Good afternoon. I'm going to be giving to you my
theory on the true origins of William Shakespeare and Hamlet.
Okay, you all remember the movie Star Trek VI: Undiscovered
Country, in which Chancellor Gorkon of the Klingon Empire
said to Captain Spock of the Enterprise, and I quote, "You
have never experienced Shakespeare until you have read
him in the original Klingon." Now, of course there's the
famous quotation "to be or not to be" in Hamlet. The Klingon
Hamlet is problematic, because the Klingon Hamlet does not have
the "to be" verb, like Hebrew. So, one says the equivalent of
"Warrior I" to mean "I am a warrior". Now of course, we all
know that there's the Klingon dictionary that gives, that
describes the entire language. So, how does one say Hamlet's
famous quotation "to be or not to be" in Klingon. Now, I'm not
sure of my pronunciation but in the standard North American
accent: "taH pagh taHbe". Now, note that Hamlet, dealing with
the political assassination of the head of a state and a family
and restoring the family's honor by revenge, is quintessentially
Klingon in flavor. It captures the essence of being Klingon.
Now, there's this famous book that you can buy at Amazon for
example, The Klingon Hamlet, and this book gives, side by side,
the original- I mean, one page, the odd page, in the original
Klingon, and then in the corresponding even page, that
page's direct translation into English. The English version
that we are familiar with if you studied Klingon in high school.
Okay, now, of course, how did this happen? How did it happen?
I mean, the book claims that Shakespeare was a Klingon. So
how did it happen that all these years, we here on Earth, thought
that Hamlet was written in the 17th century in England by one
English human named William Shakespeare, and not by a
Klingon in Klingon? I mean, until very recently we hadn't
even heard of Klingon! Well, the introduction book makes it clear
that it was a massive delusion. That introduction, written by a
Terran working at the Klingon Bureau of External Relations,
claims that a massive fraudulent rewriting of history is
responsible for Terrans, that's the Klingon name for Earth,
believed that a 17th century English human named William
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in English from his imagination.
Now, this is a nice theory in the book, but to me this is
pure, utter poppycock, nonsense. The historical records of
Shakespeare's existence in the 17th century and the continual
showings of Hamlet since the 17th century are too pervasive.
No massive hoax like that suggested by the Introduction
could have succeeded because there were just too many people
who knew
the facts. So, I offer a different theory. A theory in
the grand tradition of scientific, historical, and
forensic investigation. An alternative theory of how the
original Klingon works of the Klingon named Wil'yam Shex'pir
were translated in the 17th century into 17th century
English and came to be known as the work of a 17th century
Englishman named William Shakespeare. Are you ready for this?
The theory, the basic theory is that Shakespeare is a
Klingon, that the man we know as William Shakespeare was actually
a 23rd century, that is by Earth reckoning, Klingon named Wil'yam
Shex'pir who was surgically altered to look human. He went
back in time to the 17th century England and proceeded to
translate the Klingon plays he had written himself into
English. Now, I maintain that this history is more plausible
than that of the book introduction because it fits
known facts from Star Trek canon and other writings, and it does
not require a belief in a massive perfect rewriting of
Earth history, leaving no trace whatsoever of the original
history. I mean, it's very difficult to pull off a hoax like that,
because there's always someone who can trick you up.
Now, now, to explain this in detail I need some vocabulary,
two terms: EK and LK. EK, the early James T. Kirk during
his captaincy of the five year mission of the U.S.S.
Enterprise, NCC 1701. And then LK, the late Kirk, James T. Kirk
during his admirality and subsequent demotion to captain,
occurring after the completion of the five year mission of the
early Kirk. Now, we know that Klingons can travel in time, as
documented in Hambly's Star Trek: Ishmael, 23rd century
Klingons, contemporary with the early Kirk, are capable of time travel.
Now, of course, there's the problem with changing history.
Whenever time travel results in changing history, those who did not
travel in time remember only the new history. The original
history simply no longer exists. Only perpetrators of this change
are able to remember the old history and observe differences,
as documented in Trials and Tribble-ations in Deep Space
Nine. Now, we all know the famous picture of William Shakespeare.
This traditional picture shows someone with an extremely high
forehead, like mine, long thought to be the result of male
pattern baldness, which I suffer from. So the question is, how
could a Klingon who normally has a bumpy forehead, end up
appearing totally human with a smooth forehead? Now, we know
from Star Trek history of at least two possibilities.
The first possibility is that Wil'yam Shex'pir could be a
descendant of the victims of the aborted attempt to produce super
augmented Klingons that is documented in the Star Trek
Enterprise episode Affliction and Divergence. These super
augments were created accidentally by altering the
normal Klingon DNA with DNA taken from embryos of human augments
created by Dr. Arik Soong. Now, the second possibility, simply
that the forehead could easily have resulted from plastic surgery
to smoothen the normal Klingon bumpy forehead, which is the
source of the epithet "turtle head" flung by xenophobic
Terrans to refer to Klingons. Now, compare this traditional
picture of William Shakespeare with the portrait of Wil'yam
Shex'pir painted by the famous Klingon painter yaHel DawiD,
showing Shex'pir's bumpy-- Shex'pir's bumpy forehead.
I mean, there it is! And the thing is you can see how a little bit
of plastic surgery would get from this to the traditional
portrait shown, seen of William Shakespeare. Now... in fact,
we know of at least one Klingon altered this way by plastic
surgery. The Klingon spy Arne Darvin, from the Star Trek old
series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" and the Star Trek Deep
Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", underwent this
surgery to pass as a human and to infiltrate Star Fleet
headquarters. Now, in either case, there would be
considerable shame among Klingons about these Klingons
that looked like these hated, cowardly humans. Yuck. Indeed,
in "Trials and Tribble-ations", when O'Brien saw surgically
altered Klingons for the first time and asked his Klingon
crewmate Worf, if they were the result of some kind of genetic
engineering, Worf replied with a growl, "We do not discuss it
with outsiders!"
Now, Klingon writers... Klingons are not writers, they're warriors!
Okay. And in fact, I mean, being a warrior was the
most important thing about-- most important occupation during
the Klingon society of the early Kirk years. A Klingon such as
Wil'yam Shex'pir, with literary talent, with no desire to be a
warrior, only writing about being a warrior and not being a
warrior, would have been shunned and ostracized, if not eliminated altogether.
Now, only later, during the later Kirk
years, did Klingons come to accept and even appreciate
Shex'pir and his writing. However, by then, the
genetically altered Klingon soldiers had probably died off.
One never saw a smooth-foreheaded Klingon during
the later Kirk period.
Now, so there would be double shame here.
Clearly, later Kirk era and later Klingons would be
ashamed of both the genetically altered Klingons and the Klingon
society's past disdain for literary talent, and they would
thus resort to disinformation at the Bureau of External
Relations, feeding the revised history to the human Terran
writers in their employ. Now, my theory suggests that Wil'yam
Shex'pir was a contemporary of the early Kirk period.
The literary Shex'pir found Klingon society so inhospitable that he
had the plastic surgery, not to be a spy or even a smooth-headed
soldier, but to be able to leave the Klingon homeworld Qo'noS and
blend into Terran society, as a writer.
Now then, Shex'pir,
traveled in time to Earth's 17th century. There he brushed up on
English, mainly Federation Standard that he had already
learned, created and assumed the identity of William Shakespeare,
and began translating to English, the works that he had
written in Klingon. Now, why 17th century England? Well,
England was almost the only place on Earth, in which a
variation of Federation Standard, which he knew, was
spoken, and he would not have to learn a new language entirely
from scratch. Okay, so that's England but what about the 17th century?
Well, in the 17th century it was easy to come into
existence as an adult without anyone caring or being able to
prove that he did not exist before. And it was easy to get
forged birth certificates accepted. Remember Geoffrey
Chaucer's other occupation?
Once established as William Shakespeare,
Wil'yam Shex'pir began to translate his own works
into English and to release them one by one to a wildly approving
Elizabethan audience. So, this is my theory as to how it came to be
that William Shakespeare was actually a 23rd century Klingon
named Wil'yam Shex'pir, who was surgically altered to look
human, and then went back in time to the 17th century England
and proceeded to translate the Klingon plays he had written
himself, into English.
Thank you.