleben or Fortleben as “afterlife.” The two most recent, most widely circulated translations of Benjamin’s essay, however, do not seem to follow this solution completely. The third edition of Routledge’s Translation Studies Reader (2012) offers a new translation of Benjamin’s essay by Steven Rendall (the previous two included Zohn’s translation). Zohn’s mistranslation of “Überleben” as “afterlife,” however, haunts both the volume editor’s introduction and the new translation as well. In his introduction to the section that includes Benjamin’s essay, “1900s–1930s,” Lawrence Venuti argues that, according to Benjamin’s essay, “a translation participates in the ‘afterlife’ (Überleben) of the source text, enacting an interpretation that is informed by a history of reception (‘the age of its fame’).”44 Moreover, in his translation, Steven Rendall translates the German sentences, So wie die Äußerungen des Lebens innigst mit dem Lebendigen zusammenhängen, ohne ihm etwas zu bedeuten, geht die 214

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Übersetzung aus dem Original hervor. Zwar nicht aus seinem Leben so sehr denn aus seinem ›Überleben‹. as follows: Just as expressions of life are connected most intimately with the living being without having any significance for the latter, a translation proceeds from the original. Indeed, not so much from its life as from its “afterlife” or “survival.”45 As we have seen, however, the German Überleben means “survival” and does not mean “afterlife.” J.A. Underwood offers a different solution in his translation published in the volume Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street and Other Writings (2008). Just as the expressions of life are very closely linked to the living creature without being of any significance to that creature, so does the translation proceed from the original. Not, admittedly, from the life [Leben] of the original so much as from something higher, its survival [Überleben].46 Underwood moves away from the mistranslation of “afterlife” and inserts “from something higher,” which clearly resonates with Berman’s interpretation discussed above, but which does not appear in Benjamin’s text. In the rest of the translation, Underwood consistently translates “Fortleben” with the somewhat cumbersome “continued existence.” Underwood’s forgoing of Zohn’s mistranslation of Benjamin’s “Überleben” as “afterlife” is an important step in the right direction. As we have seen, Benjamin argues that a translation of a work is not a distant, far-removed inferior of the original: it is a continuation of the original’s life in which the translation and the original are fragments of a larger whole. Translation does not reveal “the death of the original,” as de Man has proposed; it reveals the death of the author and the survival of the original. Although Benjamin claims that a translation is derivative of the original, the words Überleben and Fortleben mean prolongation, survival, and ultimately the continuance of the life of the original. In this sense, translation gives life, not death, as it idealizes a version from which it takes place: it perpetuates the idea of the original work of art. Every translation assumes and solidifies the existence of a (singular or 215

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plural) original. In this process, foreign Shakespeare evokes, even interpellates (in Louis Althusser’s sense), English Shakespeare. The plurality produced (and demanded) by translations means that Shakespeare only exists “in other words”: as a historically, linguistically, geographically displaced other. Translating (or otherwise appropriating) Shakespeare is always a process of hybridizing, which also engages multiple and complex temporalities. notes 1 Gerhart Hauptmann, “Deutschland und Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Jahrbuch 51 (1915): xii. My translation. 2 Nico Kiasashvili, “The Martyred Knights of Georgian Shakespeariana,” Shakespeare Survey (special issue: “Shakespeare and Cultural Exchange,” ed. Stanley Wells) 48 (1996): 185–90. 3 Walter Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” in Walter Benjamin Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Tillman Rexroth (Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), 4.1:9–21. 4 Edmund Chapman, The Afterlife of Texts in Translation: Understanding the Messianic in Literature (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Pivot, 2019), 5. 5 Tobias Döring, “‘On the Wrong Track to Ourselves’: Armin Senser’s Shakespeare and the Issue of Artistic Creativity in Contemporary German Poetry,” Shakespeare Survey 66 (2013): 153. 6 Maria João Pires, “A Palimpsest, or an Image of a Mutilated Statue: The Experience of Translating Shakespeare,” in Translating Shakespeare for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Rui Carvalho Homem and Ton Hoenselaars (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), 190. 7 Paul de Man, “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’” in The Resistance to Theory, foreword by Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 85. Originally delivered as the Messenger Lecture, Cornell University, 4 March 1983, and published in Yale French Studies 69 (1985): 25–46. 8 Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” 10–11. 9 Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator: An Introduction to the Translation of Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens,” in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 71. 10 Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” 11. 11 Benjamin, “Task of the Translator,” 71. 12 Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” 12. 13 Benjamin, “Task of the Translator,” 71.

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Celebrating Life 14 Ibid. 15 See Carol Jacobs, “The Monstrosity of Translation,” MLN 90, no. 6 (Dec. 1975): 755–66. 16 De Man, “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin,” 91. 17 In German, this text reads as follows: “Einzelheiten einander zu folgen, doch nicht so zu gleichen haben, so muß, anstatt dem Sinn des Originals sich ähnlich zu machen, die Übersetzung liebend vielmehr und bis ins Einzelne hinein dessen Art des Meinens in der eigenen Sprache sich anbilden, um so beide wie Scherben als Bruchstück eines Gafäßes, als Bruchstück einer größeren Sprache erkennbar zu machen.” Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” 18. 18 De Man, “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin,” 85. 19 Jacques Derrida, “Appendix: Des Tours de Babel,” in Difference in Translation, ed. and intro. Joseph F. Graham (Ithaca, ny : Cornell University Press, 1985), 222. 20 Derrida, “Appendix,” 178. 21 Derrida, “Appendix,” 206. 22 Derrida refers to Maurice de Gandillac’s French translation, “La tâche du traducteur,” published in Gandillac’s Œuvres I, Mythe et violence (Paris: Denoël, 1971), 261–275. See Derrida, “Appendix,” 219. 23 Derrida, “Appendix,” 222. 24 Ibid., 178. 25 De Man, “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin,” 85. 26 Derrida, “Appendix,” 179. In French: “La survie des oeuvres, non pas des auteurs” (French edition, 223). 27 Derrida, “Appendix,” 223 (French edition). 28 Derrida, “Appendix,” 179. 29 Derrida, “Appendix,” 191. 30 Derrida, “Appendix,” 190–1. In French: “Rappelons la métaphore ou l’ammétaphore: une traduction épouse l’original quand les deux fragments ajointés, aussi différents que possible, se complétent pour former une langue plus grande, au cours d’une survie qui les change tous les deux. Car la langue maternelle du traducteur, nous l’avons noté, s’y altère également. Telle est du moins mon interpretation – ma traduction, ma “tâche du traducteur.” C’est ce que j’ai appelé le contrat de traduction: hymen ou contrat de mariage avec promesse de produire un enfant dont la semence donnera lieu á histoire et croissance. Contrat de mariage comme seminaire. Benjamin le dit, dans la traduction l’original grandit, il croît plutôt qu’il ne se reproduit – et j’ajouterai comme un enfant, le sien sans doute mais avec la force de parler tout seul qui fait d’un enfant autre chose qu’un produit assujetti à la loi de la reproduction” (French edition, 234–5).

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Shakespeare in Succession 31 Antoine Berman, Isabelle Berman, and Valentina Sommella, The Age of Translation: A Commentary on Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator,” trans. and intro. Chantal Wright (New York: Routledge, 2018), 132. Between 1984 and 1989, Berman taught seminars on traductologie in general, and on Benjamin’s essay in particular, at the Collège international de philosophie (founded by Jacques Derrida) in Paris. Berman died in 1991; Isabelle Berman and Valentina Sommella published his notes in French in 2008; the English translation by Chantal Wright was published ten years later. 32 Italics in the original; texts in square brackets are by the translator Chantal Wright. Berman, Age of Translation, 133–4. 33 Ibid., 134. 34 Ibid., 135. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 139. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., endnote 26, and 142. 39 Ibid., 133–4. 40 Ibid., 122. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Lawrence Venuti, ed., The Translation Studies Reader, 3rd ed. (Routledge: New York, 2012), 71. 45 Walter Benjamin, “The Translator’s Task” (trans. Steven Rendall), in Venuti, Translation Studies Reader, 76. Rendall’s translation was first published in TTR [Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction] 102 (1997): 151–65. 46 Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator,” in Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street and Other Writings, trans. J.A. Underwood (New York: Penguin, 2009), 31.

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9 Shakespeare’s Fathers and the Undead Renaissance Michael Saenger

In his discussion of translation and creativity, Friedrich Nietzsche addresses the Roman habit of assimilating Greek culture as “a form of conquest,” and quite memorably imagines the Romans to look backward, and eastward, and to ask, Should we not make new for ourselves what is old and find ourselves in it? Should we not have the right to breathe our own soul into this dead body? For it is dead after all; how ugly is everything dead!1 This text, in which Nietzsche makes the dead Romans speak to the previously dead Greeks, could be adapted and voiced by us as we interpret and adapt Shakespeare: Should we not have the right to breathe our own soul into that dead body? We may thank Harold Bloom (if not Freud or Sophocles) for viewing the encounter between the old and the new as fundamentally anxious and combative. Cultural and authorial parentage can be understood as a deeply meaningful struggle with inheritance and influence, but Nietzsche’s dry assessment of Roman irreverence toward the Greeks serves to remind us of other, less ponderous ways to understand the enduring relationship between death and rebirth, especially in relation to translation and voice. Shakespeare’s favourite ancient playwright was Plautus; he adapted the Roman’s Menaechmi to create The Comedy of Errors, and remembered that play later in Pericles.2 For Plautus, the verb pergraecor means something like “to act Greek,” which he takes to mean to ignore decorum and

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morals in the pursuit of pleasure.3 He uses the term several times; one example would be helpful to examine here. In his Bacchides, Nicobulus and Philoxenus are compeers, two fathers who each strive to control their wayward sons. Plautus puts the verb in the lines of Nicobulus, who scolds his slave Chrysalus by sarcastically encouraging him to continue leading Nicobulus’s son down a path of sin, as if to say, go on, please, mislead my son, why not? Propterea hoc facio, ut suadeas gnato meo ut pergraecetur tecum, tervenefice. I do this merely to make you persuade my son to join you in riotous living, you soulless villain.4 (my italics) His intended use of the verb is ironic, meaning that of course he does not desire for Chrysalus to continue this way. But some things that are difficult to control include slaves, sons, desire, and irony. Further on in the same play, Nicobulus and Philoxenus decide to finally confront their sons, who are both focused on sensual pleasure, with or without any encouragement. The fathers condemn the lustful ways of their respective offspring, but then they see the women who are accepting money from their progeny in return for sexual favours: the titular sisters, both named Bacchis. At this point, Philoxenus suddenly wavers in his righteous probity, clearly considering whether these women might accept other, older customers as well. Philoxenus admits to his friend and fellow senex that he actually wants to engage in the sin he has been so quick to condemn.

philoxenus

Quid multa? ego amo.

nicobulus

An amas?

philoxenus philoxenus

ναὶ γάρ.

In short, I’m in love with her.

nicobulus

You in love?

philoxenus

Bien sûr. (1163) 220

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In this predominantly Latin play, Philoxenus, at his moment of most shameless embrace of sensuality for its own sake, switches to Greek, as if “Ego amo” were not perfectly clear. The translator here, Paul Nixon, apparently decides that the language shift at this moment is key to the abashed comedy, and if an English speaker wants to discretely admit sin, they would switch to French, just as Plautus’s character prefers to be shameless in Greek. Since Plautus takes the plot and setting of his play from Menander’s Greek original, there is something transparently silly, or at least ironic, about associating Greekness with something separate and decadent. As if to illustrate Nietzsche’s point that the dead should be made to serve the needs of the living, a nominally Greek character in Bacchides speaks Greek, and thus invokes a Roman stereotype of Hellenic licentiousness for a Latin audience. To take what is old, if not yet dead, and find oneself in it with such a careless irreverence is, as an author, to take textual paternity no more seriously than the characters within Roman comedy typically take its biological equivalent: as a minor legal detail that necessitates debts, assets, and occasional acknowledgement. Among English playwrights, no one was more alert to the resources and weight of classical antecedents than Ben Jonson, and he was, like most of his time, particularly transfixed by Rome. As we have seen, Roman playwrights themselves were differently conscious of their Greek predecessors. In the section to follow I compare the idea of paternity in Terence’s The Self-Tormentor with Jonson’s Volpone, not because these plays have any direct source relationship,5 but rather because they both self-consciously revisit and adapt themes of generational conflict to think through the idea of belated creativity and inheritance. This strife between older and younger characters is inherent to New Comedy, so it is a useful way to approach how a previous and foreign culture is made to accommodate current vernacular art. I discuss how various kinds of parentage are positioned by Terence and Jonson in their framing texts, as well as how paternity sways the fortunes of the young within those two plays, and I argue that the operation of natural paternity, as well as of authorial paternity, engenders productive sites for moral reflection on the idea of classicism and its role in two very different vernacular cultures, that of Rome and that of London. Finally, I turn to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and suggest that it owes a greater debt to the ethic of paternity in Roman comedy than might at first be apparent.6 If these very different models of parenthood can coinhabit Shakespeare, it would not be the first time they 221

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were in contact. It has been argued that the tendency of young men to lose money to prostitutes in Roman comedy influenced the phrasing of Luke’s telling of the story of the Prodigal Son.7 The Roman and the early modern world both viewed previous cultures and casted paternal characters in interesting ways. A broad range of meanings are linked to in the idea of fatherhood, from a very literal biological role (fathers and sons in the plots) to a more figurative position of societal paternalism (the relationship of old men to young people), and extending onward to a way of positioning previous cultures, authors, and texts (the idea of paternity as a metaphor for inheritance and creativity). Pervading this analysis is the idea of legitimacy, which anchors all three levels. Biological fatherhood is often linked, whether humorously or not, to the anxiety of cuckoldry and illegitimate fatherhood. Similarly, figurative parents establish and risk their legitimacy through symbolic relationships that resemble fatherhood. Finally, each culture faces questions of how to measure its legitimacy with respect to its own literary inheritance. My overall argument is that we should welcome hybrid models of adapted and performed Shakespeare, in part because that is how Shakespeare brought life to his own past. To invest Shakespeare with the idioms, concerns, and ethical imperatives of modern culture is not to bastardize the Bard, but rather most legitimately to inherit him, as he has become our Rome. The plays I examine all engage these levels of signification, whether implicitly or explicitly, thus putting those layers of meaning in reference to one another. Biological fatherhood is a pervasive plot device in Plautus and Terence, and it is present in Jonson and Shakespeare. The playwrights I discuss are also engaged in configurations of pseudofathers, such as an introductory senex whom Terence does not locate in a family in the play, as well as patriarchs such as Volpone, Polonius, and Claudius. All the plays I discuss also demonstrate an acute awareness of literary parentage, such as the role of Menander and Greece for Plautus and Terence, and the role of those Roman dramatists for Jonson and the same playwrights as well as Saxo Grammaticus for Shakespeare. Partial paternity, or shared fatherhood, thus exists before, contemporaneous with, within, and after Shakespeare’s work. Through reference to biological, adoptive, symbolic, confused, and shared fatherhood in Terence, Jonson, and Shakespeare, I explore how the categories of legitimate and illegitimate fatherhood are established and troubled. I posit the concept of partial paternity as a way of accounting for the theme of consanguinity and filiation in these two plays. I use the phrase 222

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to activate two meanings of the word “partial”: “Partial control” means the control of a portion of something, such as a shareholder would have, and “partial judgment” means a bias in viewing a conflict, in the sense that would cause a judge to recuse herself from presiding over a case. These two meanings derive from two different locations of the concept of a “part”; in the object that is controlled or in the subject who controls. A partial judge is one who does not disclose or mitigate part of her own volition and thus is not fair, typically concealing her investment in the outcome. A partial owner is one who does not control all of an owned object but must openly mediate their intent with that of other owners. And why paternity and not maternity? For this chapter I am focused on parentage, in both its literal and metaphorical senses, primarily with regard to the male parent. The reason for my interest in this position is twofold; first, fatherhood can much more easily be called in question than the maternal link, and second, it is typically the route of financial inheritance. The anxieties associated with it combine with financial issues of debt and heirship to create a distinct range of potential significations. It is a particularly rich site, when staged, for the exploration of literal and metaphorical influence and obligation. Because we can never be sure who the father is, invocations of fatherhood are particularly evocative of what the father means. I will argue here that paternity is always partial in the judicial sense – the father is often a party of interest as well as the judge of his son’s merit, as is comically the case in Philoxenus’s idea of “love.” It is also partial in the sense of corporate ownership, because the societies of these plays are populated by many father figures who compete to exert varying degrees of control on children, whether their own or not. Terence’s The Self-Tormentor belongs to the genre of fabula palliata, which offered Rome a kind of nativized flirtation with what it saw as the older decadence of Greek culture, and it begins by quite self-consciously offering three personifications of paternity, one prefatory and two in the plot. First, Lucius Ambivius Turpio appears as a senex, and claims that an old man is an unconventional but appropriate advocate for this particular play, and that he will explain why that is true before he says anything else. As a comic demonstration of how old men talk, he does not fulfill his promise of prompt explanation, but instead he goes on to talk about the plot, and to explain that the author who has written his speech had been criticized by a different old man, Luscius of Lanuvium. Finally, he circumlocutes to his point and explains that an old man is fitting in this situation because other plays irritate him: “Those who write new plays 223

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nowadays have no concern for my old age.”8 The play that he introduces, by contrast, is newly repurposed but thankfully not really new, and in this respect he is accurate; this is a revision of an old play, which thus demands less effort from the senex. He concedes that the play is not wholly original, based as it is on Menander, like the Bacchides of Plautus, but that it is thus to be preferred;9 more recent playwrights would have made him speak “all at the top of my voice and with great effort” (40). This play, he asserts, is more deferential to the elderly, and it is also more highminded, as it will advance the morals of the young, encouraging them to “be eager to please [the audience] rather than themselves” (52). His ode to virtue is thus paradoxical, as he has just asserted that he prefers this play for precisely the opposite reason, because it allows him to please himself instead of others. Its claim to virtue quite transparently derives from a vague assertion that the old days were better, made by a senex who, like that of Plautus, is only judgmental because he feels left out. The prologue offers a microcosm of the play he introduces. As a stereotypical senex, he promises a directness that he promptly forgets, and he avows a moralism that his behaviour undermines. He offers himself as a replacement for a young prologue, and this play as a replacement for new plays, and upon his exit he is replaced by two more entirely fictional versions of himself, Chremes and Menedemus. Menedemus, the titular self-tormentor, begins the play in anguish over what he imagines to be the loss of his son, whereas Chremes embodies the pompous self-righteousness of the prologue in a line whose use has survived outside the play as a maxim, “homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto” (I’m human, and I regard no human business as alien to me; 77, my translation). This quotation, like the fathers of the play, could be taken at this moment as sincere and grand, as a harbinger of John Donne’s rejection of archipelagic identity, but as the play develops it is clear that his intent is simply to be nosy. Terence develops the ironic potential that the paired father figures of Chremes and Menedemus offer and frames them with a pseudo-author who self-consciously posits himself as a proxy heir to Menander as well as a kind of uncredited ghostly author behind an old man’s prefatory speech. Through the voice of the prologue, Terence makes it clear that he has no desire to present himself as an autonomous creator of the play that follows. On the contrary, he emerges as an interloper between various alternative authorities, or one might say potential fathers, who might deliver prologues, and also as a mediator between Greek and Roman culture, and between Menander and the audience. The play 224

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that follows similarly presents fathers in a comparative, contingent position. Chremes and Menedemus have contrasting personalities, but their interchangeable character as fathers in the plot is the play’s central joke, emphasized by a stage that offers their two houses, as well as the behaviour of their two respective sons, who hover between habitations with impunity. Menedemus regrets his previous, conditional parenting (99–105) and throughout the play yearns for the other extreme, a kind of unconditional surrender to his impulsive son. Chremes, on the other hand, finds faults with his peer’s harshness and then switches positions and defends that same harshness to his own son (200–10). Indeed, Chremes proudly announces to his peer that extremes of discipline and permissiveness are equally bad (440–1), while blind to his own extreme righteousness. Echoing this duplicity, Chremes’s son Clitipho avows that he will one day set things right and set no boundaries with his own son when he has one (214–29), and we can laugh at the absurdity of his confidence. Moral recriminations pullulate the stage in fundamentally reflective patterns, becoming almost as confusing as the plot. Terence’s play is thus built on a fabric of ethical misrecognition, as each character experiences the connections between themselves and the world as a kind of empty space where humility and duty should reside. These gaps are accentuated by comically playful moments that confound modern translators. Several aporias in the text are associated with Chremes’s slave, Syrus.10 One of the most telling is when Chremes gossips about Menedemus, calling the latter, as he often does, an “old man” (545, 759); Syrus responds, “He’s an idiot” (546). The recent translator Peter Brown takes this remark to be said to Chremes about Menedemus, but the previous translator, Betty Radice, takes Syrus to be referring to Clinia, and in fact it could easily apply to Syrus’s master himself, spoken to the audience in confidence. Ethics may be hard to locate in this landscape, but idiots are so plentiful that pronoun reference is a problem. While Plautus enjoyed using the verb pergraecor, Terence did not, which implies that he saw foolishness as an inherently human trait, not a special quality of Rome’s neighbours. Terence assimilates a Greek inheritance without that same strategy of moral derision, indeed without a sense that the Greek is fundamentally foreign to the Roman, evincing Nietzsche’s understanding of the Roman habit of imperial incorporative translation. More than a millennium later, Ben Jonson wrote Volpone, a play that is differently built on the theme of paternity.11 To begin, the prologue, quite in contrast with Terence’s, establishes his author as the sole creator of the 225

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play that follows, asserting that it comes “from his own hand, without a co-adjutor, / Novice, journey-man, or tutor” (17–18).12 In the ensuing monologue from the titular character, Volpone extravagantly, and with more than a hint of eroticism, lavishes praise on his idolatrous object, gold. Holding a coin up, he says, “O thou son of Sol, / But brighter than thy father, let me kiss, / With adoration, thee…” (1.1.10–12). The audience might justly feel that, as the play itself begins, Jonson’s confident moral paternity yields to the confusing fallen landscape of Roman comedy, where each character seems to be chasing self-interest, either with or without the pretense of moralism. But in its opening frames, Jonson sets out Volpone as a work so focused on paternity that it seems to be almost as much a satire on that theme as it is a laceration of cupidity.13 I will argue, however, that paternity, at least in a metaphoric or metaphysical sense, is not fundamentally satirical, but instead operates by a more fixed notion of truth and intent. In this way Jonson exerts overt authority over his play in a much more singular way than Terence does, and through a rather ornate economy of replacement Jonson’s truly begotten play revels in the perverse paternity of its vulpine centre, offering us a kind of legitimate Christian framing structure for a deeply vacuous exploration of various ways of corrupting paternity, perversions that darkly echo the legitimate unity with which the play begins. Along with this more fixed principle of paternity, the female presence is erased. When the play offers a positive perspective on parentage, there are no mothers involved. Examples of this include Jonson’s role as authorial father, Bonario’s status as a son (however bad his father), and Celia’s restored dowry at the end. This purely male version of procreation is oddly legitimate, but more often we see a wide variety of pseudo-filial relationships. Androgyno has the soul that once belonged to Pythagoras and has experienced a history of metempsychosis that is both transexual and gynophobic, going thousands of years without any connection to sexual reproduction (1.2.1–30), and Mosca is clearly a kind of apprentice or scion to Volpone. But both the obsequious majority of Mosca’s part as a parasite, as well as the alacrity and causticity of his late betrayal, constitute a dry satire on the monetary subtext to the father-son relationship, as his repeated use of the word “patron” emphasizes (1.2.64, 1.3.6). The titular character operates as the patriarch of the play, and because he lacks a biological son, the fate of the wealth he hoards is the play’s central conceit, attracting a variety of aspiring heirs, causing each in turn to contribute riches in the hopes of future return, and leading to a cascade of unmaskings where each sinner is made to reveal their moral 226

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depravity for the betterment of the audience. The game that he sets up is characteristically modern in its design, especially in the monetary and corporate coherence that makes it suggestively resonant with Ponzi schemes and that large swath of capitalism that engages in more legal versions thereof that blend outright criminal fraud with elements of legitimate commerce. Because Volpone has no heir, his wealth can be directed to whomever he chooses to receive it. Mosca tells Corbaccio, in confidence: Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed; There, frame a will, whereto you shall inscribe My master your sole heir. (1.4.93–5) Will, in the sense of intent, takes primacy over the legal sense of will, which typically follows filial descent. That disruption, of course, is the premise of the elaborate game he establishes, whereby a variety of suitors compete to trade current goods for the prospect of future returns on their investment. The only genuinely biological link in Jonson’s play is that between Corbaccio and Bonario. Corbaccio’s participation in the inheritance game involves disinheriting and thus commodifying his son, and Corvino’s participation involves attempting to traffic in the sexual commodification of his wife, Celia. Corvino’s transition from ferociously guarding his wife’s chastity to forcing her into prostitution with equal cruelty is evidently a satire on male turpitude, but it is also a portrayal of what it means to turn a person into an object, which Corvino does to his wife in both versions of his fury. Celia and Bonario are thus in a sense both biologically bound to their oppressors, who each obviate a natural bond, of marriage and paternity, in favour of a speculative gamble on a supposed inheritance. Volpone puts his own game at risk, and ultimately destroys it, when he veers from avarice to a sexual desire for Celia. This could be viewed as a conversion from one kind of erotic idolatry to another, shifting his object from gold to a woman as Corvino shifts his object conversely from a woman to gold. When Volpone makes this change, he exposes his own humanity to judgment, in the human judgment of the court and ultimately before its divine equivalent; until then he is essentially simply better at sin than most in Venice. His biased advocate, Voltore, attempts to persuade the Avocatori of Venice to side with his cause, and he does so by insistently addressing them in terms of figurative paternity: “fatherhoods” (4.5.13, 22, 49, 70, 87, 117), “fathers” (4.5.29, 80, 93, 98, 142), 227

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even as he intersperses those metaphorical honorifics with literal references to Corbaccio, whom he claims to be a victim of Bonario’s abuse. Voltore avoids Corbaccio’s name, instead calling him “father” (4.5.53, 63, 71, 74, 89, 103). The repetition of literal and metaphoric uses of the same word (which would not be possible with the more metaphoric “patron”) creates a space where Voltore can destabilize the word and replace the Avocatori’s initial interest in justice with a confused rage at the (actual) victim; the implication is (to apply an anachronistic word) that is how patriarchy works. Both Terence’s play and Jonson’s feature one of the distinctive tropes of Roman comedy, the notion that within a framework of great complexity, the declaration of open truth is quickly interpreted as just another trick. Syrus spends most of the play hiding his plans from Chremes and Menedemus, but ultimately concludes that he can “deceive both of them by telling the truth” (710–1). Similarly, when Bonario rescues Celia and unveils Volpone’s rapacious deceit, his virtue is quickly defeated by the corruption of the court. That Voltore repeatedly addresses the Avocatori as “your fatherhoods” points to the degree to which Jonson is consciously developing paternity, and more particularly partial paternity, as a theme. The Avocatori are partial in both senses. They form a corporate judging body, and at least one of them stands to gain by the trial. One member of the Avocatori is literally legally partial and potentially parentally implicated in the trial, as he openly fantasizes about Mosca inheriting and providing erotic and material joy for his daughter (5.12.62). The role of the daughter arises in Terence’s play, too, where Antiphila emerges as Chremes’s lost daughter and is offered as a substitute heir not out of genuine care but rather as a way to disinherit and reinfantilize Clitipho. Women in general are pawns at best in both worlds, existing only to emphasize the struggles that fathers exert to maintain solitary control and transgenerational survival through their real or symbolic sons. As previously noted, Jonson is not making particular reference to Terence. The thematic structure and wit of the Self-Tormentor are fairly easily seen in a wide variety of similar Roman plays. Because the present chapter is not a source study in the narrow sense, it is easier to look to wider issues, and I would suggest that the model of partial paternity as it was originating in New Comedy offers a suggestive model for cultural transfer. Terence positions himself as jostling with Menander to be a kind of stepfather to an older Greek play, Jonson advances himself as a singularly procreative father of a satire on the partiality of earthly fatherhood, and both plays show paternity far more in the breach than 228

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in the observance. Jonson is reframing and christianizing the agonistic and polytheistic world of Terence, and he is thus the partial heir to his Roman patron.14 In Hamlet, Shakespeare was presented with a tension that was familiar to Jonson, but in a very different form. The story of the Danish prince ultimately derives from Saxo’s version, which clearly aligns with a pagan heroic ethos of virtuous and violent revenge,15 even as Shakespeare imbricates Christian moral reflection into it: Hamlet must still enforce his own legitimacy through the killing of the killer of his father. As such, it is not surprising that the play has come to be associated with some of the most profound meditations on the debts and tributes that sons owe their fathers. Although such readings are clearly well founded, they serve to obscure another set of patterns in the play, which resonates with neither Nordic heroism nor the kinds of legitimacy encouraged by Christianity or Freud. Not as easily noticed in the play is the economy of partial paternity characteristic of Roman comedy. Hamlet has many fathers. In addition to the ghostly king, Claudius has a claim to the position inasmuch as he has assumed that role by virtue of his marriage to Gertrude. Amid biting sarcasm going in both directions, Hamlet’s tense dialogue with Claudius after the Mousetrap is clearly meant to re-gender Claudius as a provocative act, and to demonstrate Hamlet’s free acerbity and unpredictable agency. Nonetheless, the prince’s syllogism assumes that Claudius can be called a father, even if only as part of a misogynistic repositioning that equates marital union with hermaphrodism: “Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh, so my mother” (3.6.46–7). This image of fusion is itself probably a melding of two very different texts, from very different times: Genesis 2:24 and the story of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis (Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 4), which is Ovid’s version of the creation of a body with two genders.16 Arthur Golding translates the key moment thus: Even so when through hir hugging and hir grasping of the tother The members of them mingled were and fastned both togither, They were not any lenger two: but (as it were) a toy Of double shape. You could not say it was a perfect boy Nor perfect wench: it seemed both and none of both to beene. (4.466–70)17 Hamlet’s verbal aggression is given force by the ironic layering where he alludes both to the figurative union of Christian marriage and the 229

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literal union of Ovid’s pair. In Ovid’s telling, Salmacis, the nymph, is the pursuer who ultimately fuses with her male object of desire, rendering Hermaphroditus a fusion of two lovers in one body. That the female is the pursuer in Ovid is a resonance which hints at Hamlet’s anxiety of his mother’s sexuality, and also points to the interchangeability and mutability of her male love object. Claudius in fact had already drawn attention to the repetition of fathers when he articulated the iterative loss and regeneration that makes Hamlet’s grief common: But you must know your father lost a father, That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound In filial obligation for some term To do obsequious sorrow. (1.2.89–92) The king’s logic is linear, connecting the loss of fathers to the repetitive erasure of predecessors, a process that delivers the past to the present. But his grammar and his rhetoric work against a diachronic linearity. The second and third uses of the word “lost” are directly sequential, which in itself almost mocks the grief of loss, turning it into a repetition of words in different senses, antanaclasis. The words have different grammatical functions; the first is a past participle, and the second is a verb in the past tense. Further, the two words move forward in the grammar of the sentence and backward in objective time, with the two fathers referenced being the subsequent followed by the previous: syntax reverses temporality. That confusing repetition and reversal of loss supports Claudius’s rhetorical application of the logic of replacement: the course of generation goes forward in reality, and backward in recollection, and its repetitive linearity renders particular elements, such as whether a death was natural or not, trivial. Implicitly, the king is offering himself as a living father to take the place of the latest lost one. But other fathers can be found as well. Polonius would hypothetically become a father-in-law, in the event that the abortive love between Hamlet and Ophelia had progressed. Other examples of partial father figures include the King of England, who executes the prince’s enemies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, protecting him in the way a father might. The First Player in his role as Aeneas (2.2.369b–421) is the father of Rome, and the Player King is a proxy for Old Hamlet. Polonius has, by virtue of the plot, only a very thin and hypothetical claim to a paternal position, but several moments emphasize that, if one can separate the associative process of replacement from the more 230

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concrete linearity of paternity, other instances become more relevant. When Hamlet discovers that he has stabbed Polonius, he says, “I took thee for thy better” (3.4.30), a comment which explicitly references a kind of casual confusion of father figures; someone was hiding behind the arras, and Hamlet appears only mildly disappointed that it was not Claudius. Another moment when Polonius is associated with paternal replacements is when he says that he played the part of Julius Caesar when he was at university (3.2.89). His capability to stand in for that pivotal historical patriarch of Rome, and to refer to such a representation so nonchalantly, underlines his association with a casual and fluid interchange of paternity. An earlier moment is when he describes the players who are visiting Denmark. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men. (2.2.396–402)18 Like much of the dialogue surrounding the players, his comments echo between the performative and the tangible to provide a metatheatrical articulation of how Shakespeare and his contemporaries saw art in general and plays in particular. The genera mista that he points to were, of course, a powerful means of making art. It is impossible to say precisely how seriously Polonius takes his own assessment, but there is clearly a cumulative effect to his proliferating hybridizations. Shakespeare’s own oeuvre thrived through such cross-fertilizations, and in this context these terms are articulated in a way that suggests that either Polonius is mocking their hyperfashionability or Shakespeare is mocking Polonius’s attempt to praise them. As with Claudius’s discourse on paternity, his words could be taken as either serious or wryly comic. Like Claudius, his syntax points to a comic tone, and like Claudius he references a miseen-abîme: the king did so with temporal loss, and Polonius does so with generic miscegenation. Claudius is viewing diachronic linearity with impatience, and Polonius is looking at synchronic hybridity with joy. In this context, it can hardly be an accident that Polonius selects as his personification of levity Plautus, who helped to pioneer the Roman adaptation of New Comedy. This is the only instance in Shakespeare where that Roman author is mentioned, and it was an author who Shakespeare of course knew very well. While it is certainly true that 231

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Hamlet is a synthesis of a pagan story of revenge with a Christian ethic of moral reflection, there are also touches of Roman comedy. That influence can be located in moments that hint at a kind of arbitrary economy of replacement that is deeply at odds with the weighty reputation of the play, and to some extent helps to create it through contrast. For example, Hamlet’s effort to present two pictures of two brothers to his mother (3.4.53–71) invokes the common plot device of duality in Roman drama, which manifested in The Comedy of Errors as indistinguishable Antipholuses and Dromios. Hamlet’s point is that there is an absolute, fundamental difference between the two, but the fact that he presents their pictures in this way implies that he thinks his mother sees them as interchangeable. Although old people may tend to be hypocritical in general, Claudius’s lecture to Hamlet is particularly Roman in its equation of morality with decorum: Hamlet should not persevere in impious stubbornness, more because it is unbecoming than because it is wrong. And as any reader of Roman comedy knows, the prideful moralist will soon unveil himself to be guilty of the sin he condemns. But perhaps the most Roman moment in the play is when the Ghost of Old Hamlet asks the attendants of his son to swear to keep his appearance secret, which is the only time when he speaks to someone other than his son in the play, and thus this is a moment when the range of his authority is particularly visible. He moves, and Hamlet remarks on his movement in terms that are inescapably comic. Ghost cries under the stage.

ghost

Swear.

hamlet

Ha-ha, boy, sayst thou so? Art thou there, Truepenny? Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage. Consent to swear.

horatio

Propose the oath, my lord.

hamlet

Never to speak of this that you have seen, Swear by my sword.

ghost

Swear.

hamlet

Hic et ubique? Then we’ll shift our ground. (1.5.149–56) 232

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Like a father in Plautine comedy, Old Hamlet attempts to secure obedience from his son and his erstwhile underlings, and looks silly doing so. Hamlet addresses him in Latin, which certainly does not weaken the association with Roman drama. On a more substantive level, Hamlet’s sense that his father is here and everywhere prompts a response that might come from a Plautine son: “Then we’ll shift our ground.” The son in these comedies would mean that he will escape supervision, whereas the prince means that he will find it, but the conjunction of Latin, comic stagecraft, and this particular confluence of fathers searching for obedience in sons resonates clearly with Roman comedy. Stephen Greenblatt has argued that “Hamlet is a play of contagious, almost universal self-estrangement.”19 He is referring to the characters within the play and their ways of knowing one another and the world, but his remark could also apply to the genre of tragedy that anchors the sense of profundity that so distinguishes the play. It is deep because it plays with shallowness, and it is tragic because it invokes the ghost of Plautus. At this point some comparison can be made between Jonson and Shakespeare. Jonson develops a play where paternity is notable both for its ubiquity as an allegory and its near absence as a fact of the plot. Bonario is a son who is better than his father, and Celia, in reclaiming her dowry at the end of the play, is in a similar position of being a strangely legitimate inheritor. Jonson imprints these two virtuous youths of the play with a grace that is strange within a sinful world, and certainly alien to the dexterity and luck by which the youth of Terentian Athens thrive. By contrast, Shakespeare puts parentage at the centre of his stage, his plot, and its thematic ramifications, to the extent that the countervailing presence of comic patterning is easily overlooked. Both later authors implicitly welcome and critique the inheritance of Rome, offering it as a valuable set of possessions that can only be properly revived through aporias far more profound than the gaps of Syrus. In such a sinful world as the mirror that Jonson provides to London with the local colour of Venice, the meek are the only ones who could possibly inherit anything of value, and in the tragic version of Denmark that Shakespeare stages, the peculiar singularity of the eponymous prince is supported by the spectre of interchangeability, a sense that is at least partly supported by allusions to Roman comedy. This could be viewed as a ghostly revival of the dead, in the terms of Nietzsche, or a conversion of the pagan, in the terms of Derrida; perhaps it is most fundamentally both, just as the Renaissance itself was simultaneously a reanimation and a filial conversion of its ancient inheritance.20 233

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One of the most important consequences of this study is to emphasize that literary and cultural parentage, and thus legitimacy, are deeply and perhaps intrinsically unstable. Lori Chamberlain has argued convincingly that translations are often framed as metaphorically female and stigmatized versions of what are often understood as masculine and legitimate originals, and the labour of the translator is similarly viewed as secondary.21 In a similar vein, Seth Lerer has called into question the ways in which the pedagogy of the history of the English language has been tethered to “great authors” such as Chaucer and Shakespeare, and how manifold and often chaotic linguistic change has often been made to adhere to a “linear progression” so that such a line of development can resemble a narrative, indeed a kind of quest reminiscent of the very medieval period that is posited as the mystic birthplace of English language and its presumed grandeur.22 Narratives of cultural and linguistic legitimacy often hinge on such oppositions between what is established and patrilineal and what is dubious and potentially female. Greek drama was the father of Roman comedy, but Greek culture came to symbolize Rome’s feminized and sinful danger. Saxo wrote of Amleth being sent to England under Danelaw;23 for Saxo, England was only external, but for Shakespeare’s staging of the story, England is both the ultimately grounded place of the stage and the doubly abstracted place of Hamlet’s furtive exile. Only a few decades ago, Shakespeare’s England was viewed as singular, and his presence in the modern era was relatively confidently divided into, on the one hand, an original and faithful study and staging, and, on the other, analyses tied to cultural theory and adaptations, which were often relegated to a secondary status in relation to their more traditional mode. In changes that had been incremental and became more recently tidal, such paradigms have been deeply problematized by the danger of their obvious resonance with white supremacy, sentimental nationalism, and colonialism.24 The Royal Shakespeare Company is finally reflecting the population of Britain, and if a Shakespeare play is rendered in the style of Chinese traditional opera, it is no longer clear which cultural parent is legitimate and which is secondary.25 Shakespeare’s own place in literary history is instructive in relation to our current moment of radical cultural change: to paraphrase Nietzsche, he is dead, after all. But as Prince Hamlet can attest, ghostly fathers can have something remaining to say.

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Shakespeare’s Fathers and the Undead Renaissance notes 1 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Translations,” The Translation Studies Reader, 3rd ed., ed. Lawrence Venuti (New York: Routledge, 2012), 67. 2 On Pericles, see Michael Saenger, “Pericles and the Burlesque of Romance,” in Pericles: Critical Essays, ed. David Skeele (New York: Garland, 2000), 191–204. Of the books and authors that most dominate Shakespeare’s source base, some, such as Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) were mostly used for plot, and others, such as Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (in 1567), were predominantly inspirational for Shakespeare’s imagery and sense of character and event. Relatively few sources operated on both levels; chiefly they include the Bible and Marlowe’s works but also Plautus. One scholar has argued that Plautus was “an author with whom Shakespeare was well acquainted, to whom he refers throughout his career, and in whose dramatic techniques he was deeply informed”; Bruce Louden, “The Tempest, Plautus, and the Rudens,” Comparative Drama 33, no. 2 (1999): 199–233. 3 I am grateful to Leon Grek for mentioning this verb in connection to my project at the Renaissance Society of America Conference, Chicago, 30 Mar.–1 Apr. 2017. 4 Plautus, Bacchides, in Works, ed. T.E. Page et al., trans. Paul Nixon (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1928), 1:812–3. Quotations to follow are from this edition. 5 On Jonson’s general debt to Terence, see Richard Hardin, “New Light on Jonson and Roman Comedy: Volpone and Eunuchus, Magnetic Lady and Truculentus,” Ben Jonson Journal 20, no. 2 (2013): 179–200. 6 These plays are thus addressed in a sequence that is not entirely coincident with their compositional order. It is helpful to address Jonson’s later play before Shakespeare’s earlier one. My argument here is not that Jonson influenced Shakespeare but, rather, that both were coping with a Roman inheritance in some ways at odds with Christian values. Jonson does this more overtly, so it is easier to identify his use of these concepts as preparation for an examination of Shakespeare’s encounter with Rome. 7 See Callie Callon, “Adulescentes and Meretrices: The Correlation between Squandered Patrimony and Prostitutes in the Parable of the Prodigal Son,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 75, no. 2 (2013): 259–78. 8 Terence, Works, ed. John Barsby (Cambridge, ma : Harvard University Press, 2001), 1:43. 9 As Richard Hardin puts it, “Terence readily countered the charge that he had kidnapped characters from Greek comedy”; Hardin, “New Light,” 179. 10 For example, at line 596 Syrus says he has thought of a trick, but we never know precisely what he means.

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Shakespeare in Succession 11 Kristen McDermott has offered a condensation of much of the scholarship focusing on Jonson and his “obsession with questions of parentage and procreation” (61); these questions inevitably reference Jonson’s loss of his own children, which he memorized in his iconic epitaphs, as well as the persistent motif of parenting in his plays. See Kristen McDermott, “‘He may be our father, perhaps:’ Paternity, Puppets, Boys, and Bartholomew Fair,” in Critical Essays on Ben Jonson, ed. Robert N. Watson (New York: Prentice Hall, 1997), 60–81. McDermott follows others in putting stress on readings that connect Jonson’s biography with his plays; this has also been a theme in criticism of Shakespeare’s son and his play Hamlet. My argument rests on more intertextual grounds. 12 Ben Jonson, Volpone, in Ben Jonson’s Plays and Masques, ed. Robert Adams (New York: Norton, 1979). 13 Suzanne Penuel has made a similar argument about the relationship between parentage and filial rebellion with respect to Jonson’s plots and his understanding of his authorial relationship to literary fathers and sons. Jonson based much of his creativity on imitatio and Roman comedy was one of his favourite source of inspiration, a source that he made no effort to hide. Penuel suggests, “Every Man In turns a Renaissance artistic quandary, the question of what to do with the legacy of the Greco-Roman forerunners and conquerors, into a narrative of a son’s escape from an oppressive father and a father’s ambivalence about having a son.” Suzanne Penuel, “Every Man in His Humour and the Fathers of Ben,” Ben Jonson Journal 23 (2): 212–30. 14 Suzanne Penuel characterizes this configuration eloquently, suggesting that “representing conflicts between the Renaissance and antiquity as conflicts between a contemporaneous father and son allows an intimate telescoping of the centuries that separate influencing and influenced writers.” Penuel, “Every Man In,” 215. 15 For an account of Saxo Grammaticus’s version of the story, see G.R. Hibbard’s introduction to his Oxford edition of the play, Hamlet (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 7–9. 16 Jonathan Bate argues that “the union of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus served in the Renaissance as a model for the idea of marriage as the union of spiritual equals”; Shakespeare and Ovid (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 124. More recently, Deborah Uman has analyzed the story in reference to Antony and Cleopatra and explored the “connections between the theme of gender fluidity and the practice of literary transformations”; “Shakespeare’s ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt’: Hermaphroditic Transformation in Antonius and Antony and Cleopatra,” in Ovid and Adaptation in Early Modern Theatre, ed. Lisa Starks (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 76.

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Shakespeare’s Fathers and the Undead Renaissance 17 Ovid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The Arthur Golding Translation, 1567, ed. John Nims (New York: Macmillan, 1965). 18 The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). The Riverside is cited here because it includes additional text found only in the Folio edition of the play. 19 Stephen Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2001), 212. 20 In his seminal study of Jonson’s development of imitatio in his poetry, Richard Peterson argues that Jonson’s praise of Shakespeare is fundamentally characteristic of his general navigation of the paradoxes involved in derivative creativity, moral praise, and textual life. He suggests that the particular section of Jonson’s commendatory poem for the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays (1623) that directly addresses Shakespeare’s relationship with Latin and Greek writers portrays the Folio’s posthumous publication to be a living, human event. He argues, “In the tableau Jonson creates the ancients seem to gather as an audience to Shakespeare’s works”; Peterson, Imitation and Praise in the Poems of Ben Jonson (New Haven, ct : Yale University Press, 1981), 178. 21 See Lori Chamberlain, “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation,” in Translation Studies Reader, 254–68. 22 Seth Lerer, “The History of the English Language and the Medievalist,” in Approaches to Teaching the History of the English Language: Pedagogy in Practice, ed. Mary Hayes and Allison Burkette (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 73. 23 See Hibbard’s Oxford edition, 8. 24 Alexa Alice Joubin has supported this kind of reading from the point of view of the examination of East Asian Shakespeare. She eschews models that view Asian Shakespeare as a rebellion against or an advocacy for the Bard, and she also resists the tendency to reduce Asian performances to veiled commentary on famous, local issues, such as the division of the Korean Peninsula. Borrowing from the botanical metaphor for cultural transfer from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Joubin argues that because “a rhizome provides nonlinear, trans-species connections in plants, a rhizomatic network of knowledge captures multiplicity more effectively through nonhierarchical entry and exit points in data sets and the interpretations of culture.” Joubin, Shakespeare and East Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 12. Julie Sanders has likewise cautioned that “the political aspect of ‘re-visionary’ writing should never occlude the simultaneously pleasurable aspects of reading into such texts their intertextual and allusive relationship with other texts”; Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation (New York, Routledge, 2016), 10.

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Shakespeare in Succession 25 One of the most interesting aspects of this hybridity is that it takes place on every level: genre and the question of which culture produced the source text, performance, touring and multiple audiences, and also simply speaking multiple languages onstage. The intersection of performance theory and translation theory is particularly productive in conjunction with the recent move toward presentism, because performance theory has always been anchored around the immediacy of the stage. On a macro level, Alexa Alice Joubin suggests that “audiences familiar with Korean folklore would have heard echoes of the two [indigenous] myths when they encountered Shakespeare’s King Lear, while others may have seen parallels to the Lear narrative in the performance of King Uru”; Joubin, Shakespeare and East Asia, 108. Inmaculada Serón has pointed out an increased interest in the critical study of performances that cross linguistic and cultural barriers; Serón, “Theatre Translation Studies: An Overview of a Burgeoning Field (Part II: From the Early 2000s to 2014),” Status Quaestionis 7 (2016): 36–8. David Johnston has argued that his translations of Lope de Vega are “hybrid texts that move between and over different historical moments, simultaneously locating and uprooting the historical imagination of the spectator so that the translated text is experienced not as historically fixed, but as a threshold text”; Johnston, “Lope de Vega in English,” in The Comedia in English: Translation and Performance, ed. Susan Paun de García and Donald Larson (Rochester, ny : Tamesis, 2008), 71.

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10 Commedia dell’Arte Translations: Three Pantalones in The Merchant of Venice Sergio Costola

Almost two decades ago, Dennis Kennedy lamented how “Shakespearean studies and theatrical production” had been too “Anglo-centered,” that the Bard’s work had primarily been in the hands “of critics and editors with profound allegiances to English literature,” and that “both the teaching and the acting of Shakespeare in English customarily” started with “a deep study of the linguistic clues in the text,” thus emphasizing the role of Shakespeare “as a literary creator.”1 Despite that the situation has somewhat changed since then, more attention should be paid to what Patrice Pavis has called the “language-body” of the translated text,2 which would entail considering a literary text as a “complex relationship between its physical and signifying structures,” and thus moving “beyond narrowly defined textual analysis.”3 In addition, as Rita Wilson and Brigid Maher have argued, broader paradigms of intercultural communication force us to consider translation “not only as an interlinguistic process, but also as an intersemiotic activity across cultures.”4 Rita Wilson in particular, following Arjun Appadurai, examines the topos of translation in narratives that can be described as “transnational,” that is, “narratives that ... are located between languages: whether languages in the conventional sense of the term or different modes of discourse operating within and drawn from discrete polysystems.” These narratives, Wilson continues, “explore new identities by construing new dialogic spaces that, at once, foreground, perform and problematize the act of translation.”5 The Merchant of Venice is based on a complex combination and translation of previously identified prose sources and dramatic motifs. The play can thus be considered a “transnational” narrative, the product of a

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series of quotations, translations, and revisions, and part of the pleasure for the audience came from the various opportunities offered for intertextual interpretation. Most of the plot, as many scholars agree, is derived from the story of Giannetto in the fourteenth-century Italian collection Il Pecorone: from this text, Shakespeare borrowed the motifs of a pound of flesh, the rich lady and her suitors, and the ring, which a lover swears to cherish forever but is then forced to give away.6 John Gross also refers to other plays and texts that, though lost in the case of some of them, might have constituted potential sources for Shakespeare. One is The Jew, a play mentioned by Stephen Gosson in his School of Abuse, and which Gross describes as showing “the greediness of worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers.”7 A second is Thomas Dekker’s The Jew of Venice, and indeed other so-called Jew-of-Venice plays were performed by English companies in Germany. Other sources include a contemporary broadsheet, The Ballad of Gernutus, about a Jewish moneylender who lives in Venice, Alexandre Sylvain’s The Orator, a possible source for Shylock’s arguments during the trial scene, and Anthony Munday’s romance Zelauto, for the flesh-bond motif and a hint of Jessica and Lorenzo’s story.8 Most important for Gross is of course Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, a famous play that “may have been one of the things that prompted Shakespeare to attempt a Jewish theme himself.”9 Janet Adelman also analyzes the similarities between Merchant and Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London, a comedy about usury that was probably first performed in 1581, and its sequel, The Three Lords and the Three Ladies of London.10 In her edition of the play, Leah S. Marcus11 refers to other very interesting sources and contexts, and usefully republishes all these texts: Richard Robinson’s tale of the three caskets from the Gesta Romanorum;12 the anonymous Ballad of a Cruel Jew;13 Sir Thomas Elyot observations on the true meaning of friendship, from The Book Named the Governor;14 Edwin Sandys’s reflections on the duties of husband and wife from Sermon Sixteen on Marriage in Sermons (London, 1585);15 Daniel Price’s “The Merchant: A Sermon Preached at Paul’s Cross”;16 Thomas Coryat’s description of Venice from his Coryat’s Crudities;17 William Camden on the case of Doctor Lopez from The History of the Life and Reign of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth;18 Thomas Calvert on the causes of the miseries of the Jews from the preface to Rabbi Samuel of Morocco, The Blessed Jew of Morocco, or, a Blackmoor Made White;19 Peter Heylyn on judaizing Christians in the 1590s, from The History of the Sabbath;20 Sir Simonds D’Ewes’s parliamentary debate on usury, 240

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delivered April 19, 1571;21 and Edward Nicholas’s “An Apology for the Honorable Nation of the Jews.”22 In general, however, as Michael Shapiro has argued, after the Reformation new “secular drama ... showed only occasional interest in Jewish characters,” which became “quite rare in early modern English drama.”23 I have listed all the potential sources and contexts that scholars have referred to in order to point out how long such a list needs to be to sketch the play’s proper context, and to link Shakespeare’s work to theatrical practice as well as literary genres and traditions. These plays were not primarily conceived of as literature, and their principal destination was not the printed text. Since they are not strictly literary, they require consideration as elements of a more complex and composite event. Graham Holderness has claimed that drama has too often been treated – in literary and cultural analysis – as written text; he argues for the need to reconfigure critical analysis with a different conception of Renaissance drama, as theatre: “as dramatic materials that were devised specifically for performance ... as ‘texts’ that have a performance history often separable from their history as written texts,” and “as cultural products that are designed for mobilization in theatrical rather than literary-critical ways.”24 Besides all these textual sources, in fact, Shakespeare was also exploiting, as I shall argue, the possibilities offered by commedia dell’arte characterization and situations, in particular the language-body, that is to say, the ethos, social relationships, and appearance, of the Pantalone mask.25 Responses to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice have been primarily focused, at least since the end of the Second World War, on the character of Shylock, and, as Harold Bloom has pointed out, early twenty-first-century responses continue to do so, “particularly with re-evaluating the degree and the nature of Shylock’s villainy.”26 Of particular concern has been the courtroom scene (4.1),27 when Portia finally appears disguised as “a young and learned doctor” (4.1.143) of laws named Balthasar. Portia’s brashly direct question, “Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?” (4.1.168) comes in response to the duke’s asking her “Are you acquainted with the difference / That holds this present question in the court?” (4.1.165-6) – a formulation, as Janet Adelman has aptly observed, “that exceeds its application to the legal dispute between Shylock and Antonio, turning the difference between them itself into the question in the court.”28 Portia’s answer seems, at first, to dissipate the ambiguity: “I am informed thoroughly of the cause” (4.1.167), making clear that the duke’s “difference” refers to the litigation 241

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itself and not to the characters involved. However, her aforementioned question immediately following this assertive statement brings back the attention to the distinction between Antonio and Shylock as, respectively, Christian and Jew. How are we supposed to interpret Portia’s question? It must be heard as either a sincere question or joke, and these alternatives are tied to two different ways of understanding the character and thus the play. Was Shylock on the Elizabethan stage presented with distinct visual signifiers of Jewishness? Was he different from Antonio? How did “the Jew that Shakespeare drew”29 appear to Elizabethan audiences? According to Janet Adelman, “the question is oddly out of place in Merchant, where everyone can tell the difference,”30 and that Shylock drew on existing and negative literary and theatrical caricature of Jewishness has become a consensus among scholars and editions of the play. If this is the case, then, Portia’s question would have simply triggered the spectators’ laughter. However, I will argue that it is the reading of this line as a joke, not as a question, that would be out of place, if we take into consideration the duke’s response to Portia’s query – “Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth” (4.1.169) – which does not seem to imply a joke, especially because Antonio and Shylock’s difference is here marked by age. In addition, both the entire play, where Shylock’s diversity is characterized through much subtler means, and also the history of marked Jewish characters on the Elizabethan stage seem to suggest the reading of Portia’s line as a real and serious question. In fact, as Emma Smith has argued, “the paucity of early modern references to specific visual signifiers for Jewishness suggests that Portia’s question in the courtroom ... is a real one.”31 Early modern depictions did not generally present Jews with physical attributes that distinguished them from Christians. It was only in the eighteenth century that distinctive physical traits begin to appear, culminating in the stereotypical hooked nose, derived from nineteenth-century ideas about racial typing.32 If Portia’s question is real and not intended to evoke laughter, what did Shylock look like? While it has been convincingly argued by a number of scholars33 how Shylock did not appear – i.e., that he did not look like Elmer Edgar Stoll depicted him in his essay “Shylock,” wearing “the red hair and beard … from the beginning, as well as the bottle-nose of Barabas”34 – can we venture a convincing hypothesis regarding the stage practice of the time to picture how he was presented? As some scholars have observed,35 Shakespeare modelled Shylock and his daughter Jessica on the comic figure of Pantalone and his youthful 242

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and marriageable daughter. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, studies concerning the relationship between Shakespeare and commedia dell’arte are still primarily based on a picture of commedia as it evolved in the eighteenth century. In fact, the work done by numerous scholars over the past three decades has offered a new methodological approach. Beginning more than thirty years ago with the insights of Ferdinando Taviani and Mirella Schino,36 the so-called phenomenon of the commedia dell’arte, as Siro Ferrone has recently noted, is still largely regarded as a “popular” theatrical genre, “populated by actors with masks that make jumps and grimaces, beat each other up and fall in love with exaggerated words and acrobatic gestures, to the delight of young and old alike, always wearing the same colorful costumes.”37 Commedia dell’arte was a theatre created by those professional actors and actresses who, organized in commercial profit-sharing companies, toured Europe and adapted their theatrical know-how to specific situations. These companies, contrary to what much of Romantic historiography has led us to believe, did not primarily perform in squares or streets, but more often did so in leased stanze or in the palaces of the main city authorities for elite audiences. In fact, the comici of the commedia dell’arte were often attempting to differentiate themselves from street artists and charlatans, as evinced, for example, in the following passage by Andrea Perrucci, taken from his Dell’Arte rappresentativa, premeditata ed all’improvviso (1699): The trouble is that today everyone considers himself capable of plunging into comic improvisation, and the lowest dregs of society devote themselves to it, thinking it is an easy thing. Their unawareness of the danger derives from ignorance and ambition. This is why the basest charlatans and mountebanks, take it into their heads to attract and entertain people with words, in the guise of so many crowing Hercules in golden chains. They try to perform improvised comedies in public squares, mangling the plots, talking nonsense, gesticulating like madmen, and, what is worse, performing a thousand obscenities and filthy acts, so that they can afterward make a sordid profit from people’s purses by selling them their quack remedies of snake oils, poison antidotes, and potions that bring on diseases not already present.38 Prestigious companies in the early seventeenth century performed fully scripted plays as well as improvised ones, and their repertory was extremely versatile.39 243

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Studies concerning the relationship between Shakespeare and commedia dell’arte are still primarily based on this eighteenth-century idea of commedia, and most of these studies also suffer from the need to establish relationships, with respect to both themes and techniques, between different and disparate theatrical traditions. This theoretical bias started with Hermann Reich at the beginning of the last century,40 and as Nicola Savarese has pointed out, belongs “to the genre of diffusionism for which there is little proof, and is an example of a kind of necessity, imposed by positivist historiography (influenced by Darwinism), to establish, at all costs, an evolution and a continuity, even in a field such as that of cultural phenomena.”41 A very recent example will suffice here. In one of the most recent books to date on commedia dell’arte, Paul Monaghan writes, this essay focuses on the comedies of Plautus and their ancient performance as antecedents to the Commedia dell’Arte. To a lesser degree, it also focuses on Atellan farce, Roman mimes, and the comedies of Terence. I suggest that, however it came about, key aspects of Commedia dell’Arte bear a strong resemblance to what is known and can reasonably be inferred of Roman – and especially Plautine – comedy in performance, despite its predominantly “scripted” nature.42 The central question is how to theorize the context of a play that does not have a direct attestation in the preserved text. One can assume some measure of continuity, but with what, exactly? Models of linear descent, such as from Plautus to commedia dell’arte, might be valid, but should not claim legitimacy solely on the basis that they validate the texts that we already have. In contrast, studies of the dramatic construction of the plays of Elizabethan dramatists, as Michele Marrapodi points out, have more recently profited from a comparative approach that has examined the theatrical ancestry of the plays outside positivistic source studies primarily focused on the form of influence of source material. That effort to look beyond such linear patters has highlighted the politics of intertextuality, delving “into the more political fields of cultural exchange, cultural difference, and cultural resistance”43 that are involved in the construction of early modern English drama. Following this line of transmission, some scholars have started to consider “the history of early modern theatre as a slow but continuous diachronic and transnational process”44 in which artists’ imagination, as Stephen Greenblatt has 244

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suggested, worked “by restless, open-ended appropriation, adaptation, and transformation.”45 Although Shakespeare, he continues, was quite capable of creating new stories on his own, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he “clearly preferred picking something up ready-made and moving it to his own sphere” and thus opening his plays “to the possibility of ceaseless exchange.”46 Rather than focusing on printed sources and their influence on Shakespeare’s dramaturgy, I am here more concerned with another area of discourse, that of acting style, and how it was reflected in Shakespeare’s plays. In particular, I will consider the acting style of commedia dell’arte, a style that became widely admired in Europe because of its interplay between improvisation and the existence of a fixed set of stock characters and situations (scenarios from scenari in Italian). I suggest that Shakespeare could have decided to “translate” some of its practices, thus enriching the audience’s experience with a series of moments that were simultaneously intercultural and intertemporal. This kind of translation may begin outside the textual arena, as it is narrowly defined, but it inevitably leads to thematic structures inside the text we have. As Jacques Derrida has pointed out, “everything in the play can be retranslated into the code of translation and as a problem of translation ... as, for example, between a pound of flesh and a sum of money.”47 While Italian literature has always been recognized as a source for Shakespeare’s plays, Italian drama in general and commedia dell’arte in particular have always been undervalued, until recently.48 As Louise George Clubb has noted, even if until now it has not been possible to identify specific contacts, Shakespeare’s plays betray an “unmistakable kinship” with Italian theatre. The repertory of the comici dell’arte is tipped heavily towards comic forms – farce, romantic comedy, and pastoral – but when they adapted regular tragedy for scenarios, the frequency of comic relief, the expansion of the feminine roles and the uninhibited ‘outdoing’ of literary models with scenic effect … pointed also towards Shakespeare’s way with tragedy ... Whether these results filtered to him from actors or Italianate Londoners, Shakespeare’s dexterous manipulation of the elements and his nonchalant inaccuracies manifest an actor-like take on Italian places, names, and principles.49 I would like to return now to the courtroom scene in The Merchant of Venice and to Portia’s opening question, “Which is the merchant here? 245

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And which the Jew?” (4.1.168). Was the question out of place, since everyone could tell the difference, or was it a real one? Michael Saenger and Sergio Costola have shown how The Merchant of Venice is powerfully focused on issues of linguistic foreignness and nativity and focused on some of Shylock’s verbal expressions, arguing that Shakespeare made Shylock quite subtly lexically foreign, even Italianate, as a means to mark him as marginal in the London-like Venice of the comedy.50 Otto Jespersen had already pointed out how “Shylock was one of Shakespeare’s most interesting creations, even from the point of view of language,”51 and after numerous examples of Shylock’s linguistic idiosyncrasies, concluded that, despite the absence of traits that could be “called distinctly Jewish,” Shakespeare nonetheless “succeeded in creating for Shylock a language different from that of anybody else” and “from the accepted use of Shakespeare’s time.”52 Patrick Stewart, who played the part of Shylock in a production at The Other Place in 1978, directed by John Barton, also states that because of Shylock’s linguistic idiosyncrasies, he was convinced “not to use a ‘foreign’ accent, as it seemed that the nature of his language set him apart.”53 On the other hand, in act 2, scene 1, all subtleties are absent, as Portia’s rejection of her suitors plays out in scenes whose comic elements consist of a series of crude xenophobic stereotypes, to which the London theatre audience could have responded in the comic terms of colourbased racism.54 Shylock’s diversity was conveyed, unlike the Prince of Morocco’s, through subtle means, and therefore clear visual signifiers for his Jewishness would have been counterproductive. In Shakespeare among the Moderns, Richard Halpern proposes to read Portia’s question at 4.1.170 “through the lens of modernism” and argues that “Shylock and Antonio are basically indistinguishable, that Shylock is the Judenspiegel in which Christian society may view itself.”55 Stephen Orgel has also argued that “the most dangerous aspect of Jews was precisely how much like ‘us’ they were, the fear that they were in fact indistinguishable, that anyone might be a secret Jew.”56 The surname Shylock, in fact, continues Orgel, was, unlike the recognizable biblical names of Shakespeare’s other Jews, a native one, since Saxon times: a name, thus, that in Shakespeare’s time was clearly and unambiguously English. In the quarto text of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is alternatively referred to as either Shy., Shyl., or Iewe. These speech prefixes, according to John Drakakis, are very important because they “permit a reading that locates the text on the threshold of modernity, where questions of type (both literally and figuratively), stereotype and function are in the 246

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process of giving way to a more historically specific individuated form of dramatic characterization,” and argues that “the oscillation between ‘Jew’ and ‘Shylock,’ while having its practical cause in a series of identifiable type-shortages, traverses also the gulf between stereotype and individuated ‘character’ which in part signals the birth of the modern.”57 I argue here that Shakespeare is not representing the stereotype of the Jew through Shylock – or, at least, not exclusively – and that Shylock cannot be read alone, but only in relation to the other types of the play: Antonio, a Venetian merchant, and Bassanio, a Venetian of noble rank. In addition, I assert that Shakespeare, through the translation and adaptation of commedia dell’arte situations and the mask of Pantalone, was able to articulate competing figures of what a Venetian wealthy merchant or nobleman could be. In most of the scenarios of the commedia dell’arte, there is a set of characters who, with minor variations, remains constant: two or more pairs of Innamorati; occasionally a Capitano (as the type of the braggart warrior, but more often as a comic Innamorato); two servants or Zanni (one intelligent, the other foolish); one or two Vecchi (Pantalone and Dottore); a Servetta (Franceschina or Colombina); and, if necessary, a series of secondary characters. But what kind of characters were those of the commedia dell’arte? A character is always a construct, which can refer to a “person” without being necessarily being a reproduction of “person.” The set of characteristics that constitute a dramatic character, in fact, is the result of an original formulation, of a random montage of the moral and psychological beliefs of a particular era, together with, paradoxically, all the formulations of the past. Starting with the fourth century bce , with the Greek New Comedy, the masks worn by the actors became, for the first time, representative of specific social types. If we look for example at the book IV of Pollux’s Onomastikon, the characters are divided by gender (male or female), age (young, mature, and old), occupation (cook, servant, lover, prostitute, matron, et al.) and, finally, moral bent (rude, sly, greedy, etc.). A character was therefore the sum of these four main features: for example, a man, old, a merchant, and a miser.58 Ferdinando Taviani (1982), in a very important essay concerning the dramaturgy of the commedia dell’arte, focuses on what was once the norm in terms of how to produce and recite comedies in the early modern period. Until the advent of the director, according to the Italian scholar, “there wasn’t a theatre based on the play-text,” but a “theatre based on the parts.”59 What is the difference? “The part is, materially, the 247

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transcription of all and only the lines of a character, with indicated the last words of the other character or of the previous scene.”60 The system of dividing a play in parts would characterize the span of European theatre production from the mid-sixteenth century until the early twentieth century. This production system led to a further specialization, which was that of the theatre based on roles: this system allowed an actor to learn his part more quickly and thus be able to collaborate with other actors and produce plays in a fast and continuous way. A part was entrusted to an actor not so much on the basis of its human and professional characteristics, but rather on the basis of the parts that the actor already knew. This particular production system needed a writer who could take care of both the montage of actions and monologues, while to the actor only pertained the details of the actions (the ways of walking, posing, moving, talking, etc., of a particular character). If this was the norm with regard to the production of comedies, what was the difference, if there was a one, with the operation of the Italian companies in particular? The Italian professional theatre companies developed a “theatre with scenarios and free parts,” a more “economical” way of doing theatre, which allowed the Italian actors to multiply their theatrical possibilities and be successful in all the European countries: What are given to the actors of the European companies (and to the Italian actors from the eighteenth century onward) are parts without plots. The comici dell’arte, instead, move from the opposite principle: they provide the actor plots without parts. In the first case we can assume that the characters determine the action. In the second case, it seems that it is the action to determine the characters … The production system developed by the Italian companies is not, on closer inspection, opposed to that based on parts and roles. It is, if anything, an improvement. It means, for the actors, to learn parts that are free from belonging to a particular play and only that.61 Schematically: Table 10.1 Elizabethan Theatre

Commedia dell’arte

Montage of Actions

Writer

Writer

Details of Actions

Actor

Actor

Text (words)

Writer

Actor

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This schematic chart only begins to sketch the ways in which it can be applied to creativity and the conception of the theatre, especially given that for most of his plays, Shakespeare wrote the words but was not the primary creator of the montage of actions. The masks of the commedia dell’arte, on the other hand, were not, properly speaking, fixed types. Of the four basic characteristics, the comici dell’arte fixed only three: gender, age, occupation, and made them easily recognizable thanks to a kind of hyperrealism that suggested or alluded to real-life situations, without having to re-create an illusionistic kind of mimesis. The character, or moral bent, however, depended on the specific comedy. Pantalone, therefore, was always a Venetian old man and a merchant (or a wealthy Venetian with high status), but depending on the circumstances, he could be stingy in one comedy, in another an understanding father, and, in still others, a fop. As Graham Holderness has argued, Shylock’s “Judaism is a constant preoccupation of those filling courtroom around him.”62 Portia’s performance as Balthasar is a case in point: “he” calls Shylock “Jew” nine times and “Shylock” only thrice. “His” question when entering the courtroom, “Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?” even if it is disingenuous, clearly points to the potential interpermeation of incompatible populations in the modern city. If this was seen as a threat to the native order, Shylock’s language helps to calm such fears of cultural miscegenation by showing us a marginal citizen who tries and fails to talk like a native, to read stories like native, and to understand the rhetorics of forgiveness and humility, rhetorics that are essential to Protestant social norms. As a colleague and I have recently tried to argue in another work, Shylock’s prepositional usage – rather than his appearance – subtly betrays his otherness. Thus, Shakespeare sets him up as the double foreigner, whose status as Venetian and a Jew marks him at the edge of salvation and at the edge of legal legitimacy.63 As Pamela Brown has pointed out, “hatred for foreigners is remarkably productive of intertextuality, if one takes all performances, verbal expressions, and discourse as possible genetic material” and xenophobia may be said to be “a habitual figuration of speech and writing: it relies on an endlessly reinscripted set of stereotypes, parodies, jokes, and insults.”64 Merchant of Venice results from the use and parody of familiar forms of Italian drama and fiction, most prominent among them the commedia dell’arte. In The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare adopts stock situations and characters from commedia, made popular and familiar by those professional troupes that were successfully touring Europe at that 249

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time, to enact a love story that also expresses the anxieties provoked by developing capitalism.65 As Hanna Scolnicov has pointed out, Portia disguised as the young male lawyer Balthasar, acts the role of the Dottore. Portia’s cross-dressing disguise is different from Jessica’s in that she chooses a familiar carnivalesque costume, derived from the commedia dell’arte figure of the Dottore, adding yet another Venetian touch to the play ... Il Dottore was one of the four masks of the dell’arte, a jurist from the universities of Bologna and Padua. Portia is not only donning a male costume, but assuming a conventional commedia disguise.66 The reference to famous commedia dell’arte masks for the trial scene, Scolnicov continues, would have dissipated some of the “gloom and seriousness of the trial scene and facilitating the rather forced comic ending of the play.”67 We partially disagree, however, with the view that “Portia is the only character in the play who actually assumes a commedia dell’arte costumes,” and argue instead that, in addition to Portia as il Dottore, Shylock’s appearance must have also borne a great resemblance with the Pantalone mask, not only in some of the character’s traits but also in his visual manifestation. Given the absence of stage directions, if we try to reconstruct and visualize the stage action on the basis of the dialogue, as Hanna Scolnicov has done, we can only gather the two following elements: 1) Shylock is dressed in a gabardine coat (as Shylock himself says in 1.3.105); 2) Shylock carries a knife and strop (from Bassanio’s question: “Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly” 4.1.120) and also as a needed prop together with the scale for his final scene. These two elements, together with his age and the traditional visual signifiers associated with Jewishness from the eighteenth century onward – pointed beard and long nose – are also the well-known and recurring characteristics of the Venetian mask of Pantalone, as can be seen from some of its most famous representations.68 The entire courtroom scene, thus, would have re-enacted one of those scenes between the two vecchi, Pantalone and Dottore, so common in commedia dell’arte scenarios. In addition, this specific scene, and to an extent the entire play, could be considered Shakespeare’s translation of another famous topos of commedia dell’arte, namely, that of the doubling of masks and the consequent uncertainty of identity and confusion, though this also came to Shakespeare through Latin drama, which was paradoxically more familiar, though the education system, than the more 250

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fashionable theatre that visiting Italian troupes brought to London.69 The examples are numerous and can be found in most of the scenarios collections: In Flaminio Scala’s Il teatro delle favole rappresentative (The Theatre of Tales for Performance),70 for example, we find scenarios such as Li due capitani simili (The two identical captains) and Li duo fidi notari (The two trusty notaries); in the Anonymous’s Raccolta di scenari più scelti (Collection of Selected Scenarios)71 we can find scenarios such as Li dui scolari (The two scholars), Li tre matti (The three crazy ones), Li due finti pazzi (The two fake fools), Li tre Becchi (The three cuckolds), Li tre schiavi (The three slaves), and, most important, Li dui Pantaloni (The two Pantalones). Similar examples can also be found in most of the other collections of scenarios.72 Many of these scenarios present two (or three, at times even six) characters belonging to the same social type – a captain, a servant, a merchant, et al. – with the same basic characteristics in terms of age, gender, and occupation, but with a different moral bent. Li dui Pantaloni is characterized by the situations resulting from the duplication of its mask and the confusion and occasions for disguise caused by the two Pantalones. In discussing the Pantalone mask, I am using the word mask (maschera, in Italian) to refer not to the actual mask that commedia dell’arte characters might or might have not worn on their faces (some did wear a half-mask, like Pantalone, Dottore, or Capitano, for example, while others did not, like the innamorati), but to the character as a whole, to the specific ways in which its clothes, physical traits, and way of moving and talking had been codified in the commedia dell’arte tradition. Besides the clear resemblances between the Pantalone mask and some of the visual signifiers traditionally associated with Jewishness, the use of this mask could have thus allowed Shakespeare to use his play to contemplate what Robert Alter (1993) has referred to, in relation to Merchant, as the “hidden affinities between self and other,”73 between Christians and Jews, Londoners and Venetians, Catholics and Protestants. After all, as Janet Adelman has noted, the idea that Christians are more like Jews or that Antonio is more like Shylock, “has long been a feature of Merchant criticism.”74 Adelman offers a very useful and detailed status quaestionis, quoting, among others, Harold C. Goddard’s argument that “Antonio abhors Shylock because he catches his own reflection in his face”75 and Anthony David Moody's ideas on the “essential likeness of Shylock and his judges.”76 While some scholars locate this likeness in Antonio’s harshness toward Shylock, “most locate it in the domain of the economic, especially in the anxieties about developing capitalism that are reflected in the play’s – Antonio’s – attempt to 251

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make a sharp distinction between Christian merchant and Jewish usurer.”77 However, Shylock can serve as a mirror for others because, I argue, he was the result of a “composite construct” of contradictory materials: the translation of the commedia dell’arte mask of Pantalone allowed Shakespeare to present three different characters belonging to the same or similar social groups. Shylock, Antonio, and Bassanio belong to, and thus represent, the new merchant class and thus collectively generate a range of stereotypes that were larger than life, and who represented, simultaneously, no one and everyone. notes 1 Dennis Kennedy, “Introduction: Shakespeare without His Language,” in Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance, ed. Kennedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1. 2 Patrice Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture (London: Routledge, 1992), 143. 3 See Rita Wilson and Brigid Maher, “Introduction: Transforming Image and Text, Performing Translation,” in Words, Images and Performances in Translation, ed. Rita Wilson and Brigid Maher (London: Continuum, 2012), 1. 4 Ibid., 1–2. 5 Rita Wilson, “Mediating the Clash of Cultures through Translingual Narrative,” in Words, Images, 46. See also Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 48–64. 6 For a detailed comparison of these motifs in the two sources, see John Gross, Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy (New York: Touchstone, 1992), 15–16. 7 Ibid., 17. 8 Ibid., 18–19. 9 Ibid., 19. See pages 19–30 for a detailed comparison of The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta. 10 Janet Adelman, Blood Relations: Christians and Jews in “The Merchant of Venice” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 12-23. 11 William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, ed. Leah S. Marcus (New York: Norton, 2006), 83–131. 12 Ibid., 83–84. 13 Ibid., 100–4. 14 Ibid., 104–8. 15 Ibid., 108–9. 16 Ibid., 110–14. 17 Ibid., 114–21.

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Commedia dell’Arte Translations 18 19 20 21 22 23

24

25

26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33

34 35

Ibid., 121–2. Ibid., 123–4. Ibid., 125–7. Ibid., 127–9. Ibid., 129–31. Michael Shapiro, “Literary Sources and Theatrical Interpretations of Shylock,” in Wrestling with Shylock. Jewish Responses to “The Merchant of Venice,” ed. Edna Nahshon and Michael Shapiro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 3. Graham Holderness, “Production, Reproduction, Performance: Marxism, History, Theatre,” in Uses of History: Marxism, Postmodernism, and the Renaissance, ed. Francis Barker, Peter Hulme, and Margaret Iversen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 163–4. I use the term exploitation less in the modern negative acceptation relating to appropriation and abuse and more in its positive etymological sense of “productive working,” from the French exploit – a carrying out; achievement, result, gain, advantage. See “Exploitation (n.),” Online Etymology Dictionary, www.etymonline.com/word/exploitation (accessed 10 Feb. 2020). Harold Bloom and Neil Heims, eds, The Merchant of Venice (New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2008), 225. See Marcus’s Merchant of Venice, 54–65. Further references to this play are from this edition and appear parenthetically in the text. Adelman, Blood Relations, 125. A jingle attributed to Alexander Pope and concerning Charles Macklin’s Shylock, first performed in 1741. Quoted in The Merchant of Venice: Shakespeare, The Critical Tradition, ed. William Baker and Brian Vickers (New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005), 63. Adelman, Blood Relations, 22. Emma Smith, “Was Shylock Jewish?,” Shakespeare Quarterly 64, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 201. On this topic, see also James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 233–4 in particular. See, among others, Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews, 233–4; Smith, “Was Shylock Jewish?,” 196–209 in particular; Stephen Orgel, Imagining Shakespeare (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 153. Elmer Edgar Stoll, “Shylock,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 4 (1911): 236–79, quoted in Baker and Vickers, The Merchant of Venice, 273. One of the first scholars to have drawn a parallel between Shylock and Pantalone is John Robert Moore, “Pantaloon as Shylock,” Boston Public Library Quarterly 1 (1949): 33–42.

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Shakespeare in Succession 36 Ferdinando Taviani and Mirella Schino, Il segreto della Commedia dell’Arte (Florence: La Casa Usher, 1982). 37 Siro Ferrone, La Commedia dell’arte (Turin: Einaudi, 2014), 3 38 Andrea Perrucci, Dell’Arte rappresentativa, premeditata ed all’improvviso (1699), A Treatise on Acting, from Memory and by Improvisation, bilingual edition in English and Italian, ed. Francesco Cotticelli, Anne Goodrich Heck, and Thomas F. Heck (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008). 39 See, most recently, Ferrone, La Commedia, 110–26 in particular, where the Italian scholar writes about the commedia dell’arte troupes’ ability to navigate among all theatrical and spectacular genres. 40 Hermann Reich, Der Mimus (Berlin: Weidmann, 1903). 41 Nicola Savarese, Eurasian Theatre: Drama and Performance Between East and West from Classical Antiquity to the Present (London: Routledge, 2013), 80. 42 Paul Monaghan, “Aristocratic Archeology: Greco-Roman Roots,” in The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte, ed. Judith Chaffee and Olly Crick (New York: Routledge, 2015), 195–6. 43 Michele Marrapodi, “Introduction: Shakespearean Subversions,” in Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance: Appropriation, Transformation, Opposition, ed. Michele Marrapodi (Farnham, uk : Ashgate, 2014), 3. 44 Marrapodi, “Introduction,” 3. 45 Stephen Greenblatt, “A Mobility Studies Manifesto,” in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Ines Zupanov, Rehinard Meyer-Kalkus, Heike Paul, Pal Nyiri, and Friederike Pannewick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 252. 46 Ibid., 76–7. 47 Jacques Derrida, “What Is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” Critical Inquiry 27, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 183. 48 For the relationship between Shakespeare’s theatre and commedia dell’arte and for sources documenting the Bard’s direct knowledge of this theatrical form, see Valentina Capocci, Genio e mestiere: Shakespeare e la Commedia dell’Arte (Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1950); Ninian Mellamphy, “Pantaloons and anise: Shakespeare’s ‘Apprenticeship’ to Italian Professional Comedy Troupes,” in Shakespearean Comedy, ed. Maurice Charney (New York: New York Literary Forum, 1980), 141–51; Andrew Grewar, “Shakespeare and the Actors of commedia dell’arte,” Studies in the Commedia dell’Arte, ed. David J. George and Christopher J. Gossip (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1993), 13–47 and “The Old Men’s Spectacle: Commedia and Shakespeare,” in Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte, 300–11; Robert Henke, Pastoral Transformations: Italian Tragicomedy and Shakespeare’s Late Plays (Newark, nj : University of Delaware Press, 1997), 56–60, and 182–9; Frances K. Barasch,

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49

50 51 52 53 54

55

56 57

“Shakespeare and Commedia dell’Arte: An Intertextual Approach,” Shakespeare Yearbook 10 (1999): 374–401 and “Hamlet versus Commedia dell’Arte,” in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories: Anglo-Italian Transactions, ed. Michele Marrapodi (Farnham, uk : Ashgate, 2011), 105–17. Louise George Clubb, “How Do We Know When Worlds Meet?” in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories, 283. See the entire essay for a useful status quaestionis and a rich bibliography concerning the relationship between Shakespeare and Italian theatre. Sergio Costola and Michael Saenger, “Shylock’s Venice and the Grammar of the Modern City,” in Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance, 147–62. Otto Jespersen, Growth and Structure of the English Language (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1905), 218–19. Ibid., 219 and 220. Patrick Stewart, “Shylock in The Merchant of Venice,” in Players of Shakespeare, ed. Philip Brockbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 15. As Pamela Brown has argued, even in the case of Othello, Elizabethan spectators would have responded per the comic terms of colour-based racism, especially if we take into consideration the anti-foreign riots and the expulsion of people of African origin from England by Queen Elizabeth. See Pamela Brown, “Othello and Italophobia,” in Shakespeare and Intertextuality: The Transition of Cultures between Italy and England in the Early Modern Period, ed. Michele Marrapodi (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), 179–92. François Laroque reads this particular scene, with “their very elasticity and open-endedness,” as “carnivalesque lazzi” typical of the commedia dell’arte. See his “Shakespeare’s Italian Carnival: Venice and Verona Revisited,” in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories, 212. Richard Halpern, Shakespeare among the Moderns (Ithaca, ny : Cornell University Press, 1997), 163 and 161, respectively. Scholars have interpreted Shylock and his lending habits as the embodiment of capitalism at least since the 1930s. As Walter Cohen has argued, the last third of the sixteenth century witnessed a series of denunciations of usury: “Behind this fear lay the transition to capitalism: the rise of banking; the increasing need for credit in industrial enterprises; and the growing threat of indebtedness facing both aristocratic landlords and, above all, small, independent producers.” Walter Cohen, “The Merchant of Venice and the Possibilities of Historical Criticism,” ELH 49, no. 4 (1982): 767–8. Orgel, Imagining Shakespeare, 155 John Drakakis, “‘Jew. Shylock is my name.’ Speech Prefixes in The Merchant of Venice as Symptoms of the Early Modern,” in Shakespeare and Modernity: Early Modern to Millennium, ed. Hugh Grady (London: Routledge, 2002), respectively, 108 and 110.

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Shakespeare in Succession 58 For a more detailed excursus on the development of characters in comedies, see Leon Katz, Cleaning Augean Stables: Examining Drama’s Strategies (Encino, CA: Create Space Edition, 2012), 126–60 in particular. 59 Ferdinando Taviani, “La composizione del dramma nella Commedia dell’Arte,” Quaderni di teatro 4, no. 15 (Feb. 1982): 155. 60 Ibid. Taviani reminds us of an event, in this regard, which occurred in 1496 in Ferrara. Ferrara was the city in which, toward the end of the fifteenth century, plays by Plautus and Terence had been staged for the first time in translation; these were followed, in the early sixteenth century, by the first performances of new plays. On 5 February 1496, when the marquis of Mantua Francesco Gonzaga asked his father-in-law, the Duke Ercole I d’Este of Ferrara, about the texts of the plays that had been staged at his court, he was answered that the texts did not exist anymore, because they had already been recited. In fact, the text in its entirety had never existed, and the actors had learned each their own part. 61 Ibid., 159–60. 62 Graham Holderness, Shakespeare and Venice (New York: Routledge, 2016), 79. 63 Costola and Saenger, “Shylock’s Venice,” 151. 64 Brown, “Othello and Italophobia,” 184. 65 For a brief excursus on the influence of commedia dell’arte in England, see Robert Henke, “England,” in Commedia dell’Arte in Context, ed. Christopher B. Balme, Piermario Vescovo, and Daniele Vianello (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 115–22. 66 Hanna Scolnicov, “The Jew and the Justice of Venice,” in Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance, 287. 67 Ibid., 287. 68 For some examples of images of Pantalone from different historical periods, see Cesare Molinari, La Commedia dell’arte (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1985) and M.A. Katritzky, The Art of Commedia: A Study in the Commedia dell’arte 1560–1620 with Special Reference to the Visual Records (New York: Editions Rodopi, 2006). 69 See, on this theme, Franca Angelini, “Barocco italiano,” in Storia del teatro moderno e contemporaneo: La nascita del teatro moderno: CinquecentoSeicento, ed. Roberto Alonge and Guido Davico Bonino (Turin: Einaudi, 2000), 1:196. 70 Flaminio Scala, Il teatro delle favole rappresentative (Venice: Pulciani, 1611). 71 Anonymous, Raccolta di scenari più scelti. Biblioteca Corsiniana, Rome. mss 45 and 45 G5 G6, 100 scenarios compiled probably between 1621 and 1642. 72 See, among some of the most famous ones, Basilio Locatelli, Della scena dei soggetti comici, 2 vols, Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, mss 1211, 1212, 103

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73 74 75 76 77

scenarios, 1618–22; Ciro Monarca, Dell’opere regie, Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, ms 4186; Anonymous, Manuscript Correr 1040, Biblioteca Museo Correr in Venice, 51 scenarios, compiled in the mid-seventeenth century; Gibaldone de soggetti da recitarsi all’impronto, alcuni proprij e gli altri da diversi raccolti di Don Annibale Sersale, Conte di Casamarciano, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples, ms XI.AA.40 and XI.AA.41, 183 scenarios collected toward the end of the seventeenth century. Robert Alter, “Who Is Shylock?” Commentary 96, no. 1 (1993): 31. Adelman, Blood Relations, 136. Harold C. Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 1:88. Anthony David Moody, Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice, 2 vols. (London: Arnold, 1974), 10. Adelman, Blood Relations, 137.

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11 A Mirror up to Hamlet: Translations of Shakespeare in Japan Hiromi Fuyuki

A large number of translations of Shakespeare’s works have contributed to his popularity in non-English speaking countries. In Japan, Shakespeare’s plays have been widely published and performed in Japanese, and Shakespearean films attract a great many people, all of which would not be possible without translation. That new translations of Shakespeare’s work are now published almost annually is evidence that Shakespeare’s oeuvre continues to hold firm in its position as a thriving pillar of the Japanese translation culture. However, most research conducted on Shakespeare in Japan tends to focus on modern Japanese theatrical productions or on film adaptations such as Ran (adapted from King Lear) and Throne of Blood (adapted from Macbeth), both by Akira Kurosawa. Only a few studies address the advantages, disadvantages, and significance of the broader context of Japanese translations of Shakespeare’s work. Two major problems inevitably confront scholars who reflect on the purpose and significance of translating Shakespeare. First, can Shakespeare’s plays be truly understood when they are translated into Japanese? It is extremely difficult to render Shakespeare’s blank verse into Japanese, and it is almost impossible to reproduce English rhythm and rhyme, even in poetic Japanese. Second, the act of translation is fundamentally merely a method that can only attain significance within the culture of the target language. While there may not be any forthcoming clear-cut solutions for either problem, Tetsuo Kishi shows an awareness of the “socially accepted codes of the language,” and he raises the question, “To what degree is it possible to deviate from such codes and still produce translations that are faithful enough to the

A Mirror up to Hamlet

original?”1 Yet, according to Daniel Gallimore, if “a literal translation could represent the strangeness of Shakespeare,”2 the act of translation carries the potential of conveying cultural differences and can also result in new approaches to the original texts, and consequently lead to novel performances based on the translated versions. To examine these problems concerning translations, this chapter looks at practical examples of Shakespeare translations, mainly focusing on some lines from Hamlet in Japanese social and cultural contexts, which tend to change according to how people view theatre. In so doing, the chapter contemplates the feasibility of localizing the original text into Japanese and deliberates on the significance of translation in terms of the staging of the Shakespearean plays.

th e i ntroducti on of sha kespea re to ja pa n The first (fragmentary) Shakespeare translation appeared in Japan in 1874 as the lines from the fourth soliloquy of Hamlet. This translation was printed alongside an illustration of a stage in The Japan Punch, a monthly magazine in English published in Yokohama and aimed at Europeans and Americans. It was edited by Charles Wirgman, a special correspondent for a British paper Illustrated London News. Below the picture (see figure 11.1),3 we see the script of the first thirteen lines of the soliloquy, beginning with “Arimasu, arimasen are wa nan desuka,” which is the romanized transliteration of a translation of “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” It so completely ignores the original meaning of the Japanese words it uses that it, as one commentator notes, “sounds so jabberwocky.”4 Although rather difficult to render into English, the Japanese version can be rendered so: “There is, or there isn’t, what is that?” The accompanying picture depicting a Hamlet-like samurai in meditation is even more remarkable. It is thought to be done by Wirgman himself, a painter known for his use of satirical imagery to record the daily life as well as political and historical events in Japan. Therefore, though it is unclear whether a play was ever actually presented in association with this translation, it is possible that the piece was intended as a parody of the English-speaking abilities of Japanese people, or that it represented a satire on the Japanese who desired to become westernized at that time.5 Indeed, “‘Westernize!’ was the greatest, or indeed the only motto of the age.”6 On the other hand, the translation also highlights the confusion with which the Japanese would receive Western theatre, a 259

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11.1 The Japan Punch (January 1874). Written and drawn by Charles Wirgman. Published by Yushodo Co. Ltd., Tokyo, 1975.

genre still largely unknown to them. To a certain extent, most Japanese intellectuals then believed Shakespeare to be a cultural bombshell capable of shaking the foundations of traditional Japanese drama such as kabuki and noh. 260

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t he first transl ator of sha kespea re How did the Japanese people receive Shakespeare’s work during the initial stages of its arrival? The reception is accurately reflected in their attitudes to translation; the Japanese people preferred adaptations that blended into their own cultural assumptions rather than those that emphasized fidelity to the originals. Such “transcreations” gained popularity and became the norm for about the next forty years. This could also be seen as consistent with the distinctive Japanese characteristics of flexibility or open receptivity, the fusion of Japanese elements with foreign cultural traditions. The kabuki adaptation of The Merchant of Venice titled Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka (Monetary Society among the Cherry Blossoms, 1885)7 is representative of this period. It was penned by the journalist Bunkai Udagawa and serialized in an Osaka-Asahi newspaper (from 10 April to 20 May 1885). This adaptation took the style of kabuki, and the story was performed on the Japanese stage for the first time in 1885 at Osaka Ebisu-za, which gained great popularity.8 This Japanese version incorporates scenes from the original, such as the pound-of-flesh trial and the selection of three caskets for marriage. However, almost all the events and characters resemble those in kabuki narratives and the story is set in Osaka, where mercantile culture prospered. Several translations of Shakespeare’s works were published in newspapers in the 1880s, and those versions were probably derived from Charles and Mary Lamb’s abridged prose renderings of Shakespeare in Tales from Shakespeare (1807), translated into Japanese in 1886. Thus these Japanese editions were not literal translations of the plays. The titles of most of the plays also changed to be more reminiscent of traditional Japanese novels: Romeo and Juliet became Rakka no Yugure (Falling Flowers in the Evening), Macbeth was renamed Eiko no Yume (Dream in Ebb and Flow), and so on.9 Although all such abridged prose adaptations of Shakespeare’s work were transformed to suit Japanese sensibilities, that the plays were translated at all proves their general appeal and attests to the growing mass interest in Shakespeare as newspapers widely distributed these adaptations. As the momentum of translations and adaptations escalated, the first complete and accurate Japanese translation of a Shakespearean play appeared in 1883: journalist Keizo Kawashima’s Oshu Gikyoku Juliasu Shizaru no Geki (European Play, Julius Caesar).10 This translation was serialized in a newspaper much like the prose adaptations mentioned 261

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above. Kawashima’s translation is seminal for the translation history of Shakespeare’s work in Japan because he is the first translator who rendered the whole play quite faithfully to Shakespeare’s original text, though his style of language and rhythm were almost identical with those of kabuki. A year later, Shoyo Tsubouchi, a professor of Waseda University, published another complete translation of Julius Caesar in book form. Tsubouchi is considered the greatest contributor to Shakespeare study in Japan, and he is the first translator who accomplished the complete translation of Shakespeare’s works, forty-four years after he published his Julius Caesar. In his Julius Caesar, he, for the first time, noted the character names in English using Japanese katakana, Japanese script based on English word sounds. Still, it should be called an adaptation, not a translation, because he used kabuki-style language such as Kawashima’s translation, which is considered to be faithful to the original text, and the title was changed to a Japanese style: Shizaru Kidan Jiyu no Tachi Nagori no Kireaji (The Strange Story of Caesar: The Remaining Sharpness of the Sword of Liberty, 1884).11 Contemporary circumstances constitute the primary reason for Julius Caesar being selected by both Kawashima and Tsubouchi for their translations. The establishment of the Meiji government in Japan in 1867 brought about a top-down modernization of the country at the behest of the state. By the 1880s, however, a grassroots reform drive labelled the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement became more active. This activist group included private citizens who introduced increased demands for political freedom and rights in Japan. This change was evidenced at the time by the popularity of political novels to the extent that “even among translated literature, political novels or political plays commanded the greatest popularity, and for a time it was said that if the work was not political, it was not literature.”12 The atmosphere of the period caused Julius Caesar to be regarded in Japan as highly symbolic, epitomizing the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement. Curiously enough, this way of reading the past in the present resembles the way Shakespeare’s historical plays often contained topical allusions to the Elizabethan age. After his first translation of Julius Caesar, Shoyo Tsubouchi departed from kabuki-style adaptation and began translating Shakespeare in verbatim form, and finally finished translating all thirty-seven of Shakespeare’s plays in 1928. However, he did not translate Shakespeare merely because he considered the playwright’s work to be superb 262

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drama that represented the zenith of English literature. Tsubouchi also had another purpose, a desire to further promote the development of traditional Japanese kabuki theatre. He asserted, “of course I study Shakespeare for myself, but also for the Japanese people at large, because I felt it would be the most suitable method to improve kabuki, Japanese traditional drama.”13 For his initial translation of Julius Caesar, Tsubouchi adopted a format very similar to kabuki (mostly spoken in dialogue) or joruri (Japanese puppet theatre, with both dialogue and narrated stage directions accompanied by music), and in terms of style, he used the five-andseven syllable metre typical of classical Japanese poetry for many lines. However, as Tsubouchi himself later said of his Julius Caesar translation, “the joruri-style in five-and-seven was a slovenly translation.”14 In later Shakespeare translations, he transitioned to literal translation in “modern standard language” whenever possible.

sh oyo’ s transl ati on and ha ml et’s sol il o qu y Full analyses of Shoyo Tsubouchi’s translations are often addressed in discussions of Japanese Shakespeare. The present chapter does not examine this topic in detail but instead focuses both on the literary quality and the dramatic attributes of Shakespeare’s plays as they arrived in Japan. It is now taken for granted that Shakespeare wrote for the theatre, as “originally, a play becomes a fully formed artistic work only after it has been performed on the stage.”15 Yet when Shakespeare was first imported into Japan, his work was perceived either as a script for Western-style kabuki performance as intended by Tsubouchi or (per academics) textually sacrosanct. Tsubouchi utilized kabuki as an ideal model for his translations and thus employed a distinctive method involving the frequent use of descriptive language. The texts of kabuki and joruri plays are not only made up of dialogue; they also include larger sections of detailed scene descriptions and expositions of the characters’ feelings. These sections are musically narrated to shamisen accompaniment, much as the chorus of a Greek tragedy comments on the scenes and characters from the back of the stage. Therefore, it was only natural for Tsubouchi to incorporate descriptive language to explicate scenes not included in Shakespeare. To cite just one example of such descriptive language, consider how Tsubouchi inserts a stage direction for the second appearance of a distracted Ophelia in Hamlet. 263

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laertes

How now? What noise is that? Enter Ophelia (4.5.153)16 Tsubouchi’s translation in Japanese:17 レーヤーチーズ　 何ぢゃ！　あの騒ぎは？ オフィリア前よりも一段取り乱したる狂気の體にて （いろいろの草花を頭や 襟につ けて）出る。

Tsubouchi’s translation (my retranslation into English):

laertes

What! What was that noise? Enter Ophelia (with various flowers on her head and round her neck) looking more frantically than she did in her previous appearance. In this scene, a mad Ophelia appears for a second time, and the original stage direction is only “Enter Ophelia.” However, Tsubouchi adds the explanation about the appearance of Ophelia, and especially the words “more frantically,” emphasizing her pitiful condition in the understanding of Japanese actors and readers. Before examining another example from Tsubouchi’s translation of Hamlet, consider the attitude of Japanese people toward the play itself. As mentioned, Shakespeare’s stories and characters held great appeal for the Japanese people, especially Hamlet. Kawatake clarified that “the history of importing Hamlet can be said itself to be the epitome of the Japanese literary arts and theatre in Japan.”18 Several novelists have adopted the troubled heart of Hamlet as their own,19 and Hamlet’s philosophical questions are well known as significant and real issues for many people. Moreover, the theme of revenge has been very popular in kabuki, so that the story of Hamlet could be accepted as an equivalent of a kabuki revenge story. Like other intellectuals, Tsubouchi appeared to feel strongly about the play, especially Hamlet’s fourth soliloquy. Indeed, he attained a particularly intense understanding of the original meaning of the fourth soliloquy and employed a translation that was considered revolutionary at the time. Below are the lines of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, with the original Shakespearean text first, followed by the translation in 264

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the Japanese language (including Kanji) and my own transliteration in English letters: To be, or not to be – that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. (3.1.56–60) Tsubouchi’s translation in Japanese language: 存ふる？　存へぬ？　それが疑問ぢゃ・・・残忍な運命の矢石を、只管堪へ忍 うでをるが大丈夫の志か、或は海なす艱難を逆へ撃って、戦うて根を断つが 大丈夫か？

Tsubouchi’s translation (my retranslation into English): To remain in existence? Or not to remain? That is the question. Which is suitable for a brave mind: to endure the slings and arrows of brutal fortune? Or to take up arms against many hardships and eradicate them from the root? Tsubouchi’s Japanese translation and English retranslation mirror Japanese writing style, which does not use line breaks. In fact, Japanese Shakespeare translations were not broken into verse-like lines until the 1950s, not because of the lack of awareness of the verse format but because Japan had no kabuki or other play scripts that incorporated line breaks. Tsubouchi’s Japanese translation is largely faithful to the original, but attention should be paid to the first line. Thus far, most translators have translated “To be, or not to be” as “to live, or not to live.” This line is also a problematic part of the original play, and it has been interpreted in numerous ways. According to a footnote in the modern Arden edition, the “question” (“To be, or not to be”) for Hamlet is: (a) whether life, in general, is worth living, (b) whether he should take his own life, and (c) whether he should act against the king.20 Other texts include even more detailed footnotes, but Hamlet’s concerns can broadly be divided into these three aspects. The crux is the verb be, which encompasses a wide range of meanings from those relating to living to those relating to the existence of objects. Thus, the protagonist Hamlet’s actual intent remains 265

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rather unclear, but in English, the spoken line can include all these possibilities. However, a translation must choose a particular trajectory of signification. This problem involves the translator’s interpretation of the English words, and it becomes imperative for the translator to judge the lines on the basis of a review of the entire play, the character of the play’s protagonist, and the manner in which the protagonist’s world can be converted into the target linguistic context. In fact, it is quite surprising that Tsubouchi translated Hamlet’s famed soliloquy as an ontological discourse; this translation would be considered excellent even today. Of course, Tsubouchi’s word usage may be criticized as “already old-fashioned at the time of the translation,”21 but his work was accomplished more than a hundred years ago, at a time when dictionaries were scarce and there were only a few available reference texts. Therefore, that Tsubouchi’s English proficiency and his sensitivity to drama allowed him to understand the ontological depth of “To be” is particularly remarkable. That the fourth soliloquy perfectly fits the five-and-seven metre of classical Japanese poetry is another point that should not be overlooked. “To be” and “not to be” are each rendered as five syllables in Japanese ( 存ふる: Na-ga-ra-fu-ru) and “that is the question” is converted as seven syllables (それが疑問ぢゃ: So-re ga Gi-mo-n ja), creating a rhythm that sounds euphonious and musical to Japanese ears. Gallimore notes the rhythm and phrase meanings of Tsubouchi’s translation style for this soliloquy, and he argues that “the old-fashioned metre and musicality of the words take into account both the word-for-word meaning and the existential meaning to assemble a metaphor,” and “the use of seven-and-five metre connects the past and present, forging a connection between the original historical Elizabethan aspect and the literary/philosophical metaphorical, existential aspect.”22 Gallimore thus commends Tsubouchi’s translation for enabling the coexistence of his external use of form and his deep contemplation of the internal meaning. The Bungei Kyokai (Literary Society) performed Hamlet in 1911 using Tsubouchi’s translation. This production was revolutionary in terms of encouraging Shakespeare performances to follow a translation-based, not kabuki-based, style. It was “a historic day when, for the first time, ‘Hamlet’ was called ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Ophelia’ was called ‘Ophelia’ on a Japanese stage by Japanese actors.”23 It was also a momentous first for Shakespeare in Japan as the soliloquies were delivered in their original format in this production. While Japanese intellectuals of the time probably noted the singular and philosophical nature of Hamlet’s soliloquy, 266

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the words had surprisingly never actually been spoken on stage before, even though the soliloquy was translated into adaptations or translations. Why? Perhaps actors accustomed to traditional Japanese drama could not recite the soliloquy. In kabuki, as noted, the explanations of the circumstances are recited by a narrator to the accompaniment of music. Kabuki actors could recite lines as a continuation of the narration accompanying the music. Furthermore, because there is almost no narration of personal psychological states in kabuki, standing alone on stage to narrate one’s feelings would naturally pose a higher level of difficulty for the actors.24 Soliloquies were believed to occupy an ontological space separated from the rest of the action, and this could also explain why the soliloquy was not recited until this performance of Hamlet. When Shakespeare was translated into Japanese, the country was also attempting to import literature by other Western authors such as Ibsen and Chekhov. Moreover, many theatre enthusiasts understood realism to form the foundations of Western drama. Therefore, soliloquies could have seemed strange and even silly in some instances. Soseki Natsume, whose work had been widely published in English and who was the representative novelist of the era, expressed his discomfort with regard to soliloquies and doubted whether Shakespeare’s plays could even be performed. After witnessing the Bungei Kyokai’s performance that used Tsubouchi’s translation and followed his instructions (1911, at the Imperial Theater), Natsume praised the quality of the translation but offered the following review of the play: I had deep misgivings that because Dr. Tsubouchi attempted to be too faithful to Shakespeare, he ended up being unfaithful to us, the audience. The fundamental essence of Shakespeare’s plays is untranslatable, ... instead of adopting the role of a faithful Shakespeare translator, Dr. [Tsubouchi] should have chosen between abandoning performances or becoming a less-faithful Shakespeare translator in order to conduct the performance.25 Soseki Natsume’s severe statement that Shakespeare’s plays were “untranslatable” contrasts with Tsubouchi’s aim to translate a Shakespeare play for performance. Bluntly speaking, Natsume’s accusation was that the Bungei Kyokai staging was not realistic. However, debating the merits and deficits of translations yields no correct answers. Natsume viewed Shakespeare more as “literature” than “drama.” Therefore, his opinion 267

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that literary works such as Shakespeare’s should be considered reading material was delivered from the perspective of rhetoric, reasoning, and cultural differences. Tsubouchi, on the other hand, translated Shakespeare’s work without forgetting that it was script meant for the theatre. Tsubouchi’s emphasis on theatre can be observed in two characteristic methods he brought to life in his actual translations: maintaining a seven-five metre, and the extensive use of descriptive language. These techniques align with Tsubouchi’s first motivation to translate Shakespeare. He used familiar rhythms from kabuki and joruri in combination with supplemental and appropriately inserted descriptive text entirely for the benefit of his contemporary actors and audiences. In so doing, he elucidated the unfamiliar Shakespearean expressions, behaviour, and situations for them, and thus took a leading role in establishing Western drama in the Japanese culture of his time. Of course, certain elements of his translations are sometimes criticized as they fail to break free from the national Japanese theatre style of kabuki. However, as a scholar of English literature and as a dramatist, Tsubouchi possessed the unique ability to directly grasp the worlds of plays written by Shakespeare, who was also both a poet and a practising playwright. The contributions of another translator of Shakespeare into Japanese should also be mentioned. Yusaku Yokoyama, a Waseda University professor and Tsubouchi’s principal disciple, translated several of Shakespeare’s plays. His Hamlet translation employs very then-modern Japanese and does not apply the kabuki style. His is an amazing new translation that demonstrates Yokoyama’s ability to interpret the profound meaning of the original text. His translation of “to be, or not to be” is exactly the same as the Tsubouchi’s, but his innovative interpretation is demonstrated in the fourth and fifth lines of the soliloquy in the original text: “Or take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them. To die – to sleep.” Seen from the point of view of Hamlet’s stream of consciousness, his words “opposing end them” and “to die” are not consistent. If Hamlet battles with something or somebody (i.e., Claudius) and achieves victory in this conflict, why must he contemplate death? This problematic question perplexed Shakespearean scholars until Harold Jenkins’s pivotal reading was published in 1982.26 According to Jenkins’s annotation to the text, “end them” occurs “not by overcoming them but (paradoxically) by being overcome by them.” Yokoyama translated these lines as follows: “海なす艱難を迎へて立ち、斗ってこ れと共に亡ぶのと？・・・死は眠りに過ぎない”;27 the literal translation 268

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into English would be: “Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by battling with them, not only the enemy/troubles but also myself will be defeated and die at the end. To die is no more than to sleep.” As the retranslated English shows, Yokoyama read the line “opposing end them” as suggesting both Hamlet’s foresight of his death by being overcome by trouble and Hamlet defeating them. Surprisingly, he translated Hamlet in 1933, which predates Jenkins’s interpretation by nearly fifty years. Regrettably, there seem to be no academic papers written in English that introduce or discuss Yokoyama’s translation, and even few Japanese scholars are aware of his insights. However, Yokoyama’s insightful interpretation illustrates that careful reading for translation can present novel and discerning interpretations of Shakespearean texts, and can thus contribute to Shakespeare studies.

mode rnize d ham l et After his retirement from Waseda University, Tsubouchi secluded himself within his study to continue translating. However, his translations were rarely staged after the Bungei Kyokai performance. Realist plays, especially Ibsen’s, dominated translation and performance after the 1910s and became the model of Western contemporary drama for Japan. Shakespeare waned for a while. Later, the critical scholar Tsuneari Fukuda’s major post-1950s translations and staging of Shakespeare’s plays became instrumental for the Bard of Avon’s resurgence in Japan. Fukuda’s translations were modelled on contemporary Western drama, and unlike Tsubouchi, who always kept the tradition of kabuki in mind, Fukuda sometimes aimed at a succinct Japanese idiom overflowing with the sense of rhythm. Even so, Fukuda’s Shakespeare translations were congruent with Tsubouchi’s in their extensive inclusion of descriptive language to facilitate stage performance and in certain sections to maintain awareness of the rhythm of the actions performed onstage. As Tsuneari Fukuda states in Essays on Translation, “In my translations, seven-five metre and other characteristic Japanese rhythms are used much more consciously than in translations by others. This is one reason the lines are said to roll easily off the actors’ tongues.”28 Here there is an evident overlap between Tsubouchi’s conscious use of the seven-five metre and diction familiar to Japanese people. In fact, rendering the lines into the classical Japanese seven-five metre rhythm could be deemed appropriate because “Shakespeare’s blank verse creates a different dimension from everyday speech.”29 269

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Fukuda did not break the lines into verse, but he did provide an interesting perception of what it meant to translate Shakespeare’s plays. “In translating Shakespeare, conveying ‘meaning’ is the job of interpretation, not the job of translation.”30 This statement clearly indicated the purpose of translation and elucidated the issues concerning the translation of Shakespeare’s “drama.” It can thus be identified as an essential touchstone for the contemporary translation, research, and performance of Shakespeare’s work. The same Hamlet soliloquy used to exemplify Tsubouchi’s work is offered here as a concrete example of Tsuneari Fukuda’s version. Fukuda translated all dialogue as prose, but his translation of “To be, or not to be,” the first line of this fourth soliloquy, was intended to exert the greatest possible impact on the audience. In his translation, the line became: “生か、死か、 それが疑問だ [sei-ka, shi-ka, sore ga gimon da].”31 This Japanese line can be transferred into English as follows: “Life or death, that is the question,” which illuminates Hamlet’s character as vacillating between the crux of life and death. Also, the Japanese words used for “To be…” were the shortest and sharpest in rhythm among all translations to date. Fukuda pursued dynamic and cadenced Japanese in his translation, which could be impressive on the stage, and this part of Hamlet’s soliloquy is entirely representative. Although in his translation, the ambiguity of “To be ...” is not explained, Fukuda’s interpretation of Hamlet, as a whole, seems to be conceptually influenced by John Dover Wilson, upon whose edition of the text he based his work.32 Fukuda also did not opt for the simple word enjiru (to act) for the word “act”; instead, he employed engi, a term connoting that one is acting out one’s life in a self-aware manner and is amused by the fact of the acting. The selection of this word perfectly fits Hamlet’s way of living, that is to say, a protagonist who “performs” his own life. When Fukuda’s translation of Hamlet was performed in 1955, a “purer” style of Western drama appeared for the first time in Japan, contrasting with Tsubouchi’s blending of Japanese and Western elements. Fukuda had been extremely impressed by the fast-paced dialogue in the production of Hamlet, directed by Michael Benthall, which he had seen in London in 1954. Thus, the Western-style Japanese Hamlet was born, and continues to thrive. Hiroshi Akutagawa, the actor who played a selfconscious modern protagonist as Fukuda intended, later went down in Japanese theatrical history as the legendary Hamlet (see figure 11.2). Akutagawa’s Hamlet “acted” according to Tsuneari Fukuda’s use of the term; he was objectively aware of his own acting and revelled in his 270

11.2 Hamlet, Bungakuza production, directed by Tsuneari Fukuda, at the Toyoko Hall, Tokyo, 1955. Hiroshi Akutagawa as Hamlet.

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portrayal of an agonized Western prince who embraced the contradiction of his existence while also representing the conflicted intellectuals of Japan. Fukuda’s translation, written to advocate dynamic staging, thus took its place as an integral part of the Japanese cultural landscape.

p op ul ari ze d sha kespea re Although Tsuneari Fukuda’s translations are sometimes labelled the epitome of stylish and elegant Japanese translation with poetic rhythms, he only translated nineteen plays. Furthermore, almost all the performances based on his work were staged in orthodox methods modelled after modern Western theatre, which shows that he deemed Shakespeare’s works as normative of Westernization. On the other hand, though Fukuda’s stage production of Hamlet attracted large audiences, most of them were formed by intellectuals or theatre enthusiasts. Therefore, it would be difficult to say that Fukuda’s Hamlet contributed to the popularization of Shakespeare for the general public. However, the conditions for the Japanese reception of Shakespeare changed suddenly in the 1960s. There was a social shift from “Shakespeare as the icon” of great literature to “Shakespeare as our contemporary.” The Small Theatre Movement, the main driving force for contemporary anti-establishment theatre, became the context of this transformation, espousing the belief that Western standards need not be pursued. The movement peaked between 1964 and the 1970s and at this time, the University of Tokyo professor Yushi Odashima’s translations attracted young actors and audiences. The translation of Odashima, the second translator who completed the Shakespeare’s works since Shoyo Tsubouchi, incorporated the colloquial language of the youth of the time. Odashima was the first to successfully render the light wordplay of the original into Japanese. Another excerpt from Hamlet can be cited as an example of such colloquialisms. Hamlet pretends madness to ascertain the veracity of the ghost’s words, but those close to him believe that he has actually lost his mind. In the following exchange, the king’s councillor Polonius attempts to assess Hamlet’s state of mind:

polonius

What do you read, my lord?

hamlet

Words, words, words. 272

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polonius

What is the matter, my lord?

hamlet

Between who?

polonius

I mean the matter that you read, my lord. (2.2.191–5)33 Odashima’s translation in Japanese: ポローニアス ハムレット様、何をお読みで？

ハムレット　　　 ことば、 ことば、 ことば。 ポローニアス いえ、 その内容で？　

ハムレット ないよう？　おれにはあるように思えるが。

ポローニアス つまりその、 お読みになっている事柄のことですが？34 Odashima’s translation (my retranslation into English):

polonius

What do you read, my lord?

hamlet

Words, words, words.

polonius

What are the contents (naiyou, in Japanese pronunciation), my lord?

hamlet

Naiyou (i.e., It does not have contents)? It seems to have contents. 273

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polonius

I mean the matter that you read, my lord. The pun is difficult to understand when Odashima’s translation is transcribed into English, but in Japanese, “contents” is pronounced naiyou, which also signifies that “it appears there is nothing,” forming a double entendre. Therefore, when Polonius asks Hamlet about the contents of his book, Hamlet pretends to misinterpret the meaning as Polonius saying that the book appears not to have any content and answers that it seems that the book does have content. Although this translation departs from the original, it fully expresses the comedic exchange between the parties and the fact that Hamlet was teasing Polonius in the scene. Scrutinizing Odashima’s translation of the fourth soliloquy, “To be, or not to be, that is the question” becomes “このままでいいのか、 いけな いのか、 それが問題だ,” which can be retranslated in English as follows: “To leave as it is, or not to leave, that is the question.” That is, without clarifying whether he is referring to living or dying, or whether or not he should take revenge; he includes both meanings by asking the larger question of whether or not the current situation is acceptable. Although obviously ambiguous, as with Tsubouchi’s work, the most problematic element of this phrase is the verb “be.” This Japanese translation does not clearly indicate the question as being whether to live or to die; however, it amply conveys the intentions of the original. Odashima viewed this “be” as similar to the ambiguity of “let it be,” while the English literature scholar Tetsuo Kishi also pointed out the difficulty of translating this section into Japanese because of its indeterminacy. We could say that Yushi Odashima’s translation expresses the ambiguity of the original comparatively well. However, this translation lacks the rhythmic feeling of the original string of single syllables. From this perspective, Tsuneari Fukuda’s “Life or death , that is the question” is an excellent translation, but from another perspective, it cannot be denied that this translation is all too clear.35 Odashima used colloquial speech in his translation to convey humorous, multi-layered meanings that even the youth could grasp. He may be criticized at times for departing too much from the original work. Nonetheless, Yushi Odashima’s greatest achievement was to introduce Shakespeare to Japan’s masses. 274

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Director Norio Deguchi is another leading figure who contributed to the propagation of Odashima’s translations and remained aligned with them. Deguchi operated a youth-centred Shakespeare Theatre Company and staged Shakespeare’s plays sequentially as Odashima completed his translations. This theatre troupe ultimately claimed the landmark achievement of staging all Shakespeare’s plays over a period of six years (1975–81). The energetic and dynamic performances were staged in a small theatre using simple Japanese without any elaborate sets, with young actors wearing jeans and T-shirts. This style of performance immediately sparked a Shakespeare boom and successfully established Shakespeare’s status as a popular cultural icon. In comparison to Yukio Ninagawa, Deguchi is not well known outside Japan. However, his minimalist style of performance “answered Deguchi’s own deep-rooted suspicion about the use of visual elements in a production,”36 and his insightful remarks at an interview raised profound questions about performance and the translated Japanese text. Deguchi explained: For me, making it “Japanese” is not the ultimate aim. The important thing is to find a place where I and the text can converge. I also know that you can’t cross borders by “Japanization.” “Making it Japanese” is already about making a border where exoticism begins. But I think exoticism is partly due to the ignorance of other nations.37 Deguchi recognized the difficulties of overcoming cultural borders and of adapting Shakespeare’s plays for performance in Japanese settings through translations. However, in his conversation with me, he spoke about his dreams of representing English rhythm in Japanese and asserted that he tries every day to discover a way to realize this dream. Odashima’s translations met with the visually attractive productions of director Yukio Ninagawa in the 1980s. Ninagawa’s Macbeth employed Japanese kimono costumes, kabuki-style witches, and the extravagant setting of samurai world in the sixteenth century in Japan. This performance could be called an adaptation, and it achieved a legendary success at the Edinburgh festival in 1985. Concerning the direction of Ninagawa, which has been discussed in many articles, this paper will not examine his productions in detail; but it will note that until this point, Japanese Shakespeare productions were mostly performed domestically and had not received any attention from overseas critics. Thus, it was significant to be internationally acknowledged, though much of the critical evaluation of Ninagawa focused on the visual effects of his staging and 275

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the exoticism of Japanese culture. Yet that the dynamism of the production and the performances were able to convey an Asian version of Shakespeare was groundbreaking. The issues with translation persisted, nonetheless. Ninagawa used Odashima’s translation for the first half of the play and Kazuko Matsuoka’s translation for the latter half. When performing overseas, the actors spoke in Japanese with English subtitles. How well the subtle delivery of lines, intonations, pauses, and other elements could be conveyed in Japanese remains questionable. Still, the contribution of Kazuko Matsuoka sets her apart from previous translators of Shakespeare’s plays. Through her close association with the stage rehearsals and her rewriting of the translated script on the basis of feedback from actors and directors, she discovered interpretations never included in the annotations of the English edited texts or thought to be known to theatre practitioners both at home and abroad. For example, during the secret conversation between the Macbeths about whether to kill King Duncan, Matsuoka noticed the importance of the word “we” in the original text and arrived at a brand-new translation. Shown below are the texts in question: Shakespeare’s original lines and the Japanese translation. In this quotation, the English reverse translation is not given, because her translation in this section is quite faithful to the original English.

macbeth

If we should fail?

lady macbeth

We fail? ... What not put upon His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell? (1.7.59–72, my italics)38 Matsuoka’s translation in Japanese: マクベス　 もし、 しくじったら、俺たちは [ore tachi wa]？

マクベス夫人 しくじる、私たちが [watashi tachi ga]？　 ... 私たちの [watashi tachi no] 大逆の罪だって お酒を吸い込んだ海綿同然のお付きに なすりつければすむことじゃなくて？39 276

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Additionally, in the first line of the Japanese quotation, the word “ore” is a very casual expression of “I,” used only by men, while “watashi” is the normal expression of “I,” and “tachi” means the plural of the word. Normally, English sentences require subjects, but usually the subjects, I, we, and you are not included in Japanese in daily conversations. All the previous Japanese translations of Macbeth do not incorporate the pronouns we or our in this scene. However, Matsuoka deliberately translated “we” and “our” in the above passage. In Matsuoka’s words, this choice enabled her to convey how the use of the word “we” in this passage expresses the strength of the bond between the husband and wife and that this play could be called a “couple’s tragedy.”40 This interpretation of Macbeth as a couple’s tragedy is also brought to life in the production.41 In Hamlet, again, there is two-way feedback from the translation to the stage and then from the stage to the text. In act 3, scene 1, the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia begins with her line about returning Hamlet’s gifts because he no longer loves her. Whether Hamlet realizes that King Claudius and Ophelia’s father Polonius are hidden behind the arras or whether he fails to notice them is a major point of debate. Although it is essentially an issue of textual interpretation, a decision must be made for stage productions for gestures and line delivery to be directed accordingly. However, Matsuoka, who translated the play for Ninagawa’s 1995 production, said that when she attended rehearsals, Takako Matsu, who played Ophelia, made an excellent comment. First, the original text for this section reads:

ophelia

My honoured lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath composed As made these things more rich. Their perfume lost, Take these again, for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. (3.1.97–101, my italics)42 Matsuoka’s translation: オフィーリア　 殿下、 よく覚えておいでのはず。 優しいお言葉も添えてくださって 頂いた品が一層有り難く思えましたのに。 その香りも失せました。 277

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お返しいたします。 品位を尊ぶ者にとっては どんな高価な贈物も、贈り手の真心がなくなればみすぼらしく 43 ってしまいます。 Matsuoka’s translation, the last two lines (my retranslation into English):

ophelia

I will return it. To anyone who respects dignity, Any expensive gift will become poor, if the giver’s true heart disappears. Takako Matsu thought it strange that the obedient and modest Ophelia would use such a haughty phrase as “the noble mind,” and remarked that she thought that these particular words spoken by Ophelia were put into her mouth by Polonius, her father. At the same rehearsal, Hiroyuki Sanada, playing Hamlet, also felt the presence of Ophelia’s father behind him upon hearing these words and coldly responded with “Are you honest?”44 This was something the actors themselves observed without anyone explaining it to them. Matsuoka mentioned in her book that she was shocked by such insightful comments on the part of the actors. Matsuoka also confessed that she was relieved because her translation of the words “the noble mind” was coincidentally close to Matsu’s interpretation. This interpretation was innovative in terms of textual criticism, and it was simultaneously adopted in a performance directed by Ninagawa.45 “Shakespeare buries cues to the actors in the lines,” Matsuoka noted, a technique that is perfectly suited to a translator who aims to translate for the stage.46 In this way, Matsuoka’s translations may be the first to prove the possibility of moving in the reverse direction from the conventional advancement from translation to stage. Her work evidences that it is possible to return from the stage to the translation and beyond, to the interpretation of the text – a point that cannot be overemphasized. For Matsuoka, the purpose of translation is to re-create the original text, not to claim authority for the translation or to demonstrate cultural superiority in the context of multiculturalism. Matsuoka’s attitude results from a combination of her innate modesty and her self-confidence based on a profound analysis of the texts and the unique translation from a woman’s point of view. After a long period of translation, she became the third translator of the complete works of Shakespeare in Japan in 2021. 278

A Mirror up to Hamlet

Obviously, the translator’s role differs according to the times and the prevailing cultures. The definition of the best translation may also change completely depending on the standards of judgment. Classics are just works that possess the power of language when re-created in modern times, and they may be considered “works that hold the energy and appeal to inspire fresh translations reflecting the consciousness of each era.”47 However, the shifting translations of Shakespeare over the course of more than a hundred years in Japan indicate that all the foundational translators, from Tsubouchi to Matsuoka, have been translating for the stage even as they reflected the sensibilities of their times. This emphasis on performance is natural, and it coincides with the fact that Shakespeare’s plays were themselves not intended for publication as text and were primarily intended for stage performance. At the same time, the performative elements govern the extent to which the plays can be reproduced or rendered into Japanese in terms of the rhythms of the performable lines. The adaptations to Japanese settings have their own appeal, but many translators have attempted to maintain the essence of Shakespeare’s original words in their linguistic conversions. Such faithful rendering is an immense responsibility from the perspective of reinventing Shakespeare as contemporary drama for Japanese society. In any case, the work showcased above demonstrates that translation involves not the mere reception of Shakespeare; it rather represents a method and a purpose of re-creating Shakespeare. It would not be an exaggeration to call Shoyo Tsubouchi the creator of Japanese Shakespeare. Let’s give him (almost) the last word: “Since Shakespeare is a worldwide poet, it would not be impossible to introduce and integrate his works with Japan. I think trying to interpret Shakespeare in new and different ways with a Japanese heart will be a contribution to world literature.”48 These words of Shoyo Tsubouchi, who thought that acknowledging the perspective of Japanese people would result in their ability to contribute to world literature, may be adopted as guiding principles that should never be neglected by contemporary Japanese translations and productions of Shakespeare. In this regard, it could be said that translated Hamlet, in its many incarnations, has been and will be our contemporary as well as theirs.

279

Shakespeare in Succession notes 1 Tetsuo Kishi, “‘Our Language of Love’: Shakespeare in Japanese Translation,” in Shakespeare and the Language of Translation, ed. Ton Hoenselaars (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 75. 2 Daniel Gallimore, “Gendai Nihon ni Okeru Sheikusupia Hon’yaku” [Shakespeare Translation in Japan], in The Current Study on Shakespeare’s Performances in Japan, ed. Kaori Kobayashi (Tokyo: Fubaisha, 2010), 66. 3 Sheikusupia Kenkyu Shiryo Shusei [Collected Materials for Shakespearean Studies], ed. Yasunari Takahashi, 30 vols (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Center, 1997–98), 1:10. 4 Yasunari Takahashi, “Hamlet and the Anxiety of Modern Japan,” Shakespeare Survey 48 (1996): 100. 5 For details regarding the discussion about the soliloquy, see Masao Tanaka, “Za Japan Panchi to Hamuretto no Dokuhaku” [The Japan Punch and Hamlet’s Soliloquy], Kindai 55 (1980): 41–72; Toshio Kawatake, Nihon no Hamuretto [Hamlet in Japan] (Tokyo: Nan’undo, 1972), 54 and 65. 6 Takahashi, “Hamlet and the Anxiety of Modern Japan,” 99. 7 Bunkai Udagawa, Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka [Monetary Society among the Cherry Blossoms] (Osaka: Osaka Asahi Shinbun, 1885). 8 For the summary of the story and its evaluations, see Kawatake, Nihon no Hamuretto, 361–74. 9 Izumi Yanagida, “Konogoro Mita Sheikusupia Bunken no Nisan ni Tsuite” [Opinion about a Few Materials on Shakespeare], in Sheikusupia Kenkyu Shiryo Shusei, 30 vols [Collected Materials for Shakespearean Studies], 18:7–9. 10 Keizo Kawashima, Oshu Gikyoku Juliasu Shizaru no Geki [European play, Julius Caesar] (1883), in Sheikusupia Hon’yaku Bungakusho Zenshu [The Collection of Shakespeare Works Series], 5 vols, ed. Michiaki Kawato and Takanori Sakakibara (Tokyo: Ozorasha, 1999). 11 Shoyo Tsubouchi, Shizaru Kidan Jiyu no Tachi Nagori no Kireaji [The Strange Story of Caesar: The Remaining Sharpness of the Sword of Liberty] (Tokyo: Toyokan, 1884). For a detailed discussion of the translation, see Hiromi Fuyuki, “Sheikusupia no Hon’yaku wo Megutte” [A Study on Shakespeare’s Translation], in Kindai Bungaku wa Ikani Keiseisaretaka [How the Modern Literature Was Formed], eds. Tadashi Jinno and Kimiko Kono (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2019), 180–6. 12 Satoru Takemura, Nihon Eigaku Hattatsu-shi [The Development of English Literature in Japan] (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1933), 235. 13 Shoyo Tsubouchi, Shekusupiya Kekyu Shiori [Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare] (Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 1928), 10.

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A Mirror up to Hamlet 14 Ibid., 16. 15 Kenji Oba, Sheikusupia no Hon’yaku: Translation of Shakespeare (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 2009), 53. 16 William Shakespeare, The Works of William Shakespeare, ed. W.G. Clark and A. Wright, The Globe Edition (London: Macmillan, 1866). Regarding the edition of the original Shakespeare’s text, Tsubouchi did not mention which one he used. However, based on the texts he recommended in his commentary, the Globe Edition is considered to be the most likely edition to which he referred. For this reason, quotations to follow are from this edition. 17 Shoyo Tsubouchi, Hamuretto [Hamlet], in Sao Zenshu [The Complete Works of Shakespeare], trans. Shoyo Tsubouchi (Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 1909), 45. 18 Kawatake, Nihon no Hamuretto, 3. 19 The representative adaptations of Hamlet to novels are The Diary of Claudius by Naoya Shiga (1912), which describes the tragedy of not only of Hamlet but also the innocent Claudius, and The New Hamlet by Osamu Dazai (1941), which is a parody of Hamlet with the solitary and satirical protagonist not dying in this novel. Osamu Dazai, Shin Hamuretto [New Hamlet], in Dazai Osamu Zenshu [The Complete Works of Osamu Dazai], 10 vols (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1976), 4:185–322. 20 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, The Arden Shakespeare, 3rd ser., ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (London: Thomson Learning, 2006), 284. 21 Tetsuo Anzai, ed. Nihon no Sheikusupia Hyakunen [Shakespeare in Japan: One Hundred Years] (Tokyo: Aratake Shoten, 1989), 31. 22 Daniel Gallimore, “‘In least speak most’– The Use of Seven-Five Meter in Japanese Translations of Shakespeare,” Nihon Women’s University Bulletin 54 (2005): 32–3. 23 Kawatake, Nihon no Hamuretto, 273. 24 The difficulty of translating the soliloquy is discussed in the following articles: Akira Kamiyama, “Hon’an to Hon’yaku no Aida: Meiji-jidai no Ibunka Juyo” [Study on Adaptation and Translation: Reception of Different Cultures], in Sheikusupia to Nihon [Shakespeare and Japan], ed. Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyujo (Tokyo: Kazama Shobo, 2016), 33–42; Tetsuo Kishi, “Gikyoku no honyaku: Nihongo no Sheikusupia, Eigo no Zeami” [Translation of Drama: Japanese Shakespeare, English Zeami], in Kyoto Conference on Japanese Studies 1994, no.2 (Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 1996), 294–7. 25 Kinnosuke (Soseki) Natsume, “Tsubouchi Hakase to Hamuretto” [Dr Tsubouchi and Hamlet], in Soseki Zenshu [The Collection of Soseki], 28 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), 16:382–3.

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Shakespeare in Succession 26 William Shakespeare, Hamlet: The Arden Shakespeare, 2nd ser., ed. Harold Jenkins (London: Methuen, 1982), 490–1. 27 William Shakespeare, trans. Yusaku Yokoyama, Hamuretto [Hamlet], in Sekai Bungaku Zenshu [World Literature] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1929), 3:1. 28 Tsuneari Fukuda, “Hon’yaku Ron” [Essays on Translation], in Fukuda Tsuneari Zenshu [The Complete Collection of Tsuneari Fukuda] (Tokyo: Reitaku University Press, 2008), 5:290. 29 Oba, Sheikusupia no Hon’yaku, 99. 30 Fukuda, “Hon’yaku Ron,” 302. 31 William Shakespeare, trans. Tsuneari Fukuda, Hamuretto [Hamlet], vol. 5., in Sheikusupia Zenshu [The Complete Works of Shakespeare] (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1955). 32 Fukuda translated Shakespeare’s plays using the New Shakespeare Series edited by John Dover Wilson (Cambridge University Press, 1921–66) and added, following Dover Wilson, stage directions to his translations. 33 Jenkins’s Hamlet. 34 Yushi Odashima, trans. Hamuretto [Hamlet], vol.1, in Sheikusupia Zenshu [The Complete Works of Shakespeare], 37 vols (Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 1973), 3:1. Regarding the original text, Odashima did not mention it, but he seemed to refer to several editions. 35 Kishi, “Translation of Drama,” 296. 36 Tetsuo Kishi and Graham Bradshaw, Shakespeare in Japan (London: Continuum, 2005), 93. 37 Ibid., 95. 38 Jenkins’s Hamlet. 39 Kazuko Matsuoka, trans., Makubesu [Macbeth], vol. 3, in Sheikusupia Zenshu [The Complete Works of Shakespeare] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1996). 40 Kazuko Matsuoka, Fukayomi Sheikusupia [Meticulous Reading of Shakespeare] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2011), 292–4. 41 Macbeth using Matsuoka’s translation was first performed at the Season Theatre in Tokyo in 1996, directed by David Leveaux. 42 Jenkins’s Hamlet. 43 Kazuko Matsuoka, trans. Hamuretto [Hamlet], vol. 1, in Sheikusupia Zenshu [The Complete Works of Shakespeare] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1996). Matsuoka refers to several editions of the original text like Odashima. 44 Matsuoka, Fukayomi Sheikusupia, 15–27. 45 Hamlet, directed by Ninagawa using Matsuoka’s translation, was performed at the Barbican Theatre in London in 1998, after the first performance of the production in 1995 in Tokyo.

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A Mirror up to Hamlet 46 Kazuko Matsuoka, Kaidoku Sheikusupia [Pleasant Reading of Shakespeare] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1999), 188. 47 Izumi Kadono, “Odashima-yaku to Sheikusupia Juyo” [Odashima’s Translation and Shakespeare’s Reception], in Nihon no Sheikusupia Hyakunen [The OneHundred-Year History of Shakespeare in Japan], ed. Tetsuo Anzai (Tokyo: Aratake Shoten,1989), 138. 48 Shoyo Tsubouchi, “Nihon ni Sao-geki wo Okosantosuru Riyu” [The Reason to Implant Shakespeare in Japan], vol.12, in Shoyo Senshu [The Selected Works of Shoyo], ed. Shoyo Society, 12 vols (Tokyo: Daiichi Shobo, 1977), 12:644.

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12 Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China Rangping Ji and Wei Feng

In the history of Chinese translation, Shu Lin (1852–1924) is acknowledged as one of the most prominent and successful translators of the late Qing dynasty.1 Acclaimed by critics and scholars of that era as a talented and prolific translator, he succeeded, in collaboration with others, in translating one hundred and eighty-four titles into classical Chinese, fulfilling his ambition of introducing Western canonical works and culture to his countrymen.2 Yet, as a defender and proponent of classical Chinese and traditional views, Lin was subject to much criticism during the New Culture Movement (1915–23), and his name fell into oblivion during the following decades. But in the 1980s, thank to critics and translators such as Zhongshu Qian, interest in Lin and his translations has revived.3 Today Lin is regarded as a pioneer of Chinese translation and “bourgeois revolution”: his work has influenced Chinese writers in modern times, boosted the task of modernizing Chinese culture, and contributed to the construction of literary discourse.4 As a pioneering translator in the late Qing dynasty (1840–1912), Shu Lin is one of the earliest Chinese authors to introduce Shakespeare and his works to China. His Yin Bian Yan Yu (An English Poet Reciting from Afar, 1904), an interpretative translation of Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb5 in classical Chinese, was warmly welcomed on publication and continues to exert great influence upon Chinese readers. Despite that the book was severely criticized by such scholars and critics as Shi Hu, Zuoren Zhou, Dongrun Zhu, and Desen Ba, primarily for its being unfaithful to the source text and for its adherence to Chinese traditional ethics, the popularity and significance of the book

Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China

is undoubtedly noteworthy, as is its contribution to Chinese literature and culture. This chapter gives a concise account of the cultural and social backgrounds against which Lin was motivated to undertake his co-operative translation with Yi Wei, a Chinese scholar with whom he also co-translated Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Through a close reading of representative tales, it explores the strategies and guiding principles Lin adopted in the translating process. Finally, the chapter examines and evaluates Lin’s efforts to introduce Shakespeare, paying particular attention to the image of Shakespeare as constructed by Lin in the early twentieth century. The image of Shakespeare in China really begins with Lin. Before his translation of Tales from Shakespeare, Shakespeare was virtually unavailable in China. Due to the seclusion policy of the late Qing dynasty, Chinese communication with the outside world had been greatly hampered and most Chinese people then had limited access to the outside world. With the notorious opium trade, the Western powers pried open the door to China and then started a succession of military and economic invasions. Confronted with such foes, some patriotic and innovative Chinese officials and intellectuals were impelled to rise to the challenge: to properly see their overwhelming enemies/foes and to raise people’s awareness of them, so that the Chinese could resist the incursions of Western powers with the culture and technology they learned from their enemies. It was against such background that Shakespeare was introduced to the Chinese by officials, intellectuals, and foreign missionaries such as Zexu Lin, Yuan Wei, Qichao Liang, Fu Yan, Songtao Guo, William Muirhead, and A. Joseph; however, such general and simplified introductions were rarely actually connected to the works of Shakespeare, thus leaving dim impressions of the Bard for Chinese readers. It was not until the publication of Yin Bian Yan Yu that Shakespeare was put under the spotlight in China, giving Chinese readers their initial acquaintance with the Bard. Lin’s translation of Tales from Shakespeare grows out of his reverence for Shakespeare and, to a lesser extent, a general admiration for British culture; his moderate approach put him at odds with radical contemporaries who were in favour of total Westernization. In this he was encouraged by his previous success in translating Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux Camélias (1899). Despite his mistake in attributing the Lambs’ adaptation to Shakespeare and his ignorance of foreign languages, Lin played an essential role in introducing Shakespeare to Chinese readers. As one of the 285

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earliest and most influential Shakespearean texts ever produced in China, Yin Bian Yan Yu was so successful that it saw eleven reprints and three separate editions between 1905 and 1935, and at the same time it brought about “a theatrical success story”6 – during this period, all wenmingxi 7 related to Shakespeare were without exception based on his translation of the Lambs’ Tales,8 and they collectively exerted a great influence on a generation of master dramatists in China.9 It is no exaggeration to view Lin as the source of Shakespeare’s image in China. Instead of being faithful to the original text, Yin Bian Yan Yu catered to the aesthetic preferences as well as the curiosity and aspirations of readers in the late Qing dynasty, readers eager to know about the Western world. Due to his ignorance of foreign languages, it was hard for Lin to be loyal to the source text; yet his very lack of the expertise in language that allowed him to “translate” the Lambs’ (already translated) tales in his unique way. Lin rewrote the tales and assimilated them into Chinese culture by narrating the tales in classical Chinese, the language popular among the male elites in the late Qing dynasty, thereby reinvesting them with more sensational elements to attract readers’ attention, as well as supplanting Western worldviews and ethics with Confucian principles and moral lessons. As an integral part that forms a co-operative and dialogic relationship with the main text, and which relies on that main text to have meaning, the title of a literary work has special aesthetic requirements of its own10 that enables it to “advertise” the work within and to ignite the imagination of the readers and arouse their interest. Writers make hard choices when naming their works. Titles play a number of roles: ideally, they should be directive, interpretative, and promotional.11 As an indispensable component of the integrality, popularity, and success of Yin Bian Yan Yu, Lin’s new titles of the book realize all such functions simultaneously. At the end of his introduction to Yin Bian Yan Yu, Lin clearly and purposefully points out that he renamed the tales and rearranged their order in the table of contents.12 The retitling of the tales is convenient for readers as they skip the pages within, giving them a good impression of style, language, and the guiding principles of his translation. More important, such retitling inspires readers’ imaginations and engages their curiosity to read the tales. Composed of two Chinese characters and full of mysterious atmosphere, each title is beautifully symmetrical, comprehensively concise, and whimsically fascinating, demonstrating Lin’s rich knowledge of classical Chinese and Chinese traditional literature. A comparative study of Tales from Shakespeare and Yin Bian Yan 286

Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China

Yu from the perspective of titles sheds some light on the interpretive translation strategies Lin adopted in his work and the kind of image of Shakespeare he constructed. Generally speaking, the titles of the tales from Tales from Shakespeare fall into two categories, being named after either protagonists or themes and main plotlines. Into the first category fall such titles as Cymbeline, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet the Prince of Denmark, Pericles Prince of Tyre, Timon of Athens, The Merchant of Venice, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which give prominence to the protagonists and thus draw the readers’ attention toward them. The remaining ten belong to the second category, and the correlation between the title and the plot/theme gives readers a rough idea of the tales’ contents. Lin transforms all titles into the ones directly and closely related to the main plot and major conflict, shifting both the focus of the tales and readers’ attention from the protagonists (but also overgeneralized themes and subplots) to the most thrilling and bewitching plots and conflicts. For the Lambs’ tales from the first category, as shown in table 12.1,13 Lin spares no pains to give new titles that interest the readers and realize, whether consciously or unconsciously, all the roles that titles are expected to play (again, directive, interpretative and promotional): Cymbeline is translated as Huan Zheng (Ring as Evidence), which grasps the main clue of the tale; King Lear as Nv Bian (Changed Daughters), referring to the attitude changes of the daughters toward Lear after the property distribution; Macbeth as Gu Zheng (Witchy Omens), implying Macbeth’s being bewitched to kill the king and usurping the throne; Timon of Athens as Chou Jin (Gold Phobia), attesting to Timon’s abhorrence of money; Romeo and Juliet as Zhu Qing (The Tempering of Love), indicating the hardships the young lovers had to suffer for their love; Hamlet the Prince of Denmark as Gui Zhao (The Ghost’s Command), which emphasizes the command the old king gave to young Hamlet for his revenge; Othello as Hei Mao (The Black Fool), revealing both Othello’s racial identity and his gullibility and foolishness; Pericles Prince of Tyre as Shen He (The Providential Reunion), to put emphasis on the intuitive connection between Pericles and Thaisa; The Merchant of Venice as Rou Quan (The Contract of Flesh), highlighting the pound-of-flesh contract between Shylock and Antonio; and, finally, The Two Gentlemen of Verona as Qing Huo (Ensnared by Love), to stress the complexity and perplexity of love. 287

Shakespeare in Succession Table 12.1 No.

Yin Bian Yan Yu Chinese Title

Tales from Shakespeare Meaning

Original Title

1

《环证》Huan Zheng

Ring as Evidence

Cymbeline

2

《女变》Nv Bian

Changed Daughters

King Lear

3

《蛊征》Gu Zheng

Witchy Omens

Macbeth

4

《仇金》Chou Jin

Gold Phobia

Timon of Athens

5

《铸情》Zhu Qing

The Tempering of Love

Romeo and Juliet

6

《鬼诏》Gui Zhao

The Ghost’s Command

Hamlet the Prince of Denmark

7

《黑瞀》Hei Mao

The Black Fool

Othello

8

《神合》Shen He

The Providential Reunion

Pericles Prince of Tyre

9

《肉券》Rou Quan

The Contract of Flesh

Merchant of Venice

10

《情惑》Qing Huo

Ensnared by Love

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

As can be seen in table 12.2, Lin adopts the same strategy to title the other ten tales, whetting his readers’ appetites. In addition to being elegantly symmetrical and comprehensively concise, Lin’s new titles are whimsical and fascinating, brought about, as they are, by allusions literary and cultural. As for the literary allusions, two titles are cases in point. Zhu Huan (The Winter’s Tale), an abbreviation of the Chinese idiom, “zhu huan Hepu” or “Hepu huan zhu,” in which zhu means “pearl,” huan “return,” and Hepu a seaside city in Guangxi province, refers to something or someone that once was lost but now is found. Originating from the Book of the Later Han (Ye Fan, 432–445 ce ), this idiom has been widely spread in tragically romantic fairy tales and poems of the Tang dynasty, and popular writings such as Songling Pu’s Liao zhai zhi yi (1662–79). In The Winter’s Tale, due to his jealousy, brutality, and stubbornness, Leontes is bereft of both his queen, Hermione, and his daughter Perdita in the 288

Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China Table 12.2 Yin Bian Yan Yu

No.

Chinese Title

Tales from Shakespeare Meaning

Title

1

《驯悍》Xun Han

Taming the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew

2

《孪误》Luan Wu

Twins Errors

The Comedy of Errors

3

《医谐》Yi Xie

Remedial Harmony

All’s Well That Ends Well

4

《狱配》Yu Pei

Matchmaking in the Jail

Measure for Measure

5

《林集》Lin Ji

Gathering in the Woods

As You Like It

6

《礼哄》Li Hong

Wedding Troubles

Much Ado about Nothing

7

《仙狯》Xian Kuai

Cunning Fairies

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

8

《珠还》Zhu Huan

Returned Pearls

The Winter’s Tale

9

《婚诡》Hun Gui:

Bewildering Wedding

The Twelfth Night

10

《飓引》Ju Yin

A Tempestuous Cause

The Tempest

first part of the tale, and after being tormented for his irrational deeds, he has a happy reunion with his wife and daughter. The loss and return of the two “pearls” in the tale echo the title of zhu huan, which earns an immediate recognition and resonance among Chinese readers. The other example is Shen He (Pericles Prince of Tyre), in which Shen means “god,” and He “reunite.” In terms of plot, the title implies the help of the Goddess Diana, who providentially reunites Pericles and Thaisa, but it actually may also allude to “mao he shen li,” an idiom fairly familiar to the Chinese. This idiom means the condition in which two people are apparently in harmony but actually at variance; specifically, mao means “appearance,” he “harmonious,” shen “the heart,” and li “divided” or “different.” The origin of the idiom traces back to Su Shu written by Shigong Huang, a mysterious but venerated Taoist hermit living in the late Qin and early Han dynasties. In his book, Huang states that those who are seemingly in agreement but actually at odds are doomed to be lonely. 289

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Lin draws on the wordplay in the idiom but changes it into Shen He to apply to the experiences of Pericles and Thaisa, who were merrily wedded, separated, and finally cheerfully reunited. These literary allusions were well known to men of letters in late Qing dynasty, who accounted for the bulk of Lin’s readership, and they were spur to trigger the readers’ interest and expectation of the tales. Cultural allusions in the titles play a significant role in combining the Lambs’ tales with traditional Chinese culture, engaging the readers’ interests and deepening their understanding of the tales. Chinese readers are fascinated by stories of gods and spirits, and there is a veritable repertoire of such classics: Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Rivers) by anonymous writers; Feng Shen Yan Yi (The Creation of Gods) by Zhonglin Xu; Jing Hua Yuan (Flowers in the Mirror) by Ruzhen Li; Liao Zhai Zhi Yi (The Collection of Bizarre Stories) by Songling Pu; Yue Wei Cao Tang Bi Ji (Notes of the Yuewei Hermitage) by Yun Ji, which abounds in various animal fairies, immortals, demons, ghosts, Taoist priests, the Buddha, and many other mysterious and imaginative figures. Alluding to such novels and distinctive supernatural beings, Lin’s tantalizing titles, such as Gui Zhao (Hamlet the Prince of Denmark), Xian Kuai (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Gu Zheng (Macbeth), are fuelled by mysterious elements that haunt the imagination of the readers. Gui Zhao, which means “the command of the ghost,” indicates the dead king’s order to his son Hamlet that he be avenged. Xian Kuai, “the cunning immortal,” refers to Oberon the fairy king playing tricks on his queen Titania. Gu Zheng, which means “being bewitched to do something insane,”14 implies Macbeth’s being coaxed by the witches to kill King Duncan and usurp the throne. Xian (the immortal), Gui (the ghost), Gu (the mysteriously poisonous insect), and some other supernatural beings or elements unique to Chinese or Asian culture are incorporated as important ingredients of the new titles, accounting for the popularity of the tales among Chinese readers. The Chinese counterparts of the supernatural beings in the Lambs’ tales and Shakespeare’s plays are not mere name changes; rather they amount to a strategy to counter the unfamiliarity of Chinese readers with foreign culture and to capture the fancy of these readers with familiar allusions. The popularity of Yin Bian Yan Yu convincingly demonstrates that such a translating strategy is feasible and successful. Actually, there is an earlier translation of Tales from Shakespeare, titled Hai Wai Qi Tan (Strange Tales from Beyond the Sea, 1903), but this anonymous version fell into oblivion soon after its first publication. Some Chinese scholars complain 290

Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China Table 12.3 No.

Hai Wai Qi Tan

Tales from Shakespeare

Chinese Title

Meaning

Title

1

《浦鲁萨贪色背良朋》

Proteus Coveting the Beauty and Betraying the Friend

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

2

《燕敦里借债约割肉》

Antonio Borrowing Money with a Contract of Flesh

Merchant of Venice

3

《武厉维错爱孪生女》

Olivia Falling Love with the Wrong Twin

Twelfth Night

4

《《毕楚里驯服恶癖娘 》

Patruchio Taming His Wife with Bad Habits

The Taming of the Shrew

5

《错中错埃国出奇闻》

An Anecdote of Errors in the Country of Ephesus

The Comedy of Errors

6

《计上计情妻偷戒指》

Smart Wife Stealing the Ring with Schemes

All’s Well That Ends Well

7

《苦心救弟坚贞守操》

Saving the Younger Brother While Keeping Chaste

Measure for Measure

8

《冒险寻夫谐成伉俪》

After Adventures Comes an Ideal Husband

Cymbeline

9

《怀妒心李安德弃妻》

Jealousy-Driven Leontes Abandoning His Wife

The Winter’s Tale

10

《报大仇韩利德杀叔》

Hamlet Killing His Uncle for Revenge

Hamlet

that in terms of language, writing style, and narration, Hai Wai Qi Tan is no worse than Yin Bian Yan Yu; it is the external factors such as the differences in the scale of the press, the prestige of the translators, and the number of the books published that have led to their completely different fates.15 This argument might be reasonable; however, more factors have to be taken into account for its failure, including the translation of titles. 291

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Differing from Lin’s version, Hai Wai Qi Tan contains six names in all ten titles (see table 12.3), which tends to alienate and distance the readers from the stories since few Chinese in the late Qing dynasty were familiar with English and felt comfortable with transliterated English names. Running through every single tale and the indeed whole collection are the moral lessons of such deeply rooted Confucian ethics as filial piety, familial love and obligation, loyalty toward the monarch, and reverence for the established gendered roles and hierarchic social orders. Lin’s version to a great extent is not so much a faithful translation of Lambs’ tales as a recontextualization of Shakespearean stories and themes as well as a cultural assimilation of Lambs’ work and didactic legacy into Chinese culture. What overflows in between the lines are detailed descriptions and emphatic comments about the relations within the family and across the entire society, plus the guiding principles governing these relations: Five Relations, Three Obediences, and Four Virtues, with the first of these rubrics focusing on men’s conduct, and the latter two specifically designed for women. Five Relations refers to the relationships between ruler and minister, parent and child, husband and wife, and elder and younger brothers, as well as between friends, in which the first four hierarchical relations emphasize the reciprocal duties placed on various parties – in each case, with the former serving the latter and the latter caring for the former – while the bond of friendship is constructed on relative equality and mutual caring. The male readers in late Qing dynasty would not fail to read the moral lessons concerning Five Relations since positive and negative examples abound in the tales, and the relationship between ruler and minister is most conspicuous. For instance, frightened and tortured by the ghost servant (in Lin’s mind) named Ariel, Antonio repents for the injustice he has done to Prospero, promises to return the power, and is forgiven for his usurpation and attempted murder in Lin’s The Tempest – Ju Yin (A Tempestuous Cause). For other examples, General Macbeth in Gu Zheng (Witchy Omens) suffers mentally and physically for having assassinated King Duncan and seizing the throne, and he finally pays for his evil deeds with his life; Claudius lives in torment and at last is killed by Hamlet for murdering his elder brother in Gui Zhao (The Ghost’s Command); Frederick is dissuaded by a mysterious hermit from his attempt to slaughter Duke Senior and his faithful followers living in the forest of Arden, gives up his usurped dukedom, and is converted into a Taoist in Lin’s As You Like It – Lin Ji (Gathering in the Woods). As a 292

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determined supporter of Confucianism, Lin spares no efforts to maintain the ideal relationship between ruler and minister, and in his tales, those who usurp or conspire to seize power either end up listening to their conscience, thus giving up the usurped position and being forgiven by the lawful ruler, or end up having to pay dearly for their ambitions. And Lin took similar strategies in dealing with the other four relationships to manifest and defend the Five Relations. In Rou Quan (The Contract of Flesh), Lin’s version of The Merchant of Venice, for example, Antonio and Bassanio are set up as the model of true friends. As a faithful friend, Antonio borrows money from Shylock at the risk of his life to help Bassanio seek a wealthy marriage, and Bassanio is willing to pay more for the debt Antonio owes for his sake and later even gives the wedding ring up to Balthasar (Portia in disguise) as a payment for saving the life of his best friend against his wedding vow. Another key concept that is conspicuous in the tales is that of Three Obediences and Four Virtues. Three Obediences, predetermined by women’s dependence on men, refers to the three relationships dominating a woman’s life in feudal China. It consists of the obedience of a woman to her father before marriage, to her husband after marriage, and to her son when in her widowhood. It is “the most important set of moral relations for women, and they served as the foundation for women’s education in general.”16 Four Virtues, which include moral conduct, proper speech, modest appearance, and diligent work, “obviously represented a largely subservient role for women and defined their sphere of action as largely limited to domestic life.”17 Three Obediences and Four Virtues are the most heavily stressed ethical rules for women, and they are regarded as the most important criteria for any ideal Chinese woman. They have been amply illustrated in Lin’s translations. Typical in the tales are the examples of obedient daughters highly praised as role models and the disobedient ones who usually meet tragic ends and serve as cautionary examples. Nv Bian (Changed Daughters), Lin’s version of the Lambs’ King Lear, is the most moving and convincing case. In the tale, Goneril and Regan exemplify impious and ungrateful daughters. At the very beginning, these two honey-lipped elder sisters express their love and piety to their father in a highly exaggerated way. But after defrauding the old king of his possessions, “the two foxes didn’t hide their tails anymore.”18 Their attitude toward the old father deteriorates: they complain of his daily consumption, hate his extravagance, are reluctant to greet him, avoid running errands for him, and viciously abuse him. Yet the two wicked sisters sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, 293

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and die in disgrace at the end. Opposite to her sisters, Cordelia is an ideal daughter. She strictly observes the ethical rule of proper speech, expressing her due love to her father honestly and refusing to flatter him with rhetoric and flowery words; she is constant in her love and respect to her father, even though she is granted no dowry and banished from the kingdom; she neither questions the decisions her father made nor challenges his authority in any way, even when the father and king realizes his blunder and begs for her forgiveness. In other words, Cordelia has already been transformed from a somewhat confident, intellectual, and independent woman in Tales from Shakespeare into a purely obedient and filially pious daughter in Lin’s translation. As for the obedience of a wife to her husband and the virtues of a wife, there are also many examples. In contrast with Portia in the Lambs’ tale, who is eloquent, capable, and smart, Lin’s Portia in Rou Quan (The Contract of Flesh) is beautiful, submissive, and well-mannered an image in full conformity to the feminine ideal of a traditional Chinese woman. For another example, in Hei Mao (The Black Fool), the tragic fate of Desdemona the beautiful, virtuous, and faithful wife of Othello demonstrates the harm being inflicted on the couple by suspicion and jealousy; and more important, it proves her everlasting faithfulness and loyalty to her husband even when she is wronged and confronted with death. Xun Han (Taming the Shrew) is also an example in point to illustrate the importance and necessity of the wife’s obedience to her husband, as well as the learning of proper speech and behaviour. Lady Macbeth is surprisingly depicted as an obedient and supportive wife, too, in Gu Zheng (Witchy Omens); she tries every means to help fulfill her husband’s ambition to be king. The racial identities of Othello and Shylock are mentioned but not emphasized in Yin Bian Yan Yu. Shylock is introduced as “a rich Jewish businessman who amassed his fortune by lending money to others at some interest”19 instead of “Shylock, the Jew, ... lending money at great interest to Christians.”20 And the introduction of Othello as “a Moor, a black”21 is rewritten into “Othello the Moor (The Moors were a Muslim people who used to defeat and rule the country of Spain, and were later driven back to North Africa).”22 The skin colour of Othello is repeated a couple of times in the story, and it serves as a disadvantage for Othello to marry Desdemona and a reminder for him to cherish the precious love of his wife. Still, the depiction of the racial or ethnic identities of Othello and Shylock mainly serves to introduce the characters in a general way 294

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rather than arouse the curiosity of the Chinese readers of the late Qing dynasty as to the racial or religious strife in Europe (conflicts between Jews and Christians as well as between Black and white people). Due to period historical and cultural contexts, racial and religious identities, as illustrated by Shylock and Othello, were unlikely to elicit the same responses from the readers in China as they are in the West. What Shu Lin and his readers care or enjoy most are plot elements such as the contract involving one pound of flesh and Othello’s being fooled to kill his wife, the themes of friendship and mutual trust between husband and wife, and most important of all, the exemplification of Chinese traditional ethics and values. As “a traditional scholar of Chinese philology and Confucian texts”23 Lin “capitalized on Victorian critical ethics and exaggerated the potential for moral instruction in Shakespeare.”24 In his translation, the ethics of Christianity and Western culture give way to Confucian ethics, and this teaches the readers lessons with well-exemplified ethical role models. It is the replacement of foreign ethics with Confucian ones and the rewritten sensational stories full of Chinese characteristics that has brought Lin and Yin Bian Yan Yu fame, fortune, and success. As the very Chinese scholar who initiated the translation of Shakespeare’s works and achieved success in the late Qing dynasty, Lin played an important pioneering role in the history of Shakespeare’s image construction in China. Shakespeare, as Lin comments in the preface to Yin Bian Yan Yu, is an English Fu Du (poet-sage), whose works largely concerns with supernatural beings such as gods and spirits.25 Echoing this interpretation are his sensationalizing the supernatural elements in both the new titles and the contents of the tales, and his replacement of the exotic appellations and terms from Christianity and Western mythology with those native and familiar to Chinese readers. Besides that, looming in the rewritten tales is the didactic legacy that Lin painstakingly appropriates from the Lambs, strengthened with Chinese traditional ethics. They are never short of examples of role models and Confucian moral lessons that emphasize quintessential Chinese ethical rules and values (including the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, Five Relations, filial piety, and patriotic loyalty to the throne). In other words, the didactic purpose of Confucian ethics is entertainingly realized through the sensationalization of supernatural elements inherent in British and Chinese literature, and at the same time, the moralization of the tales sublimates these elements and justifies the significance and value of imaginative traditional literature. 295

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Shakespeare is apparently interpreted by Lin as a legendary poet (playwright) who is indulgent in tales of gods and spirits, and deeply concerned with ethical education. This interpretation, as argued by some Chinese scholars, is explicitly oriented toward Lin’s dissatisfaction with the coetaneous reformers (who held fast to the ideas of complete Westernization and the abandonment of traditional Chinese culture) and his steadfast adherence to Confucian ethics and Chinese culture. Such determination and insistence foreground Lin’s interpretive translation of Tales from Shakespeare as well as his construction of the image of Shakespeare in the late Qing dynasty.26 In an era when there were few first-hand introductions to the canons of Western literature, Lin’s translation of Tales from Shakespeare and his image of Shakespeare is “pioneering and revolutionary,”27 building a bridge between Shakespeare and Chinese readers. notes 1 Shu Lin and Wei Yi, Yin Bian Yan Yu (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1981), editorial note on p. 1. 2 Qichao Liang, a Chinese scholar, journalist, philosopher, and reformist who lived during the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China, considered him together with Yan Fu as the most talented translators. Arthur Waley, an English Orientalist and Sinologist, declared that his translations of Dickens’s novels were not inferior to the originals. See Arthur Waley, “Notes on Translation: Unlocking the Chinese Poets,” Atlantic Monthly (Nov. 1985): 107– 11. Surprisingly, Shu Lin had no knowledge of any foreign languages and his more than 180 translations into Chinese of some of the most important works of Western literature were based on interpretative oral accounts of his close friend Shouchang Wang (1864–1926) as well as other collaborators. See Weihong Chen and Xiaojuan Cheng, “An Analysis of Lin Shu’s Translation Activity from the Cultural Perspective,” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 4, no. 6 (June 2014): 1201–6. 3 Zhongshu Qian, “Shu Lin’s Translation,” Translation Correspondence 12 (1985): 2–10. 4 Ning Wang, “Translation and China’s Cultural Modernity,” Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 17 (2002): 88. 5 Originally published in 1807, here cited from Charles and Mary Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare (Hertfordshire, uk : Wordsworth Editions, 1994). 6 Alexa Alice Joubin, “Shu Lin, Invisible Translation, and Politics,” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 14 (2006): 59.

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Shu Lin and the Earliest Image of Shakespeare in China 7 A term referring to a form of modern drama that was popular around Shanghai in the early twentieth century. 8 Ruru Li, “The Bard in the Middle Kingdom,” Asian Theatre Journal 12 (1995): 53–4. 9 Xianqiang Meng, A Brief History to Shakespeare Study in China (Changchun, China: Northeast Normal University Press, 1994), 10. 10 Jianhua Yu, “Translation of Literary Titles: Characteristics and Misrepresentations,” Journal of Foreign Languages 31 (2008): 68. 11 Ibid. 12 Lin, Yin Bian Yan Yu, 1. 13 Translation of the titles is based on the one offered by Joubin, “Shu Lin,” 60, but with slight variations. 14 Gu is a legendary venomous insect in Chinese gothic stories and kung-fu novels. 15 Liming Chen, “The Earliest Chinese Translation of Shakespeare’s Tales: Hai Wai Qi Tan,” Journal of Foreign Languages 31 (2016): 94. Despite its earlier publication and the merits some Chinese scholars proclaim, Hai Wai Qi Tan has rarely been known to academia, playing little part in the image construction of Shakespeare in China. 16 Rodney L. Taylor, Confucianism (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004), 77. 17 Ibid., 78. 18 Lin, Yin Bian Yan Yu, 63. 19 Ibid., 3. 20 Charles and Mary Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare, 86. 21 Ibid., 250. 22 Lin, Yin Bian Yan Yu, 93. 23 Joubin, “Shu Lin,” 59. 24 Ibid., 60. 25 Lin, Yin Bian Yan Yu, 1. 26 Weifang Li, “On Shu Lin’s Acceptance of Shakespeare and Its Cultural Significance,” Literary Review 1 (2016): 31. 27 Zhaoxiang Cheng, “Shakespeare in the Shaping of China’s New Culture Identity,” English and American Literary Studies 24 (2016): 31.

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Translingual Shakespeare: An Afterword Alexa Alice Joubin

Literary translations work with, rather than out of, the space between languages. Translation as a cultural practice brings together different temporalities and localities, bridging – and drawing attention to – the cracks between cultural texts from diverse time periods and cultures. Translations evolve not only across linguistic and cultural borders but also across time. Umberto Eco notes how literary translation tends to “modernize the source to some extent” by building in new relevance of the work to contemporary readers.1 Plays such as Hamlet, as I have examined elsewhere, have the potential – through translation and adaptation – to become a more politically charged work or to be used as a platform to discuss sensitive topics.2 In the twenty-first century, Shakespeare’s verse is becoming ever more foreign, even to native English speakers, except for many common expressions – for example, “playing fast and loose,” being “tongue-tied,” recognizing it is “high time” – that circulate out of context (and often not remembered as Shakespearean). As Michael Saenger theorizes, there is a fundamental instability of languages as systems of communication because meanings of words change with contexts and, as this volume reveals, over time.3 Translations, even from Shakespeare’s text to modern English, can, on the one hand, erase difference, and, on the other hand, recognize difference, with an eye toward equality. It is notable that Shakespeare’s own play texts feature translational properties that can be amplified in translation. Take, for example, Macbeth’s confession of guilt in the porter scene. No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. (2.2.58–60)

Translingual Shakespeare: An Afterword

The use of “incarnadine” and “red” is serendipitous, but the deliberate alternation between words of Latinate and Germanic roots creates two pathways to Macbeth’s guilt in murdering King Duncan. The built-in redundancy is informed by two perspectives on the world in which he lives. Translation draws attention to literary meanings that may have been previously glossed over. In The Tempest, what exactly do Prospero and Miranda teach Caliban that the latter should yell, “You taught me language” (1.2.365)? It is often taken to mean his master’s language, a tool of oppression. But it can also mean rhetoric and political speechwriting, a new tool for him to change the world order. Caliban’s word, “language,” was translated into German as “redden” (speech) by Christoph Martin Wieland (1766). In Japanese, it is rendered as “human language,” as opposed to the language of the animals or computer language. Take, for example, another word in act 4, scene 1, where Prospero announces that “our revels now are ended” (148). The word “revels” in the Elizabethan context refers to royal festivities and stage entertainments, but it carries different diagnostic significance in translation. Christoph Martin Wieland used “Spiele” (plays) and “Schauspieler” (performer) to refer to Prospero’s masque and actors (unsre Spiele sind nun zu Ende). Sometimes translators working in the same language have different interpretations. Liang Shiqiu translated it as “games” in Mandarin Chinese in 1964, alluding to Prospero’s manipulative “games” on the island, but Zhu Shenghao preferred “carnivals” (1954), highlighting the festive nature of the wedding celebration. This translingual property makes Shakespeare’s text inherently translational in the dramaturgical and gestural senses. Translingual echoes occur when semantically linked phrases mean similar but not identical things in more than one language. The term translingualism refers to semantic connections across languages.4 Translating and interpreting Shakespeare in multilingual contexts enriches our understanding of words that have escaped attention. Translation is a process that simultaneously defamiliarizes and familiarizes literary works. Intuitively aware of the benefit of defamiliarization and skeptical of assuming ownership of one’s native language, director Peter Brook worked closely with the poet Ted Hughes as he conceptualized his film version of King Lear (1971). Hughes rewrote part of the play in his distinctive poetic voice; Brook, having worked with Hughes’s “translation,” was then able to engage with Lear (in Shakespeare’s language) from a renewed perspective. Hughes’s contribution recast the tragedy in language “that could 299

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neither roll automatically off the tongue through years of intimate acquaintance nor provoke too much learned reverence,” thereby jostling itself “out of its usual linguistic cadences.”5 In the words of the film’s producer, Michael Birkett, this exercise reinvigorates the play’s “essential themes.”6 The benefits of the exercise remained stable even when Brook did not film Lear using Hughes’s lines. Brook’s method of finding directions out by indirection is similar to how non-Anglophone directors adapt Shakespeare. Judith Buchanan compares Brook to Kurosawa, observing that both directors enjoy the “luxury ... of coming fresh ... to the specific language of a play” in translation.7 Kenneth Rothwell similarly regards filming Shakespeare in a foreign language as the freedom to reinvent the plays in “purely cinematic terms.”8 Literary translations rely on, and amplify, the translingual property of languages. Translingual echoes occur when phrases are relevant but may not necessarily mean the same things in more than one language. British theatre director Tim Supple elucidates Shakespearean narratives rather than simply reenacting the supposedly untranslatable language of poetic drama. One of Supple’s most well-known works is A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a pan-Asian cast in seven languages (RSC, 2006–08). When audiences of different backgrounds encounter such performances, their horizons of expectation enrich the event, even though not all layers of allusion and wordplay are activated at all times. Unlike pigments that make up a painting or individual notes that constitute a musical work (both of which are often transparent to the audience), non-Anglophone performances of Western classics frequently draw attention to their formal features and thereby enable new paths to the cultures being represented. A frequently stated myth is that Shakespearean drama is all about its poetic language, and adaptations in another language would violate the “original.” The history of performance and reception in and beyond the Anglophone world suggests otherwise. As J.L. Austin theorizes in How to Do Things with Words (1962), words do not mean in and by themselves, and this is especially true for drama. Words – in any language – acquire meaning when spoken in context and embodied by actors. Even English-language performances engage in translational behaviours, because audiences would find many scenes confusing without seeing the actors performing them. Some scenes would lose their dramaturgical impact if only read and not performed. Examples include the mock trial in King Lear (13.16–52 [Quarto]) where, without modern stage directions, it would not be immediately clear that Lear is speaking 300

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to a piece of furniture (joint-stool); the appearance of Banquo’s ghost at the banquet in Macbeth (3.4); and the fifteen characters (eight of whom are in disguise) in Love’s Labour’s Lost (5.2). Another instance of creative exploitations of the translingual property of the plays is Baz Luhrmann’s film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. The choir sings the prologue in Latin, interspersed with the announcer’s purposeful, methodic, and measured delivery of the prologue in English. The opening sequence features a composed, dispassionate, deliberately old-fashioned script reading by a female tv news anchor framed by an antiquated tv set. The arrangement uses tv news as a framing device to translate the relevance and valence of the prologue for the modern audiences, but it also simultaneously insists on the ideological distance between film audiences and Shakespeare’s text. The heteroglossic multimedia delivery of the prologue is as remarkable as the film’s multilingual, non-diegetic sound environment. Due to Luhrmann’s use of Shakespeare’s language for indexical value, the film has not usually been taught from the perspective of translation studies or been categorized under “global” adaptations. In fact, the film pitches Latin American Catholicism against North American Protestantism in its costumes, sets, and accents adopted by the Montagues and Capulets. Early modern English Protestant anxieties about Catholic Italy, as reflected in Shakespeare’s play, are presented as sources of modern misunderstanding and gangland conflict in the film. Mexico City and Boca del Rio in Veracruz, the film’s primary shooting locations, are dressed up as a fictional American city called Verona Beach. The fictional and filming locations, attitudes toward Latinity in the film, and Elizabethan English fantasies about Spain and Italy are meshed together to create a new “site” where youthful exuberance, religious sentiments, and early modern and postmodern notions of feud and hatred play out. The performative aspect of translational work is most evident in the subtitles of films. Subtitles are simultaneously a heuristic and filtering device, revealing as much as they repackage some motifs for consumption by a target audience not proficient in the oral language. Spoken language is an important aspect of, for instance, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. In the samurai-film adaptation of Macbeth, salutations and word choices are intimately related to moral and political agency or the lack thereof. What stands out in the film – but is obscured by the English subtitles – is how and when some characters choose informal language. Translating or transforming gendered pronouns is a key issue here. When conversing with each other, Washizu and Miki (Macbeth and 301

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Banquo) refer to each other through first names, deepen their voice, and use informal language, especially the informal masculine “I” (ore). They often laugh things off, as in the scene when they are lost in the forest, as part of their bravura. Singular first-person pronouns in Japanese serve important discursive functions, according to discourse and cognitive linguistics. In addition to ore, other first-person pronouns include the informal boku, typically used by young men, and the more formal but more feminine watashi, commonly used by women. In a world strictly governed by rigid hierarchy and titles, the men’s move to undermine formality has profound implications. It could be interpreted as a gesture toward building a masculine bond and camaraderie, but also as a move to reassert their masculine identity in a world full of uncertainties. The bravura around the pronoun ore buttresses their denial that they are lost. Yet even if they are, they remain brothers, lost together in the woods. Washizu (Macbeth) attempts to create a similarly intimate bond with Lady Asaji (Lady Macbeth) in private, but she rejects his attempt and maintains verbal and physical distance. It is notable that when Washizu addresses Asaji, he does not use any honorific; he does not address her as tsuma (wife) or okusan (lady of the house). Meanwhile, Asaji uses the most formal, singular first-person pronoun watakushi, rather than the informal, feminine atashi (or atakushi), which would be what a private conversation between a husband and a wife normally entails. Moreover, she addresses Washizu with the general second-person pronoun anata. This word, though often used in tv commercials to refer to a general audience – that is, in the absence of information about the addressee’s age, gender, or class – is also used by women to address their husbands. Asaji’s combination of the formal watakushi and the usually more casual anata – the latter here spoken in a register that conveys condescension and rejects intimacy – creates another layer of the uncanny beyond the atonal music. The use of these pronouns creates tension and conflicts between desired intimacy and rejected informality; it confuses Washizu, who is unsure how to respond. What is lost in translated subtitles is as significant as what is gained in translation. Shakespeare in translation acquires the capacity to appear as the contemporary of the German Romantics, a spokesperson for the proletarian heroes, required reading for the Communists, and even a transhistorical icon of modernity in East Asia. Even new titles given to Shakespeare’s plays are suggestive of the preoccupation of the society that produced them, such as the 1710 German adaptation of Hamlet as Der besträfte Brudermord (The Condemned Fratricide) and Sulayman 302

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Al-Bassam’s The Al-Hamlet Summit (English version in 2002; Arabic version in 2004). While Western interpretations of The Merchant of Venice tend to focus on the ethics of conversion and religious tensions with Shylock at centre stage, the play has a completely different face in East Asia with Portia as its central character and the women’s emancipation movement in the nascent capitalist societies as its main concern, as evidenced by its common Chinese title A Pound of Flesh, a 1885 Japanese adaptation titled The Season of Cherry Blossoms, the World of Money, and a 1927 Chinese silent film The Woman Lawyer. The significance and weight of singular first-person pronouns is given a spin in the animated 2016 box-office hit Your Name (Kimi no na wa, dir. Makoto Shinkai, CoMix Wave Films). From time to time, Mitsuha, a high-school girl living in a small mountain town, inexplicably swaps bodies with Taki, a high-school boy in Tokyo. When inhabiting each other’s body, they strive to act normally (that is, Mitsuha has to act and talk like the boy she now embodies, and Taki has to adopt feminine speech patterns when in Mitsuha’s body). Comical scenes ensue when they fail, such as when Mitsuha – waking up and going to school in Taki’s body – slips and uses the feminine singular first-person pronoun. Gendered pronouns in translation open a fascinating new vista. When Viola, dressed up as a page boy, Cesario, and finding himself pursued by the lovelorn Olivia, declares that “I am the man ... she were better love a dream” in Twelfth Night (2.2.25–6), he speaks with double irony as a doubly cross-dressed boy actor on the early modern English stage (such as Nathan Field, 1587–1619). But as an otokoyaku (actress specializing in male roles) in the all-female Takarazuka musical production (dir. Kimura Shinji, 1999), Yamato Yuga’s Viola embodies enticing gender fluidity. Japanese, a language that often elides the subject, features a long list of personal pronouns. In addition to making the right choice of employing the familiar or the polite register, based on the relation between the speaker and the addressee, male and female speakers of Japanese are restricted by the gender-specific first-person pronouns available to them. The gender dynamics in Twelfth Night worked well for Takarazuka, which is known for its romantic, extravagant musicals. Similarly, gendered code-switching creates semantic ambiguity in Kei Otozuki’s double performance of twins Viola and Sebastian. Having played exclusively male roles in the Takarazuka Revue until her retirement in 2012,9 Kei brings a unique perspective to her roles in the second Shakespeare production in Japanese, with a Japanese cast, directed by John Caird, 303

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honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (Nissay Theatre, Tokyo, March 2015).10 It was a rare opportunity to see an actress specializing in male roles play Viola, Cesario, and Sebastian. Just as gendered pronouns carry and undermine agency, the messages of the texts to be translated are often moralized as well. Widely known in the Sinophone world as the only poet to have single-handedly translated all Shakespeare’s works into vernacular Chinese, Taiwanese translator Liang Shiqiu (1903–1987) used translations of the Western canon to promote the value of the written vernacular when classical Chinese was still regarded as the preferred vehicle for literary expressions. Based on W.J. Craig’s Oxford edition (a 1943 reprint), Liang’s translations brush aside the question of a male speaker asking a young man to procreate in sonnets 1–17. Gender identities are deliberately obscured or rendered ambiguous in his translation, possibly out of an effort to avoid assigning male or female identities to a speaker. As recently shown by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells’s revisionist approach, the addressees in many sonnets cannot be gendered because the context is fluid and ambiguous. In his translation of sonnet 1, for instance, Liang uses the neutral term “zuimei de ren” (the most beauteous person) for “fairest creatures.” It is notable that Liang translates “fair” elsewhere with different vernacular phrases suggesting non-physical beauty. Likewise, the word “blood” in the final line of sonnet 2 is translated by Liang simply as “blood,” with subtle hinting at the significance of a “blood line” (sonnet 2: “see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold”).11 When translating sonnet 127 (“In the old age black was not counted fair, / Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name”), Liang renders “fair” as “biaozhi” (comely) and “beauty” as “mei” (transcendentally beautiful). In classical texts, the word biaozhi often refers to the attractiveness of female facial features. As such, it is more clearly gendered than mei (beauty in the metaphysical sense). The word mei circulates more widely in the vernacular – both written and spoken, but the somewhat more literary biaozhi was introduced into the vernacular by Liang. Liang’s sonnets, while they still thematize love, are a vehicle for the promotion of the vernacular. Liang’s translation of sonnet 90 is another example of his penchant for dramatization and preference for the more immediate impact of vernacular expressions. Along with sonnet 89, it addresses the emotions of parting with a friend of unspecified gender. The keywords in the first quatrain are “wilt” and “spite of fortune.” 304

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Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now, Now while the world is bent my deeds to crosse, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, And do not drop in for an after-loss. The opening line is glossed by Edmondson and Wells as “hate me whenever you will,” with a more open timeframe (“whenever”).12 Liang, in contrast, emphasizes the imperative form in the present (“now”) in the first line: “If you want to hate me, go ahead. If you wish, hate me now.” He continues with a liberal sprinkling of more loaded vocabulary than sonnet 90’s: Liang’s evocation of volition (“to want to hate me”) provides an interesting contrast to the even more emphatic “must” (muß) in the German version by Romanian-born poet Paul Celan (1920–1970). The first quatrain is rendered by Celan thus: Mußt du mich hassen, haß mich ungesäumt, gesell der Welt dich zu, die mir den Weg vertritt, groll mit dem Schicksal, beug ihn, der sich bäumt, und sei nicht du das Letzte, das entglitt.13 Celan highlights the narrator’s inevitable fate of being ostracized by the world through his repetition of the verb to hate, hassen/haß. Sonnet 90 was the first sonnet to be translated by Celan (January 1960; in Einundzwanzig Sonette [Twenty-One Sonnets], 1967). Celan’s use of “must,” writes Michael Eskin, “outweighs the conditional gist in the first line.”14 One final contrast between Liang and Celan is Celan’s introduction of the idea of rising up against fate in the third line (“der sich bäumt”). He complements the Shakespearean narrator’s plea to “make me bow” with “a clear articulation to worldly obstructions.”15 Just as translation enriches all languages and texts, comparative analyses of translations of the same poems, as we have just done, sheds new light on words that would have escaped attention. For instance, act 1, scene 3, of  Othello is ripe for multilingual interpretations. Examining multiple translations of the problematic word “fair,” similar to its presence in sonnet 127, analyzed above, enhances our understanding of the cultural construct. In fact, an entire digital project has been dedicated to just two key lines in act 1, scene 3: If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. 305

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These are the last words spoken by the Duke of Venice to Brabantio in the court scene after Othello eloquently defends his love of Desdemona. Directed by Tom Cheesman, the website Version Variation Visualisation: Multilingual Crowd-Sourcing of Shakespeare’s Othello (https:// sites.google.com/site/delightedbeautyws/) has collated two hundred translations in thirty languages along with English translations of them. Translations of these lines into different languages deal with the meanings of fair and black rather differently. Mikhail Lozinskij’s Russian translation says, “Since honour is a source of light of virtue, / Then your son-in-law is light, and by no means black.” Christopher Martin Wieland and Ángel Luis Pujante used words for “white” in German and Spanish (respectively) to translate “fair,” while Victor Hugo chose the French for “shining.” The translators’ choices of word reflect how social markers – gender, class, immigration status – create and amplify one’s desires and needs. Translational differences draw attention to the instability of Shakespeare’s texts as well as their variegated terrains that are open for interpretation. In our times, most audiences encounter Shakespeare in truncated, often translational, forms, such as short video clips, memes, or quotes. The chapters in this book argue convincingly that cross-fertilization and mobility are the norms, not the exceptions. Translation studies, as the present volume demonstrates, contribute site-specific epistemologies to our understanding of what Shakespeare means in different locations and in different times. Energized by internal divisions and pathways, translingual Shakespeare is the prodigal child that ultimately expands the riches of human civilizations. notes 1 Umberto Eco, Experiences in Translation, trans. Alastair McEwen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 22. 2 Pauline Holdsworth, “How Translating Shakespeare’s Plays Reveals New Ideas – From China to Afghanistan” (with Alexa Alice Joubin, Alberto Manguel, and Irena Makaryk), cbc Radio Canada, 3 Nov. 3 2021, www.cbc.ca/radio/ ideas/how-translating-shakespeare-s-plays-reveals-new-ideas-from-chinato-afghanistan-1.6234629). 3 See Michael Saenger’s definition of interlinguicity, in his introduction to Interlinguicity, Internationality, and Shakespeare, ed. Michael Saenger (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), 3–5.

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Translingual Shakespeare: An Afterword 4 The term translingualism appears to have been coined by Steven G. Kellman, “J. M. Coetzee and Samuel Beckett: The Translingual Link,” Comparative Literature Studies 33, no. 2 (1996): 161–72; see also Steven G. Kellman, ed., Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Using the concept of translingual practice, Lydia H. Liu analyzes cultural exchange between China, Japan, and the West, in Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity – China, 1900–1937 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995). 5 Judith Buchanan, Shakespeare on Film (Harlow, uk : Pearson, 2005), 71. 6 Roger Manvell, Shakespeare and the Film (London: Dent, 1971), 136–43; Birkett, quoted on 137. 7 Buchanan, Shakespeare on Film, 71. 8 Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 160. 9 Jennifer Robertson’s Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) remains one of the most thorough studies of the cultural phenomenon of all-female Takarazuka and its female fan base. See also Leonie Stickland’s Gender Gymnastics: Performing and Consuming Japan’s Takarazuka Revue (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2008). 10 Nobuko Tanaka, “John Caird Delivers Home Truths with Twelfth Night: Stage Giant Bestrides a World of Ideas,” Japan Times, 4 Mar. 4, 2005, www. japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/03/04/stage/john-caird-delivers-home-truthstwelfth-night/#.XoOnGtNKgQE. 11 Quotes from the Sonnets are drawn from Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells, eds, All the Sonnets of Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 12 Edmondson and Wells, eds, All the Sonnets of Shakespeare, 253. 13 Paul Celan, Gesammelte Werke [Complete Works], 5 vols, ed. Beda Allemann et al. (Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 5: 343. 14 Michael Eskin, “‘To Truths Translated’: Celan’s Affair with Shakespeare,” New German Critique 91 (Winter 2004): 83–4. 15 Ibid., 84.

307

Contributors

josé francisco botelho is a writer and translator, born in Bagé,

Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 1980. His short-story collection A árvore que falava aramaico was among the three finalists for the Açorianos Award (one of Brazil’s most important literary awards) in 2012. His newest short-story collection, Cavalos de Cronos (2018), has been praised as “one of the best books of its kind ever published in Brazil” and was the winner of the Açorianos Award in 2018. In 2013, Botelho’s translation of The Canterbury Tales, Contos da Cantuária, was published by Penguin Companhia. It was the first full-verse translation of Chaucer in Portuguese and one of the recipients of the Jabuti Prize, Brazil’s most important literary award, in 2014. Two years later, Botelho published his translation of Romeo and Juliet, followed by his translation of Julius Caesar in 2018. Besides his work as a translator, Botelho currently writes as a culture columnist in the Brazilian press and is a doctorate researcher at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

niels brunse, born in 1949, is a Danish writer and literary translator.

In 2018 he finished a complete retranslation of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven canonical plays (published in six volumes between 2010 and 2018). His versions are both acclaimed by critics and embraced by audiences, and they are very often performed on Danish stages from The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen to experimental companies in all parts of the country. He has been awarded numerous literary prizes and was appointed Knight of the Order of Dannebrog by the Queen of Denmark in 2011.

sergio costola is Corbin Robertson Jr. endowed and associate dean of faculty at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He earned a ba from the University of Bologna in Italy and a PhD from the University

Shakespeare in Succession

of California, Los Angeles. His research interests focus on vision and the ways in which it has been constructed throughout history, in particular during the period that separates the medieval from the early modern period, with brief forays into nineteenth-century African American theatre. He is the author of Commedia dell’Arte Scenarios (2021) and has collaborated on The Dramaturgy of Commedia dell’Arte with Olly Crick (2021). He is currently working on a monograph on Lucrezia Borgia and her performances at the Este court. He has also published various book chapters and articles in journals including Teatro e Storia, International Journal of Art and Technology, Renaissance Quarterly, Asian Theatre Journal, Mediaevalia, and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre.

wei feng is professor of English at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. He received his doctorate in English literature from Beijing University in 2009. He is author of Shakespeare and the Law in Early Modern England (2017), Biographical Writings of Christopher Marlowe (2013) and various articles in Chinese on Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and other early modern English dramatists. He is currently working on two book projects, on Shakespeare’s cultural reception in nineteenth-century America and Shakespeare and the history of emotions in early modern England. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Yale University in 2018. hiromi fuyuki is professor of English literature at the Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at Waseda University, in Japan. She earned

ba and ma from Waseda University. In 2008, she became a visiting

researcher at Cambridge University. She specializes in early modern English drama, especially Shakespeare. She has edited Language and Culture of Shakespeare’s Drama (in Japanese, 2007) and The Expanding World of Shakespeare (2011), and published a chapter in Reviving Shakespeare: The Commemorative Theses of 400th Anniversary of his Death (in Japanese, 2016).

rangping ji is a PhD candidate in British and American literature and assistant professor at Northeast Normal University (China), and he has served as a visiting scholar at the University of Minnesota (2013–14). His field of interest is Shakespearean play adaptation in children’s literature. His current Chinese-language projects include “The Study of Shakespeare’s Plays Adapted in British Children’s Literature (1807–1901),” 310

Contributors

funded by Humanities and Social Science Research Youth Funds of the Education Ministry of China (2017); and “An Ethical-Literary Interpretation of Shakespeare’s Plays, Adapted as Children’s Literature in the United Kingdom in the Victorian Period,” funded by the Education Department of Jilin Province (2017). His recent publications are “An Ethical-Literary Analysis of ‘The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines’” (2018), “The Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Plays in British Children’s Literature (1807–1901)” (in Chinese, 2017), and “Penelope’s Web and Mary Cowden Clarke’s Shakespearean Young Adolescent Heroines” (2016).

alexa alice joubin (https://ajoubin.org/) writes about race, gender, and cultural globalization. She teaches in the Departments of English, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University in Washington, dc , where she co-founded and co-directs the Digital Humanities Institute. Her latest book,  Shakespeare and East Asia, was published in 2021. She co-authored Race with Martin Orkin, which was published in Routledge’s New Critical Idiom series in 2019. As a translator, she published  Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Anthology, 1987–2007  in 2022 and co-edited  Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare  (2022),  Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance (2018,) and Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation (2014). marcus kyd is an actor, musician, and director. As co-founder and artistic director of Taffety Punk Theatre Company in Washington, dc ,

he has directed several text-driven dance-theatre productions including suicide.chat.room, The Rape of Lucrece, Enter Ophelia, distracted, and most recently The Fragments of Sappho. His acting credits include shows at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Folger Theatre, Arena Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Round House Theatre, Center Stage, Olney Theatre Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and many more. For much of the 90s and early 2000s, he played guitar and sang for The Most Secret Method.

zoltán márkus is associate professor of English at Vassar College, New York. His publications have focused on the cultural appropriation of Shakespeare, foreign Shakespeare, Shakespeare in translation, and Shakespeare on stage and film, as well as on Shakespeare in performance studies. His main research and teaching interests include classical and contemporary drama, cultural studies, and modern and postmodern 311

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cultural, literary, and performance theories. His current book project, “Shakespeares at War: Cultural Appropriations of Shakespeare in London and Berlin during World War II,” is a comparative study of Shakespeare’s cultural reception in wartime London and Berlin.

miguel ángel montezanti is professor of English literature and

literary translation at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, and he is a Regular Member of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Some of his translations include Baladas inglesas y escocesas (1980–2017), Sonetos completos de William Shakespeare (1987 and 2003), Cuatro Cuartetos (T. S. Eliot, 1994), La fénix y el tórtolo (1989), Sólo vos sos vos: Los sonetos de Shakespeare en traducción rioplatense (2011), La violación de Lucrecia (2012), Venus y Adonis (2014), and Quejas de una enamorada (2016).

iolanda plescia , PhD, is lecturer in English linguistics and trans-

lation at Sapienza University of Rome, where she teaches history of the English language and literary translation. She has published on Shakespeare’s language, early modern translation, multilingualism, early modern scientific language, and the circulation of Galileo’s work in English. She has produced the first Italian edition of Henry VIII’s Letters to Anne Boleyn (2013) and annotated translations of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida and The Taming of the Shrew (2015 and 2018). She is a member of the editorial board of Memoria di Shakespeare: A Journal of Shakespearean Studies. Her co-edited book Elizabeth I in Writing: Language, Power and Representation in Early Modern England was published in 2018.

sarah roberts teaches courses in cultural-studies performance and

design in the division of theatre and performance at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her focus on developing improvisation skills and the agency of actors as an ensemble is documented in publications in the SSISA journal and in JCDE. A multi-award–winning professional production designer, her portfolio includes significant productions emerging from South Africa since 1985, including designing the stage for President Nelson Mandela’s inauguration and landmark productions across the spectrum of musical theatre, contemporary dance and drama, such as Sarafina!, Sophiatown, and Nothing but the Truth. 312

Contributors

carl a. robertson received an ma in Chinese Literature from Washington University in St Louis and an ma and PhD in Comparative

Literature from the University of Oregon, with a focus on comparative studies in fiction, lyric, and narrative, including translation and the expressive mode of Chinese calligraphy. Robertson is associate professor of Chinese at Southwestern University where he devotes most of his energies to a small Chinese-language program. His research interests remain focused on questions of self and other in the act of reading and interpretation, beginning with commentaries on the sixteenth-century Chinese story cycle The Journey to the West, including a pending book manuscript, and he has recently conducted teaching and research on the comparative nature of lyric and narrative. Robertson is interested in the way literature provides an area to engage, or not, in personal expression. He lives in Georgetown, Texas, with his wife LeaMarie, with community service as their primary hobby, among many.

michael saenger, professor of English at Southwestern University,

teaches and writes on Shakespeare from a wide variety of perspectives. He is the author of two books, The Commodification of Textual Engagements in the English Renaissance (2006), and Shakespeare and the French Borders of English (2013), as well as numerous articles on Renaissance and other literature. He is also the editor of Interlinguicity, Internationality, and Shakespeare (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014). A finalist for the Southwestern Teaching Award, he publishes blog entries for Reviewing Shakespeare as well as for The Times of Israel, and he has spoken internationally on Shakespeare in translation.

zhiyan zhang obtained her PhD in English at the University of

Exeter in 2012 and is now associate professor at East China University of Science and Technology. Her research interests are Shakespeare particularly and world literature generally. She has published over twenty papers, more than half of which are related to Shakespeare. Representative papers include “‘My Lady’s a Cataian’: Cataian in Twelfth Night” (Notes and Queries) and “Emotion qing in Early Modern England and Late Imperial China, with a Focus on Emotion in Shakespeare’s Plays and Ming-Qing Literature” (Ming Qing Studies).

313

Index

Adelman, Janet, 240, 241, 242, 251 aestheticism: as an effect on the reader, 286; literary criticism, 36, 124; in Middle English verse, 37; as a poetic effect in translation, 93; and theatrical cultures, 155, 157, 286; in theatrical cultures, 131, 133; and theatrical effect, 150, 163, 165 Africa, 33, 123–52, 294 Alter, Robert, 251 antanaclasis, 230 Antony and Cleopatra, 46, 128, 151, 236n16 Appadurai, Arjun, 239 Aquinas, Thomas, 16–17 Arden, John, 127 Aristotle, 9–11, 16–17 Artaud, Antonin, 134 As You Like It, 119, 164–6 Atwood, Margaret, 68 Austin, J.L., 300 Bandeira, Manuel, 40 Baines, Roger, 30 Barton, John, 131, 133, 246 Bassi, Shaul, 19 Bassnett, Susan, 105, 107

Bate, Jonathan, 236n16 Benjamin, Walter, 195–6, 201n1, 203–16 Berman, Antoine, 31, 211–4, 218n31 Berman, Isabelle, 218n31 Bernay, Alexandre de, 44 Bible, 115, 235n2, 240, 246 Biondi, Mario, 120n7 Birkett, Michael, 300 Blank, Paula, 23n10, 103, 105, 106, 107, 111, 120n5 Bloom, Harold, 219, 241 Borges, Jorge Luis, 125, 133 Braun, Jayme Caetano, 50 Brook, Peter, 129, 152, 299–300 Brown, Pamela, 249, 255n54 Buchanan, Judith, 300 Camões, Luís Vaz de, 40–2 Campos, Geir, 46 capitalism, 23n10, 250, 251; and anti-Semitism, 255n55; as fraud, 227 Carter, Paul, 137–8 Celan, Paul, 305 Cervantes, Miguel de, 124, 125 Chamberlain, Lori, 234 Chao, Chen, 156–63, 166, 167, 168, 192n4, 193n17

Index Chapman, Edmund, 204 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 37, 114, 234 Chekhov, Anton, 267 classicism: as an abstract quality, 36, 77, 93, 106, 279; and British literature, 165; Chinese, 157, 200, 284, 286, 304; French, 28, 44; Japanese, 263, 266; Spanish, 90 Clubb, Louise George, 245 Cohen, Walter, 255n55 Coldiron, Anne, 18 Collombat, Isabelle, 32, 120n6 colonialism: as a frame of reference associated with Shakespeare, 234; as a presence in South African reception of Shakespeare, 126–8 Columbus, Christopher, 137 Comedy of Errors, The, 219; in relation to Roman comedy, 232; textual translation, 65–6 commissioned translations, 28–9, 62, 103, 104, 107 communist appropriation of Shakespeare in education, 302 Couch, Arthur, 140 Coullie, Judith Lütge, 134 Crystal, David, 105, 107, 120n8, 122n23 Culpeper, Jonathan, 108 cultural stereotypes, 199, 221, 247, 259, 301 Currie, Gregory, 35n3 Cymbeline, 287 da Cunha, Tristão, 39, 41, 46 dance, in adaptation, 83–5 Danish, 62–71 de Camões, Luís Vaz, 40 de Castilho, Antonio Feliciano, 40 Deguchi, Norio, 199, 275 Delabastita, Dirk, 121n14

Deleuze, Gilles, 237n24 de Man, Paul, 196, 204–5, 207–8, 210, 216n7, 217 de Pennafort, Onestaldo, 42–4, 47, 50 Derrida, Jacques, 134, 196, 208–11, 217n30, 233, 245 de Waal, Marguerite, 35n9 Donne, John, 224 Döring, Tobias, 204 Dover Wilson, John, 127, 141, 142, 143, 149 Drakakis, John, 246–7 Dubatti, Jorge, 101n7 Dumas, Alexandre, 285 Eco, Umberto, 298 Egan, Gabriel, 21–2n1 epic, 30, 40, 50, 72, 73 epistemology, 8, 9, 196, 198, 306 Eskin, Michael, 305 Espinosa, Ruben, 24–5n20 Europe: and theatrical style, 248; as a colonial presence, 132, 133, 137, 259; as an early modern cultural sphere, 243, 248; as seen from Asia, 261 Ferguson, Margaret, 102, 112 Ferrone, Siro, 243 First World War, 203 French, 16, 145, 196, 208–11, 221; in the early modern period, 11–16, 109, 121–2n18; prosody, 40, 46, 49 Freud, Sigmund, 219, 229 Fried, Erich, 35n1 Fukuda, Tsuneari, 199, 269–72, 282n32 Furedi, Frank, 153 Gallimore, Daniel, 259, 266 Georgia, Republic of, 203 German, 145, 306

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Index Hutcheon, Linda, 9, 20 hybridity, 9, 216, 238n25; as an adaptive strategy, 136, 222; in cultural mixture, 130; and genre, 231; geography, 50; and language, 99; in language, 144; media, 19; as a poetic effect, 99

Germany, 203, 240 Goddard, Harold, 251 Gomes, Miguel Ramalhete, 23n13 Greek, 10, 16; ancient Greek culture, 219, 223–5; ancient Greek language, 221; in relation to etymology, 113; language, 197 Greenblatt, Stephen, 233, 244–45 Grek, Leon, 235n3 Gross, John, 240 Grosseteste, Robert, 10–11, 20 Guattari, Félix, 237 Guerrero, Paulina, 75–6

Ibsen, Henrik, 153, 267, 269 improvisation: as an adaptive strategy, 73–5; as a decolonial strategy, 132–3; and perceived deviant behaviour, 243–4; as a rehearsal strategy, 128, 134–6, 140, 146 Italian, 145; in the early modern period, 109, 121; prosody, 40 Italy, 301

Halpern, Richard, 246 Hamlet, 47, 119, 287, 298; Brazilian Portuguese, 44, 46, 47–9; concepts of paternity and classicism in, 229–34; Danish, 63–4, 67–9, 69; German, as a language in adaptation, 302 Hanna, Sameh, 25n21 Hardin, Richard, 235n9 Harris, Jonathan Gil, 7–8, 19–20 Hauptmann, Gerhart, 203 Henke, Robert, 256n65 Henry IV, Part 1, 6 Henry IV, Part 2, 7 Henry VI, Part 2, 13 Henry VIII, 62 Herman, Vimala, 121n15 Hernández, José, 50–1, 97, 100–1n6 Hibbard, G.R., 236n15 Hillman, Richard, 18 Holderness, Graham, 241 Hope, Jonathan, 118, 122n23 Huang, Shigong, 289 Hughes, Ted, 299–300 Hugo, Victor, 306 Hungary, 202–3

Jacobs, Carol, 208 Jakobson, Roman, 106 Jansen, Jonathan, 124, 133 Japanese, 34, 145, 258–79, 299, 301–4 Jespersen, Otto, 246 Johnston, David, 238n25 Johnstone, Keith, 132–33, 135–36, 139–40, 149 Jonson, Ben, 107, 196, 197, 233, 221, 225–29 Joubin, Alexa Alice, 237n24, 238n25, 297n13 Joyce, James, 104 Julius Caesar: adaptations of, 261–2; in relation to temporality, 261–2; textual translation, 37, 53–58, 263 Kawachi, Yoshiko, 201n2 Kawashima, Keizo, 262 Kawatake, Toshio, 264 Kennedy, Dennis, 239 Kiasashvili, Nico, 203

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Index King Lear, 287; adaptations of, 258; staging of, 300 Kiséry, András, 24–5n20 Kishi, Tetsuo, 258–9, 274 Koestler, Arthur, 150 Kurosawa, Akira, 199, 258, 300, 301–2 Lamb, Mary and Charles, 200, 261, 284–92, 294 language-body, 198, 239, 241 Laroque, François, 255n54 Latin, 16 Lecoq, Jacques, 144–5 Lepage, Robert, 130, 137, 138, 140 Lerer, Seth, 234 Lesser, Zachary, 8–9, 20 Licors, Lambert, 44 Lin, Shu, 284, 296n2 Louden, Bruce, 235n2 Love’s Labour’s Lost, staging of, 301 Lozinskij, Mikhail, 306 Luhrmann, Baz, 301 Macbeth, 164, 287, 298–9; adaptations of, 258, 301–2; staging of, 301; in relation to temporality, 5–6; textual translation, 45–6, 275–7 McDermott, Kristen, 236n11 McDonald, Russ, 121 Machiavelli, Niccolò, as a source of textual influence, 24n18 Macklin, Charles, 253n29 Maher, Brigid, 239 Marcus, Leah, 240 Marinetti, Cristina, 30 Marlowe, Christopher, 235n2, 240/ Marrapodi, Michele, 244 marriage: in Confucian ethics, 293; courtship and, 243, 261; legality and finances, 141, 293

as a metaphor for translation, 210; as a plot device, 229; in relation to power, 118; in relation to reality, 112; as a spiritual union, 227, 229, 240 Martins, Marcia, 38 Masson, Jeffrey, 139 materiality: as distinctive local product, 125; in early modern books, 16; in early modern theatre, 247; and materialism, 228; in modern publishing, 103, 109; as a theatrical effect, 7–9 Matsuoka, Kazuko, 276–8; Measure for Measure, 72; Menander, 221, 222, 224, 228 Merchant of Venice, The: adaptations of, 200, 261, 287, 303; anti-Semitism in, 11; Confucianism and, 294–5; in Tales from Shakespeare, 287; textual translation, 42 metaphor: animals and, 99, 112–4, 139; anthimeria and, 118–9, 219 Middle English, 9 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A, 6, 66–7, 202, 245, 300 Miller, Jonathan, 129–30, 133, 141, 152 misogyny, 11, 229 Modern English, as a target language for translations of Shakespeare, 107 modernism: as a mode of interpretation, 246; poetic styles of, 27, 36 Molinari, Cesare, 256n68 Monaghan, Paul, 244 Montaigne, Michel de, as a textual interpreter, 24n18 Moody, Anthony David, 257 Moore, John Robert, 253n35 Much Ado About Nothing, 128 Munday, Anthony, 240

318

Index music, in adaptation: as backing audio in performance, 72, 75, 77–81, 83; as operatic performance, 161, 164; as a poetic effect of written verse, 39 musical theatre, 303 Mutere, Malaika, 133 Nan, Yang, 162–3 Natsume, Soseki, 267–8 New Historicism, 8 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, 126–7, 130 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 219, 221, 225, 233, 234, 235 Norwegian orthography, 64 Odashima, Yushi, 199, 272–5, 282n34 Orgel, Stephen, 246 O’Shea, José Roberto, 47 Othello, 287; adaptations of, 39, 294; race in adaptations of, 200, 294–5, 305–6; race in the early modern period, 11, 255n54; in relation to temporality, 4–5; textual translation, 39 Ovid, 102, 229–30, 235n2 parody: as an adaptive strategy, 249, 281; as a way of reading, 20, 31, 90, 100 Pavis, Patrice, 239 Pennafort, Onestaldo de, 42–4 Penuel, Suzanne, 236 Pereira, Lawrence Flores, 47–9, 50 Pericles: adaptations of, 289; in relation to Plautus, 219; in stage adaptation, 287; staged translations, 62; in Tales from Shakespeare, 287 Perrucci, Andrea, 243 Perteghella, Manuela, 30 Peterson, Richard, 237n20

Pfister, Manfred, 31, 35n7, 90 Pires, Maria João, 204 Plautus, 219–21, 222, 224, 225, 231, 235n2, 244 Pope, Alexander, 253n29 Portuguese, 36–59, 204 presentism, 3, 23, 198; physical and temporal diffusion, 6–7; physical and temporal immediacy, 4–6 prose adaptations, 261 prose translation, 11–16, 39–40, 42–3, 49, 104, 270 Pujante, Ángel Luis, 306 punctuation, 62–7, 147 Qian, Zhongshu, 284 Qichao, Liang, 285, 296n2 Racine, Jean, 46 Ramos, Péricles Eugênio da Silva, 44, 45, 60 Ramphele, Mamphela, 135 “Rape of Lucrece, The,” 29, 72–87, 99–100 Reich, Hermann, 244 religion in translation: Christianity, 252, 295; Confucianism, 200, 292, 293–6; Islam, 294 Judaism, 241–2, 252; Taoism, 200, 289, 290, 292 Richard III, 7 Robertson, Jennifer, 307n9 Romanticism, 130, 243; as a frame of reference that integrates Shakespeare, 302 Romeo and Juliet, 58, 136, 287; adaptations of, 34, 155, 261, 287, 301; canonicity of, 72 in relation to temporality, 22; textual translation, 37, 42, 53

319

Index Rothwell, Kenneth, 300 Ruiter, David, 24–5n20 Saenger, Michael, 121n18, 298, 306n3 Said, Edward, 124, 126 Sales, Artur de, 45–46 Sanders, Julie, 237n24 satire, 226, 227, 228, 259 Savarese, Nicola, 244 Saxo Grammaticus, 222, 229, 234, 236n15 Scala, Flaminio, 251 Schino, Mirella, 243 Scolnicov, Hanna, 250 Scotland, as a site for performance, 34 Sebastián, Ana, 99 Second World War, 241 Serpieri, Alessandro, 106, 120n10 Serres, Michel, 7 Shapiro, James, 253n32 Shapiro, Michael, 241 Silos, Geraldo de Carvalho, 46–7 Simmel, Georg, 138–9 Sir Thomas More (play), 65 Slovenia, 201n3 Smith, Emma, 242 Smith, Joshua, 22n6 sonnets, 90–100, 305 Soviet Union, 201n3 Spanish, 34, 37, 145, 306; dialectical difference, 90–100; prosody, 40, 51 Steiner, George, 108 Stewart, Patrick, 246 Stoll, Elmer Edgar, 242 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 285 Swedish orthography, 64 Taming of the Shrew, The, 102–19; adaptations of, 294; misogyny in, 11; textual translation, 42

Tanaka, Masao, 280n5 Taviani, Ferdinando, 254 Tempest, The, 292, 299 textual translation, 37 Terence, 221–26, 228–29, 235n5, 235n9, 244 theatrical modes: ancient Greek comedy, 197, 228, 234, 247; ancient Greek tragedy, 263; commedia dell’arte, 239–58; joruri, 263, 268; kabuki, 198, 199, 260–9, 275; noh, 260; realism, 199, 267 Timon of Athens, 287 Titus Andronicus: race in the early modern period, 11; textual translation, 69–71 translation: and concepts of authorship in adaptation, 134, 197; betrayal, heresy and, 11, 42, 43, 267, 284; colloquial registers of language in, 20, 25, 94–97, 199, 272, 274; exoticism in cultural contact, 107, 127, 152, 295; fidelity and, 35n1, 42, 43, 58, 92, 103, 167, 200, 207, 234, 258, 261, 262, 265, 267, 276, 279, 286, 292; gaps of language in, 97–9, 103–4, 106, 128, 206–7; and interlinguicity, or the interpermeation of languages, 18, 106, 121, 306; intertextual methods, 164–6; and multilingualism, or the cohabitation of languages, 109, 122, 299, 301, 305; and social transformation, 102, 198; racial description in, 200, 305–6; regionalism and, 37–38, 99, 297; stage directions, 250, 263, 264, 282, 300; subtitles, 166, 276, 301, 302; surtitles, 34 Troilus and Cressida, 107, 116 Trupej, Janko, 201n3

320

Index Tsubouchi, Shoyo, 262–70, 272, 279, 275, 280n11, 281n16, 283 Tudeau-Clayton, Margaret, 24n17 Twain, Mark, 201n3 Twelfth Night, The, 303–4 Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, 287 Udagawa, Bunkai, 261 Uruguay, 37; Spanish dialect in, 99 Venus and Adonis, 99, 100 Venuti, Lawrence, 120n1 Waley, Arthur, 296n2 Wang, Shouchang, 296n2 Wieland, Christopher Martin, 299, 306 Williams, Raymond, 132 Wilson, Rita, 239 Winter’s Tale, The, 65–66, 288–89 Wolfson, Leandro, 101n8 Woolf, Virginia, 104 Wordsworth, William, 165–66 Wright, Chantal, 211, 213, 218n31 Wright, George Thaddeus, 36–37 Yi, Wei, 200 Yokoyama, Yusaku, 268–9 Zaharia, Oana-Alis, 24n18 Zamir, Tzachi, 35n3 Zaro, Juan Jesús, 98–99 Zohn, Harry, 196, 204–8, 210, 213, 214, 215

321