Helpful stuff, but it sure does lose something in the translation.
Yeah it loses almost all of its luster, but some of us need annotations and explanations or we’ll throw the original out the window in frustration. It’s a beautiful passage. We just need help here and there to get the beauty of the original, but we still need it.
I’m not looking down on anybody who uses those kinds of things. My girlfriend usually does if she’s playing a Shakespeare role and I’d do the same if I were an actor. But they do tend to disappear some of the most descriptive passages if they don’t directly advance the story.
What I like about No Fear Shakespeare is that it’s side by side translation; I absolutely adore the beauty of Shakespeare, but I’ll admit without embarassment that there are passages that make me ask “Say what?”, so it’s nice to be able to look over and see “Oh, he’s asking her to scratch his navel” or whatever.
Something I don’t like about it is that it doesn’t take into account or at least doesn’t explain slang or double meanings. “Get thee to a nunnery” for example is translated as “go join a convent” when of course nunnery was slang for ‘whorehouse’ as well, or “hoist by his own pitard” translates as the piked on his own staff but not the slang interpretation, and “die” is never translated in its sexual context.
Still though I like the clarity. I haven’t yet found the ultimate Shakespearean collection- one that has the side by side translation but also historical word use annotations or references. Such a collection of his plays (with translation and context) would be ideal for Kindle but to my knowledge doesn’t exist yet in that format.
No, it was getting straight to the point of your question. “Winter” doesn’t mean “almost over”, because if it did, then “winter of coldness” would mean the cold is almost over. And once you stop trying to make “winter” mean “almost over” or something like that, the phrase “winter of discontent” makes sense.
For anyone interested in the actual speech, it starts around the 5.38 mark. It comes after acres of tedious and indulgent opening titles rubbish by a director who obviously had too much time and money at his disposal. Clearly, what silly Shakespeare wasn’t quite smart enough to figure out was that the speech needs to be prefaced with shots of people sipping tea, going up or down stairs, doing a spot of DIY photo developing, attending a formal dance and so on.
Definitely self-indulgent- it was Sir Ian’s brainchild (he didn’t direct but did produce and arrange), but in general I like it. It also restored some of the original script not usually produced, such as Lord Rivers (Robert Downey Jr.) being murdered while being fellated by an air hostess, which is what Shakespeare originally wrote but prior to the advent of air travel it just wasn’t understood by the masses and thus was dropped.
My least favorite thing about this version is that it reattributes some dialogue. One of my favorite moments- though I’ll admit a weakness for bitter old women on stage- is when Margaret of Angou, who has lost her crown and her husband and her only child and her fortune to the Yorkist victory- returns from her exile to taunt Queen Elizabeth and Duchess of York, but ends up bonding with her in a fashion when the young widowed queen asks her to “teach me how to curse” (meaning in the Elizabethan sense means “teach me how to completely hate [i.e. get my passport stamped by the dark side]”). Margaret’s advice:
Some modernization would be fine. For example, I think it would work great if Margaret was wearing a hairnet, a Waffle House uniform with a nametag saying “[del]Queen[/del] Maggie” and puffing a Newport through her yellowed remaining teeth as she tells her this. Instead though, in this version Margaret isn’t a character and these lines- the absolute best recipe for bitterness and hate in literature (or at least the most concise) are given over to (Q.E.'s mother-in-law) the Duchess of York (Maggie Smith) as she boards a plane. Doesn’t work.
But I love McKellen’s scenes, especially the low key manner in which he handles the deformity (hand in his pocket at all times and a slight limp). And the 1930s Fascist England alterniverse costumes and settings are great.
I am very keen on Kenneth Brannagh’s audio version. Brannagh has a remarkable ability to make Shakespeare’s words extraordinarily clear and natural, while not losing the poetry of the text.
BTW, I heartily recommend Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard, a behind-the-scenes film as Pacino plans a production of Richard III that’s relevant and understandable, and throughout this backstage view we learn his and other actors’ opinions on the play, the history behind it, and the meaning of the words (and challenges of expressing them). Here’s the trailer for the film, which gives you a taste of what to expect. An amazing cast and fascinating look at the world of Shakespeare performance.
(Though I do find myself wishing we could just see the whole play from start to finish!)
The flamingly gay Richard III portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss in the play scenes of The Goodbye Girl was also classic.
Note that Richard is being sarcastic about how happy he is about Edward’s glorious success–poor Richard, he’s still a deformed troll–he personally is feeling rather wintry and cold-hearted about things, even though outwardly summer has come for Edward.
Lends an entirely new meaning to that other Shakespearen phrase, “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” 
I could see a very strong argument made for the OP’s interpretation that winter is being used as a signifier that discontent is at it’s end point.
Let me start by acknowledging that Marley (and everyone else’s) interpretation is a totally valid one and that the difference between the OP’s interpretation (that our discontent is ending because it is in Winter) and the thread’s interpretation (that the discontent *itself *was wintery but now it is ending) is small. Then follow by saying that I personally believe that Shakespeare intended both meanings to be true. But let’s actually look at the text and see what it tells us rather than just saying one or the other (or both).
Now is the Winter of our Discontent,
Made glorious Summer by this Son of Yorke:
Things to note. There is a comma after discontent and the word “is” gets the stress if you are following the iamb.
So the line was intended to be read (exaggerated) now IS the WINter OF our DISconTENT (pause) etc etc
So the important word there is “is.” He isn’t saying that NOW the winter of our discontent is etc etc. Shakespeare is intentionally saying that now IS THE WINTER. Then go and look at the comma. There is an intentionally emphasised pause there which would generally imply that the following thought is related by not directly connected. So the winter has been brought to summer. But the summer isn’t directly counteracting the winter. Again, he isn’t saying NOW is the winter made summer. He is saying that now IS the winter, and summer is coming.
Follow the stress and where the comma falls. It would be different if Shakespeare had used a different word order, it would be different had he not intentionally isolated the line, both of which were done by posters in this thread to help create an explanation. But Shakespeare didn’t do that. It’s not in the text. Never assume that something like that was done accidentally, it almost certainly wasn’t.
That said, Shakespeare does then go on with an extended metaphor about the Winter of the house of York, which is why it would seem to me that he intended both meanings (and got both meanings) out of the two lines.
I usually use this quote to point out why Shakespeare really was a genius and why his language matters and that you really do miss something if you use a translation. With any other phrasing you only get the one meaning, even if you manage to work the pun in, you can’t cleanly work both interpretations of those lines in without using the words exactly as Shakespeare wrote them.
Damn, I always have additional thoughts after the edit window closes.
For my last post to be true, you have to accept that Shakespeare would be willing to use winter as a metaphor for endings and change, but I am fairly certain that you can find textual support for that idea within Richard III itself, if not elsewhere in his body of work.
That’s an outstanding post, NAF1138. I’ll defend my interpretation by saying Richard is saying things will go well from now on, but not that they have been going well- and that’s how I took Flipshod’s meaning. Other than that I don’t have much to add other than saying you did a terrific analysis of the speech. And that the MacKellen version of the movie (the one Sampiro posted) is excellent.
I recently saw the 1955 film version with Lawrence Olivier. In the opening monologue, after “hate the idle pleasures of these days,” Richard boasts that he can murder and smile while murdering, “take Machiavel to school,” etc., etc. – “Shall I do this, and shall not get a crown?” Only then does he go into, “Plots have I laid . . .” But I can’t find any of that in the text of the play. And it’s hard to imagine Olivier lending his name to any project that adds new lines to Shakespeare. :eek: Was it, perhaps, borrowed from another Shakespeare play where Richard of Gloucester appears, perhaps some part of Henry VI?
Where did that come from, anyway? Historically, Richard I, Richard II, Edward II, James I, all were probably gay or bi; but what made anybody think that about Richard III?
Looks like it was taken from Act 3, Scene 2 of Henry 6, Part 3. In the new math, that’s Act 1 of Henry 10 1/2.
Thanks. And I agree, I think the linked version is fantastic.
I tend to get a little geeky when it comes to this sort of thing with Shakespeare, but the text really does tell you so much about what the play write was thinking, particularly when he was writing in verse. People don’t pay close enough attention to that sort of thing anymore, and you lose the nuance entirely with something like no fear Shakespeare. Which is not to say something like that doesn’t have its place, just that it’s a shame if someone stops there instead of going deeper.
I know you’ll think this is a bit snarky, and I don’t mean it that way, but if you’re going to pontificate about people not playing close enough attention to things, and to nuances, it helps if you avoid basic errors like ‘play write’. Just sayin’ .
I think it was more a parody of the many talentless clueless directors who don’t let their blindness stop them from pursuing their vision. (Played perfectly by Paul Benedict in the movie, and I’ve known people in community and college theater just like him.)