Happy birthday, Will

[pallas_athena]

ceruleanst's genius translation of Pulp Fiction into Shakespearean English has already been linked all over the place, and justly so.

The MetaFilter link inspired MeFi's birthday gift to Shakespeare: the Pulp Shakespeare Thread. Some highlights:
Shakespeare Christopher Walken
"Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" as a sonnet
Dirty Harry IV, part 1
1601: A Shakespeare Odyssey

and my own small contributions: C'est La Vie in pentameter; Vincent's looking glass soliloquy.

Happy birthday, Shakespeare. You rock my world.

All in the Spring of life this match was made.
Their reverend elders bless'd them on the day:
Young sir and dame, fresh youth and blushing maid,
Have rung the bell; from church they go their way.
With hey and nonny nonny, c'est la vie;
You ne'er can tell the tale of what's to be.

Their modest hearth was furnishéd with all
The cakes and ale their board, forsooth, might hold;
Pierre did tune his lute and virginal,
And play in tavern halls for ducats gold.
With hey...

They ope the doors of their small dwelling place
To all the wand'ring minstrels of the land;
They trip the galliard and cinquepace,
And when Night falls, a swaying sarabande.
With hey...

For Orléans they did depart but now
All in a carriage red as is the cherry
('Twas made in 1553, I trow)
To honour thus the day that they did marry:
With hey and nonny nonny, c'est la vie;
You ne'er can tell the tale of what's to be.

******************

Vincent, before the looking glass:

One cup of sack, forsooth, and then farewell.
Be not too brief, lest thou the dame offend,
But down thy drink and then away pell-mell
To horse, and to the road, and there an end.
My whoreson soul, now art thou sorely tried,
Now see we wherein lies thy fealty,
For when a man is true, he doth abide
By all the laws of love and lealty.
So to the breach. And when thou hast in sight
That peerless fair, to her then drain your glass,
And give her thanks and bid her then goodnight,
And homeward drag thy sad and sorry ass.
And when unto thy chamber thou shalt steal,
Then break thy privy member's Privy Seal.

******

Between Chicago and our place of stand,
'Tis leagues fivescore and six. We have on hand
A tank that's full and fat with gasoline,
And half a pack of sticks of nicotine.
The ebon wing of Night doth spread apace,
And lo, we have sunglasses on our face.
Hit it.

Comments

Or, from Martin Baum's "To Be or Not to Be Innit"

[albertbbun.livejournal.com]

ALL'S SWEET THAT ENDS SWEET, INNIT

Helena was de orphaned bitch of de well famous quack doctor who, with de geeza called Bertram and his Countess muvva, had been living in de Rossillion turf forever.

Although they had been well full of respect for each other, over de years, Helena had been falling for Bertram big time and wanted to get all jiggy jiggy with him. Bertram, though, being de all macho geeza, didn't really care coz he fought she was well minging. But his muvva, on de other hand, quite liked de idea of Helena becoming her son's bitch.

But true lurv was dealt de cruel blow when de King of France geeza was taken all deathly ill in Froggyland and without de moment of hesitation, Bertram decided to go to de King in de Paris ghetto leaving Helena all Billy No Mates. However, coz she was de daughta of dis well famous but dead quack doctor, she fought she could do somefing to help.

So unknown to Bertram, Helena followed him finking that she might be able to come up with de special cure for de King geeza - which amazingly she does! And all coz she was de daughta of de well famous but dead quack doctor, innit.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

hahaha! Excellent good, i'faith.;