> > Ok. My face is red because I was sure the original line was "I knew him well." I didn't know anybody outside our drama club ever heard "I knew him, Horatio." Now they tell me it was written that way.
>
> Oh. That's ok, I didn't know that either.
>
> > "Oh, Hamlet! Thou hast cleft my heart in twain!" Did the Bard really write corn like that?
>
> At the time, was it corny? "Hamlet, you broke my heart in two" isn't so very corny, and it's the exact same quote in modern language. I think it all comes down to the delivery. When you're reading the archaic words "Thou hast cleft my heart in twain" today, it's all too tempting to deliver it with an over-the-top melodramatic flair that probably would have caused snickers even in Shakespeare's day. Deliver that exact line as you might "You broke my heart in two," and nobody will laugh.

When that line got a laugh it was spoken by a 16-year-old girl. She handled the role very well, but she may have overplayed that one line. I think we kidded her about it in rehearsal.
It seems like I remember some attempts to do Shakespeare in modern English. They usually bombed. Maybe the old way is best.
Howard