(Ser ou não ser, eis o problema*)
Dom Luís I of Portugal and William Shakespeare may seem like two figures from entirely different and unlinked worlds. Separated by centuries and seas, the charismatic, well-meaning Portuguese monarch and the introspective, honoured English poet might not appear to have much in common. But, after closer inspection, I found some interesting connections.
Dom Luís I – King of Portugal and the Algarves – was born in 1838, the second son (of eleven children) to Queen Maria II and her second husband the German Catholic Prince Consort Ferdinand II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry. Like many other royal second sons, Prince Luís received an education in the Royal Navy. He acceded to the throne upon the premature death of his older brother, King Pedro V, who succumbed to cholera in the epidemic of 1861.
Whilst there was nothing special about Luís I when it came to politics, as a Renaissance man, the new 23-year-old king had varied interests and passions, including oceanography (one of the world’s first aquariums – O Aquário Vasco da Gama – was opened in Lisbon during his reign), theatre, piano and violoncello music composition, and painting. Apart from being a patron of arts, Luís was also a man of letters who could speak several languages fluently, and wrote, translated and published poetry and theatrical work.
Being particularly enamoured with theatre and nurturing a love for the stage, the young king actively supported the development of Portuguese drama, and his reign of almost three decades saw a flourishing of national, regional and local dramatic performances. There is no proof the king ever acted on a stage, but he once said: “Hamlet would be my first choice if I were to perform.”
Interestingly, Shakespeare’s plays were not entirely unknown to many Portuguese theatregoers and readers during that period. While translations were scarce, some adaptations of his works, particularly the histories, were known to have been performed during Luís I’s reign. This suggests that The Bard’s enduring themes, such as love, jealousy, power, ambition, deceit, betrayal and the psychological burden of the crown, were undoubtedly relevant and might have resonated one way or another with the sovereign’s personal experiences and philosophies within the royal court.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Portugal witnessed the appearance of the first versions of Shakespeare’s plays translated directly from English. Most previous attempts had been made through second-hand ‘adaptations’, usually translated from Spanish or French editions. There are three famous translators recorded who dealt directly with the English source texts:
- D. Luís I translated into Portuguese and published Hamlet in 1877, The Merchant of Venice in 1879, Richard III in 1880, and Othello, the Moor of Venice in 1885.
- Raimundo António de Bulhão Pato translated and published Hamlet in 1879 and The Merchant of Venice in 1881.
- José António de Freitas translated and published Hamlet in 1912.
Amongst the older versions of the translations into Portuguese, The National Library Foundation refers to one under the title Hamlet Prince of Denmarke: A Tragedy in Five Acts. Although it does not mention the translator’s name, it indicates that the book was printed in Rio de Janeiro in 1871.
Dom Luís I’s reign, marked by cultural growth and a focus on the arts, serves as a powerful reminder of the enduring influence of theatre and literature. Although Hamlet’s existential dilemma, “To be or not to be,” will always be a mystery new avenues of research regarding Shakespeare’s work should be explored to reveal historical truths.
[* In my opinion, it’s interesting to note that all modern translations contain “Ser ou não ser, eis a questão” as the opening for the famous nunnery scene. As far as I’m concerned, Dom Luís I was the only one to choose ‘problema’ for the English ‘question.’]
Main photo: Luís I of Portugal 1864, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
