23.4.09

ΣΑΝ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ. ΟΥΪΛΛΙΑΜ ΣΑΙΞΠΗΡ

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Ουίλλιαμ Σαίξπηρ (4/1564 – 23/4/1616)
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Ανακάλυψαν μοναδικό πορτρέτο του Σαίξπηρ
Έθνος, 10/3/2009
Ενθουσιασμένοι αρχαιολόγοι και μελετητές του Σαίξπηρ ανακοίνωσαν την εύρεση ενός πορτρέτου του 16ου αιώνα, το οποίο απεικονίζει τον βάρδο.
Το πορτρέτο ανακαλύφθηκε στην περιοχή όπου πιστεύεται ότι βρισκόταν «Το Θέατρο» στο Σόουρντιτς του Λονδίνου - εκεί ο Σαίξπηρ ανέβηκε για πρώτη φορά στη σκηνή ως ηθοποιός και εκεί παρουσιάστηκε για πρώτη φορά «Ο Ρωμαίος και η Ιουλιέτα».
Αν και δεν υπάρχουν ακόμα επαρκή αποδεικτικά στοιχεία ότι είναι η πραγματική μορφή του Σαίξπηρ αυτή που απεικονίζεται στο πορτρέτο, ωστόσο πιστεύεται ότι το έργο φιλοτεχνήθηκε το 1610, έξι χρόνια δηλαδή πριν από τον θάνατο του συγγραφέα.
Η ταυτότητα του προσώπου που απεικονίζεται στον πίνακα αποτελούσε πάντοτε μυστήριο, ο Στάνλεϊ Γουέλς, όμως, μια από τις μεγαλύτερες αυθεντίες του Σαίξπηρ παγκοσμίως, δηλώνει «90% βέβαιος» ότι ο πίνακας που φιλοτεχνήθηκε το 1610 απεικονίζει τον μεγαλύτερο βάρδο όλων των εποχών σε ηλικία 46 ετών.
Αν πράγματι καταλήξουν ότι πρόκειται για την αυθεντική μορφή του, αυτόματα θα τελειώσει η μακροχρόνια αντιπαράθεση σχετικά με την ακρίβεια των απεικονίσεών του.
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LV.

Μνημεία πριγκίπων από μάρμαρο ή χρυσό
αυτές τις λέξεις δεν μπορούν να επισκιάσουν.
Πάντα στιλπνός θα ζεις σ' εκείνων την ηχώ,
ενώ κι οι πέτρες με τα χρόνια θα χλωμιάσουν.

Κι αν αύριο ο 'Αρης τα οχυρά αποκαθηλώσει
κι όλα τ' αγάλματα τα δώσει της σκουριάς,
κανένας πόλεμος ποτέ δεν θα οξειδώσει
τούτο το ενέχυρο της πρώτης σου ομορφιάς.

Πέρ' απ' τη λήθη και της έριδας τη ρώμη
θα φτερουγίζει η φήμη σου πάντοτε εμπρός,
στα μάτια αυτών που ζουν ή όσων θα 'ρθούν ακόμη
μέχρι να πάψει αυτού του κόσμου ο σφυγμός.

Μα ώσπου να φτάσει η Μέρα εκείνη κι εγερθείς,
σ' αυτούς τους στίχους ανεξίτηλος θα ζεις.

Ουίλλιαμ Σαίξπηρ

Μετάφραση: Κώστας Κατσουρέλης
περ. ΠΟΙΗΣΗ, τχ. 18, Φθινόπωρο-Χειμώνας 2001

4 σχόλια:

gay super hero είπε...

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman were thou first created,
Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.

(Shakespeare, Sonnet 20)

SONNET 20 - PARAPHRASE

A woman's face, colored by Nature's own hand
Have you, the master/mistress of my desire;


You have a woman's gentle heart, but you are not prone
To fickle change, as is the way with women;


You have eyes brighter than their eyes and more sincere,
Lighting up the very object that they look upon;

You are a man in shape and form, and all men are in your control,
You catch the attention of men and amaze women's souls.


You were originally intended to be a woman;
Until Nature, made a mistake in making you,


And by adding one extra thing Nature defeated me,
By adding one thing she has prevented me from fully having you,


But since Nature equipped you for women's pleasure,
Let your body be their treasure, and let me have your love.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199810/ai_n8827074/?tag=content;col1

gay super hero είπε...

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair you owe;

Nor shall Death brag you wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time you growest

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 18 deserves its fame because it is one of the most beautifully written verses in the English language. The sonnet’s endurance comes from Shakespeare’s ability to capture the essence of love so cleanly and succinctly.

After much debate amongst scholars, it is now generally accepted that the subject of the poem is male. In 1640, a publisher called John Benson released a highly inaccurate edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets in which he edited out the young man, replacing “he” with “she”.

Benson’s revision was considered to be the standard text until 1780 when Edmond Malone returned to the 1690 quarto and re-edited the poems. Scholars soon realized that the first 126 sonnets were originally addressed to a young man sparking debates about Shakespeare’s sexuality .

The nature of the relationship between the two men is highly ambiguous and it is often impossible to tell if Shakespeare is describing platonic love or erotic love.

Commentary The opening line poses a simple question which the rest of the sonnet answers. The poet compares his loved one to a summer’s day and finds him to be “more lovely and more temperate.”

The poet discovers that love and the man’s beauty are more permanent than a summer’s day because summer is tainted by occasional winds and the eventual change of season. While summer must always come to an end, the speaker’s love for the man is eternal.

For the speaker, love transcends nature in two ways:

The speaker begins by comparing the man’s beauty to summer, but soon the man becomes a force of nature himself. In the line, “thy eternal summer shall not fade,” the man suddenly embodies summer. As a perfect being, he becomes more powerful than the summer’s day to which he was being compared.


The poet’s love is so powerful that even death is unable to curtail it. The speaker’s love lives on for future generations to admire through the power of the written word – through the sonnet itself. The final couplet explains that the beloved’s “eternal summer” will continue as long as there are people alive to read this sonnet:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The young man to whom the poem is addressed is the muse for Shakespeare’s first 126 sonnets. Although there is some debate about the correct ordering of the texts, the first 126 sonnets are thematically interlinked and demonstrate a progressive narrative. They tell of a romantic affair that becomes more passionate and intense with each sonnet.

In previous sonnets, the poet has been trying to convince the young man to settle down and have children, but in Sonnet 18 the speaker abandons this domesticity for the first time and accepts love’s all-consuming passion – a theme that is set to continue in the sonnets that follow.


gay super hero είπε...

SONNET 104
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah, yet does beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still does stand,
Has motion and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, you age unbred;
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

*Lines 13 & 14: you unborn generations;
Before you came into existence beauty was already dead*

The theme of Sonnet 104, the passage and ravages of Time, is one common throughout all of the Sonnets. Here the poet uses his fond memories of first meeting his lover as inspiration to write the poem. It is clear from Sonnet 104, and the other Sonnets as a whole, that the passion he feels for his male lover (possibly the Earl of Southampton), is the most intense experience the poet has ever encountered . Nothing is important but his lover; his lover is eternal, both in beauty and spirit.

Many have tried to deduce the actual date of the sonnet's composition and the true identity of Shakespeare's lover by the reference to the 'three years' which the friendship spanned to this point.

Some argue that this certainly places us in the summer of 1594, and the 'Aprils' and 'Junes' mentioned are of 1592, 1593, and 1594. For supporters of the notion that Southampton was the lover, he would have been eighteen when they met and twenty-one at the time Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 104.

However, critics of this dating method are many, and they argue that the poet's use of 'three' years specifically may be simply a poetic convention (based on the significance of the number three in the Bible) and not a literal reference to the time he has spent with his lover.

stassa είπε...

Αυτό το 'χεις δει;

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