- |#Shakespearesaysitbetter
- |#Shakespearesaysitbetter
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QUOTES FROM THE BARD
If I lose mine honour, I lose myself
ACT/SCENE: 3.4
SPEAKER: Antony
CONTEXT:
ANTONY
Gentle Octavia,
Let your best love draw to that point which seeks
Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour,
I lose myself; better I were not yours
Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,
Yourself shall go between ’s. The meantime, lady,
I’ll raise the preparation of a war
Shall stain your brother. Make your soonest haste;
So your desires are yours.
OCTAVIA
Thanks to my lord.
The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak,
Your reconciler! Wars ’twixt you twain would be
As if the world should cleave, and that slain men
Should solder up the rift.
DUTCH:
Mijn lieve Octavia,
Schenk uwe beste liefde aan hem, die ‘t best
Haar tracht te hoeden. Met mijn eer ben ik
Ook zelf verloren.
MORE:
Branchless=Bare, denuded (lost reputation)
Go between=Intermediate
Shall stain=Such as will besmirch (your brother’s reputation)
Twain=Both
Cleave=Split asunder
Solder=Close
Compleat:
Branch=Tak, telg, rank
Stain=Bevlekken, besmetten, bezwalken
Twain=In tween
To cleave=Klooven, klieven, splyten
To solder=Soudeeren
Topics: reputation, honour, identity
We, ignorant of ourselves, beg often our own harms
PLAY: Antony and Cleopatra
ACT/SCENE: 2.1
SPEAKER: Menas
CONTEXT:
POMPEY
If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.
MENAS
Know, worthy Pompey,
That what they do delay, they not deny.
POMPEY
Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
The thing we sue for.
MENAS
We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good, so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.
POMPEY
I shall do well.
The people love me, and the sea is mine.
My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
Says it will come to th’ full. Mark Antony
In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
No wars without doors. Caesar gets money where
He loses hearts. Lepidus flatters both,
Of both is flattered, but he neither loves,
Nor either cares for him.
DUTCH:
Wij dwazen bidden
Vaak om ons eigen leed, wat wijze machten
Tot ons geluk ons weig’ren; ‘t vrucht’loos smeeken
Is dan een zegen.
MORE:
Whiles we are suitors=While we are praying
Decays=Loses value
Auguring=Prophesying
Without doors=Outside
Compleat:
While=Een wyl, poos; terwijl
Between whiles=Bij tusschenpoozen, van tyd tot tyd
Decay=Voorval, afneeming, verwelking, veroudering, vermindering, ondergang
An augur=Een vogel-waarzegger
To augurate=Voorzeggen, voorspellen
Without=Van buyten, buyten
Topics: identity, fate/destiny, plans and intentions, nature
How many things by season seasoned are;
To their right praise and true perfection.
PLAY: The Merchant of Venice
ACT/SCENE: 5.1
SPEAKER: Portia
CONTEXT:
PORTIA
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended, and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace! How the moon sleeps with Endymion
And would not be awaked.
LORENZO
That is the voice,
Or I am much deceived, of Portia.
PORTIA
He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo—
By the bad voice.
DUTCH:
Hoe menig ding wordt op zijn tijd alleen, naar waarde en naar volkomenheid geschat!
MORE:
Proverb: A bird is known by its note and a man by his talk
Endymion=a youth loved by the goddess of the moon.
To season=To temper, qualify
Samuel Johnson:
To season=To fit for any use by time or habit; to mature; to grow fit for any purpose.
Compleat:
Seasoned=Toebereid, bekwaam gemaakt, getemperd.
Children should be season’d betimes to virtue=Men behoorde de kinderen by tyds aan de deugd te gewennen.
Topics: emotion and mood, misquoted
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile
PLAY: The Merchant of Venice
ACT/SCENE: 1.1
SPEAKER: Solanio
CONTEXT:
SOLANIO
Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad
Because you are not merry— and ’twere as easy
For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper,
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
DUTCH:
Natuur brengt soms toch rare snuiters voort:
Die knijpt voortdurend de oogen toe van ‘t lachen,
Als bij een doedelzak een papegaai;
En de ander heeft zoo’n uitzicht van azijn,
Dat hij van ‘t lachen nooit zijn tanden toont,
Al deed een grap ook de’ ouden Nestor schaat’ren.
MORE:
Laugh like parrots at a bagpiper=parrots were thought of as foolish, bagpipe music as melancholy.
Vinegar aspect=sour (‘sowr’) disposition.
Janus=A Roman God with two faces, one at the front and one at the back of his head (although not thought to have expressed contrasting moods). Janus was the god of beginnings duality, gates and doors, passages and endings.
Nestor, legendary wise King of Pylos in Homer’s Odyssey.
Compleat:
To sowr=Zuur worden, zuur maaken, verzuuren.
Sowred=Gezuurd, verzuurd. Sowrish=Zuurachtig.
To look sowrly upon one=Iemand zuur aanzien
Topics: emotion and mood, misquoted
He is every man in no man
PLAY: The Merchant of Venice
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER: Portia
CONTEXT:
PORTIA
God made him and therefore let him pass for a man. In
truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he!— why,
he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan’s, a better
bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine. He is
every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls
straight a-capering. He will fence with his own shadow.
If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands.
If he would despise me I would forgive him, for if he
love me to madness I shall never requite him.
DUTCH:
Hij is iedereen en niemand; als een lijster zingt, begint hij dadelijk kapriolen te maken; bij zou kunnen vechten met
zijn eigen schaduw. Als ik hem nam, nam ik vijftig
mannen te gelijk.
MORE:
Said of M. le Bon, whose efforts to outdo the other suitors are such as to cloak his own identity.
Throstle=Trush
A-capering=Dancing
Topics: emotion and mood, misquoted