Original Pronunciation - Hamlet | To Be, or not to be... | Ben Crystal
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- On a balcony overlooking Tower Bridge in London, after taking part in a Kickstarter campaign to support a film of an OP Hamlet production, Ben was asked to give one of Hamlet's speeches a couple of swings...
This is Take 2 of 'To be, or not to be...' in its entirety. As Ben has discussed elsewhere, for him this is not a speech about suicide, but one of mortality...
Closed Captions & Subtitles from the First Folio
Shot by Aslam Husain, www.aslamhusainphotography.com
This actor's father is a linguist who specializes in the pronunciation of English in Shakespeare's time. It is endearing to watch the two work together.
1:25 without the OP I never would’ve realized that “quietus ” was meant as a pun on “coitus.” That line and phrasing makes so much more sense now. Oh my god it’s a joke.
When he says “who are these fardels bear, to grunt and sweat” that’s ALSO a sex joke. I can’t believe it. This rules.
@@jordanforbes149 what is the second joke
@@jordanforbes149 And why a 'bare' bodkin? Isn't just bodkin enough. Unless it's something you make quietus with, else you grunt and sweat under a weary life. Its a little tempting to go the whole bawdy shakespeare direction and take most of the uses of country as a joke emphasizing the first syllable, though that might be stretching things a bit far.
I think the best interpretation there is likely a contrast of suicide/masturbation vs. continuing to live and kinda getting fucked by life.
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
I always wondered what on Earth that meant, now I can visualise it!
I liked this. That speech is usually played as just Hamlet's suicidal musings. This version makes it more of a breaking the 4th wall thing. Hamlet is conversing with us, telling us that we all should be suicidal but conscience makes cowards of us all. It's not just suicide, it's dealing with life and mortality.
well, it's a soliloquy, so of course it breaks the fourth wall.
Richard: Very well said. Thx
Richard Brummer Good point. And with that in mind, now I could easily imagine a production where the house lights come up a bit and Hamlet just sits on the edge of the stage chatting the soliloquy at the audience, maybe even wandering out to really emphasise that.
I like the intimacy. It's like he's sitting on the bar stool next to you being maudlin. It's like he's taking a break from the game he's been playing and just "keepin' it real" for a moment.
it's indeed a more direct soliloquy, than usual
It sounds like an American trying to do an Irish accent. I love OP.
It's sounds like a weird cobbling together of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and a stereotypical pirate. It's quite fun to me.
It sounds like English west country, with a bit of an English Northern accent thrown in. @Patchwork Undead, when you say 'typical pirate', that's how people from the west country sound. You only associate that accent with Pirates because Robert Newton, who was from Bristol, played Long John Silver in Treasure Island back in the 50's. His accent has been associated with pirates ever since.
@@monkeymox2544 I actually knew that, it's just not quite a perfect comparison and my aspie self decided to go the long route.
@Patchwork Undead then my sincere apologies for piratesplaining at you :P
@@monkeymox2544 you're fine, Autism Spectrum Disorder classification 1 (formerly aspergers syndrome) makes me an awkward little fuck.
It's so odd; in modern English it sounds so stilted and awkward and is just hard to listen to, but here you can appreciate that it was specifically designed to be *easy* to listen to ... so odd what an accent and vowel shift can do.
Lots of people in Regional UK still talk like this! Are you saying their speech is not modern? Not PR enough for you! Not American enough for you to be considered modern English.
@@drrd4127 Dude, relax. You're looking for offense where there is none. Rural/regional dialects definitely sound odd to people not from that region. Even Hot Fuzz did a bit about how incomprehensible a West Country accent can be, even to other Englishmen. I guarantee you people in the US and the UK would say the same about a rural Alabama accent, too.
As far as I understand, the modern English "posh" accent comes from King George IV, who was a person that most of his subjects felt deep contempt for, which is a bit ironic.
Sounds fine to me in Modern English
@@MrClickity as an American form the northeast I would agree with you that the rural Alabama accent would be hard to understand if not for the fact that it is almost always spoken in a slow southern drawl.
It's pleasantly chilling to know he's standing at the bank of the Thames, overlooking buried artefacts, some of which the vibrations of this accent haven't tremoured against for hundreds of years
"some of which the vibrations of this accent haven't tremoured against for hundreds of years"
That's a beautifully Shakepearian sentence! 😍
@@LordSandwichII haha four years later and I forgot what I wrote. But in all truth, lots of things I pick up and dig up from hundreds of years before I always see as vestiges for a time and energy that is no longer here. Much like our own pocket change although inanimate and without life or conscience and consciousness, has felt our conversations for near on decades and decades. Thanks for the appreciation everyone ;)
I wish I had a million dollars to donate to these people to record all of Shakespeare's words in OP. This is absolutely lovely.
It's done, actually. See David Crystal, Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation (2016), with an audio link
In this delivery, Hamlet comes across as philosophical and thoughtful, asking good and sincere questions. In all RP versions, he comes across as a whiny sissy boy who just needs to get over himself.
It's really amazing.
thats a sweeping fucking statement mister
Well said!
That reflects your preexisting notion of RP more than nothing
@George Corbul received pronunciation
Horseshit, he's delivering a monologue about suicide in the middle of a depression, he's not supposed to sound thoughtful and intelligent, it's supposed to be miserable and mournful, morose and melancholy, not this dogshit.
I never liked the "to be or not to be" it always seemed so out of place. He was supposedly faking his melancholy when he was giving his "What a piece of work" speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but now he's acutely depressed?
Understanding the context, that in the globe the actors could look the audience in the eye, and the fourth wall was broken, put it into a much better understanding for me.
I've also never liked how it was performed. The otherwise excellent Tennent Hamlet seemed melodramatic and too sad. The Olivier too soft-spoken and formal. The Mel Gibson seemed like he was out of breath and the pauses were too overwraught. The Richard Burton clearly inspired the Tennent, but the emphasis and phrasing seemed bizarre (though it was otherwise excellent). The Brannagh is quite excellent but suffers the same breathlessness that seems a common affliction but that's a mild quibble.
I've seen every Hamlet that can be imagined, including several quite good live versions, and the To Be or Not to Be has to be one of the hardest to deliver in all theater just because it's so famous and almost every famous shakesperian actor has done it at some point.
It seems every famous actor struggles to put this speech down, either falling into overacting or underacting.
But out of all of the To Be monologs I've ever seen, I think this is the best, it makes it interesting. It seems to me to be not a moment of weakness as he prepares to spring his trap in the play-within-a-play scene, but rather him explaining to us why he hesitates. It doesn't weaken the character the way so many other variants of the speech do.
I know I just wrote a tome, and Ben may never see this, but my hats off, this was an amazing piece of acting, and you should be proud to have set down a version of a seminal bit of acting that's easily the peer of any Hamlet I've seen in film or live.
+HominidMachinae Sir, I know considerably less about Shakespeare in general and this soliloquy in particular than yourself. But I am struck by the comments you make of the various versions of this verse. I have seen several of the versions you mention and I agree entirely with your summary.
With little experience and no expertise in the great works, I always felt frustrated by many performances but felt unable to criticise them, you have crystalised by frustration into words.
So pronunciation aside, I too was struck by this performance, it is intimate and the timing seems to me to be natural, no over dramatisation, no indulgent posturing, it is engaging, captivating even.
I thank you for your comments and I hope that Ben Crystal may chance upon it.
Ten months later: here bloody here! And the original pronunciation helps too; it doesn't feel so much like a drawn-out monologue here, it's just Hamlet talking to us.
I never saw an issue with him being acutely depressed here. He's going through a lot of tragedy and a terrible weight has been placed on him, so it make perfect sense to me that he'd have a point where he deeply considers giving up.
I had a professor who claimed that Hamlet is essentially BS-ing the entire soliloquy and that he knows that Ophelia is overhearing him, which makes it technically not a soliloquy. He backed this with the point that Hamlet is asking her about her father later in the scene in an almost paranoid fashion. It was a very interesting take on the passage.
Actually, he's quite intentionally speaking in a reconstruction of the accent likely used by Shakespear's troupe at the Globe. Check out the other videos of him discussing Original Pronunciation vs Received Pronunciation. Quite a lot of scholarly work went into that 'homeless drug addict' style you're hearing.
OP = understand the meaning entirely in one go, no notes, no explanations, no nothing. Wonderful. Shakespeare in his time, for our time.
+Ed Bradburn it's incredible how much easier it is to understand for me. And it makes me sad to think that Shakespeare became overacted, over pronounced, and over complicated when they switched to RP.
Ed Bradburn ... FOR SURE. Hearing the original makes the meaning far mor obvious.
*timeless
I think this is easier to understand then how it is done now days.
+Lurker1979 We use RP these days, which I adore (and pretty much speak myself) but we lose so much of the puns and humour when we don't use OP for Shakespeare.
If the English respected their language and actually taught their children we might still speak OP today....
+Hereticalable "Loose" -- as in "loose the dogs of war"? :-)
Susan Fry Not very forgiving about spelling errors are we?
It was corrected...
*than
I, m spanish native speaker and , althogh i don, t understand many words , the spelling makes much more sense whith that pronunciation .
Hamlet told the players: "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue...Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature." Ben surely followed Hamlet's advice....well done!!!
So, everyone spoke like pirates?
Neat.
Other way around; pirate spoke like everyone!
“net”
That’s what OP sounds like to me, too!
My village in the UK we talk like this: "Hiv ye bin up tae onyhing?"
"Och Aye, ah Hiv! Bin up tae nae guid! Yer no comin'! Ye ir aw wee shites"
"Och mon, a've bin daein' nu'hing wi masel"
"Ye kin bide in the hoose an' a'll see ye the morra"
Honestly, lots of people refuse to keep the regional dialects once they go to university in the big city, one guy told me he dropped the regional dialect because "I don't want to sound like a Pirate" but I agree, it is the other way round, I don't sound like a Pirate, pirates sound like me.
Good on you, Ben Crystal. I love this interpretation. Most performances deliver this speech in one, depressed tone throughout. It's never felt authentic to me that way. Hamlet was going crazy, not depressed. His mind was racing with no sleep, tortured by grief, rage and frustration but again, not sad and depressed as most choose to play this. It's also usually delivered as if it's a rehearsed speech to a crowd - Hamlet's conclusion on the subject - instead of (as I believe this is) one of those arguments we have with ourselves when trying to think something through. We go back and forth, asking ourselves the question "why not just kill ourselves and end it all?, the problems, heartache, bad dreams...", then answering the question to ourselves "because maybe death is worse..." (lol forgive my simplified translation but you get the point) and usually end up as confused as we started "damn! fear of the unknown is a bitch..." As I said, to me, this speech is full of energy and frustration, not sad and hopeless. He's trying to figure out what to do. Nice to see someone make it personal.
After viewing this, every other performance of this soliloquy I have ever seen, including that of the awesome Mr. Tennant, feels like overacting, like, they were being melancholic without any real purpose. It's wonderful how further popularizing of OP could open new windows for a better understanding of Shakespeare among the general audience such as myself.
I couldn't possibly agree more. This is the best version I have ever seen of this soliloquy
+William Child It just sounds so much more natural
Is harpsichord one of the original instruments for Bach?
I read in Peter Ackroyd's biography of Shakespeare, that there was textual evidence that this soliloquy was not written with the rest of the play, but was added to it in a place where it could fit. The general drama in which the soliloquy is included often forces stage directors and actors to focus more on the suicidal side (they may be wrong). But out of context it resonates very differently.
The 'naturalism' of his delivery is historically inaccurate---it would have been declaimed poetically, at quite some distance from the audience, who could barely see the actor's faces---and overall unsuited to the speech. OTOH his exaggerated actorly emphasis on 'would'---as if to say, hey, I actually do understand a word or two of this, amidst a relatively flat sea of blather---is also terrible.
I want to see the whole play done in OP, as Shakespeare intended. It looks from the snippets I could get a hold of (this included) that it isn't what I grew up thinking it was.
This Shakespearian pronunciation is most interesting in itself, but it suits Ben Crystal very well, which makes the performance even better. Would love to see plays like that.
LOL... I loved his 'softly now the fair Ophelia'" - such mischief! LOL
Well that is by a long mile the best soliloquy I ever heard. Not only is Ben a skilled linguist, he is also a wonderful actor. Now I want to speak this way myself, as soon as possible under these too-new skies!
well said Professor Crystal
It’s not just the OP version it’s how he delivers it! You really believe he’s a guy musing over the meaning of life and all that.
This sounds so much like the accent from my area of the US, the Tidewater. Most specifically it sounds like the accent from Smith or Tangier Island.
Hoytoyde
You're not the only one here who's noticed, but you're the first I've seen who's from the place.
Back when I lived in the Outer Banks NC, I met quite a few folks in Wanchese who sounded very similar to this.
To my Western Canadian ears, it sounds like Newfoundlanders, and even a lot of Ontarians in certain areas. My dad would pronounce "arms" and "nobler" in pretty similar a way as well. Clear and intelligible English.
if thats the way you hear someone from Ontario speaking then I seriously had to laugh. I'm from Ontario myself near Toronto and to be honest even we think our Newfoundlander bros and East coasters have an accent to us. u can hear the Irish inflection in the east coast accents of Canada...most likely from early settlers. what really gets me is your from west Canada??? I seriously didn't expect that one.
@@faithbringshope is it Irish inflection or West Country / OP inflection? A lot of the pronunciation things we Americans make fun of Canadians for seems like they could be readily explained by this as well.
That is by far and away the most moving rendering of Hamilet's soliloquy I've ever heard. Far from being "incomprehensible", due to being OP rather than RP, I have no trouble following it and being moved by it.
Greetings.
OMG. That soliloquy just came alive! It felt as though I was hearing it for the first time. It scanned as a collection if meaningful thoughts, the rhythm and cadence ironically, brought the piece into the 21st century. I could hear someone a young man (30-ish), worrying about something and then remembering his girlfriend is going to meet him. Magnificent.
OL.
Brilliant. For the first time in ages, I feel i actually WANT to learn Shakespeare.
OP has so much more weight to it, it feels more real and beautiful.
Sounds very West Country mixed with something kinda American haha
Not at all haha
+Kirz94 I have heard people say that before
+Kirz94 I hear a bit of Southern America
+Kirz94 West Country English can be surprisngly similar to Appalachian English
TShirtCannon makes sense as alot of people from britain moved to america hundreds of years ago.
So, the way that Stewie Griffin, from Family Guy, pronounces 'whip' is actually the way that it used to be pronounced?
:-D yup
It's a beautiful and lyrical usage of English :)
It's the voiceless labialized velar approximant if you're interested :)
Conor Drake Ooh, that's very fancy! Thank you for telling me!
On the other hand, the normal 'w' is the _voiced_ labialized velar approximant.
Hamlet after a really rough day on the farm.
I'm glad to see so many people finally realizing this soliloquy is not about suicide...as is oft misinterpreted and worse mis-taught. I think this comes from taking the phrase 'to be or not to be' too literally. There is a predicate left unstated here...'to be [king, a killer, agent of vengeance, action hero, etc?] or not to be [those things].' It is not meant to be the gigantic existential angst of living or dying. IMO, Ben's performance certainly conveys much better the intent of the author, which is a man trying to decide whether to do a thing or not do that thing, and why he would or wouldn't. That suicide is mentioned does not mean it is about suicide, it is instead about living and suffering in the face of the possibility that we could quit at anytime. Why don't we leave? Fear of the unknown. Why don't we act? Fear of the consequences. Better to stay with the devil you know. Applied to the specific plot of the play, Hamlet does not know the consequences of killing Claudius...will it also bring on his death or will he be crowned king or any other number of outcomes that could spell success or doom for him and his country (don't forget Sweden is coming)? Or would it be better to not act and let life happen, which for Hamlet at this point means being a coward.
Another thing I realized listening to it this time, perhaps because the accent made me think more in that time period, is that Hamlet doesn't cite eternal damnation as the sole or proper reason people do not commit suicide...and thus eschews the prevalent Christian dogmatism of the day for a more personal, introspective and psychoanalytic type of reason that makes Shakespeare continue to be relevant today.
I understand what he was saying more than any classical shakespeare actor could. I've heard that loads of times and explained, but hearing how it was meant to be or very close, brought understanding. Well done Ben Crystal and thank you. Hope to hear more?
It weirdly dawned on me that this was a fourth wall break and a deep look into a way of thinking.
@@saber2802 All the Elizabethan and Stuart monologues break the fourth wall. Long before the moderns.
A fine performance of a heavily-misunderstood soliloquy. It's usually played as "woe is me" rather than an actual musing on life. Well done.
English isn't my first language, and although I sometimes have trouble understanding Shakespeare, I absolutely love the accent used here! It just sounds good.
It's certainly NOT made-up language.It's how most people talked in Britain at the time of Shakespeare.This video gives a better idea of the dialect than most .English speakers don't have issues with the language,simply the understanding of the vocabulary of those times.The spellings were not standardised either ,till quite a lot later on,perhaps when the Oxford English Dictionary was being compiled.So hearing it said ,in performance ,it is easier to understand than reading it.To understand Shakespeare,you need to go and watch a play.
Made up? This is how they spoke in Shakespeare's time. Where do you think the Americans got their accent from? It's the English accent that has changed over the years. Also, people still have similar accents to this in some parts of England.
Yeahitsme
=It's true to say that if you're a non-native English speaker,and you don't use the language a lot,you will have trouble understanding Shakespeare.That ia not what I said.My issue was that you said a lot of what he wrote was made-up.Spellings at that time were certainly flexible ,but what I was saying was that if you hear the words spoken by the people who still live in the area where the great Bard was born and raised,then you will have a better understanding of his words.I've been reading and studying Shakespeare since 1958.I've lived in Gt Britain all my life.When I began to really appreciate his works though,was when I went to plays as part of my senior school education.The best were those where the players were Midlanders ,rather than Londoners with R.P.The words just made more sense,as in the video here.
Yeahitsme is there a book or a reference that has all the words that Shakespeare invented ?
Most of the words you are talking about are first used by Shakespeare and so, are credited to him. But that could just mean that they were part of the slang (of the time) and thus never used in literature. Can you be sure that he INVENTED them? Other writers of the Elizabethan age might not have used these words because they were more conservative (at least, when it came to language)?
so frankly, everyone back in the day sounded a lot like a Lancashire man trying to do West Country accent? But well a lot less exaggerated.
It does make a lot of sense though as the North of England preserves a lot of the old sounds i.e. luck sounds a lot more like RP 'look' and the West Country (and Ireland and America) preserve the final 'r'.
I'd be interested in the difference of performing in OP and just a straight out Devonshire or Bristollian i.e. West Country accent.
Probably, the Scots tongue in Scotland has the most sounds coming from old/middle English which makes sense because it is the furtherest away from London and therefore, the futherest away from the Norman conquest and the great vowel shift. Here some examples (written how it is pronounced):
Scots. Old/Middle Eng. Mod Eng.
Hoose Hoose. House
Oot. Oout out
Oor. Oor Our
Mooth. Mooth. Mouth
Coo. Coo cow
Feart. afear'd. Afraid
Noo. Noo. Now
Ane. Ane. One
Twa. Twa. Two
Nicht. Nicht. Night
Broon. Broon. Brown
Aye. Aye. Yes
Ye. Ye. You
Moose. Moose. Mouse
Toon. Toon. Town
And the list goes on and on....
Can you see the Great Vowel shift that occurred during the Norman (French) invasion? "Oo" sounds become "ou" and "ow" sounds, that's why in English the pronunciation doesn't match the spelling because of the great vowel shift.
Thank you for making me fall in love with Shakespeare and making me want to study phonology a little bit more!
So basically.. speak in a West country accent.
Not quite ...
I listened to a voice recording from the 50s of a man that fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War when he was a young man, and it struck me how different it sounds from modern Southern accents. Actually, there are some similarities in some of the sounds of that accent with OP.
Is that accessible online? I'd love to listen to it. Thanks!
Yes, a lot of accents are actually quite recent
"The South" didn't have a uniform dialect then any more than it does now. What state was he from? And what class?
The southern American accent and dialect is one of the surviving accent styles that most closely patterns after the shakespearian era English as it were people from that time that populated that area of Southern US. They became an isolated population which solidified the accent. Some cool stuff. There's some videos floating by this really knowledgeable American linguistic anthropologist that's worth listening to if this stuff is of interest.
Great, it sounds so much better like this.
Zowee. I loved this. As to comments that it's missing the pathos of the emotion we usually hear it in, I think it's entirely normal for someone going through a rough patch - even as bad as Hamlet is going through - to speak logically and calmly. Emotions rarely surface, and we are quite predisposed to hiding them, and even sounding calmer than usual, in order to hide them. And with OP - I really heard this as if being spoken today.
It's INSANE how much better this is. I must have seen more than 50 different version of this exact monologue, but I felt as if I really hard it for the first time here - the natural cadence of the voice, the intent. How marvelous! I live in the US, and I so wish that more theatre companies would mount Shakespeare productions in OP. I think high school students would have a much more fun time discovering this version of Shakespeare, instead of the version most teachers present.
Two beers, or not two beers, that is the question/Whether Wetherspoon’s is nobler in the mind for supper/The gin slings and Arrow beers of outrageous fortune/Or to the Guildford Arms for a seabreeze with bubbles/And after much dozing, upend them./Bleary eye, counting sheep; To count sheep, perchance sea bream,-aye, there’s the chub/For in that sleep with sheep, what bleats may come/When we have scuffled with that immortal gargoyle/Must give us cause-there’s the respect that makes Calamity Jane a good trouble and strife/For who would buy the Walnut Whips and Blackthorns before bedtime?/The transgressor’s thong, the loud man’s costume/The hunger-pangs of no pies, bruv, the in-law’s dismay/The insolence of Microsoft Office, and the burns/That in-patients merit if blameworthy rakes/When peeing oneself when a night-bus brakes/On a bare Bodmin/Dr Who would Daleks fear/To grunt and sweat under a weary wife/Such that the bedspread heave with every breath/The undiscovered pantry, from whose Bournville chocolate/No wanderer returns, befuddles the willpower/And makes us rather take those pills we have/Than buy others that we know not of?/Thus non-science doth make blowhards and those in thrall/And, thus, the non-native hue and cry of revolution/Is Wikileaked o’er with the frail mast and bought/And Starship-Enterprises of weight, myth and (spur-of-the-) moment/From the mouth of this Bard, their direct-currents turn and fly/And choose the name of inaction …
To have or not to have? That is the question.
Whether do I need all these trinkets
Which tempted the people of our generation
The cars the money the iphones the dress
And must I work for that have all these things
To overstrain my back and more and more
To listen the fool orders from the jerks?
Or mayby I could quietly to sit
Legs crossed during one handred years
To read the best of books by writer great
To watch good films that made the famous men
And with the headphones in the fresh woods
To walk listening to the wonderful musik
To eat the porridge and the apple and the bread
To cook the soup of bones once a week?
It is consummation, isn't it? Oh! there's the rub
Is called the crowd opinion or public's view
Who know accurately what it is actually
He will not be surprised when he hear that
The crowd opinion is invincibly
Unless its not destroy with hit of bodkin
On the red button who would charge bear.
Otherwise needlessly to think abuot the free
Because we know just about it
Only that told us the casual smith.
Brilliant!
+annie x
thanks. I just learn to write in english therefore I'm sorry for the mistakes of punctuation.
FINALLY! Someone acting instead of just reciting words! Not even Branagh did it correctly (not to mention well). But this! Beautiful!
+Stella Luceat easier to do in the OP. That earthy, gruntiness of the correct pronunciation lends itself to an authenticity that Recieved english, or American english does not.
I can appreciate that, even if I don't know it (have not experienced it) for myself. It wasn't until I started studying Shakespeare *with the Crystals' help* that I realized (it seems) precious few actually understand it.
What a bizarre claim. Branagh understood the soliloquy fine and his interpretation is a valid one drawn from the text. It may not be to your taste, but that his performance demonstrates he doesn't understand the passage? I can't imagine your reasoning there.
If anything, I would say that this performance belies the textual evidence that, at this point, Hamlet is getting increasingly enraged with himself at his inability to follow through with revenge.
"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action."
That's clearly a frustration directed at himself, not just a random thought being mused on. Does a performance this calm and pleasant really make sense considering it's immediately followed with him humiliating and coldly rejecting the woman he wrote love letters to and promised to marry (if we believe Ophelia in act iv)? This would make sense if you read Hamlet as a psychopath, but if you believe his grief at her grave side is genuine, then it makes more sense that he's not in a good place mentally during this speech. He's getting worked up and then unloads on Ophelia.
Flubly Hmm. Yes. You make some good points. Perhaps Crystal's rendition is a smidge casual, and I get what you mean about Branagh having more . . . gusto? shall we say? But I think he's leaning more towards show-boating than portraying what's going on inside this kid's noggin. Crystal's might be too mellow, I'll grant ya. But Branagh's is too much about his performance than the psyche of Hamlet, which prompted my comment that B doesn't "get" Shakespeare.That IS too broad of a judgement call on him. After all, one of my favorite performances of his is in the movie adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. If he didn't know Shakespeare, his performance there would have illustrated it as well. The artist portraying Hamlet must be given license to perform it in his own manner. I happen to think his performance deviated too far from the author's original intention.
Again, though, you're right. Hamlet is unraveling. *Some* show of that would not be amiss.
A person deep in self-reflection would not be inclined to shout ponderments loud enough for folks to be able to hear them in the cheap seats, yet -- aye, there's the rub -- that's how they had to be performed for centuries in the live theatre. Move in close, listen to those quiet musings -- even introduce them as voice-overs, as though we can listen in on the thought process ... thus the camera doth make better Shakespearean performers of us all.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause-there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Or you can turn on the closed captioning and get the original spelling to go with the pronunciation.
Makes me think that modern American English may have preserved traces of the accent of the 16th century English colonists.
+Robert .G There are Parts of America where the accent is very similar to Elizabethan. The Outer Banks of North Carolina and Tangier Island Virginia sound eerily similar to this OP accent. These remote communities could only be reached by boat, so while the mainland developed its own accent, the coast kept remnants of 17th century west country accents.
Very likely. There are a lot of words that have survived into modern General American English which are no longer used in modern General British English; such as 'Fall' instead of 'Autumn'. Although, I'm fairly sure that in Canada both are interchangeable. The latter may even be preferred in a poetic context.
Peace
"IS" (and I can't stand your emphasis on certainty - when will people learn to tolerate the unknown?) is WRONG! Parts of America have TRACES of what Elisabethan MIGHT have been like...
Fall and autumn are interchangeable in the USA
x iLeon, you're saying MIGHT as if it's a 50-50 shot it could have been one way or some other. There is evidence to bear on how Elizabethan English would've been spoken, you know. It's important to tolerate uncertainty, to be sure, but not so important to speak with so much hesitation when we really do have a clue.
English is not my first language but I can say that this is easier to understand for me than a nowadays British accent.
Has anyone ever noticed Ben Crystal's exceptional sex appeal? Good looks, intelligent, talented, a very direct, forward, and engaging personality, etc, etc. Someone must be very happy.
Very interesting.
Thank everything good that can be thanked the accent changed.
What a beneficial influence Ralph Richardson should have been on Shakespeare.
I would say more Rhotic Rs. Rolling R's were common in old English. Not the modern version of not pronouncing the R with rolling.
I regret that I have but one "Like" to give to this video.
Ben, I have not read all 610 comments (so far), and I am sure I am repeating many of them, but this is absolutely the best I've heard of this soliloquy, and I've listen to a lot from a lot of famous actors. If I had the money, I would give it to you so that you could produce and direct Hamlet. I have tried to find where it is said above that you discussed elsewhere about this speech, but have not been able to find it. I am certain it is a very interesting discussion.
Rich indeed, and thanks to Ben for posting this. Older people in rural Ireland, particularly in the west, flatten their vowel sounds (cold /cauld; old / auld) and, as an (older) Irish man, what I am hearing in this clip sounds very like a generic Irish rural accent. Trendy young things from rural backgrounds in Ireland are at pains to hide the humble roots betrayed by such archaic pronunciations and eschew cauld for cold, but Ben is right on the nail with this fascinating school of thought. Richard III may have been 'cheated of feature by dissembling nature', but to my ear (I was born in 1573), he was 'chayted' of 'fayture' by dissembling nature. Rhymes better, doesn't it! That's why, in rhyming terms, he was therefore 'sent before (his) time into this 'braything' world, scare half made up. Mock the rural Irish accent at your peril, those of ye who wouldst, but fie! : ye are listening to the Elizabethan past!
I know this is an older video, but I love learning about and hearing Original Pronunciation. However, I do have significant hearing loss, and would love to have captions. If you have the time. ♥
Sorry for delay. Just added the captions! Xx
OMG. You are amazing!!! Thank you so very much! I really appreciate it. :)
@@shakespeareontoast From the original printings, no less! Kudos indeed.
Ben: Who knows how many times since High School I have heard the famous "To be or not to be.." soliloquy from Hamlet. I don't know if it was the accent or the delivery, in either case this was the first time I actually heard and understood those beautiful insightful words. Thx
After listening to this I can't bear to listen to any more Shakespeare in a stilted London/Southern English accent...
To bae or not to bae (totes to bae)
Big help in...very hard not to overact when doing historical acting..its all in the subtleness...great talent Ben!
The more I listen to this, the more I understand it (by "it" I mean the words) and the more it... makes sense. This isn't the rantings of a mad man, but the contemplations of a man.
This sounds like someone doing a bad Irish accent, mixed with someone doing a good irish accent, mixed with Sean Bean.
Are you emmo like Emma or emmo like emo, asking for a friend
No. It sounds like English West Country. What is this obsession with Irish?!
Hi, can you tell me who your friend is? Thanks! :)
Emmo.. as in the male version.. Not emo, and not Emma.. :) Sorry.. it's just that I had a stalker last week.. hehe.
If it were truly mixed w/Sean Bean, wouldn't he have died horribly in the middle?
In a thousand years, when people are studying English the way we study Latin, this should be the standard pronunciation they use.
sounds so much better than with modern RP, seriously this is much more powerful
that was very interesting. i had never considered how they pronounced things differently.
What makes it even more enjoyable is the fact that he is such a hot stud!!!!!!!!!!!!
Calul holy shit, yes!
Oh, no..... I have competition........ lol
There's no stud like a ginger stud.
You got that right! Especially when he's "ginger" all over, if you get my drift....
Well yes, but groomed, of course. I like short hair, short beard, and short pubes. There I said it. SHORT TRIMMED GINGER PUBES LOL. Now let's get back to the arts, shall we?
Shakespeare in a modern accent sounds wooden and artificial. It sounds so much more natural with the original accent! 😮
This pronunciation adds a whole entire new depth and breadth to the meaning. Such a better delivery than the majority of Hamlets I've seen!
When you hear the line "To be or not to be" in the original pronunciation it sounds much like "To bear or not to bear" a dark pun by the bard perhaps it does explain the odd choice of words for to live or die.
Harry Betteridge more like tuh beah or not to beah
People forget the English used to be rhotic like American English. That change didn’t come till the 1800s
*Soft you now, the fair Ophelia!*
I prefer Shakespeare pronounced in the Original Klingon. Just kidding, good work!
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause-there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
This is the first time I have understood a verse from Shakespeare. It makes no sense when read or listen to in modern pronouce.
It's an interesting mix of modern Irish, Scottish, and West Country accents
The mix is in what survived from what was the same back then. London pronunciation then wasn't the same as contemporary Irish, Scottish, or West Country accents.
So, you're saying ... Shakespeare and his friends did NOT sound like a bunch of pompous twits??
This original pronunciation reminds me very much of the American Maine accent. Check out the video, "Interview with a Maine Lobsterman" for an example of this.
I agree with what everyone's saying about OP being more understandable and less melodramatic than RP, but my favorite part of it is the very end of this monologue. RP's "soft you now" line often sounds wistful or melancholy, which I was fine with. But in OP, it takes on a more impish, roguish quality, which I like a lot better, since it fits more with the wily Hamlet we know, who's not afraid to make jokes about "country matters."
Also the way Mr. Crystal delivers that line (and the rest of the soliloquy, but this line particularly) is just so charming.
Now I see why us Americans sound the way we do. Our ancestors fled England around this time and thus sounded pretty similar.
It's different. I like it, and I'm picky. It's not like he's brooding. He's talking to me.
TIL the stereotypical pirate accent was really just regular English for the time.
i want to hear "get the to a noonery" in the original pronounciation
Sounds closer to my English (American) than to SSBE.
this rendition is beyond words
Something that is often overlooked in this speech is that Hamlet knows he is being watched by Claudius and Polonius. Makes you wonder what he's really doing: is he *honestly* contemplating suicide, or is he feigning tragic airs to throw them off the scent of his true villainy?
Meanwhile, Ben's pronunciation and diction in this video are impeccable. Excellent job, sir.
Monologues in Elizabethan and Stuart drama are by convention not overheard by other characters. The film versions that do them in voice over while we watch the silent actor aren't wrong.
This is really wonderful, although, it really puts some previous performances (which I enjoyed) some where in the shade.
Very masterfully done. After having discovered the study of original pronunciation myself in recent times I am endlessly fascinated by such performances of it. Bravo.
That does sound really good, with the exception that, from my research I have found that it isn't until 1633 that the J sound emerged in our English language. From what I understand, "outragious" should be pronounced as "owt RAY geeus", not "owt RAY juss" as he pronounced it.
The modern 'non-rhodic' english accent only dates to about the 1790s when it was developed as a fashionable accent for the aristocracy to further distinguish themselves from the "common people."
English merchants, sailors, and solders brought the accent to the US east coast ports and that is why you have the New England upper class accent, the Boston accent, the Virginia accent and several other along the east coast.
If you assume an influence rather than a cabal ... well, maybe.
I watched this with captions and was puzzled by the mixed u's and v's turning up in unexpected places. Was that accidental or true to the original spelling? I love hearing the OP. I've watched several videos of Ben's lectures and he always asks his audience what accent they hear. As someone from Eastern Canada I hear a lot of our accent, particularly that of Newfoundland, which is very isolated and consequently their accent is preserved better than most.
Thanks for your message - and yes, the u's and v's are from the 1623 printing
The printer's rule was that Vs are initial and Us are medial. So vnder, haue, giue, etc., are perfectly predictable. The pronunciation doesn't reflect that, howeuer.
toe baeh or not toe baeh, that is the question
The vowels are much more cosmopolitan than modern English. e.g. Ah, eh, ee, oh, ooh, rather than ay, eee, eye, oh, you....most European languages, including Gaelic, have this. Even in my own country, Aotearoa, the Maori pronounce their vowels in this way.
The "u" in "suffer" and "must" "but" "puzzle" would be with a back unrounded vowel (⟨ɯ⟩). "take" and "anem" is not /ei/ but /⟨ɛ⟩/
Okay, I wanna a full production of Henry V in OP-- I've only gotten bits and pieces. Once you tune your ear it isn't incomprehensible at all.
it kind of sounds irish
I love how naturally he speaks. It makes it easier to follow and shows he has a really solid understanding of what he’s saying. I also like how he’s taking advantage of the film medium to deliver it quieter.
Stunning... finally spoken in a vernacular that transcends the Received Pronunciation pretense.
I absolutely love this. Huge commendations to the actor for a staggeringly convincing rendition of the speech…
Sounds like a combination of ned stark and sam gamgee
The issue here is how much the effectiveness of this performance of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy is due simply to acting style and how much is due to so-called original pronunciation. I think many people have confused the two. Ben Crystal's performance is almost minimalist, "thinking out loud", intimate and very effective for a close-up camera filmed setting. It would be less so on stage. The correctness of pronunciation is really not that big a deal. So he says "say" instead of "sea". People from different parts of America and England currently and have always pronounced English in very different ways. Introducing a peppy rapid-fire, less "ossified upper-class" accent in Shakespeare is great, but great acting and fluent understandable speaking is still the most important thing regardless of the niceties of pronunciation.
Wow… this sounds closer to the current ‘general American’ accent than RP does!
It does, but to my mind it sounds even more similar to a modern West Country English accent, as spoken by the people of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Bristol etc today
i could barely understand it
I sympathize. My mother could never cope with RP on the TV here in Utah, where I had no difficulty. You may find it worthwhile to play it several times and let it wash over your ears to see if that helps. Familiarity doesn't always equal contempt.
it sounds very "pirate like" to me or Cornish I guess.
Many real pirates of Carribean spoke close to Elizabethan. It's only sufficient to think in which century they lived, and all the pieces of the puzzle add up.