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At non formosa est, at non bene culta puella

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

Ovid Amores 3.7 (in the Loeb text and translation), the poem behind yesterday’s The Imperfect Enjoyment. Love Ovid though I do, I find Rochester’s reworking more effective than the original – but then Ovid and Rochester are playing with different poetics so a strict counterweighing is misguided.

Was she then not beautiful, not attractively groomed, not longed for a thousand times in my dreams? And yet when I held her in my arms, I was unhappily limp and could not perform, but lay a shameful burden on an idle bed; but though I was eager for it, and she no less, I could not use the pleasurable part of my languid loins. Her ivory arms, gleaming more brightly than Thracian snow, she cast about my neck and with eager tongue implanted wanton kisses, and lasciviously slid her limbs beneath mine. She whispered endearments, calling me master, and all the natural rapturous utterances as well. But my body, as if drugged with chill hemlock, was paralysed and failed to achieve my intent. I lay like a dead tree-trunk, a mere spectacle, a useless weight, and it was unclear whether I was body or ghost.

What kind of old age lies in store for me, if indeed one does, when my youth lives not up to its full measure? Ah, I am ashamed to be my age: what is the point of being young and male? My girl-friend found me neither young nor male. She left the bed as chaste as the devout priestess who rises to tend Vesta’s undying fire and as a sister leaves the side of the dear brother whose respect she commands. Yet not long ago I satisfied blonde Chlide twice running with my attentions, thrice fair Pitho and thrice Libas; I remember Corinna’s asking from me and my supplying nine measures in one short night.

Was my body listless under the spell of Thessalian drugs? Was I the wretched victim of charms and herbs, or did a witch curse my name upon a red wax image and stick fine pins into the middle of the liver? When damned by charms the corn withers on the sterile stalk, and when a well is damned by charms, its water dries up; through incantations acorns drop from oaks and grapes from vines, and apples fall when no one has touched them. What prevents the cessation of my energy being due to magical practices? It is perhaps from that source that my powers became inadequate. Shame also played a part, for my very shame at what happened inhibited me: that was a second cause of my trouble.

But what a lovely girl did I just gaze upon and touch, and touch as closely as her garments do! Her touch could have made Nestor young again and given Tithonus a virility belying his years. Such a one had I in my grasp, though she no man in hers. What on earth can I now ask for in my future prayers? I also fancy the mighty gods regret offering me a boon which I so shamefully treated. Yes, I desired admittance—and won it; to kiss her—and did; to be in her bed—and was. What did I gain from such great fortune, what did I gain from a kingship I never exercised? Nothing, except possess wealth like a rich miser. So thirsts the betrayer of secretsa in midstream and has fruit he can never enjoy. Does anyone leave a pretty girl at dawn in a state permitting him forthwith to approach the sacred gods?

But perhaps it was not an alluring girl I left? Perhaps she did not lavish exquisite kisses on me or use every resource to rouse me? Not a bit! That girl’s allure could have moved tough oak, hard adamant, and unfeeling stone: certainly she could have moved anyone alive and man; but then I was neither alive nor man, as I had been. What would be the use of Phemius singing to deaf ears? What profit is a painting to blind Thamyras?

And yet what joys had I not conceived in the privacy of my mind, what ways of love not arranged in my imagination? But my body lay in disgrace as though already dead, more jaded than the rose of yesterday. (Now, too late, just look at it, it is well and strong, now clamouring for business and the fray. Lie down there, you shamefaced creature, worthless part of me: I have been tricked by promises like this before. You deceive your master; through you I have been caught defenceless, and suffered a painful and humiliating reverse.)

Moreover my playmate did not refrain from applying her hand and gently coaxing it. But when she realised it would not get up and was lying down oblivious of her, she exclaimed: “Why do you insult me? Are you out of your mind? Who asked you to come to bed if you are not in the mood? Either some practitioner of Circe’s spells has been piercing a woollen figure of you and has you bewitched or you have come here exhausted from lovemaking elsewhere.” With that she leapt out of bed, wrapped in her ungirdled robe (and a pretty sight she was, as she tripped forth barefoot). And to stop the maids realising that she had not enjoyed me, she covered up my sorry performance by taking a bath.

At non formosa est, at non bene culta puella,
at, puto, non votis saepe petita meis!
hanc tamen in nullos tenui male languidus usus,
sed iacui pigro crimen onusque toro;
nec potui cupiens, pariter cupiente puella,
inguinis effeti parte iuvante frui.
illa quidem nostro subiecit eburnea collo
bracchia Sithonia candidiora nive,
osculaque inseruit cupida luctantia lingua
lascivum femori supposuitque femur,
et mihi blanditias dixit dominumque vocavit,
et quae praeterea publica verba iuvant.
tacta tamen veluti gelida mea membra cicuta
segnia propositum destituere meum;
truncus iners iacui, species et inutile pondus,
et non exactum, corpus an umbra forem.
Quae mihi ventura est, siquidem ventura, senectus,
cum desit numeris ipsa iuventa suis?
a, pudet annorum: quo me iuvenemque virumque?
nec iuvenem nec me sensit amica virum!
sic flammas aditura pias aeterna sacerdos
surgit et a caro fratre verenda soror.
at nuper bis flava Chlide, ter candida Pitho,
ter Libas officio continuata meo est;
exigere a nobis angusta nocte Corinnam
me memini numeros sustinuisse novem.
Num mea Thessalico languent devota veneno
corpora? num misero carmen et herba nocent,
sagave poenicea defixit nomina cera
et medium tenuis in iecur egit acus?
carmine laesa Ceres sterilem vanescit in herbam,
deficiunt laesi carmine fontis aquae,
ilicibus glandes cantataque vitibus uva
decidit, et nullo poma movente fluunt.
quid vetat et nervos magicas torpere per artes?
forsitan inpatiens fit latus inde meum.
huc pudor accessit: facti pudor ipse nocebat;
ille fuit vitii causa secunda mei.
At qualem vidi tantum tetigique puellam!
sic etiam tunica tangitur illa sua.
illius ad tactum Pylius iuvenescere possit
Tithonosque annis fortior esse suis.
haec mihi contigerat; sed vir non contigit illi.
quas nunc concipiam per nova vota preces?
credo etiam magnos, quo sum tam turpiter usus,
muneris oblati paenituisse deos.
optabam certe recipi—sum nempe receptus;
oscula ferre—tuli; proximus esse—fui.
quo mihi fortunae tantum? quo regna sine usu?
quid, nisi possedi dives avarus opes?
sic aret mediis taciti vulgator in undis
pomaque, quae nullo tempore tangat, habet.
a tenera quisquam sic surgit mane puella,
protinus ut sanctos possit adire deos?
Sed, puto, non blanda: non optima perdidit in me
oscula; non omni sollicitavit ope!
illa graves potuit quercus adamantaque durum
surdaque blanditiis saxa movere suis.
digna movere fuit certe vivosque virosque;
sed neque tum vixi nec vir, ut ante, fui.
quid iuvet, ad surdas si cantet Phemius aures?
quid miserum Thamyran picta tabella iuvat?
At quae non tacita formavi gaudia mente!
quos ego non finxi disposuique modos!
nostra tamen iacuere velut praemortua membra
turpiter hesterna languidiora rosa—
quae nunc, ecce, vigent intempestiva valentque,
nunc opus exposcunt militiamque suam.
quin istic pudibunda iaces, pars pessima nostri?
sic sum pollicitis captus et ante tuis.
tu dominum fallis; per te deprensus inermis
tristia cum magno damna pudore tuli.
Hanc etiam non est mea dedignata puella
molliter admota sollicitare manu;
sed postquam nullas consurgere posse per artes
inmemoremque sui procubuisse videt,
“quid me ludis?” ait, “quis te, male sane, iubebat
invitum nostro ponere membra toro?
aut te traiectis Aeaea venefica lanis
devovet, aut alio lassus amore venis.”
nec mora, desiluit tunica velata soluta
—et decuit nudos proripuisse pedes!
—neve suae possent intactam scire ministrae,
dedecus hoc sumpta dissimulavit aqua.



The Imperfect Enjoyment

~ Walter Shandy ~ 1 Comment

John Wilmot is what Henry Miller would like to have been.

If I weren’t rusticating away from my books this long weekend I’d include the Ovid poem – Amores 3.7 – that gave rise to this and several similarly themed pieces.

Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, love’s lesser lightning, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should prepare to throw
The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.
My fluttering soul, sprung with the pointed kiss,
Hangs hovering o’er her balmy brinks of bliss.
But whilst her busy hand would guide that part
Which should convey my soul up to her heart,
In liquid raptures I dissolve all o’er,
Melt into sperm, and spend at every pore.
A touch from any part of her had done ’t:
Her hand, her foot, her very look’s a cunt.
    Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise,
And from her body wipes the clammy joys,
When, with a thousand kisses wandering o’er
My panting bosom, “Is there then no more?”
She cries. “All this to love and rapture’s due;
Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?”
    But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive,
To show my wished obedience vainly strive:
I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive.
Eager desires confound my first intent,
Succeeding shame does more success prevent,
And rage at last confirms me impotent.
Ev’n her fair hand, which might bid heat return
To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn,
Applied to my dear cinder, warms no more
Than fire to ashes could past flames restore.
Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,
A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.
This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried,
With virgin blood ten thousand maids has dyed,
Which nature still directed with such art
That it through every cunt reached every heart—
Stiffly resolved, ’twould carelessly invade
Woman or man, nor ought its fury stayed:
Where’er it pierced, a cunt it found or made—
Now languid lies in this unhappy hour,
Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower.
    Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,
False to my passion, fatal to my fame,
Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove
So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?
What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore
Didst thou e’er fail in all thy life before?
When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way,
With what officious haste doest thou obey!
Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets
Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets,
But if his king or country claim his aid,
The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head;
Ev’n so thy brutal valor is displayed,
Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade,
But when great Love the onset does command,
Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar’st not stand.
Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most,
Through all the town a common fucking post,
On whom each whore relieves her tingling cunt
As hogs on gates do rub themselves and grunt,
Mayst thou to ravenous chancres be a prey,
Or in consuming weepings waste away;
May strangury and stone thy days attend;
May’st thou never piss, who didst refuse to spend
When all my joys did on false thee depend.
   And may ten thousand abler pricks agree
   To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.

Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas – an addendum

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

Another to yesterday’s list of translations – Helen Waddell’s rendering of Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas from her Mediaeval Latin Lyrics:

Delight of lust is gross and brief
And weariness treads on desire.
Not beasts are we, to rush on it,
Love sickens there, and dies the fire.
But in eternal holiday,
Thus, thus, lie still and kiss the hours away.
No weariness is here, no shamefastness,
Here is, was, shall be, all delightsomeness.
And here no end shall be,
But a beginning everlastingly.

Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas

~ Walter Shandy ~ 2 Comments

Today, a comparison of translations and adaptations, plus a possible personal cryptomnesiac cribbing. I started The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (ed. David Vieth) earlier and ran across an adaptation of one of Petronius’s more memorable poems.

First, Petronius’ original (poem 28 in the Loeb text) with the Loeb rendering and – since the Loeb’s is more meh than normal – my own five minute effort afterwards. Neither effort does near justice to the playfully allusive legerdemain of the original but together they can give some idea (and, incidentally, I believe there’s a new Loeb edition of Petronius scheduled for later this year so maybe that one will improve the situation).

Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas
et taedet Veneris statim peractae.
Non ergo ut pecudes libidinosae
caeci protinus irruamus illuc
(nam languescit amor peritque flamma);
sed sic sic sine fine feriati
et tecum iaceamus osculantes.
Hic nullus labor est ruborque nullus:
hoc iuvit, iuvat et diu iuvabit;
hoc non deficit incipitque semper.

The pleasure of the act of love is gross and brief, and love once consummated brings loathing after it. Let us then not rush blindly thither straightway like lustful beasts, for love sickens and the flame dies down; but even so, even so, let us keep eternal holiday, and lie with thy lips to mine. No toil is here and no shame: in this, delight has been, and is, and long shall be; in this there is no diminution, but a beginning everlastingly.

Filthy and brief is the pleasure taken in sex
and passion carried to its end straightaway disgusts.
And so let us not like rutting beasts
blind and headlong rush to the end
(for desire withers and the flame dies);
But let us lie like this, just like this,
playing idly without end and kissing.
Here is no exertion and no reason to turn red:
This has pleased, does please, and long will please;
This does not cease and ever is just beginning.

Now Ben Jonson’s translation – which I remembered existed but haven’t read in years, similarity of final lines notwithstanding:

Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short;
And done, we straight repent us of the sport:
Let us not then rush blindly on unto it,
Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it:
For lust will languish, and that heat decay.
But thus, thus, keeping endless holiday,
Let us together closely lie and kiss,
There is no labour, nor no shame in this;
This hath pleased, doth please, and long will please; never
Can this decay, but is beginning ever.

And finally, John Wilmot’s adaptation – which carries the improbable title ‘The Platonic Lady‘

I could love thee till I die,
Would’st thou love me modestly,
And ne’er press, whilst I live,
For more than willingly I would give:
Which should sufficient be to prove
I’d understand the art of love.

I hate the thing is called enjoyment:
Besides it is a dull employment,
It cuts off all that’s life and fire
From that which may be termed desire;
Just like the bee whose sting is gone
Converts the owner to a drone.

I love a youth will give me leave
His body in my arms to wreathe;
To press him gently, and to kiss;
To sigh, and look with eyes that wish
For what, if I could once obtain,
I would neglect with flat disdain.

I’d give him liberty to toy
And play with me, and count it joy.
Our freedom should be full complete,
And nothing wanting but the feat.
Let’s practice, then, and we shall prove
These are the only sweets of love.


I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Henry V (4.4)

SCENE IV. The field of battle.
Alarum. Excursions. Enter PISTOL, French Soldier, and Boy

PISTOL
Yield, cur!

French Soldier
Je pense que vous etes gentilhomme de bonne qualite.

PISTOL
Qualtitie calmie custure me! Art thou a gentleman?
what is thy name? discuss.

French Soldier
O Seigneur Dieu!

PISTOL
O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman:
Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark;
O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,
Except, O signieur, thou do give to me
Egregious ransom.

French Soldier
O, prenez misericorde! ayez pitie de moi!

PISTOL
Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;
Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat
In drops of crimson blood.

French Soldier
Est-il impossible d’echapper la force de ton bras?

PISTOL
Brass, cur!
Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat,
Offer’st me brass?
French Soldier

O pardonnez moi!

PISTOL
Say’st thou me so? is that a tun of moys?
Come hither, boy: ask me this slave in French
What is his name.

Boy
Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?

French Soldier
Monsieur le Fer.

Boy
He says his name is Master Fer.

PISTOL
Master Fer! I’ll fer him, and firk him, and ferret
him: discuss the same in French unto him.

Boy
I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.

PISTOL
Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.

French Soldier
Que dit-il, monsieur?

Boy
Il me commande de vous dire que vous faites vous
pret; car ce soldat ici est dispose tout a cette
heure de couper votre gorge.

PISTOL
Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy,
Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;
Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.

French Soldier
O, je vous supplie, pour l’amour de Dieu, me
pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison:
gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.

PISTOL
What are his words?

Boy
He prays you to save his life: he is a gentleman of
a good house; and for his ransom he will give you
two hundred crowns.

PISTOL
Tell him my fury shall abate, and I the crowns will take.

French Soldier
Petit monsieur, que dit-il?

Boy
Encore qu’il est contre son jurement de pardonner
aucun prisonnier, neanmoins, pour les ecus que vous
l’avez promis, il est content de vous donner la
liberte, le franchisement.

French Soldier
Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et
je m’estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les
mains d’un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave,
vaillant, et tres distingue seigneur d’Angleterre.

PISTOL
Expound unto me, boy.

Boy
He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and
he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into
the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave,
valorous, and thrice-worthy signieur of England.

PISTOL
As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.
Follow me!

Boy
Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.

Sus cum Minerva certamen suscepit

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

Erasmus Adagia 41:

Sus cum Minerva certamen suscepit
A pig undertakes a contest with Minerva

The same or at least as close as possible to this is found in Theocritus’ Idylls.

Ὗς ποτ᾽ Ἀθηναίαν ἔριν ἤρισε
A pig once challenged Athena to a quarrel

It is said whenever the ignorant and dull-witted, ready to fight, are not afraid to challenge men of the highest learning in a literary competition. Theocritus commentator writes that the phrase is commonly used thus: Ὗς ὢν πρὸς Ἀθήνην ἐρίζεις (though a pig, you quarrel with Athena). Some scholiast adds that ἐρίζειν is used for those who compete with words and ἐρείδειν for those who compete with deeds – which makes it all the more laughable, if an unteachable pig competes with Minerva, the guardian of studies.

Cum hoc aut idem aut certe quam maxime finitimum, quod apud Theocritum
legitur in Hodoeporis:

Ὗς ποτ᾽ Ἀθηναίαν ἔριν ἤρισε, id est
Cum diua est ausus sus decertare Minerua.

Quoties indocti stolidique et depugnare parati non verentur summos in omni
doctrina viros in certamen literarium prouocare. Theocriti enarrator sic efferri
vulgo παροιμίαν scribit: Ὗς ὢν πρὸς Ἀθήνην ἐρίζεις, id est Sus cum sis, cum
Minerua contendis. Scholiastes nescio quis addit eos ἐρίζειν dici, qui verbis
certant, ἐρείδειν, qui factis, quo magis ridiculum est, si sus indocilis certet cum
Minerua disciplinarum praeside.

The reference to Theocritus is to Idyll 5, line 23:

Comatas
By these Nymphs of the lake—and may they be kind and propitious to me—I, Comatas, did not steal away with your pipe.

Lacon
May I have the sufferings of Daphnis if I believe you.6 But if you would like to wager a kid—not a big stake, after all7—then I’ll compete with you in song until you give in.

Comatas
A pig once challenged Athena.8 There: the kid is my stake; now you put forward a fat lamb.

Lacon
And how will that be fair, you trickster? Who shears hair instead of wool? Who wants to milk a wretched dog when a goat is at hand which has just given birth for the first time?

Kοματας
οὐ μάν, οὐ ταύτας τὰς λιμνάδας, ὠγαθέ, Νύμφας,αἵτε μοι ἵλαοί τε καὶ εὐμενέες τελέθοιεν,οὔ τευ τὰν σύριγγα λαθὼν ἔκλεψε Κομάτας.

Lακων
αἴ τοι πιστεύσαιμι, τὰ Δάφνιδος ἄλγε’ ἀροίμαν.ἀλλ’ ὦν αἴ κα λῇς ἔριφον θέμεν, ἔστι μὲν οὐδένἱερόν, ἀλλά γέ τοι διαείσομαι ἔστε κ’ ἀπείπῃς.

Kοματας
ὗς ποτ’ Ἀθαναίαν ἔριν ἤρισεν. ἠνίδε κεῖταιὥριφος· ἀλλ’ ἄγε καὶ τύ τιν’ εὔβοτον ἀμνὸν ἔρειδε.

Lακων
καὶ πῶς, ὦ κίναδος τύ, τάδ’ ἔσσεται ἐξ ἴσω ἄμμιν;τίς τρίχας ἀντ’ ἐρίων ἐποκίξατο; τίς δὲ παρεύσαςαἰγὸς πρατοτόκοιο κακὰν κύνα δήλετ’ ἀμέλγειν;

“Lei, professore, non mi conosce”….”e non me ne lamento!”

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been reading the Decameron the last few days and in following some reference or other about the manuscript traditions I found an academic feud worth recounting.  I’m quoting the account found here but removing most of the publication details.

For [Vittore] Branca, Boccaccio has been a subject of study over six decades … he constructed a major new edition of the Decameron (1950–51). Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, an
American scholar had been simultaneously preparing his own edition of Boccaccio’s one hundred tales. The war disrupted both projects, but Branca scooped Charles S. Singleton, whose Laterza edition didn’t see print until 1955. Back in Italy, Branca and Ricci announced Hamilton 90 as the autograph, another blow to Singleton, who had judged B “the most authoritative… the manuscript on which my own critical edition was to be based.” In what he calls “the greatest irony of a scholar’s life,” he had not realized that the manuscript he judged best was, in fact, Boccaccio’s own. Branca meanwhile pushed forward with ever greater vigor … in 1967 he brought out Boccaccio’s Profilo biografico as preface to volume I in Tutte le opere, the definitive modern series he had undertaken with Mondadori of Milan (complete in all ten volumes as of 1998).

Back in Baltimore, to vindicate his own long years of painstaking efforts, Singleton organized a stellar team — Franca Petrucci, Armando Petrucci, Giancarlo Savino, and Martino Mardersteig — to prepare a diplomatic edition of Hamilton 90, handsomely reproduced with color facsimile pages of the manuscript and its witty autograph catchword illustrations.  In his Preface, he conspicuously refused to cite Branca at all, eliciting the latter’s predictably disdainful response in review pages of Studi sul Boccaccio (which Branca had founded in 1963): diplomatic editions were a thing of the past; this one was a useless anachronism and total waste of money. 

Singleton, in fact, … refused ever to speak Branca’s name in print (and even took pride in that stubborn silence).  Branca preferred liberally to quote his American antagonist, the better to undercut him with punctilious, withering criticism. Their transatlantic dueling gave rise to an anecdote I recall hearing from a fellow student at Johns Hopkins. As the story went, Branca and Singleton found themselves together for the first time at a conference. One approached the other to introduce himself, but the second cut him off in mid-sentence:

“Lei, professore, non mi conosce”
“e non me ne lamento!”

(“You, professor, do not know me”
“and I’m not complaining”)

Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

A curious bit of sideline anthropology from Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities.

I’d dispute a portion of this notion – since urban legends (localized nowhere and adoptable everywhere) and purely digital tales (like slenderman) have still managed to take hold among today’s highly mobile populations – but it does generally feel we all have impoverished local traditions thanks to such turnover.

She hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Much Ado About Nothing (2.1) – far my favorite of the comedies for the dynamic between Benedick and Beatrice (the latter described by Leonato below)

There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my
lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
herself with laughing.

For the scene (4.1) where they admit their feelings for one another my Arden edition quotes this perfect analysis – “They manage by a deft indirectness to put nothing into a syntax where the other person can choose either its negative or its positive meaning” (Jorgensen in Redeeming Shakespeare’s Words) – that is also the tactical summation of the merry war that is my marriage.

The 2011 David Tennant/Catherine Tate production is well worth a view but – because I’m a purist and the 80s Gibraltar resettling rubs me wrong – even better is the David Tennant/Samantha Spiro 2005 BBC Radio production. Honorable mention goes to Michael Keaton as Dogberry in the 90s Branagh film.