To be or not to be - multilingual -- The Versioning Machine 4.0

Critical Introduction

This multi-textual edition offers readers interested in comparing interlingual and intralingual versions of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy (its first five lines) the following texts for comparison:

- the First Quarto, Second Quarto, and First Folio texts,

- Spencer’s New Penguin edition; Mowat and Werstine’s Folger Digital Texts edition; Bevington’s four Internet Shakespeare Editions based on the Second Quarto, on the First Folio, his Editor’s Version (conflating these two early texts), and on the First Quarto;

- the historical translations into Spanish by Leandro Fernández de Moratín (1798) and by Guillermo Macpherson (in its four versions, 1873, 1879, 1882 and 1885), into German by Christoph Martin Wieland (1766) and by August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck (1831), into Italian by Carlo Rusconi (1852) and by Giulio Carcano (1847), and into French by François-Victor Hugo (1865), and by François Guizot (1864).

This project stems out of my collaboration with the open-acces, multilingual collection of early modern European theatre (EMOTHE), that offers open-access editions of selected plays from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English, Spanish, French and Italian theatre, together with translations into the other languages of the collection, to be read either individually or alongside each other on the screen (Oleza 2013).

It demonstrates how the critical apparatus tagset defined in the Guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI Consortium) can be used to encode interlingual variants between an original and its translation and how they can be displayed in parallel texts using Versioning Machine (Schreibman 2010) in its 5.0 release of January 2016.

I would appreciate comments and suggestions (addressed to tronch@uv.es).

An update to Versioning Machine 5.0 is available at http://www.uv.es/shaxpere/vm/samples/To_be_multiling2.html

Jesús Tronch

List of works cited

Oleza, Joan. "Exploring a Multilingual Digital Edition of Early Modern European Theater." Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies 13.4 (2013): 152-154.

Schreibman, Susan. 2010. Versioning Machine v4.0. Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. http://v-machine.org/index.php.

TEI Consortium. 2014. P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 2.7.0. Text Encoding Initiative Consortium. Last modified 14 September 2014. http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/index.html.

List of witnesses

Bevington, David, ed. Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/Ham/.

Carcano, Giulio, trans. 1847. Amleto. Tragedia di Guglielmo Shakspeare. Milano.

[First Folio] Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. London, 1623. Facsimile: Hinman, C., ed. The First Folio of Shakespeare: The Norton Facsimile. New York: Norton and Company, Inc, 1968.

[First Quarto] The Tragicall Hi∫torie of Hamlet Prince Denmarke by William Shake-∫peare […] London Printed for N.L. and Iohn Trundell, 1603. Rpt. in Scolar Press Facsimiles, Menston: The Scolar Press Ltd. 1969. Rpt. in Michael J. B. Allen and Kenneth Muir, eds. Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Digital facsimiles in The Shakespeare Quartos Archive, http://www.quartos.org

Guizot, François, trans. 1864. “Hamlet.” In Oeuvres complètes de Shakspeare, traduction de M. Guizot, nouvelle édition entièrement revue, 139-282. Paris: Didier.

Hugo, François-Victor, trans. 1865. “Le Second Hamlet.” In vol. 1 “Les deux Hamlet” of Ouvres complètes de Shakespeare, 201-388. 2nd ed. Paris: Pagnerre.

Macpherson, Guillermo, trans. 1873. Hámlet, príncipe de Dinamarca. Cádiz: Imprenta y Litografía de la Revista Médica de Federico Joly Velasco.

———, trans. 1879. Hámlet, príncipe de Dinamarca. Madrid: Imprenta de Fortanet.

———, trans. 1882. Hámlet, príncipe de Dinamarca. Biblioteca Universal (vol. 78). Madrid: Imprenta y Litografía de la “Biblioteca Universal.”

———, trans. 1885. “Hámlet, príncipe de Dinamarca.” In vol. 3 of Obras Dramáticas de Guillermo Shakespeare. Biblioteca Clásica. 8 vols. Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Cía. 1885-1897.

[Moratín (Leandro Fernández de Moratín)] Celenio, Inarco, trans. 1798. Hamlet.Tragedia de Guillermo Shakespeare. Traducida é ilustrada con la vida del autor y notas críticas por Inarco Celenio. Madrid: Villalpando.

Mowat, Barbara, and Paul Werstine, eds. 2013. The Tragedy of Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. Folger Digital Texts. Washington D.C.: Folger Shakespare Library. http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/

Rusconi, Carlo, trans. 1852. “Amleto, principe di Danimarca. Tragedia.” In vol. 2 of Teatro completo di William Shakespeare, voltato in prosa italiana da Carlo Rusconi, 7-96. 3rd ed. Torino: Cugini Pomba e comp. editori.

[Second Quarto] The Tragicall Hi∫torie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. By William Shake∫peare. London: Printed by I. R. for N. L., 1604/1605. Rpt. in Scolar Press Facsimiles, Menston: The Scolar Press Ltd. 1972. Rpt. in Michael J. B. Allen and Kenneth Muir, eds. Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Digital facsimiles in The Shakespeare Quartos Archive, http://www.quartos.org

Schlegel, Wilhelm, trans., and Ludwig Tieck, rev. 1831. “Hamlet, Prinz von Dänemark.” In vol. 6 of Shakspeare’s dramatische Werke. 9 vols. Berlin: Verlag G. Reimer.

Spencer, T. J. B., ed. 1980. Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. The New Penguin Shakespeare. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Wieland, Christoph Martin, trans. 1766. Shakespear theatralische Werke. Illustr. Salomon Gessner. Vol. 8. Zürich: Orell Gessner und Comp.

Witness

 
To 
                                              bebe, 
                                              or not to 
                                              be, be — be; Existir ó no existir: Ser ¡Ser o dejar de o no ó no ser: ser, ser! Être, ou ne pas être, Être ou ne pas être, Être ou n'être pas, Viure, o no viure: ¿Ser ó no ser? – Sein oder Nichtsein, Seyn oder nicht seyn-- Essere o non essere, Essere ovver non essere! I there’s the ay, there's the  
                                                      that is the point,point.question,Question:question:question —question;question.esta es la qüestion.he ahí el problema.que la cuestión es ésta!la ¡La 
                                                              alternativa es 
                                                                esa!esta!c’est là la question.voilà le problème.voilà la question....la qüestió és aqueixa:Aquest es lo problema.–das ist hier die Frage:Das ist die Frage--ecco il gran problema.... l'enimma 
 Qui stà. – Whether tis nobler in the minde to sufferWhether 'tis Nobler in the minde to sufferWhether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer¿Cual es mas digna accion del animo, sufrirSi es con arreglo á la razón, mas nobleSi es á la luz de la razon más digno— Y a-t-il plus de noblesse d’âme à subirQu'y a-t-il de plus noble pour l'âme? supporter Ob’s edler im Gemüt, die Pfeil’ und SchleudernOb es einem edeln Geist anständiger ist,ma è più nobile all'anima il patireSe l'alma più sia forte allora
The slings and arrowes of outragious fortune,The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,The slings and arrows of outrageous fortunelos tiros penetrantes de la fortuna injusta,Sufrir los golpes, los agudos dardos 
 De atroz fortuna, Sufrir los golpes y punzantes dardos 
 De suerte horrenda, — la fronde et les flèches de la fortune outrageante,les coups de fronde et les flèches de la fortune outrageuse?Des wütenden Geschicks erdulden, odersich den Beleidigungen des Glüks geduldig zu unterwerfen,i colpi dell'ingiusta fortuna,Che agli oltraggiosi colpi, alle saette 
 Regge della fortuna;  ó terminar la lucha 
 o quando l'armi
Or to take Armes against a sea of troubles,Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,Or to take arms against a sea of troublesOr to take arms against a sea of troubles, ú oponer los brazos á este torrente de calamidades,Armas haciendo contra un mar de penas.En guerra contra un piélago de males!— ou bien à s’armer contre une mer de douleursou s'armer en guerre contre un océan de misèresSich waffnend gegen eine See von Plagen,oder seinen Anfällen entgegen zu steheno ribellandosi contro tanti mali,Impugna contro al mar delle sciagure,
And by opposing, end them, And by opposing end them: And by opposing end them. And by opposing, end them. And, by opposing, end them. And by opposing end them; And by opposing end them?  y darlas fin con atrevida resistencia? — et à l’arrêter par une révolte ? et, de haute lutte, y couper court?... Durch Widerstand sie enden. und durch einen herzhaften Streich sie auf einmal zu endigen? opporsi al torrente e finirli? E affrontandole ardita, a lo dà fine. – to die to sleepeto dye, to sleepeTo Die, to sleepe,To die, to sleep — To die, to sleep,To die — to sleep, to die: to sleep – To die: to sleep — Morir es dormir.Morir; dormir; dormir. Mourir… dormir, - Mourir, dormir, Mourir.... dormir....Sterben – schlafen –Was ist sterben?--SchlafenMorire.... riposare....Morir — dormire ... 

Witness

 
To 
                                              bebe, 
                                              or not to 
                                              be, be — be; Existir ó no existir: Ser ¡Ser o dejar de o no ó no ser: ser, ser! Être, ou ne pas être, Être ou ne pas être, Être ou n'être pas, Viure, o no viure: ¿Ser ó no ser? – Sein oder Nichtsein, Seyn oder nicht seyn-- Essere o non essere, Essere ovver non essere! I there’s the ay, there's the  
                                                      that is the point,point.question,Question:question:question —question;question.esta es la qüestion.he ahí el problema.que la cuestión es ésta!la ¡La 
                                                              alternativa es 
                                                                esa!esta!c’est là la question.voilà le problème.voilà la question....la qüestió és aqueixa:Aquest es lo problema.–das ist hier die Frage:Das ist die Frage--ecco il gran problema.... l'enimma 
 Qui stà. – Whether tis nobler in the minde to sufferWhether 'tis Nobler in the minde to sufferWhether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer¿Cual es mas digna accion del animo, sufrirSi es con arreglo á la razón, mas nobleSi es á la luz de la razon más digno— Y a-t-il plus de noblesse d’âme à subirQu'y a-t-il de plus noble pour l'âme? supporter Ob’s edler im Gemüt, die Pfeil’ und SchleudernOb es einem edeln Geist anständiger ist,ma è più nobile all'anima il patireSe l'alma più sia forte allora
The slings and arrowes of outragious fortune,The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,The slings and arrows of outrageous fortunelos tiros penetrantes de la fortuna injusta,Sufrir los golpes, los agudos dardos 
 De atroz fortuna, Sufrir los golpes y punzantes dardos 
 De suerte horrenda, — la fronde et les flèches de la fortune outrageante,les coups de fronde et les flèches de la fortune outrageuse?Des wütenden Geschicks erdulden, odersich den Beleidigungen des Glüks geduldig zu unterwerfen,i colpi dell'ingiusta fortuna,Che agli oltraggiosi colpi, alle saette 
 Regge della fortuna;  ó terminar la lucha 
 o quando l'armi
Or to take Armes against a sea of troubles,Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,Or to take arms against a sea of troublesOr to take arms against a sea of troubles, ú oponer los brazos á este torrente de calamidades,Armas haciendo contra un mar de penas.En guerra contra un piélago de males!— ou bien à s’armer contre une mer de douleursou s'armer en guerre contre un océan de misèresSich waffnend gegen eine See von Plagen,oder seinen Anfällen entgegen zu steheno ribellandosi contro tanti mali,Impugna contro al mar delle sciagure,
And by opposing, end them, And by opposing end them: And by opposing end them. And by opposing, end them. And, by opposing, end them. And by opposing end them; And by opposing end them?  y darlas fin con atrevida resistencia? — et à l’arrêter par une révolte ? et, de haute lutte, y couper court?... Durch Widerstand sie enden. und durch einen herzhaften Streich sie auf einmal zu endigen? opporsi al torrente e finirli? E affrontandole ardita, a lo dà fine. – to die to sleepeto dye, to sleepeTo Die, to sleepe,To die, to sleep — To die, to sleep,To die — to sleep, to die: to sleep – To die: to sleep — Morir es dormir.Morir; dormir; dormir. Mourir… dormir, - Mourir, dormir, Mourir.... dormir....Sterben – schlafen –Was ist sterben?--SchlafenMorire.... riposare....Morir — dormire ... 

To be or not to be - multilingual

To be or not to be - multilingual

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Witness List

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Critical Introduction