Naturally, with any rewriting of Shakespearean text into
modern language, there can be different approaches. The basic speech is
below:
Where
be these enemies? Capulet, Montage,
See what a scourge
is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at you, discords
too,(305)
Have lost a brace of
kinsmen. All are
punish'd.
I highlighted the
words specified in the subtext of the question. The rewrite of this speech should
involve the Prince speaking to both heads of the households, with the corpses of the
children in front of him. It is almost as if the Prince, who has been fairly useless in
stopping the violence, is surveying the damage of both the families' animosity and his
own ineffectiveness in front of him. The rewriting of this speech could be in the
following context:
Where are these two rivals? Capulet,
Montague,
Do you see the punishment for your
hatred?
I can only hope that some divine force kills your
hate, replacing it with love.
I am also to blame as I
ignored your fighting.
I have lost two family members,
also. All of us suffer as a result of this
hatred.
Two things jump out
about the Prince here. The reference to the "brace" reflects a potential identification
with Romeo and Juliet. Another point is that it's interesting that the Prince argues
that he "ignored" the fighting. This is not the case, as the Prince has paid attention
to the fighting throughout the play. Yet, rather than admit to his own ineffectiveness,
he suggests that his ignoring it was to blame. I think that this is an interesting
character move on the part of the Prince.
No comments:
Post a Comment