CJTranslations - identity

QUOTES BY TOPIC

And dull unfeeling barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me

PLAY: Richard II ACT/SCENE: 1.3 SPEAKER: Thomas Mowbray CONTEXT: The language I have learn’d these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony:
Within my mouth you have engaol’d my tongue,
Doubly portcullis’d with my teeth and lips;
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now:
What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath? DUTCH: En maakt tot stokbewaarder, ter bewaking,
Onwetendheid, die dof is, stomp, gevoelloos.
Ik ben reeds te oud tot staam’len met een voedster,
Te veel op jaren om ter school te gaan; MORE:
A semi-literal allusion to a proverb of the time, ‘Good that the teeth guard the tongue’ (1578) and the virtue of silence. Ben Jonson recommended a ‘wise tongue’ that should not be ‘licentious and wandering’. (See also the Lucio in Measure for Measure: “’tis a secret must be locked within the
teeth and the lips”.)

Cunning=Skilful
Sentence=Verdict (punning on language)
Breathing native breath=Speaking native English (and breathing English air)

Compleat:
Cunning=Behendig Topics: language, understanding, identity, proverbs and idioms

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

For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, so youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.

PLAY: King Henry IV Part 1
ACT/SCENE: 2.4
SPEAKER: Falstaff
CONTEXT:
Peace, good pint-pot. Peace, good tickle-brain.— Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, so youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.

DUTCH:
Al waren er gronden zoo overvloedig als bramen, van mij zou niemand een grond door dwang vernemen, van mij niet.

MORE:
Schmidt:
Tickle-brain=A species of strong liquor
Marvel=To find something strange, to wonder
Burgersdijk notes:
De naam Spraakwater is in het Engelsch Ticklebrain, de naam van een likeur.

Topics: life, age/experience, excess, integrity, identity, respect

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

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

I do profess to be no less than I seem

PLAY:
ACT/SCENE: 1.4
SPEAKER: Kent
CONTEXT:
I do profess to be no less than I seem, to serve him truly that will put me in trust, to love him that is honest, to converse with him that is wise and says little, to fear judgement, to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish.

DUTCH:

MORE:
Profess=Declare, claim as a calling or trade.
Eat no fish=May mean not a Papist (Re.: Catholic abstenance from meat on Fridays but not fish)

Topics: identity, claim, appearance, identity, honesty, trust, integrity

If I lose mine honour, I lose myself

PLAY: Antony and Cleopatra
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

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

Topics: emotion and mood, misquoted

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

What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

DUTCH:
Wat is uw vonnis, dan een stomme dood,
Nu ‘t mij mijn levensademklank verbood?

MORE:

A semi-literal allusion to a proverb of the time, ‘Good that the teeth guard the tongue’ (1578) and the virtue of silence. Ben Jonson recommended a ‘wise tongue’ that should not be ‘licentious and wandering’. (See also the Lucio in Measure for Measure: “’tis a secret must be locked within the
teeth and the lips”.)

Cunning=Skilful
Sentence=Verdict (punning on language)
Breathing native breath=Speaking native English (and breathing English air)

Compleat:
Cunning=Behendig

Topics: language, understanding, identity, proverbs and idioms

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

PLAY: King Lear
ACT/SCENE: 1.4
SPEAKER: King Lear
CONTEXT:
Does any here know me? Why, this is not Lear.
Doth Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, or his discernings
Are lethargied. Ha, sleeping or waking?
Sure, ’tis not so.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?

DUTCH:
Is één hier, die mij kent? Dit is niet Lear;
Is dit Lears gang? zijn spraak? zijn dit zijn oogen?
Ja, hij is zwak in ‘t hoofd, of wel, zijn zinnen
Zijn diep in slaap. — Wat, waak ik? ‘t is niet zoo. —
Wie kan mij zeggen, wie ik ben?

MORE:
Schmidt:
Discernings=Intellectual faculties or ability to discriminate
Lethargied=Dulled, paralysed, benumbed
Compleat:
Lethargy=Een slaapende koorts, sluimer koorts, slaapzucht (waar door men zyn geheugenis en verstand verliest).
Discerning faculty=Het vermogen van te kunnen oordelen.

Topics: identity, madness

You tread upon my patience. But be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself

PLAY: King Henry IV Part 1
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: King
CONTEXT:
My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,
And you have found me, for accordingly
You tread upon my patience. But be sure
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty and to be feared, than my condition,
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect
Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

DUTCH:
Te koel en te gematigd was mijn bloed,
Niet vatbaar om hij zulk een hoon te koken;
En dit hebt gij ontdekt, want daarom treedt gij
Op mijn lankmoedigheid;

MORE:
Schmidt:
Temperate=moderate, calm
Found me=Found me out, have my measure
Unapt=Not propense or ready
Condition=Quality
Tread upon (in a moral sense)=To trample, to set the foot on in contempt
Indignity=Contemptuous injury, insult
Title of respect=Claim to respect, respect to which I have title
Compleat:
Unapt=Onbekwaam
Temperate=Maatig, gemaatigd
To tread upon=Optreeden, vertreeden
To tread underfoot=Met den voet treeden

Topics: identity, dignity, failure, respect, patience, authority