Hamlet Without the Potholes: From the "Shakespeare Without the Potholes" Series

The series "Shakespeare Without the Potholes" is intended to provide updated versions of all of the 37 generally recognized plays of William Shakespeare. The series makes the plays more accessible to students encountering Shakespeare for the first time; it provides an easier reading experience by modernizing some of the outdated vocabulary and grammar, and by revising many of the more difficult passages that in the original can be understood, if at all, only by careful scanning of a footnote, and sometimes not even then. The alterations retain the meter and maintain almost all of the poetic substance.


Reading one of Shakespeare's plays is like driving down a broad and beautiful highway lined with gorgeous sights, observing, as one passes, the wide range of human types and situations; but unfortunately the road is marred by potholes small and large -- archaic words, phrases and grammar, words whose meanings have migrated during the course of 400 years, and passages that are difficult or impossible to comprehend. Sometimes these involve mythological references, or references to customs that an Elizabethan would be familiar with, but to a modern reader are largely unintelligible. Many students who embark on the trip do not complete it, or else vow never to undertake another. There are four alternatives -- driving straight through, but the drive is then a bumpy one; detouring around each pothole by consulting a footnote, but the drive is then full of distractions; filling in the potholes oneself by becoming erudite in Elizabethan grammar, vocabulary, mythology, customs and circumstances, but the drive is then laborious; or using the services of a pothole-fixer, who may indeed use asphalt instead of concrete, but who attempts to provide a smooth, continuous and pleasant journey. The latter is the task this series undertakes.


In the more famous or the more soaring speeches a lighter hand is used, sometimes retaining archaic contractions ('Tis nobler in the mind ....). Such words as thou, thee, thy, thine have mostly been replaced by modern counterparts.


There are many individual words that have shifted meaning in the 400 years since Shakespeare wrote his masterpieces. Some have developed a meaning nearly the opposite of the original - for example, in Elizabethan days, 'merely' meant 'utterly' or 'totally'; 'timeless' meant 'untimely'; 'presently' usually meant 'at once'. "I shall attend his majesty presently" does not mean "I'll be there in a little while", but rather "I'm on my way". Other words have shifted their meanings somewhat less, but quite enough to induce puzzlement - 'approve' meaning 'prove'; 'modern' meaning 'commonplace'. Such variations in meaning contribute to a bemused reaction on the part of the uninformed reader - a sense that while he or she may understand the gist of the play, there are some strange things being said that don't seem to compute. With small potholes, the sense of not quite understanding can exist just under the conscious level; one is distressed by the dim intuition that something has been missed, even while the eye skims over troublesome passages without focusing on what is being misunderstood. But there are also massive potholes (some of which may be the result of copying errors in the 17th century), that feel more like hitting a brick wall. Consider

"He that a fool doth very wisely hit

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,

Not to seem senseless of the bob. If not,

The wise man's folly is anatomized

E'en by the squandering glances of the fool."

-- As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7

Once having figured out who is 'hitting' whom (the fool is doing the gibing, though the rules of Elizabethan grammar would seem to allow for either), some readers might be able to parse this passage after a few passes, making reasonable guesses at the meanings of 'bob' (gibe), 'anatomized' (made apparent) and 'squandering' (random). But it is a hard bump. The updated version is directly understood:

"He who is justly skewered by a fool

Acts very foolishly, although he smarts,

In seeming sensible of the taunt; for then

The wise man's folly is displayed to all,

Even by the random jestings of the fool."

For an even more massive pothole, consider:

Bushy

'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.

Queen

Tis nothing less. Conceit is still derived

From some forefather grief. Mine is not so,

For nothing hath begot my something grief,

Or something hath the nothing that I grieve.

'Tis in reversion that I do possess;

But what it is, that is not yet known - what

I cannot name. 'Tis nameless woe, I wot.

-- Richard the Second, Act 2, Scene 2

While a vague sense of the meaning is easy to derive (from 'Tis nameless woe, and other phrases), it's doubtful that the passage could be thoroughly understood even after much effort by a new student. It's all too easy for new readers to mistakenly think that their lack of understanding is the result of their own shortcomings. The revision is:

Bushy

It's your imagination, gracious lady.

Queen

It's not. Imagination always comes

From some forerunner grief; mine is not so,

For nothing has begot my something grief;

Or something has begot my grief at nothing.

It's in anticipation that I grieve;

But why it is I grieve I do not know;

I cannot name it -- it is nameless woe.

However, not all of the difficult passages in Shakespeare are due to obsolete vocabulary, grammar or syntax, unfamiliar mythology or customs, or corruption of the text. Sometimes the thought is complex and can only be rendered in complex terminology. Reading Shakespeare can indeed be both enjoyable and enlightening, but there are parts that require hard work. Generally passages whose only problem is that they require some hard thinking have not been updated.


There are many small changes, all designed to make the text easier to digest for a student in the United States - for example, most of the spellings have been Americanized (e.g., 'humor' for 'humour'). One notable detail is the maintenance of rhyme where Shakespeare used rhyme. Some of the earlier plays use rhyme extensively, and include imbedded rhymed sonnets. In his later plays, Shakespeare used rhymes more rarely, and to great effect, often to close out and put a period to a scene, but also for emphasis within a scene. The replacement of obsolete words is made more difficult when they are used as rhyming words, and sometimes it was necessary to replace the original rhymes with alternates, as close to the spirit of the original as possible.


We do not have to read far into Hamlet to encounter the first potholes In the very first scene, after Horatio has seen the ghost of King Hamlet for the first time, we face:

" . . . Our last king,

Whose image even but now appear'd to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,

Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet

(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him,)

Did slay this Fortinbras who by a se