Dug through the old files...aka my old English binder from high school. Came across a piece that reminded me of how young, liberated kids generate such unique ideas when projects are handed to them. This is an excerpt from an English project we did in Grade 12. The main objective was to translate a part of William Shakespeare's
Ophelia into modern day English. The rest speaks for itself. Translations have been emphasized in
BOLD.To be or not to be; that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them.
Living large or 86 it? That’s got me wack:
How to best represent my own self:
When da Man’s in my lunch,
Go medieval on the candy-ass sucka,
And pop a cap in him?To die, to sleep -
No more and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
The big Chill –
No mo serious beatdown, no mo
Pretendas wantin’ to zero
Me out – that something sweet sweet
That you don’t be frontin’.To, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.
Must give us pause.
Stone Cold.
After mama done picked out my casket.
Will I be spinnin’ in my pine basket
When I have deceased existin
Whoa, that’s jammin my flow.
There it is.There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ opressors wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
Why you gets no luv,
Who gonna flip burgers at McD’s and drive the
Hoopty,
The scrub’s dissin, the slob man’s pissin
The shanks from ex-bitches, Five O draggin
You,The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
Big Willy dissin you, an the snaps
From punk when you just want to be chillenThe patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a barebodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat a weary life,
When you can just off yourself
With a saucy shiv? Why should you keep it real,
When you bad-trippin with all this shit rippin,
But for some horror-the-horror pop up after death,But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
The undiscovered hood be a dead end
For all road dawgs, stump you ass,
So you chillin in your skanky hood
Not blazin off to some newjack hood?Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Soft you, now,
The fair Ophelia – Nymph in thy orisions
Be all my sins remembered.
I ain’t keepin it real,
And so all my bling-bling
Done got all greasy,
And all my mad phat plans
Done turned out sleezy
And they just runnin on fumes.
Ya knawmeanz,
Fly Ophelia! – Boo, when you give a shout out
Gots to have all my bad recognized.We recited the lines in crew necks, chains, and bucket hats! Haha. How we translated and where we got the words from is far beyond my memory. Needless to say my group and I ACED our project with flying colors! But that's probably because our teacher didn't understand anything we were saying...she just liked our swagger. Yepp.
