"Too often, unless we read a Shakespeare play beforehand, we process the language as if it were coming from a poorly tuned-in radio station. Shakespeare didn’t write his plays to be experienced impressionistically as ‘poetry;’ he assumed his language was readily comprehensible. At what point does a stage of a language become so different from the modern one as to make translation necessary? Mr. Richmond is brave enough to assert that, for Shakespeare, that time has come. The French have Moliere, the Russians have Chekhov—and now, we can truly say that we have our Shakespeare.”

—John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute

Is it time for Shakespeare to be translated into modern English? John McWhorter thinks so. To find out why, read his article "The Real Shakespearean Tragedy" in the January 2010 American Theater magazine.

Romeo and Juliet Translation Excerpt

In this scene from Act Two of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare used rhyming couplets. The ENJOY SHAKESPEARE translation retains this structure—an example of how closely these translations match Shakespeare's original.

Scene Three. Friar Lawrence’s Cell

[Enter FRIAR LAWRENCE with a basket]

FRIAR LAWRENCE

The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,

Slicing the eastern clouds with streaks of light,

And mottled darkness like a drunkard reels

From daylight’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels.

Before the sun can raise its burning eye,

To cheer the day and drink the night’s dew dry,

I must fill up this wicker crate of ours

With toxic weeds and precious-nectared flowers.

The earth, our natural mother, is a tomb;

What is her burying ground serves as her womb;

And from her womb come children of all kinds,

All sucking from her natural breast one finds,

Many with many powers excellent,

Not one without one, yet all different.

Each plant and herb and stone, innate in it,

There lies some rich medicinal benefit.

For on this earth the vilest things that live

Add to the earth some special good they give;

And every good when stretched past proper use,

Rejects its nature, stumbling on abuse.

A virtue turns to vice, when misapplied;

Acts born of vice are sometimes dignified.

                  [Enter ROMEO]

Within the infant bud of this small flower

Resides a poison and a healing power:

If it is sniffed, one sense is overjoyed;

If tasted, then all senses are destroyed.

These two opposing kings contest this place

In man as well as herbs—brute will and grace;

And anywhere the worst comes out on top,

The canker worm will soon wipe out the crop.

(excerpt continues...)

© 2004 by Kent Richmond

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Macbeth Translation Excerpt

Observe how this Macbeth translation captures the feel of Shakespeare's iambic pentameter. The couplets near the end of the speech are maintained.

from Act 2, Scene 1

MACBETH

Is this a dagger that I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Here, let me clutch you.

I do not have you, yet I see you still.

Are you not, fatal vision, evident

To touch as well as sight? Or are you but

A dagger in my mind, a false illusion,

Emerging from an overheated brain?

And yet this form looks just as tangible

As this one I now draw. [draws his dagger]

You guide me down the path that I was going

And are the instrument I was to use.

My eyes are either fools or worth more than

My other senses. I can see you still,

And on the blade and hilt are clots of blood,

Which were not there before.—There’s no such thing.

It is this bloody business which has done

This to my eyes. Across the world’s dark half,

Nature seems dead, encased in sleep, deceived

By wicked dreams. The sorcerer’s goddess Hecate

Receives the witches’ offering, and gaunt Murder,

Alerted by his sentinel, the wolf,

Its howl his timepiece, at a stealthy pace,

Moves ghostlike, with a rapist’s wary stride,

In on his prey. O, firm and stable earth,

Don’t hear my steps, or how they walk, for fear

These stones of yours will leak my whereabouts

And break the ghastly silence of this hour—

Which suits this deed. While I make threats, he lives.

Cold wind to cool hot deeds is all talk gives.

                      [A bell chimes]

I’ll go, and then it’s done. That chime’s my signal.

Don’t hear it, Duncan, for it is the bell

That summons you to heaven or to hell.

© 2008 by Kent Richmond

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King Lear Translation Excerpts

Each ENJOY SHAKESPEARE translation maintains the line-by-line structure of the orginal. In this first of two soliloquies by Edmund in Act 1, Scene 2, Shakespeare employed a rather complicated iambic pentamter structure. This translation recreates it.

EDMUND

You, nature, are my goddess. To your law

My services are bound. For why should I

Endure the plague of custom, and thus let

The legal niceties of states deprive me,

Because I trail a brother by some twelve

Or fourteen moons. Why bastard? Why debased?

When my physique is just as well composed,

My mind as noble, and my shape the same

As lawful wives bring forth? Why brand us then

As base? With baseness? Bastardly? Debased?

Don't we from stealthy acts of natural lust

Receive more character and fiery vigor

Than comes from all the dull, stale, tired beds

That go to make whole tribes of fools conceived

Between the time we sleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

Our father loves the bastard son as much

As the legitimate. Fine word—legitimate!

Well, my legitimate, if this letter works,

And if my scheme goes well, Edmund the base

Tops the legitimate. I grow. I prosper.

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

For Edmund's second soliloquy, Shakespeare used prose.

Honoring Shakespeare's design, this translation also uses prose, reproducing as closely as possible the length and complexity of the original sentences.

EDMUND

So tremendous is the foolishness in this world that when our prospects sicken—often from the excesses of our own behavior—we lay blame for our disasters on the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and traitors by celestial predestination; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience to planetary influence; and all our evil done through divine provocation. An astonishing evasion for these whoring men to blame their goatish disposition on the authority of some star! My father coupled with my mother under the tail of some astral dragon, and the blessed event of my birth took place under Ursa Major, so it follows that I am brash and lecherous. Puh! I would have been what I am if the star of chastity itself had twinkled on this bastard’s making.

[Enter EDGAR]

On cue! He arrives, like the climax in an old comedy. My part calls for severe melancholy, with the sighs of a panhandling lunatic. [aloud] O, these eclipses do foretell of this discord! Fa, sol, la, mi. [hums off tune]

© 2004 by Kent Richmond

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