Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Knave abideth

This is sort of genius...

An extremely talented young man named Adam Bertocci has translated The Big Lebowski into Shakespearean English which he calls Two Gentlemen of Lebowski. (Which is a great title -- in an understated way -- for this kind of project.)

And while this might strike some as a gimmick, Mr. Bertocci does not just change a lot of "yous" to "thous." He does a serious job (in an extremely funny way).

Lebowski fans will have oodles of stuff to go through over the next couple of days, but I will tell you one of my favorites (thus far). It involves the conversation between Walter (John Goodman) and The Dude (Jeff Bridges) about Walter's Judaism.

Consider the original:

WALTER: Three thousand years of beautiful tradition -- from Moses to Sandy Kofax -- you're goddamn right I'm living in the fucking past!

And here's Bertocci's translation:

WALTER: Forsooth! Three thousand years of history,
Traditions beauteous from Moses on:
Thou speakest damnèd truth, and speakest well,
I am a man to live in bygone past!

There's so much more. It's brilliant!