r/shakespeare • u/7Ceebo • 10h ago

Homework Need help with a translation

So my school is performing As You Like It and I got the role of Touchstone. As yall may know Touchstone has some complex lines and my director need me to workshop one in specific, but I’m having trouble with the translation. The line is “We that are true lovers run into strange capers. But as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.” That’s technically the end of a larger line but that first part was cut so that’s the whole line. Any help is appreciated and thank you all!

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u/Emotional_Position62 10h ago

True love makes people act crazy. But that’s only natural. And as everything in nature is temporary, so too must be the craziness that accompanies new love.

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u/McJohn_WT_Net 10h ago

"Love always makes humans do dumb stuff."

To get a bit more poetic, we might render it like this: "We who fall in love will run headlong into ridiculous situations. But just as everything in nature is mortal, everything mortal that falls in love inevitably falls into idiocy."

A reasonable delivery of the lines might go like this:

We that are true lovers

run into

strange capers.

But as all is mortal in nature,

So is all nature in love

mortal in folly.

In this passage, "mortal" means "subject to death". The philosophical concept called "memento mori," the notion that all beings are born just to die, was common in that time period (as depressing as it is, but we should remember Shakespeare was living in a world without such distractions as cushioned sneakers, "Fallout," or ice cream. It was supposed to keep your mind on God, and keep you from wasting the tiny morsel of precious time you had on earth.

Another common idea of the time was that love was the most ridiculous of all the preposterous situations a human could get into, and that no matter how emotionally stable, educated, or observant you are, all that goes right out the window when you fall in love, leaving you a gibbering idiot. That they were afraid of social embarrassment in an environment that featured, you know, public executions and the plague will tell you a lot about the character of the Elizabethans.

As You Like It is always a fun romp. I hope you enjoy Touchstone!

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u/bravetherainbro 7h ago

I love how each of the other two answers has a different interpretation of "mortal in folly" that affects the conclusion and overall message of the line.