The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) (1115 page)

I'll haunt you like a guilty conscience,

that conjures up goblins in guilty thoughts.

Quick march to Troy.Go happily;

the hope of revenge shall cover our sorrow.

Enter PANDARUS

PANDARUS.

But hear you, hear you!

Listen, listen!

TROILUS.

Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame

Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name!

Get away, you go-between servant.May disgrace and shame

follow you all your life, and make your name proverbial!

Exeunt all but PANDARUS

PANDARUS.

A goodly medicine for my aching bones! world! world! thus

is the poor agent despis'd! traitors and bawds, how earnestly are

you set a work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be

so lov'd, and the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What

instance for it? Let me see-

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing

Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;

And being once subdu'd in armed trail,

Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted

cloths. As many as be here of pander's hall,

Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;

Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,

Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.

Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,

Some two months hence my will shall here be made.

It should be now, but that my fear is this,

Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.

Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,

And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

Exit

A nice medicine for my aching bones!What a world! This

is how the poor helper is despised!Traitors and pimps, how they love

to employ you, and how poorly you are paid!Why should they love

our work so much, then hate us for the results?What song can describe it?

What example is there?Let me see:

The bumble bee sings happily

until he's lost his honey and his sting;

once he's lost his weapon,

the music and the honey are gone.

Good traders in the flesh, write this on your

wall hangings.As many of you come from Pandar's hall,

your failing eyes should weep at Pandar's fall;

or, if you can't weep, then give me some groans,

even if not for me, for your aching bones.

Brothers and sisters who guard the brothel doors,

Two months from now you'll see what happened here.

I should show you now, but I'm worried

that some pox-filled tart would be upset.

Until then I'll try and sweat to find a cure,

and at that time I'll pass on my diseases.

THE END

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content

And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

We want beautiful people to reproduce,

So their beauty will never die,

And as the parent grows older and his looks decrease,

His beautiful child will bear the memory of his youth,

But you, caught up with your own sparkling eyes,

Feed upon your own beauty and burn it out,

Making very little where a lot should be.

You are your own worst enemy and cruel in your sweetness.

You are, for the time being, a good looking young person,

and a messenger of the brilliance of spring itself,

But you keep your loveliness to yourself,

And—young and ungracious—you waste it by hoarding it.

Take pity on the world or you will be seen as greedy,

Having taken all of your beauty to the grave with you.

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,

If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old,

And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

When forty years have overtaken your brow,

And have dug deep wrinkles in its smooth beauty,

The proud costume of your youth viewed now,

Will be a tattered weed that is worthless.

And when you are asked where is your beauty—

What happened to the prize of your younger days?

If you were to say it’s within your deep sunken eyes,

It would be a shameful and useless praise.

How much better if your beauty had been spent having a child,

So that you could answer ‘This child of mine

Accounts for why I look so old.’

Your beauty would be passed on through him!

This would make you appear new when you are old,

And his blood would still be warm when yours cools.

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

So thou through windows of thine age shall see

Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

But if thou live, remember'd not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Look in your mirror and tell the face looking back at you

That now is the time to bear a child with the same face.

Your face is fresh and young now, but if you don’t regenerate it

You will cheat the world and deprive a mother.

Who out there is so beautiful that her womb

Would refuse to take the seed of your child?

And who is so foolish that he will be the death,

Due to his self-obsession, of his own line of descendants?

Your own face is your mother’s mirror, and she sees in it

The lovely springtime of her youth.

You will also be able to look back in your old age

And see your youth in your child’s face despite your wrinkles.

But if you live without having children, you will not be remembered.

You will die alone, and your image will die with you.