Speak King James English in one easy lesson!

Can you tell an -est from an -eth? A thee from a thou? And what's ye* all about, anyway?

If you want to make fun of turn-of-the-seventeenth-century English, or if you have the nobler aim of understanding Shakespeare or the King James Version, this short lesson may help.

Contrary to popular opinion, writing like a Jacobean is not quite as easy as adding eth to every verb. But it's not all that difficult, either. Here's the one clue that makes it all fall into place:

Jacobeans made a distinction between you (singular) and you (plural).

Since Texas hadn't been invented in 1611, they didn't have the you-all option at their disposal. So they used a different set of words to distinguish you, my friend, from you guys. Look at the charts below to see how it works.

Subjects and Verbs

	Singular	Plural
1st person	I speak	We speak
2nd person	2011: You speak 1611: Thou speakest	2011: You speak 1611: Ye speak
3rd person	2011: He (she, it) speaks 1611: He (she, it) speaketh	They speak

Objects

	Direct	Indirect
1st person singular	They love me	They give me the books
2nd person singular	2011: They love you 1611: They love thee	2011: They give you the books 1611: They give thee the books
3rd person singular	They love her (him, it)	They give her (him, it)the books
1st person plural	They love us	They give us the books
2nd person plural	They love you	They give you the books
3rd person plural	They love them	They give them the books

Possessive pronouns

1st person singular	My books (mine eyes)	The books are mine
2nd person singular	2011: Your books 1611: Thy books (thine eyes)	2011: The books are yours 1611: The books are thine
3rd person singular	His books; her books	The books are his or hers
1st person plural	Our books	The books are ours
2nd person plural	Your books	The books are yours
3rd person plural	Their books	The books are theirs

So, what about those verbs?

Actually, they’re mostly like ours. As you’d expect by now, the verb that goes with the 2^nd person singular is different. If your subject is thou, your verb is likely going to end in the letter t. You know about thou shalt [not]. Other common (and irregular) verbs are thou art, thou wilt, thou hast, thou dost, thou canst, thou wouldst, thou shouldst, thou couldst … they all end in t, and most of them end in st. Less common (but more regular) verbs tend to end in est, especially if it’s easier to pronounce that way: thou eatest, thou drinkest, thou sleepest, etc.

Exception: if your verb is in the imperative mood, it’s just like a modern English verb. “Eat! Drink! Be merry!” works just as well in 1611 as it does in 2011.

If your subject is he, she, or it, your verb is likely going to end in the letters th: he hath, he doth, he saith [not sayeth], or the ever-popular eth: almost everything else. He prayeth, he loveth, he eateth, he drinketh. Think of it as a lisp. If the modern English verb ends in s, substitute th or eth and you’re talking like a Jacobean.

But if the modern English verb doesn’t end in s, then don’t mess with it! A Jacobean can, would, should, and could.  And the verb to be breaks every rule. A Jacobean, like a 21^st-century person, is what he is.

_____

Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe is something else altogether. Here the Y is a now-defunct letter that is pronounced th.

Review: The Matthew Shardlake Mysteries by CJ Sansom

2009 has been a good year for Tudor fiction. Hilary Mantel's hefty Wolf Hall, a portrayal of Henry VIII's strongman Thomas Cromwell, won the Man Booker prize for fiction. Best-selling novelist Philippa Gregory added a back story to her seven Tudor novels with The White Queen, about Henry VIII's maternal grandmother Elizabeth Woodville. And C.J. Sansom, whose first novel about the fictional hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake was blurbed by P.D. James, added a fourth book to the series, Revelation.

I am 40 pages into Wolf Hall, and I'm not sure if I will continue: it is a literary novel that is heavy on character and light on plot, and it is very long. I have read only one Philippa Gregory (The Queen's Fool), and I enjoyed it: as I recall, it was a page-turner of a romance in a well-researched historical setting. Sansom's books fall in the middle of the literary-to-popular continuum. They are mysteries, but (like most P.D. James books) they are also fully developed novels with well-developed characters, intricate plots, and serious concerns that go well beyond whodunit.

Sansom tells his stories in chronological order, so it's a good idea to begin with his first book, Dissolution (read my review here), whose events take place in 1537 when Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell are breaking up monasteries. The second book, Dark Fire (reviewed here), involves Thomas Cromwell's demise in 1540.

In book three, Sovereign, Shardlake accompanies Henry VIII's 1541 "progress" (massive displacement of the entire court designed to overawe the populace) to York. Major players include Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury; and Catherine Howard, Henry's foolish child bride. Book four, Revelation, finds Shardlake back in London in 1543, desperately trying to steer clear of political intrigues--but of course falling headlong into one involving Cranmer, Henry VIII's former brother-in-law Thomas Seymour, and Catherine Parr, whom Henry wishes to make his sixth wife.

I've been reading Sansom as distraction from twenty-first-century politics--I'm weary of furious accusations hurled back and forth between liberals and conservatives in politics and religion over topics ranging from abortion to Afghanistan--and I find Tudor England strangely comforting: clearly, we are not living in the worst of times. As Sansom describes it, some of the sixteenth-century problems sound familiar. Religious conservatives battle religious innovators. The rich take the property of the poor. The poor find themselves without health care. Rumor has it that weapons of mass destruction are being developed. Rulers bypass courts of law and illegally torture people without formal accusations or trials. The Book of Revelation becomes popular, and people expect the last days. Religious fanatics turn into killers.

Perhaps Sansom means for me to think, Whoa... look where we're going, look what could happen here. I'm afraid that my response is more shallow (I may be in denial). For example, as I read about what happened to prisoners in the Tower of London, I thought, Whew... I'm glad I live now and not in Tudor England. But Sansom is looking at how power operates, especially when there are no counter-powers restraining it, and what he sees is worth pondering.

Fortunately, Sansom also looks at goodness. As a skilled novelist, he gives us well-rounded central characters with flaws and virtues inextricably mixed. Still, Shardlake is reassuringly kind most of the time, and he unflaggingly pursues justice to the best of his ability. His physician friend, Guy Malton, is compassionate; Shardlake's young assistant Jack Barak is loyal and courageous. Even as you fear that one or another of the characters is about to make a huge mistake, you trust their intentions. They will not turn on you. Perhaps they will make their tumultuous world a better place.

The Shardlake mysteries are long, ranging from 400 to nearly 600 pages. Fortunately, they do not drag. Sansom follows the good novelist's dictum: Show, don't tell. He keeps his characters on stage--these books are all written in the first person--and moves the plot largely through fast-paced dialogue. It's nice for a reader to have some prior acquaintance with Tudor England, but extensive knowledge of the period isn't required. A quick romp through the PBS series "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" would suffice, or an even quicker viewing of "A Man for All Seasons" (a film you should review if you plan to read Mantel's Wolf Hall, since the book completely reverses the film's portrayal of Sir Thomas More and Cromwell).

And if you've heretofore paid no attention to the sixteenth century, let Sansom initiate you. He's only up to July 1543, but I'm guessing Matthew Shardlake will be back. Archbishop Cranmer will sorely need his services during the brief, chaotic reign of Edward VI (1547-53).

Review: Dark Fire

In C.J. Sansom's first Matthew Shardlake novel, Dissolution (reviewed here), the hunchback lawyer investigates evil events at a monastery that Henry VIII and his chief councillor, Thomas Cromwell, are planning to destroy. In this sequel, Dark Fire, Shardlake reluctantly sets off on another mission for Cromwell--and discovers a plot that will result in Cromwell's disgrace and death.

That last sentence was not a spoiler. The novel is set in 1540, and that was indeed the year that Lord Cromwell lost his head to an incompetent hatchet man who had to swing several times before the head was fully severed. King Henry was not pleased by the German wife (this would be number four) that Cromwell had found him, and he was no doubt irritated by his councillor's heavy-handed evangelicalism. (Cromwell may have been a reformer, but he was not a nice guy.) Besides, the king was infatuated by Catherine Howard, niece of the duke of Norfolk, a leader of the Catholic faction and ipso facto an enemy of Cromwell.

That said, the novel's plot is entirely invented, as good historical fiction should be; and this novel is exceptionally well-crafted with its strong characters; intricate, page-turning plot; and evocation of the sights, sounds, and smells of 16th-century London. Mysteries abound: Who pushed Ralph into the well? Why won't Elizabeth talk? What is being hidden in the well? What is dark fire? Why are all these people being killed? What's the connection with vodka? Can anybody be trusted?

Well, Shardlake can be--though he sometimes has a hard time realizing that his employees are human being with needs of their own. Guy, the dark-skinned apothecary, is solid. Joseph, the kindly uncle, is thoroughly good. And Barak? Oh, just go ahead and read the book.