If you are anywhere near London, do try to get to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Written on the Heart before it closes on 19 May. The play is about the translation of the King James Bible. In a word, it is splendid, one of the best plays I have seen in years.
I went last night, in distinguished company — Chris Grady, another Pray Tell participant, was there as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury. The author, director and cast presented a Q&A after the play, so we were at the theatre until 11 pm.
It was as if our Pray Tell discussions were being played out before us: for example, the King James translators deliberately chose language that was archaic for its time, a contentious decision on their part. Here is a very brief excerpt, dialogue between William Tyndale and Lancelot Andrewes:
TYNDALE. When you say ‘truly’, ‘clearly’, ‘evidently’. And ‘the breath thereof’ when you would – clearly – say ‘its breath’, as you say ‘its author’? Why translate into an ancient tongue?
ANDREWES. What, you would have us ape the blabber of the streets?
TYNDALE. (flipping through the new Bible, finding Titus 2.10).> So our Lord speaks as no man ever spoke out loud. Not ‘picking’ but ‘purloining’. Not ‘faithfulness’, ‘fidelity’. (To Revelation 21.4). And for ‘the old things are gone’, ‘the former things are passed away’. To sacrifice the clear to the majestic.
ANDREWES. No, to make the majestic clear.
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