Did They Meet in Valladolid?

Neither evidence, nor testimony, just a possible temporal coincidence. It was in the spring of 1605. A British royal delegation was in Valladolid on a peace mission. Shakespeare could have been among them. And the nomadic Cervantes had just settled in Valladolid, together with his sister, niece, wife and daughter.


(Cervantes)

(Shakespeare)

There Is No Third

Says T.S.Eliot, Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third.

(http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/05/27/130527crbo_books_acocella)

lithography by Gustave Doré
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave_Dore_Inferno1.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
(http://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2006/03/nel-mezzo-del-cammin-di-nostra-vita.html)

When I had journeyed half of our life's way
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.
(English rendering by Allen Mandelbaum)

La mijlocul de drum al vieţii noastre
m-am fost găsit într-o pădure-adâncă:
pierdusem drumul drept prin văi sihastre.
(Romanian rendering by George Pruteanu)

(http://topyaps.com/top-10-words-and-phrases-that-shakespeare-taught-us/)
no copyright infringement intended

To be, or not to be – that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep -
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.
(http://blog.webphoto.ro/film/monologul-lui-hamlet-william-shakespeare/)

Être, ou ne pas être, telle est la question.
Y a-t-il plus de noblesse d’âme à subir
la fronde et les flèches de la fortune outrageante,
ou bien à s’armer contre une mer de douleurs
et à l’arrêter par une révolte ? Mourir… dormir,
rien de plus ;… et dire que par ce sommeil nous mettons fin
aux maux du cœur et aux mille tortures naturelles
qui sont le legs de la chair.

(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet)

A fi sau a nu fi… Aceasta-i întrebarea.
Mai vrednic oare e să rabzi în cuget
a vitregiei prăştii şi săgeți, sau arma s-o ridici
asupra mării de griji, şi să le curmi?
Să mori, să dormi… Atât.
Şi printr-un somn să curmi durerea din inimă
şi droaia de izbelişti ce-s date cărnii.

(Romanian rendering by Dan Duțescu and Leon Levițchi)

(T. S. Eliot)

(Dante)

(Shakespeare)

Goethe und Schiller

Goethe und Schiller
(http://www.goethezeitportal.de/?id=808)
no copyright infringement intended

I remember the blessed days I was in Weimar: Goethe is there the spiritus loci. I visited his house, frankly I didn't like the hype. But I praise him as a god. There is also the house of Schiller there. It was closed everytime I visited Weimar. Maybe one day...

There is a garden in Weimar, where I saw a monument dedicated to Shakespeare. It was erected on the suggestion of Goethe.

Monument of Shakespeare in Weimar
(http://www.mediastorehouse.com/low.php?xp=media&xm=940266)
no copyright infringement intended

• Quoting Goethe
• Gesang der Geister über den Wassern

(German and Nordic Literature)

(Shakespeare)

The Happy Few

(http://www.johndclare.net/wwii12.htm)
no copyright infringement intended

The Happy Few... splendid expression! I had my first encounter with it when reading Stendhal's Chartreuse de Parme. It was the ending line. The novel was dedicated TO THE HAPPY FEW. I thought about elite, the true one, differing to the rest by bravery, and by finesse. I understood later that Stendhal had dedicated all his writing to TO THE HAPPY FEW. The super-hero exalting the imagination of Stendhal, of Nietzsche, of Malraux.  Were these happy few a distinct race, a Band of Brothers of their own?

The Happy Few were also to be found in a poem created by Lord Byron, in Don Juan (Canto the Eleventh):

 LXVII
Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
       Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar
Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd
       Like harness'd meteors; then along the floor
Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl'd;
       Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,
Which opens to the thousand happy few
An earthly Paradise of 'Or Molu.'

(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173089)

This expression, the Happy Few (followed by the Band of Brothers), comes from Shakespeare, from his Henry V: we are in 1415, on October 25, it is Saint Crispin's Day, and the English army has to face the French at Agincourt (Azincourt). The French seem to be much more powerful. And Shakespeare makes the English king keep a motivational speech to his troupes, the happy few, the band of brothers. And by the end of the day, they will overcome the French.

John Gilbert: King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:King_Henry_V_at_the_Battle_of_Agincourt,_1415.png)
no copyright infringement intended

This day is called the Feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t' old age
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours
And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words —
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester —
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

(Shakespeare: Henry V)

St. Crispin's Day Speech: Kenneth Branagh
(video by conserv8)

And as the image on the top of this post reminded me of another famous one (though some would say infamous, it's up to every one) from Moscow's Sverdlov Square, I would add also another drawing from a comics, just for balance.

(http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=33957)
no copyright infringement intended

(Shakespeare)

Shakespeare

Aristide Demetriade in Hamlet
o creatie a carei faima a trecut fruntariile tarii
the fame of Demetriade's creation in Hamlet passed Romania's frontiers

I have this book, the History of Bucharest National Theater, an edition from 1939, and I keep it as a beloved treasure for my soul. The book belonged to my uncle,whose name was also Pierre. He passed away in 1944, victim of a robbery made by military from the Soviet occupation troupes. I was born in 1945, and my mother gave me his name, to appease the tragedy that had struck our family.

On the cover of this book it is a photo from 1916: Aristide Demetriade, one of the greatest artists in the history of Bucharest National Theater, playing Hamlet, a creation whose fame has passed Romania's frontiers. It was my fist encounter with the name of Shakespeare.

I didn't have, so far, the audacity to write on this blog about Shakespeare. There are titans that overwhelm any attempt to comment. Only once I brought a small poem by Eminescu, meditating his love for the English bard. Two titans in a dialog throughout the centuries:

Shakespeare, adesea te gândesc cu jale,
Prieten bun al sufletului meu,
Ecoul viu al versurilor tale
Îmi sare-n gând, şi le repet mereu.

De-aş fi trăit când tu trăiai pe lume,
Te-aş fi iubit atât cât te iubesc?
Căci tot ce simt - tot ție-ți multumesc,
Tu mi-ai deschis a ochilor lumină,
M-ai invățat ca lumea s-o citesc.

It's an impiety for me to adventure and give a rendering of these lines in another language, but, also, everybody should taste a bit of their beauty, and I will dare:

Shakespeare, I often build you in my mind with sorrow,
Good friend of my soul,
The living echo of your lines
Is jumping in my thought, and I repeat them always.

Were I to live when you were living on this world,
Would I have loved you as much as I now love you?
For all I feel - it's thanks to you,
You are the one to open my eyes' light
And teach me read this universe.

I found this video on youTube, you'll consider it maybe a bit crazy, but it speaks also about someone's unconditional love for the English bard. Are Shakespeare's plays encoded within a number with infinite digits? Has the bard as measure the endless of eternity?

are Shakespeare's plays encoded within Pi?
(video by Vihart)

• The Happy Few
• Goethe und Schiller (the monument of Shakespeare in Weimar)
• Gândindu-l pe Shakespeare: Eminesciene
• There Is No Third 
• Did They Meet in Valladolid?

(A Life in Books)

Gândindu-l pe Shakespeare: Eminesciene

Shakespeare, adesea te gândesc cu jale,
Prieten bun al sufletului meu,
Ecoul viu al versurilor tale
Îmi sare-n gând, şi le repet mereu.

De-aş fi trăit când tu trăiai pe lume,
Te-aş fi iubit atât cât te iubesc?
Caci tot ce simt - tot ție-ți multumesc,
Tu mi-ai deschis a ochilor lumină,
M-ai invățat ca lumea s-o citesc.

(Eminescu)

(Shakespeare)