Bardolatria

 Shakespeare é mestre em monólogos e solilóquios. Muitos deles são famosíssimos, como o solilóquio de Hamlet ("to be or not to be"...). Ou, então, aquele de Macbeth que já havia postado aqui no blog. Hoje, peguei-me recordando um dos meus favoritos.  Trata-se do monólogo de Otelo quando este tenta convencer o doge de Veneza de que não havia seduzido Desdêmona por meio de feitiçaria (o que era alegado pelo pai dela, inconformado com a união dos dois).

Me lembro de ter feito um curso, na USP, intitulado "O teatro de Shakespeare" e ministrado por um professor legitimamente inglês: John Milton. Ele próprio uma figura que parecia ter saído de uma das comédias do bardo. Barba por fazer. Cabelo desgrenhado. Uma barriga em constante batalha com os botões da camisa. E o sotaque característico, é claro. Uma espécie de Falstaff climatizado aos trópicos (digitem "Falstaff" no Google Imagem e verão que ele é a cara do John Milton!).

De qualquer forma, seu trabalho de conclusão de curso consistia em encenar um fragmento de Shakespeare a gosto do aluno. E lá fui eu com este monólogo de Otelo (em português, é claro!):

OTHELLO
Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels' history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak, — such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used...