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.

Alan Rickman, You Were a Gift to Screen and Stage

A terribly sad thing has come to pass.

Alan Rickman has passed away at the age of 69.  I am not usually one to get wrapped up in celebrity deaths, though there have been a few that have hit me harder than expected.  But Alan Rickman's passing feels like a quiet injustice to the best faculties of my heart.

Antony in
Antony and Cleopatra

Aside from being a gifted actor in most every role he had, Alan Rickman was also an appreciator of the Bard.  All I can do, in my small way, is to pay tribute here to a man who furthered the rich culture of Shakespeare in our world.

Achilles in
Troilus and Cressida

Alan Rickman studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and there studied Shakespeare.  He was also a performer in the Royal Shakespeare Company, and appeared in adaptations of Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Troilus and Cressida, as well as the 1978 TV movie of Romeo and Juliet.

If you are up for a good Alan Rickman binge-watch tonight (as I am), I also loved him desperately in Sense and Sensibility as the noble and quietly love-struck Colonel Brandon. And of course, there is Die Hard, Truly, Madly, Deeply, Love Actually and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, to name a few.

And for your enjoyment and reflection, I'll end with his moving reading of Shakespeare's 130th Sonnet - coinicdentally my favorite sonnet.  His distinct voice and impeccable diction draw such increased beauty from the words.  It is my favorite rendition of this poem.  Rest in peace; you were an incredibly moving performer, and you will undoubtedly be missed.

(I also fee the desire to note that David Bowie - who also passed this week - included in his final album [Black Star] a re-recording of "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,"  which, while not Shakespeare, is taken from a play of the same name by his contemporary, John Ford.  I don't know why I feel the need to note this here, aside from the fact that I feel such a connection to these men through their love of 17th century playwrites; for me personally it deepends the chasm their passing has created in our culture.)

Valentine's Day with the Bard

Happy Valentines Day from the bard!  Chicks will totally dig you if you give them this card for Valentine's Day. Trust me, I am a lady and I have a degree in Things Ladies Like.*  This is totally one of those things.

You could also go in the opposite direction, and get something like this:

Buy your cynical card here!

Then if we're being serious, there's always the lovely quote from Much Ado About Nothing:

Be a sap! Get em this card.

And if all else fails, just write her a sonnet.

*That is a wild exaggeration.

Let Shakespeare Write Your Greeting Card

Greeting and good morrow!

So I have been thinking about the holidays, because IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN, and I have come to the conclusion that if we, as a culture, have agreed that there is no better way to show your affections to your loved ones in cards than with words written by other people, then those words should be Shakespeare's, by golly!

Jokes aside, in case you don't know this about me, I just love receiving and sending greeting cards - especially long-distance ones.  I think that in a time of increased casual communication, the extra effort goes a long way.

So I've picked out a few of my favorite cards that feature the Bard.  You can buy them, be inspired by them, or just smile and move along.  The choice is yours!

Personal fav: Holiday Hooch!

Anniversary or Valentine's

Friend's Birthday

Thank You Card

Hope you liked these.  There will probably be more in the future.  And yes, today's post was short.  But I am hella sick, and all I wanna do is dance sleep.

That's Shakespeare? Who Knew...

Happy Monday, everyone!

Let's talk about Shakespeare some more. (que sorpresa!)  More accurately, let's talk about all the things in this world that are references to Shakespeare that maybe you didn't know about!  Yes, these are the things that keep me up at night; fretting over whether or not people are fully comprehending all the of references that are out there.  They are like movie Easter Eggs, but in our society!

So let's start with 3 things that come from Shakespeare that you (possibly) didn't know:

The Sound and the Fury

Do you remember that book you had to read in high school/college by William Faulkner?  Well, he got the title from the play, Macbeth.  It's one of the most devastatingly beautiful and existential soliloquies there is, in my humble opinion.  Macbeth has just learned that his wife has killed herself, and he says,

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act V, scene V, 19–28 

Sometimes when I read it, I think it's the most loving thing he could have said - such sadness at the state of the world, the emptiness of it all.  Anyway, Faulkner took it and ran with it.  And I don't know if you noticed, but his book has that same eerie tone, of a life devoid of meaning and purpose.

"What Dreams May Come" 

This was a lovely Robin William movie based off a novel of the same name by Richard Matheson.  After dying in a car crash a man searches the afterlife for his wife.  The title is derived from Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech on death and what comes after.  Below is the segment:

To die, to sleep,

To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, (hey, that part's my blog name!)

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes Calamity of so long life:

Hamlet, Act III, Scene i, 1757-62

Sting's Album, "Nothing Like the Sun"

Sting is actually quite the Shakespeare fan, and the inspiration came to him when a drunk man said to him "How beautiful is the moon?" and he replied, "Nothing like the sun."  It comes from my favorite sonnet, number 130.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

Beautiful, right?  See, what he's doing here is taking a popular genre of poetry in his day (a blason) that enlisted the practice of praising a woman by singling out different parts of her body and pairing them with metaphors for compare.  e.g. your eyes are like two stars, your hair is like rows of golden wheat, etc.  But he's turning it on its head and saying pah! I am better than all the poets and all the writers in all the world.

Perhaps I'm paraphrasing.

Anywhoo, stay tuned for more things you didn't know were originally Shakespeare's.  Thanks, public domain!

Shake & Tumble

Greeting, travelers!

No time for a real post today... but I hope some of these gems from tumblr will make up for it.  I swear, tumblr is the weirdest, bestest place.