A Modern Winter’s Tale

Curious to see what Shakespeare would sound like set in modern slang, I translated line 1–64 of The Winter’s Tale Act IV Scene IV into this “new vernacular.”

Here’s what I came up with:

Florizel: Damn shauty, you be lookin’ like ma trap queen, sportin’ dem fresh threads ’n’ all. You know dem boys like to hang around this sheep shearing ish.

Perdita: Boiii, you doing too much, please, you gotta chick blushin’ right here. You on fleek and over here lookin’ like some poor cinderella ish. You be hella swag.

Florizel: I fell in love with you the first time I saw you with the fam down by dem fields.

Perdita: But yo daddy scary as hell and I ain’t about to face dat cray-cray.

Florizel: Even, my bruh Zeus came down cuz he dtf. But, you badder den da rest.

Perdita: But you still be scared of yo daddy. Grow a pair or I gonna kill him myself.

Florizel: But I love you, bish. I ain’t gonna love nobody but you, bish. I ain’t no playa.

Perdita: Aight, aight. Yolo.

Florizel: Yo here comes the squad, stay trill.