ABSTRACT
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, William Shakespeare is the fifth most translated author in the world, after Lenin, Jules Verne, Agatha Christie and Walt Disney, in ascending order. The way in which Shakespeare is translated not only into Welsh but into terms which the Wales of 1864 would know, understand and acknowledge, reveals to us something of the sheer adaptability, the cultural litheness, of his work. Despite the lack of a national theatre and a long-lasting opposition to dangerous 'theatricals' on the part of Welsh Methodists in particular, Shakespeare's plays have been performed in Wales with great frequency both in English and in Welsh. The new professional theatres springing up in the nineteenth century in Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff, for instance, each saw Shakespeare as a mainstay of the repertoire. The speech demonstrates the way in which Shakespeare's speeches still retain instant recognition in Wales, even among a soccer-worshipping demographic one might not readily identify as play-goers.
