Whence camest thou ? & other obsolete English...
This evening my wife & I had very different experiences of the latest cinematic version of Macbeth ('The Scottish Play') courtesy of one of my favourite actors, Michael Fassbender. My verdict was excellent. Hers was more along the lines of 'whit ?'.
This is the problem with Shakespeare. My wife is highly intelligent & highly educated, yet never really studied Shakespeare at school, so for her & for many like her the version of English delivered by the likes of Macbeth is challenging, & this detracts so much from its subject matter, that they spend more time 'translating' the English in their heads than they do appreciating the subject matter.
To my mind this is a great pity, since much of the subject matter of, for example, Macbeth, is as relevant today as it was when it was originally written.
So, on the drive home I asked her what had actually confused her, & we got down to the nitty gritty of words like whence, whither, thence & thither.
Now, it turns out that it's words like these, & the peculiar grammar of Shakespearian English, that are the real problem. For example, my wife thought 'whence comest thou?' means 'when did you come ?' as opposed to what it actually means, 'where did you come from ?'.
Of course, this is entirely understandable. Why should 'whence' have anything to do with 'where' when it sounds so much like 'when' ?
I tried explaining that Shakespearian English is, grammatically, much more like many modern European languages than modern English, & that it has three words for 'where' (where, whence & whither), thus 'whence camest though ?' actually translates closer to the German, 'woher kamest du ?', than to the 'modern', English 'where did you come from ?'.
But this failed to impress her.
Thus it seems to me that modern native English-speaking audiences have 'modern English' & its weird grammar (all its 'does', 'do' & 'did' etc) hard-wired into their brains to such an extent that they even fail to appreciate the, actually much more logical & straightforward, more archaic versions.
Of course, when I say 'modern English', I mean the version of the language that we use today. In historical linguistic terms Shakespeare is modern English (as opposed to Old English or Middle English, which are different enough to constitute wholly foreign languages), albeit Shakespearian English perhaps represents early modern English.
It's also not appreciated by many native English-speakers than the version of Shakespeare that we encounter nowadays is already translated from its very original form, with about 2-5% of its vocabulary having been substituted with more recognisable words.
Which invites a tantalising question. If it's already translated, therefore impure, why not go the whole hog & translate it into modern modern English, i.e. using the full range of current grammar & idiom ? I think this is a good question. If the subject matter remains as relevant now as it first was, then why not make it accessible for the present day 'mob' ? After all, Shakespeare wrote for the plebeians of his day, not for the erudite elite.
Perhaps one might worry that some of the subtlety of language would be lost. However, I'm not sure it would. I for one would wager that current English is at least equally capable of rendering the same range of emotions as Shakespeare could, albeit in different colours.
In any event, even in the form it's most commonly presented today, Shakespeare does still remain relevant & largely comprehensible to modern native English-speaking audiences, even without large-scale translation. It only challenges them to think a little harder about their own language,
And if any of SpanishDict's native Spanish-speakers find this curious, I would implore you to go watch Macbeth. I've always maintained that Shakespeare is for watching & not for reading, & you could do worse than starting with this most recent version of 'The Scottish Play'... 
4 Answers
Hi, Falda:
Do you know that I use these very same words to teach the "dónde" family.
¿De dónde vienes? Whence comest thou?
¿Dónde estás? Where art thou?
¿A dónde vas? Whither goest thou?
I like to show my students some of the similarities between the older English and modern Spanish which hasn't evolved quite as much. Ej. tú vs. thou. Ye vs. vosotros.
I love Shakespeare and Cervantes. They are my favorites.
I'm impressed that they didn't 'modernise' some of the language for a film. It must have been hard for the actors to learn. The Scottish play was the first Shakespeare play I studied. For me the most memorable points as we read the play in the south of England were references to my birth place - Forres. I thought others were unlikely to know it was a real place!
Whilst at school we were able to visit various theatres to watch some plays - we studied Hamlet and Henry IV in the sixth form. Somehow when you hear it spoken it just sounds correct.
It is amazing how much of the old language still lurks in our modern world. I agree with Ian about the sound depth and beauty of Shakespeare. It also has so many modern messages - what lawyer wouldn't enjoy The Merchant of Venice.
If anyone has a chance to visit London do go on a guided tour of The Globe and you will understand even more about the plays.
I like his pairs of words like Hither and thither.
Recently we had several lessons about old theatre and spent time speaking out loud an important Act.
"What light from yonder window breaks?"
Instead of
"What is that light that is coming out of that window over there?"
I know which I prefer.
There are no "ing"s or "do"s in Shakespeare.
Be" upstanding" and **charge your glasses"
Instead of fill your glass with drink and stand up.
This is being used merely to bump up this excellent thread
You see ,""The quality of mercy is not strained"".
