"AS ACERB AS THE COLOQUINTIDA" - OTHELLO, ACT 1 SCENE 3 | SHAKESPEARE EXPLAINED #14

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in othello act 1 scene 3 shaekspeare writes:

"The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as acerb as the
coloquintida".

The plot of Othello is borrowed from Hecatommithi by Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinthio, an italian author from ferrara who published this collection of novellas in 1565 organised according to the model of Boccaccio's 'Decameron'.
There was no English language version of the 'Hecatommithi, but Several verbal parallels exist between 'Othello' and Shakespeare's Italian sources wich reinforce the conclusion that Shakespeare could read Italian".
A proof that Shakespeare could read the original Italian is given in this very scene in which Shakespeare translates the original dialogue into English:
In the original story, Cinthio writes:
“acerbissimo odio”
“Acerb hatred', with which Cinthio represents the transformation of Iago's feeling towards Desdemona.
the two texts have the same image, Shakespeare makes the same metaphor Cinthio makes by describing the feelings as “acerb” “acerbissimo”. The Italian text of Cinthio is definitely the origin of Shakespeare’s expression “acerb”. "The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida".


#shakespeare #english #englishliterature #englishgrammar #proverbs #englishwords #williamshakespeare #italianliterature terature #othello #williamshakespeare #Shakespearexplained

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