AAARGHH, No Fear Shakespeare
(First of all, I don't know why I do this to myself, but I was looking for the "most capricious poet" quote, and No Fear Shakespeare was the first site that popped up.)
Real Shakespeare:
Touchstone: I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaques: O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!
Touchstone: When a man's verses cannot be understood, or a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.
No Fear Shakespeare:
Touchstone: Well, I'm out here with you and your goats, in the same way that the witty poet Ovid was abandoned to the barbaric Goths.
Jaques: Oh, knowledge put to such bad use is worse than a god cooped up in a hut.
Touchstone: When a man's jokes fall that flat, it's as depressing as getting a large bill for a short stay in a little room.
Just NO NO NO. So many times no, for so many reasons, but especially because none of this, with the possible exception of the phrase "seconded with the forward child" and the single word "reckoning," actually requires a translation for a native speaker of modern English. What it requires is footnotes: explicating this passage in a way that makes sense means giving your students cultural knowledge, about Ovid, and about Jupiter and Baucis and Philemon*, and about Christopher Marlowe, and possibly even about the etymology of the word "capricious." None of which they are actually going to get from this "translation." And it drives me crazy when "study aids" actively conspire to hide this knowledge from students, instead of helping to uncover it.
(As a side note, why does No Fear Shakespeare automatically change "thou" to "you"? Are there seriously students, even at the high school level, who don't know that "thou" means "you"? As far as I can tell, they're simply assuming it's alienating because it's archaic. Never mind that 1) this is a distinction that encodes important information about characters and relationships in early modern English; and 2) it takes all of three minutes to teach, and students invariably think it's cool when they learn about it.)
* Which makes the whole play so much richer, seriously. Some of the other references may be throwaways, but this one isn't.
Real Shakespeare:
Touchstone: I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaques: O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!
Touchstone: When a man's verses cannot be understood, or a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.
No Fear Shakespeare:
Touchstone: Well, I'm out here with you and your goats, in the same way that the witty poet Ovid was abandoned to the barbaric Goths.
Jaques: Oh, knowledge put to such bad use is worse than a god cooped up in a hut.
Touchstone: When a man's jokes fall that flat, it's as depressing as getting a large bill for a short stay in a little room.
Just NO NO NO. So many times no, for so many reasons, but especially because none of this, with the possible exception of the phrase "seconded with the forward child" and the single word "reckoning," actually requires a translation for a native speaker of modern English. What it requires is footnotes: explicating this passage in a way that makes sense means giving your students cultural knowledge, about Ovid, and about Jupiter and Baucis and Philemon*, and about Christopher Marlowe, and possibly even about the etymology of the word "capricious." None of which they are actually going to get from this "translation." And it drives me crazy when "study aids" actively conspire to hide this knowledge from students, instead of helping to uncover it.
(As a side note, why does No Fear Shakespeare automatically change "thou" to "you"? Are there seriously students, even at the high school level, who don't know that "thou" means "you"? As far as I can tell, they're simply assuming it's alienating because it's archaic. Never mind that 1) this is a distinction that encodes important information about characters and relationships in early modern English; and 2) it takes all of three minutes to teach, and students invariably think it's cool when they learn about it.)
* Which makes the whole play so much richer, seriously. Some of the other references may be throwaways, but this one isn't.