Experiments in style: Shakespearean

The tragedie of King Tel

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

In today’s experiment I’d like to tell the story in the style of a Shakespeare play. First, though, here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

And now, the Shakespearean version.

Shakespearean

The tragedie of  King Tel

Act 1, scene i 

Freedman Castle 

Elaineus: What, ho! Who creeps without! Begone thou foul creature of the night whose excrescences  so disturbs that peaceful slumber in which I was heretofore cocooned.

Tel: Fear not, o frail one. Tis only I, your loyal husband. 

Elaineus: Is it so, thou cream-faced loon? Or art thou a spirit from the nether world ? Speak now, or begone!

Tel: By my troth I am corporeal, or at least was before the calamity that befell me at the witching hour, when demons and crones are at the zenith of their nefarious powers.

Elaineus: Then speak, that I may myself judge the truth of thy prattling. 

Tel: Methought to ablute in the midst of the night, but having no candle to hand, and all my servants asleep,  I crept in darkness to that forsaken place. On hearing a spectral voice warning Tel, thy time is nigh, return, I, in alarum, with my heart rattling in its cage and my hair, starch-like, standing to attention like a battalion ready for battle, turned to flee and, in so doing, hit my head on the wall. 

Elaneus: Thy head must hurt, and thou mayest have physic. Therefore, get thee to an infirmary.

Tel: Aye, let the physicians check my head

And if no cure be found, pronounce me dead.

Light! Bring me some light, ho!

Exit

Act I, Scene ii

First servant: I heard it whispered that the King doth ail.

Second servant: Aye, no doubt from too much ale.

Exeunt

Act II, Scene i

The infirmary

Tel: What vision of Hades besets my eyes? Where are the masks? Why are people congregated so close with nought but a gnat’s breadth betwixt them?

Servant: I know not, your majesty. 

Tel: Ho, orderly! What time of the clock will I be seen?

Orderly: I cannot say, my liege. There are people who have been waiting here for days.

Tel: Days? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace. At least I bethought me to bring a book.

Servant: But look, a nurse, in ivory mantle clad, walks o’er the tiles from yon small doctor’s room.

Nurse: Come, that I may examine thee, and pronounce accordingly.

Tel: Be honest and true. Neither a liar nor an equivocator be.

Be my future fair or dire, whatever vision, let me see.

Exeunt.

Act II, Scene ii

Doctor’s room

Nurse: Pull thy left leg in, pull thy left leg out, do the hokey cokey and shake it all about. 

Tel: (Aside) Though this be madness, yet there’s method in’t.

Nurse: Now shake all over.

Tel: Methinks thou art jesting to my detriment, thou perfidious pottle-deep whey-face!

Nurse: Nay, tis not so, my lord.

Tel: Then do thy worst, thou pribbling sheep-biting harpy!

Nurse: Put thy hands on thy hips and bring thy knees in tight. Then thrust thy pelvis.

Tel: Mind thou dost not lose thy head, thou infectious common-kissing pignut!

Nurse: My worthy cogitations have informed me that your majesty merely needs to rest until the cock crows.

Tel: O joyous day, that I’m alright

And will live to see another night.

Come, away!

Exeunt

Act II, Scene iii

Freedman Castle

Elaineus: How now, husband. What tidings?

Tel: I am unscribed, but have read greatly. Healthy am I, but in need of rest.

Elaineus: Then we must proclaim it far and wide

one doth live who might have died. 

Let the merriment start, and feasting begin.

He who doth not lose must surely win.

Fanfare. Exeunt

Notes

Apart from “cream-faced loon”, which appears in Macbeth, the other insults were created by the Shakespearean Insults Generator.

The nurse’s instructions are from the following songs:

The hokey cokey

Shakin’ all over

Time warp

Finally, you might like to try to identify the actual Shakespearean quotations, or allusions to them! Chortle.

I hope you enjoyed this version of my story. If you did, there are plenty more indexed here.