Note 38 — SHAKSPERE GALLERY
Reading edition
To me the Tieck-Schlegel translation of this scene misses all the best points of the original. To be sure, Tieck had nothing to do with its translation. (Friesen, I, 136; Sybel, III, 463 ff). It was not that Tieck was not interested in puns, altho the Dr. Cajus scene seems uninteresting to him on that account. Tieck himself made a good many puns. Cf. "Viehsiognomie," the first lines of his sonnet on the sonnet and the "gemein" from the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek in "Das jüngste Gericht." His sensing of English puns seems not to hav been so keen. So in a discussion of Mss. readings toward the end of the essay on the erly English Theater (Kr. Sch. I, 320) after calling one faulty reading "Unsinn" he continues, "In derselben Rede:
If you can construe but your doctor's bill Parse your wife's waiting woman, etc.
Parse? Was kann das bedeuten? Pierce ist dem aufmerksamen Auge leserlich genug." Tieck seems to hav mist the play on the grammatical idea. To be sure, I hav not seen the Ms., but Tieck was no very careful reader or copyist.