“THEY shall be my East and West,” says Falstaff about the wealthy women he intends to woo in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, “and I shall trade to them both”. With East and West pouring into the country for the Olympics, the British Museum (BM) and the Royal Shakespeare Company have joined forces to showcase Britain through its greatest poet—not as the nation’s patron saint, but as a cosmopolitan in an interconnected world.
“她们一个是东印度，一个是西印度，我就在这两地之间开辟我的生财大道。”在《温莎的风流娘们》中，福斯塔夫如此评价他准备求爱的阔夫人们。在各路阔佬涌入英国观看奥运会时，大英博物馆（BM）和皇家莎士比亚剧团联合起来，通过英国最伟大的诗人来展示不列颠——他们并非把莎士比亚当作本国的守护圣徒，而是当作一个相互联系世界中的集大成者。
Shakespeare is such a global brand that the man himself almost disappears. The aim of “Shakespeare: Staging the World”, at the BM until November 25th, is to make the playwright specific and particular,to root him in his time, 400 years ago. The exhibition summons his physical world with an array of culturally evocative objects, many of which were used in“Shakespeare’s Restless World”, a splendid BBC radio series presented by the BM’s director, Neil MacGregor, earlier this year.
莎士比亚是一个极其著名的世界品牌，以至于他本人几乎消失在了这种品牌身后。大英博物馆举行了一场名为“莎士比亚：以全球为舞台”的展览，截止日期为11月25日。该展览旨在将莎士比亚植根于他自己的时代——400年前，让这位剧作家显得具体而特别。本次展览通过一批可以在文化上唤起共鸣的展品来重现莎翁的客观世界。其中许多展品都曾用于“莎士比亚的不朽世界”中——这是一个精彩的 BBC 广播系列节目，由大英博物馆馆长尼尔•马基高于今年早些时候推出。
The show unfolds in a dark circular space, with curving rooms that wind from one to the next, each subtly lit and discreetly atmospheric of its contents: arrow slits in the room about the history plays, a hint of trees to suggest Warwickshire and the Forest of Arden, a touch of charring on black walls for the gunpowder and witch craft of JamesI’s reign (when Shakespeare wrote “Macbeth”), and finally a pale dawn for the Americas, the “brave new world” of “The Tempest”. All this sits within the embrace of the old Reading Room, its shelves and dome dimly glimpsed through gaps here and there. This globe within a globe, as it were—one full of artefacts, the other of books—glances at the play between word and object that underlies the exhibition.
展览在一个昏暗的环形空间铺陈开来，一个个展厅彼此相连，曲折分布在弧形走廊上。每一个展厅都点着淡淡的灯光，谨慎地烘托了展品的氛围：在历史剧的展厅里布满了箭痕；有几颗树让人联想到沃里克郡和阿尔丁森林；在漆黑的墙壁上有一道烧焦痕迹来代表詹姆斯一世统治时期的火药和巫术（其时莎士比亚创作了《麦克白》）；最后还有一丝微弱的曙光来代表美洲——《暴风雨》里的“美丽新世界”。所有这些都处于老旧阅览室的怀抱之中，阅览室的墙上布满了裂隙，可以模糊地瞥见房间里的书架和头上的圆顶。这就像世界中的世界——一个世界全是手工艺品，另一个则全是书本——在语言和实物之间让人一窥莎翁的戏剧就是本次展览的重点所在。
The first item visitors see upon enteringis a copy of the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare’s works, the book that allowed the plays to outlive their time and place. The very last item vividly demonstrates what that means: it is the edition of Shakespeare’s works that sustained South African political prisoners in the 1970s. The book is open at a page in “Julius Caesar” on which Nelson Mandela marked and signed a passage about death and courage. Secular books were banned on Robben Island, where Mr Mandela and his colleagues were held, but this volume slipped through, disguised as a religious text.
来访者一进大门，首先映入眼帘的就是莎翁1623年《第一对开本》的复印本，它让这些戏剧超脱时空、亘古流传。最后一本生动地展现了它的意义：这个版本的作品集鼓舞了南非20世纪70年代的政治犯，让他们继续奋斗下去。这本书打开在《凯撒大帝》那一页，纳尔逊•曼德拉在一个关于死亡和勇气的章节下作了标记并签了名。曼德拉和同伴曾被囚于罗本岛，岛上是严禁世俗书籍的。但是这一册被他们伪装成了一份宗教文本，得以蒙混过关。
Between these two displays are the things that Shakespeare’s audience would have seen and used: the money-box where they put their pennies; the fork that one of them dropped at the Rose theatre; the poster they read for the next bear-baiting. Here, too, are the things that Shakespeare himself describes: Henry V’s “bruised helmet”—the very one,borrowed from Westminster Abbey; and a “sword of Spain” such as Othello might have used, signed by its maker from Toledo. There is even Othello himself, perhaps, in African images of paint, marble and silver gilt. Every detail takes the viewer back to the plays: Perdita’s flowers in watercolour, Shylock’s ducats, an Ides of March coin that shows the daggers with which Julius Caesar was murdered and a calf’s heart stuck with pins, fit for the witches in “Macbeth”.
在这两份陈列品之间，是莎翁戏剧观众所见过所用过的物品：投零钱的捐款箱、某位观众落在玫瑰剧院的叉子、他们读过的关于下一场纵犬斗熊表演的海报。这里也有一些莎士比亚本人描写过的物品：亨利五世的“破损头盔”——正是从西敏寺大教堂借来的那一顶；还有奥赛罗可能用过的“西班牙之剑”，上面还有托莱多制造者的签名。或许，甚至连奥赛罗本人都在这里——在非洲绘画里出现了他的大理石镀银雕像。每一个细节都把观众带回了戏剧之中：帕迪达的水色花朵、夏洛克的达克特钱币、凯撒大帝的殉难日纪念币，上面刻着两把夺去了凯撒性命的匕首、以及一颗被针扎着的小牛心脏，很适合用来描述《麦克白》中的女巫。
Out of this miscell any emerges a larger story about the evolution of a British national identity, independent of the papacy, with its own history and imperial ambitions. It was a process in which history, geography, religion and myth were promiscuously pressed into service. Ancient Rome was as likely to turn up in a painting of Queen Elizabeth as an American Indian cherub (with ostrich) in an engraving of London. During Shakespeare’s life, it became possible for the first time to visualise Britain and its place in the world through maps. “He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies,” says Maria of Malvolio in “Twelfth Night”. Behind her words lies a world of travel and history—from the medal commemorating Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation ofthe globe to little playing cards printed with the counties of England.
在这一系列展品中，更深层次的意义逐渐凸显：英国国家认同感的演化、教皇权力的独立、英国本身的历史以及帝国野心。在这个进程中，历史、地理、宗教和神话纷繁交织，共同展现。在伊丽莎白女王的肖像中可能出现古罗马元素，而在伦敦版画中有一个美洲印第安小天使（身边还有鸵鸟）。在莎士比亚的一生中，第一次有可能通过地图来展现英国和它在世界上的殖民地。在《第十二夜》中，玛丽亚描述马伏里奥时说道：“他笑容满面，脸上的皱纹比增添了东印度群岛的新地图上的线纹还多。”在她的话语背后，隐藏着一个不断扩张、不断发展的世界——从纪念弗兰西斯•德拉克爵士环游世界的勋章，到印着英格兰乡村风景的小纸牌，无所不包。
Jonathan Bate, a Shakespeare scholar and biographer, worked with Dora Thornton, a curator for the BM, to craft both this show and the excellent book that accompanies it. The point they are keen to make is that the stories of history should be read in both objects and texts.From the coins on which James I is depicted as a Roman emperor to a hugetapes try of Warwickshire (commissioned by a man with land and connections), these artefacts shaped the way people perceived the world, and help historians to understand what they saw. Between the oddments and the allegories, the forks and the grand set pieces, this exhibition richly bears that out.
莎士比亚学者、传记作家乔纳森•拜特和大英博物馆负责人多拉•桑顿携手，推出了这次展览以及与之相关的优秀书籍。他们热切地希望表明一点：即应当从实物和文本中读出历史的故事。从把詹姆斯一世描绘成一位罗马大帝的硬币，到沃里克郡的巨型壁毯（由一位有钱有势的人物所提供），这些艺术品塑造了人们感知世界的方式，并帮助历史学家理解了他们所见。在小物件和寓言之间，在叉子和全套器具之间，本次展览充分论证了这一点。
