Shakespeare’s Speech
Emily Gruber
History of the English Language
23 March 2007
Early Modern Theater
Traveling Companies
 The Queen’s Men
 The Theatre and Swan
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Playscript Conditions
Collaboration
 “Foul” and “fair” papers
 Piracy
 Actor revisions
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Quarto vs. Folio
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
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Written around 1595 or 1596 (around the same time as
Shakespeare was probably working on Romeo and
Juliet), possibly for a court wedding or for Queen
Elizabeth’s celebration of the feast day of St. John;
there is no conclusive evidence.
Plotted in multiple layers: the fairy court with Oberon
and Titania, the Athenian court with Theseus,
Hippolyta and the pairs of lovers, and the ‘rude
mechanicals’ putting on the play, including Bottom
the weaver. Different registers of language make these
different worlds distinct.
Act 5, Scene 1
Enter Piramus.
Come teares, confound: Out ſword, and
wound
Pyr. Sweet Moone, I thank thee for thy ſunny beames,
The pap of Piramus:
I thanke thee Moone, for ſhining now ſo bright:
I, that left pap, where heart doth hop;
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering beames,
Thus dye I, thus, thus, thus.
I truſt to taſte of trueſt Thisbies ſight.
Now am I dead, now am I fled, my ſoule is in
the sky,
But ſtay: O ſpight! but marke, poore Knight,
Tongue loſe thy light, Moone take thy flight,
What dreadful dole is heere?
Now dye, dye, dye, dye, dye
Eyes do you ſee! How can it be!
Dem. No Die, but an ace for him; for he is but
O dainty Ducke: O Deere!
one.
Thy mantle good; what ſtaind with blood!
Lis. Leſſe then an ace man. For he is dead, he is
Approch you furies fell:
nothing.
O Fates! come, come: Cut thred and thrum,
Du. With the helpe of a Surgeon, he might yet
Quaile, cruſh, conclude, and quell.
recouer, and proue an Aſſe.
Du. This paſſion, and the death of a deare friend,
Dut. How chance Moone-ſhine is gone before?
Would go neere to make a man looke ſad.
Thisby comes backe, and findes her Louer.
Dut. Beſhrew my heart, but I pittie the man.
Pir. O wherefore Nature, did'ſt thou Lions frame?
Enter Thisby.
Since lion vilde hath heere deflour'd my deere:
Which is: no, no, which was the faireſt Dame
Duke. She wil finde him by ſtarre-light. Heere ſhe
That liu'd, that lou'd, that like'd, that look'd with
comes, and her paſſion ends the play.
cheere.
Dut. Me thinkes ſhee ſhould not vſe a long one for
ſuch a Piramus: I hope ſhe will be breefe.
The Effect of the Great Vowel Shift
Because the Great Vowel Shift was in variable progress
during Shakespeare’s period of activity, he could take
advantage of homophones that we no longer hear—often to
make jokes, mainly puns. Many of what we now call “nearrhymes” were also probably due to the GVS—when
Shakespeare wrote them, he was likely rhyming perfectly.
Things We Don’t Hear
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Puns on “ace” and “Asse” – during the
process of the GVS, these vowels could
have been identical; both would probably
have sounded like “ass”
A bunch of rhymes, which are usually
played for humor because they no longer
sound alike—for example:
 “confound” and “wound”:
“confound” would probably have
sounded like “confoond”
 “pap” and “hop”: “pap” would
probably have sounded like “pop”
Style

Playing with tragedic conventions:
Come teares, confound: Out ſword, and wound
The pap of Piramus:
I, that left pap, where heart doth hop;
Thus dye I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead, now am I fled, my ſoule is in the sky,
Tongue loſe thy light, Moone take thy flight,
Now dye, dye, dye, dye, dye
Shakespeare mocks the extended death-scenes that
were tragedies’ bread-and-butter, and the often
hackeneyed poetry that resulted.
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Different social registers—compare the heightened verse of the ‘play’
with the spectators’ comments:
Sweet Moone, I thank thee for thy ſunny beames,
I thanke thee Moone, for ſhining now ſo bright:
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering beames,
I truſt to taſte of trueſt Thisbies ſight.
But ſtay: O ſpight! but marke, poore Knight,
What dreadful dole is heere?
Eyes do you ſee! How can it be!
O dainty Ducke: O Deere!
The first four lines here are in iambic pentameter; the last four alternate
between tetrameter and trimeter, all rigidly metrical. Shakespeare also
makes heavy use of alliteration and repetition. On the other hand, the
spectators use sentences that could pass for normal. If the last two
lines of this were spelled as we would recognize the words, they would
read:
Duke. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes, and her passion ends the
play.
Dut. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus: I hope she will
be brief.
An Elizabethan “Accent”
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Kokeritz: we “would be able to understand Shakespeare
and Burbage with little effort . . . Their speech would
probably sound like a quaint dialect characterized by more
monophthongs and far purer long vowels . . . a marked
quantitative distinction between historically long and short
vowels . . . and not a few curious pronunciations of
individual words”
At least one site on Elizabethan English claims “proper
Elizabethan is more akin to the speech of backwood
communities on the East Coast of the United States”.

http://www.renfaire.com/Language/Audio/AIFC/mercy.aifc
http://www.renfaire.com/Language/Audio/AIFC/lord.aifc
 http://www.renfaire.com/Language/Sounds/want-sounds.aifc

…Midwest America?
Act 2, Scene 1
Oberon: I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet muskroses and with eglantine.
əi no: ə bæŋk hwε:r ðə wəild təim blo:z
hwε:r akslIps ən ðə nadņ vəilət gro:z
kwəit o:vərkænəpid wIð l٨ ∫əs wUdbəin
wIθ swi:t m٨skro:zIz ən wIð εgləntəin
Spelling
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Inconsistencies: “thanke” vs. “thank”, “Deere” vs. “deare”,
“Die” vs. “dye”, “Piramus” vs. “Pyr”(amus)
Silent e’s still very prevalent: in Pyramus’s first four lines,
we see “Moone”, “thanke”, “beames”, “marke”, “poore”
Complex vowel spellings for long vowels have not
completely been standardized: we see “heere” for “here”,
“breefe” for “brief ”, “neere” for “near”, “thred” for
“thread” but also “teares”, “deare”, and “beames”
approaching (or “approch”ing) modern spellings
Very phonetic – “I” for “Aye”
Capitalization used to cue actors to where verbal emphasis
should fall