transcript
show notes
William Shakespeare by Jennifer Bassett
单词提示
1.Scottish 苏格兰人
原文
Chapter 8: A Scottish king for England.
Will's father died in September 1601.
In his last years, John Shakespeare was a happy man.
His son was famous, and the Shakespeare family was important again in Stratford.
But there weren't many children in the family.
Will's sister Joan was married and had a little boy, but Will's brothers didn't have any children.
Susanna,Will's older daughter was now 18.
And Will said to her one day, “We must find you a husband soon, Susanna.”
But Susanna shook her head.
“Oh,I don't want to be married, father, thank you.”
We all smiled at that, because there was already a young man who was often a visitor at New Place.
That was John Hall, a clever young doctor.
Will liked him.
Back in London, the theatres were always full.
And actors were now important people in the city.
Will and I were now living in very fine lodgings in Silver Street with the Mount Joy family.
The Globe and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were doing very well, and the older actors in the company were making money and buying houses and land.
But some people still thought that actors were dangerous, wicked people.
Then Queen Elizabeth died on 24 March 1603 at Richmond.
I remember the day well.
The theatres were closed.
You can't have plays when a queen is dying, and we were all at Henry Condell's House.
He and John Hemings lived very near our lodgings in Cripplegate.
We were all very worried.
The new King of England was James I.
He was already King of Scotland, and he had a young wife Queen Anne of Denmark,and three young children.
But what was he like? Would he be a good king?
And most importantly, did he like plays?
“If King James doesn't like plays,” said Henry Condell, “we're finished.”
There are already a lot of Puritans on the London City Council, and they love to close the theatres down.
Henry always looked at the black side of everything.
“Well,he's written a lot of books himself,” said Will, “perhaps he'll be interested in plays too. We'll just have to wait and see. We didn't have to wait long.”
On 19 May, I was underneath the stage in the Globe.
I was trying to mend a broken door in the floor of the stage.
We used this door when a ghost came on or went off in a cloud of smoke.
Suddenly,I heard feet running across the stage.
I looked up through the hole and saw Will and John Hemmings and Richard Burbage.
They were all very excited.
“Listen to this, Toby.” said Will.
He was holding a piece of paper in his hand.
“It's a letter from King James from today. We are the King's men, we're working for the King himself, and he wants to see all the plays. We're going to have new red coats to wear when we go to court.” Richard said.
And John said, “He's going to pay us £20 for every play at court. What do you think about that, Toby?”
We were all laughing and smiling now.
“Well,John,” I said, “if we are so rich, can I have a new door? I can't mend this one again, it's too old.”
That summer, the plague came back.
By July, 1000 people were dying every week in London.
One of them was the little son of Will's friend Ben Johnson.
By the end of the year, there were 33000 dead.
In England, the theatres closed and the king's men went on tour.
Will and I spent the summer at Stratford.
When Christmas came, the King's men put on a lot of plays at court.
The King was at Hampton Court Palace that year, which was outside London well away from the plague.
I couldn't go, because I fell off my horse one day and broke my leg.
Stupid thing to do, I had to stay at home, but Will told me all about it when he came back.
“The new king and queen like to enjoy themselves, Toby.” he said, “They are a happy family. Prince Henry, who's nine is a very nice little boy, and his sister Elizabeth is beautiful. Little Prince Charles is only two.”
He was silent for a minute, perhaps he was thinking about Hamnet, then he went on.
“Queen Anne likes plays very much. She likes music and dancing too. She showed her legs in one dance.
“My word,” I said, “things like that never happened at court in Queen Elizabeth days.”
“We live in different times, Toby. A lot of things are going to change, but change only comes slowly.”
The King's men went from one success to another at the King's court.
At Christmas 1604, there were 22 plays, and 8 of them were Wills.
In 1605, there were 13 plays at court and 10 of them were Wills.
We always did the plays at the Globe first before we took them to court.
Will was writing more slowly now, but during these years, he wrote some of his best plays—Othello Macbeth and King Lear.
That was a sad, dark play.
When King Lear carried his dead daughter Cordelia onto the stage, well, every man,woman, and child in the Globe was crying. It's true.
Richard Burbage played Lear, of course, what an actor he was.
翻译
第八章：苏格兰国王入主英格兰
1601年9月，威尔的父亲去世了。
在最后的岁月里，约翰·莎士比亚过得很幸福。
他的儿子声名远扬，莎士比亚家族在斯特拉特福也重新恢复了声望。
不过，家族里的子嗣并不算多。
威尔的姐姐琼结了婚，生了个小男孩，但威尔的弟弟们都没有留下后代。
威尔的大女儿苏珊娜当时已经18岁了。
有一天，威尔对她说：“苏珊娜，我们得赶紧给你找个丈夫了。”
但苏珊娜摇了摇头。
“哦，我不想结婚，父亲，谢谢您。”
听到这话，我们都笑了，因为已经有个年轻人经常来“新地”做客了。
他叫约翰·霍尔，是个聪明的年轻医生。威尔挺喜欢他的。
在伦敦，剧院总是座无虚席。
演员们在城里也成了有头有脸的人物。
我和威尔当时住在银街的芒乔伊一家，住处非常气派。
环球剧院和“宫内大臣剧团”的生意红红火火，剧团里的老演员们都赚了钱，纷纷购置房产和土地。
不过，仍有一些人认为演员是危险、邪恶的人。
1603年3月24日，伊丽莎白女王在里士满宫驾崩。
那一天我记忆犹新。
剧院全都关门了。
女王弥留之际，谁也不能演戏。我们当时都聚在亨利·康德尔的家里。
他和约翰·赫明斯住得离我们位于克里普尔盖特的住处很近。
我们心里都忐忑不安。
英格兰的新国王是詹姆斯一世。
他原本就是苏格兰的国王，有一位年轻的妻子——丹麦的安妮王后，还有三个年幼的孩子。
但他是个怎样的人呢？他会是个好国王吗？
最重要的是，他喜欢看戏吗？
“如果詹姆斯国王不喜欢戏剧，”亨利·康德尔说，“我们就全完了。”
伦敦市政委员会里已经有很多清教徒了，他们最喜欢干的事就是关闭剧院。
亨利总是把事情往最坏的方面想。
“嗯，他自己就写过不少书，”威尔说，“也许他对戏剧也会感兴趣。我们只能走着瞧了。”
我们并没有等太久。
5月19日那天，我正待在环球剧院的舞台底下。
我正在修补舞台地板上的一扇破门。
每当鬼魂在烟雾中出场或退场时，我们就会用到这扇暗门。
突然，我听到舞台上有一阵急促的脚步声。
我透过洞口往上看，看到了威尔、约翰·赫明斯和理查德·伯比奇。
他们全都激动万分。
“托比，你听这个。”威尔说。
他手里拿着一张纸。
“这是国王今天刚下达的信件。我们现在是‘国王剧团’了，直接为国王陛下效力，他想看我们所有的戏。以后我们进宫时，都要穿上崭新的红色制服了。”理查德说。
约翰接着说：“在宫里每演一出戏，他要付给我们20英镑。托比，你觉得怎么样？”
我们全都开怀大笑起来。
“好吧，约翰，”我说，“既然我们现在这么有钱，能给我换扇新门吗？这扇旧门我实在修不好了。”
那年夏天，瘟疫再次爆发。
到了7月，伦敦每周都有1000人丧生。
威尔的朋友本·琼森的小儿子就是其中之一。
到了年底，死亡人数达到了3万3千人。
在英格兰，剧院纷纷关闭，“国王剧团”只好去外地巡演。
那个夏天，我和威尔是在斯特拉特福度过的。
到了圣诞节，“国王剧团”在宫廷里演了很多出戏。
那年国王待在伦敦城外的汉普顿宫，远离瘟疫的侵扰。
我没能去成，因为我有一天从马上摔下来，摔断了腿。
真是件蠢事，我只能待在家里。不过威尔回来后把一切都告诉了我。
“托比，新国王和王后都很懂得享受生活，”他说，“他们是个幸福的家庭。9岁的亨利王子是个非常讨人喜欢的小男孩，他的姐姐伊丽莎白公主十分美丽。小查尔斯王子才两岁。”
他沉默了一会儿，也许是想起了哈姆内特，然后继续说道：
“安妮王后非常喜欢看戏。她也喜欢音乐和舞蹈。在一次跳舞时，她还露出了小腿呢。”
“天哪，”我说，“在伊丽莎白女王时期，宫里可从来没有过这种事。”
“时代不同了，托比。很多事情都会发生改变，只是改变总是来得很慢。”
“国王剧团”在国王的宫廷里接连取得成功。
1604年的圣诞节，宫廷里一共演了22出戏，其中有8出是威尔写的。
1605年，宫廷里演了13出戏，威尔的占了10出。
我们总是先在环球剧院上演新戏，然后再进宫表演。
威尔现在的创作速度慢了下来，但在这些年里，他写出了一些他最杰出的作品——《奥赛罗》、《麦克白》和《李尔王》。
那是一出极其悲伤、阴郁的戏。
当李尔王抱着死去的女儿考狄利娅走上舞台时，环球剧院里的男女老少全都在哭泣。我发誓这是真的。
饰演李尔王的当然是理查德·伯比奇，他真是一位伟大的演员。
