We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(6) Tree Line
The hardest part of this play is that it's written in Renaissance English—you know, "thou art a villain!" and "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" kinda stuff. But, with a dictionary in hand and Shmoop for a friend, you'll soon know that "thou" just means "you" and "art" in this case means "are." As for the lady who protests too much, wethinks (here at Shmoop) that the line just means she promises more than she can actually do.
The funny thing about Renaissance English is that what initially looks foreign quickly becomes familiar. Once you get a grip on some recurring words that modern folk don't really use anymore, you'll come to see that the language hasn't changed so much after all.
The play is also set in two royal courts from bygone eras in Spain and Portugal. All the kings, princes, dukes, and viceroys might represent a set of characters you're not used to dealing with, but ultimately all the characters are motivated by the same desires and impulses that drive our entertainment today. Motives like greed, ambition, revenge, love, and hate sound familiar, right?
And while the speeches are wordier than what we're used to seeing today, the words and how they work playfully together represent one of the great joys in reading period literature. Long and wonderfully worded speeches are like the IMAX theaters of dialogue—larger than life, fully immersive, and illustratively intense.
Indulging in period language gets more and more natural with experience, and Shmoop is here to make your experience fun and entertaining. And The Spanish Tragedy is a great place to start exploring this language. After all, there is no better way for a character to break off from a long speech than by biting off his own tongue—what more can be said?