Q: Is She Still Complaining about Old English?

A: Yes.

At least, I'm pretty sure I have complained here in the past about how people think Shakespeare wrote in Old English.  And how, in fact, he did not. (Just in case I haven't mentioned it a spajillion times, let's go over it again, yes?)  What he wrote in is called Early Modern English, which is much closer to Modern English than it is to Old English - though there are differences in pronunciation and no small number of examples of words who's meanings have changed in 400 years (imagine!).

Goodness gracious, if I haven't prattled on about it here, I am certain it's because I thought I prattled previously.

Anyway! I bring this up because there is this excellent piece written by Thijs Porck, an actual professor of Old English, and he takes Shakespeare's lovely sonnet 18 and translates it into Old English, because he too was sick of people being WRONG.

You gasp: "Being WRONG on the Internet? Does that happen, Khaki?! Truly?"
It sure does, fair reader. It sure does. And I have become that sucker who is here to try and fix it.

Anyway, let's compare!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

This is the original, and it has a great example of certain words being pronouced differently - tying in my awesome point from earlier.  In these lines, it's clear that 'temperate' and 'date' rhyme, though in nowadays they do not (and the audience oohs and aahs).

Now!  Let's look at these four lines translated into Old English:

Sceal ic þē gelīcian tō sumeres dæge?

Þū eart luflīcra ond staþolfæstra.

Rūge windas sceacað þrīmilces dȳrlinge blōstman

Ond sumeres lǣn hæfð eall tō lȳtelne termen

That... is different, yes?  When those who are FAR more talented than I am read Old English aloud, it is quite pretty.  But I will not dare to try; that is not my expertise, even a little bit.  I took but a single Chaucer class in grad school.

The one thing I will point out, however, is that our old buddy thorn (þ) shows up here.  Do you remember?? Do you remember when I ranted about Ye, as in Ye Olde?! And it was just the letters þ and e combined, and not a Y at all!  Psh, what am I saying, of course you remember.

So what is the lesson we've learned today?  Probably just that I like to beat a dead horse.  

In my defense, it doesn't seem dead enough yet.

If you'd like to read more about this from an actual Old English expert, you can find the rest of the translated sonnet, and more detail here at the Dutch Anglo-Saxonist blog.  It's an excellent source for Old and Middle English, as well as the history of the English language.  

Basically he is pretty rad.