Shakespeare: Sonnet 18 l Bilingual Reading

Shakespeare was the culmination of European Renaissance literature and is considered the highest peak in the history of the development of British and Western theater as a whole. He wrote a great deal of writing, writing 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 long poems during his lifetime. In addition to drama, his sonnets are also very distinctive, fresh and timeless.

This sharing is shakespeare's most famous sonnet, The 18th Shake I compare thee to a summer's day?

Take Cao Minglun's translation as a reference.

Sonnet 18

Author: Shakespeare

Translation: Cao Minglun

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day？

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Can I compare you to summer?

Although you are cuter and gentler than summer:

The fierce wind will make the May bud red and lose its fragrance,

The summer has a fleeting time;

The Old English "thee" is the Binge of the Old English "thou", which can be translated as "you, ru"

compare to put... Analogy

temperate/temp r t/adj. temperate, (climate) mild;

May: May in Shakespeare's calendar extends to mid-June (according to the current calendar), which is summer.

hath is the "has" in modern English

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd；

And every fair from fair sometime declings,

By chance,or nature's changing course,untrimm'd；

Sometimes the giant eyes of the sky are too hot,

Its golden complexion is also often obscured;

And thousands of fangs will eventually wither and fall,

The change of fortune in the heavenly path stripped away the red face;

shine /a n/v. (sun or other light source) emits light and shines

complexionn. skin color, tone;

Dimm'd is dimmedidj. invalid; dark gray

untrimm'd i.e. untrimmed/n tr md/adj. uncut; unadorned

the eye of heaven指代太阳the sun

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade，

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

But your eternal summer will not end,

The beauty you have will not disappear,

Death will not be able to boast that you wander in the shadow of death,

When you reign forever in immortal poetry;

Old English thy = Modern English your

ow'st orowest = modern Englishown

Death

brag/br ɡ/v. Brag, brag

grow’st即grow

So long as men can breathe,or eyes can see,

So long lives this,and this gives life to thee.

As long as there are human beings living, or human beings have eyes,

My poems will circulate and give you life.

This refers to this poem

remark:

Sonnets, also known as Shanglai poetry, are a kind of European lyric poetry that was originally popular in Italy, and Petrarch's creations perfected it, and later spread to European countries.

There are two different categories of sonnets, one (Italian) the Italian or Petrarchan and the other (English) The English or Shakespearean.