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1、【国外英文文学】Beautiful Stories from ShakespeareBeautiful Stories from Shakespeareby E. NesbitIt may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. He has been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted whether from all his successors
2、 more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence can be collected than he alone has given to his country.-Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.PREFACEThe writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed the richest, the purest, the fairest, that genius uninspired ever penned.Shakespeare instr
3、ucted by delighting. His plays alone (leaving mere science out of the question), contain more actual wisdom than the whole body of English learning. He is the teacher of all good- pity, generosity, true courage, love. His bright wit is cut out into little stars. His solid masses of knowledge are met
4、ed out in morsels and proverbs, and thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner of the English-speaking world to-day which he does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich. His bounty is like the sea, which, though often unacknowledged, is everywhere felt. As his friend, Ben Jonson, wr
5、ote of him, He was not of an age but for all time. He ever kept the highroad of human life whereon all travel. He did not pick out by-paths of feeling and sentiment. In his creations we have no moral highwaymen, sentimental thieves, interesting villains, and amiable, elegant adventuresses-no delicat
6、e entanglements of situation, in which the grossest images are presented to the mind disguised under the superficial attraction of style and sentiment. He flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just and generous principle. While causing us to laugh at foll
7、y, and shudder at crime, he still preserves our love for our fellow-beings, and our reverence for ourselves.Shakespeare was familiar with all beautiful forms and images, with all that is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of nature, of that indestructible love of flowers and fragrance, and dews
8、, and clear waters-and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies and woodland solitudes, and moon-light bowers, which are the material elements of poetry,-and with that fine sense of their indefinable relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying soul-and which, in the midst of his mos
9、t busy and tragical scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins-contrasting with all that is rugged or repulsive, and reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements.These things considered, what wonder is it that the works of Shakespeare, next to the Bible, are the most hi
10、ghly esteemed of all the classics of English literature. So extensively have the characters of Shakespeare been drawn upon by artists, poets, and writers of fiction, says an American author,-So interwoven are these characters in the great body of English literature, that to be ignorant of the plot o
11、f these dramas is often a cause of embarrassment.But Shakespeare wrote for grown-up people, for men and women, and in words that little folks cannot understand.Hence this volume. To reproduce the entertaining stories contained in the plays of Shakespeare, in a form so simple that children can unders
12、tand and enjoy them, was the object had in view by the author of these Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.And that the youngest readers may not stumble in pronouncing any unfamiliar names to be met with in the stories, the editor has prepared and included in the volume a Pronouncing Vocabulary of Di
13、fficult Names. To which is added a collection of Shakespearean Quotations, classified in alphabetical order, illustrative of the wisdom and genius of the worlds greatest dramatist.E. T. R.A BRIEF LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.In the register of baptisms of the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon, a market to
14、wn in Warwickshire, England, appears, under date of April 26, 1564, the entry of the baptism of William, the son of John Shakspeare. The entry is in Latin-Gulielmus filius Johannis Shakspeare.The date of William Shakespeares birth has usually been taken as three days before his baptism, but there is
15、 certainly no evidence of this fact.The family name was variously spelled, the dramatist himself not always spelling it in the same way. While in the baptismal record the name is spelled Shakspeare, in several authentic autographs of the dramatist it reads Shakspere, and in the first edition of his
16、works it is printed Shakespeare.Halliwell tells us, that there are not less than thirty-four ways in which the various members of the Shakespeare family wrote the name, and in the council-book of the corporation of Stratford, where it is introduced one hundred and sixty-six times during the period t
17、hat the dramatists father was a member of the municipal body, there are fourteen different spellings. The modern Shakespeare is not among them.Shakespeares father, while an alderman at Stratford, appears to have been unable to write his name, but as at that time nine men out of ten were content to m
18、ake their mark for a signature, the fact is not specially to his discredit.The traditions and other sources of information about the occupation of Shakespeares father differ. He is described as a butcher, a woolstapler, and a glover, and it is not impossible that he may have been all of these simult
19、aneously or at different times, or that if he could not properly be called any one of them, the nature of his occupation was such as to make it easy to understand how the various traditions sprang up. He was a landed proprietor and cultivator of his own land even before his marriage, and he received
20、 with his wife, who was Mary Arden, daughter of a country gentleman, the estate of Asbies, 56 acres in extent. William was the third child. The two older than he were daughters, and both probably died in infancy. After him was born three sons and a daughter. For ten or twelve years at least, after S
21、hakespeares birth his father continued to be in easy circumstances. In the year 1568 he was the high bailiff or chief magistrate of Stratford, and for many years afterwards he held the position of alderman as he had done for three years before. To the completion of his tenth year, therefore, it is n
22、atural to suppose that William Shakespeare would get the best education that Stratford could afford. The free school of the town was open to all boys and like all the grammar-schools of that time, was under the direction of men who, as graduates of the universities, were qualified to diffuse that so
23、und scholarship which was once the boast of England. There is no record of Shakespeares having been at this school, but there can be no rational doubt that he was educated there. His father could not have procured for him a better education anywhere. To those who have studied Shakespeares works with
24、out being influenced by the old traditional theory that he had received a very narrow education, they abound with evidences that he must have been solidly grounded in the learning, properly so called, was taught in the grammar schools.There are local associations connected with Stratford which could
25、 not be without their influence in the formation of young Shakespeares mind. Within the range of such a boys curiosity were the fine old historic towns of Warwick and Coventry, the sumptuous palace of Kenilworth, the grand monastic remains of Evesham. His own Avon abounded with spots of singular bea
26、uty, quiet hamlets, solitary woods. Nor was Stratford shut out from the general world, as many country towns are. It was a great highway, and dealers with every variety of merchandise resorted to its markets. The eyes of the poet dramatist must always have been open for observation. But nothing is k
27、nown positively of Shakespeare from his birth to his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582, and from that date nothing but the birth of three children until we find him an actor in London about 1589.How long acting continued to be Shakespeares sole profession we have no means of knowing, but it is in th
28、e highest degree probable that very soon after arriving in London he began that work of adaptation by which he is known to have begun his literary career. To improve and alter older plays not up to the standard that was required at the time was a common practice even among the best dramatists of the
29、 day, and Shakespeares abilities would speedily mark him out as eminently fitted for this kind of work. When the alterations in plays originally composed by other writers became very extensive, the work of adaptation would become in reality a work of creation. And this is exactly what we have exampl
30、es of in a few of Shakespeares early works, which are known to have been founded on older plays.It is unnecessary here to extol the published works of the worlds greatest dramatist. Criticism has been exhausted upon them, and the finest minds of England, Germany, and America have devoted their power
31、s to an elucidation of their worth.Shakespeare died at Stratford on the 23rd of April, 1616. His father had died before him, in 1602, and his mother in 1608. His wife survived him till August, 1623. His so Hamnet died in 1596 at the age of eleven years. His two daughters survived him, the eldest of
32、whom, Susanna, had, in 1607, married a physician of Stratford, Dr. Hall. The only issue of this marriage, a daughter named Elizabeth, born in 1608, married first Thomas Nasbe, and afterwards Sir John Barnard, but left no children by either marriage. Shakespeares younger daughter, Judith, on the 10th
33、 of February, 1616, married a Stratford gentleman named Thomas Quincy, by whom she had three sons, all of whom died, however, without issue. There are thus no direct descendants of Shakespeare.Shakespeares fellow-actors, fellow-dramatists, and those who knew him in other ways, agree in expressing no
34、t only admiration of his genius, but their respect and love for the man. Ben Jonson said, I love the man, and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature. He was buried on the second day after his death, on the north side of the ch
35、ancel of Stratford church. Over his grave there is a flat stone with this inscription, said to have been written by himself: Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare: Blest be ye man yt spares these stones, And curst be he yt moves my bones.A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAMHermia
36、and Lysander were lovers; but Hermias father wished her to marry another man, named Demetrius.Now, in Athens, where they lived, there was a wicked law, by which any girl who refused to marry according to her fathers wishes, might be put to death. Hermias father was so angry with her for refusing to
37、do as he wished, that he actually brought her before the Duke of Athens to ask that she might be killed, if she still refused to obey him. The Duke gave her four days to think about it, and, at the end of that time, if she still refused to marry Demetrius, she would have to die.Lysander of course wa
38、s nearly mad with grief, and the best thing to do seemed to him for Hermia to run away to his aunts house at a place beyond the reach of that cruel law; and there he would come to her and marry her. But before she started, she told her friend, Helena, what she was going to do.Helena had been Demetri
39、us sweetheart long before his marriage with Hermia had been thought of, and being very silly, like all jealous people, she could not see that it was not poor Hermias fault that Demetrius wished to marry her instead of his own lady, Helena. She knew that if she told Demetrius that Hermia was going, a
40、s she was, to the wood outside Athens, he would follow her, and I can follow him, and at least I shall see him, she said to herself. So she went to him, and betrayed her friends secret.Now this wood where Lysander was to meet Hermia, and where the other two had decided to follow them, was full of fa
41、iries, as most woods are, if one only had the eyes to see them, and in this wood on this night were the King and Queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania. Now fairies are very wise people, but now and then they can be quite as foolish as mortal folk. Oberon and Titania, who might have been as happy
42、as the days were long, had thrown away all their joy in a foolish quarrel. They never met without saying disagreeable things to each other, and scolded each other so dreadfully that all their little fairy followers, for fear, would creep into acorn cups and hide them there.So, instead of keeping one
43、 happy Court and dancing all night through in the moonlight as is fairies use, the King with his attendants wandered through one part of the wood, while the Queen with hers kept state in another. And the cause of all this trouble was a little Indian boy whom Titania had taken to be one of her follow
44、ers. Oberon wanted the child to follow him and be one of his fairy knights; but the Queen would not give him up.On this night, in a mossy moonlit glade, the King and Queen of the fairies met.Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania, said the King.What! jealous, Oberon? answered the Queen. You spoil every
45、thing with your quarreling. Come, fairies, let us leave him. I am not friends with him now.It rests with you to make up the quarrel, said the King.Give me that little Indian boy, and I will again be your humble servant and suitor.Set your mind at rest, said the Queen. Your whole fairy kingdom buys n
46、ot that boy from me. Come, fairies.And she and her train rode off down the moonbeams.Well, go your ways, said Oberon. But Ill be even with you before you leave this wood.Then Oberon called his favorite fairy, Puck. Puck was the spirit of mischief. He used to slip into the dairies and take the cream
47、away, and get into the churn so that the butter would not come, and turn the beer sour, and lead people out of their way on dark nights and then laugh at them, and tumble peoples stools from under them when they were going to sit down, and upset their hot ale over their chins when they were going to
48、 drink.Now, said Oberon to this little sprite, fetch me the flower called Love-in-idleness. The juice of that little purple flower laid on the eyes of those who sleep will make them, when they wake, to love the first thing they see. I will put some of the juice of that flower on my Titanias eyes, and when she wakes she will love the first thing she sees, were it lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, or meddling monkey, or a busy ape.While Puck was gone, Demetrius passed through the glade followed by poor Helena, and st