Kumbukumbu ya Kifo cha Shakespeare

Wiki hii ni ya kumbukumbu ya kifo cha William Shakespeare. Ingawa siku ya kufariki kwake haijulikani kwa uhakika, mapokeo yameiteua tarehe 23 April, 1616, kuwa ndio siku ya kufariki kwake. Alizikwa tarehe 25 Aprili.

Sisi tuliosoma sekondari miaka ya sitini na kitu tuliweza kusoma maandishi ya Shakespeare na kuyafurahia. Tulisoma tamthilia kama Julius Caesar na The Merchant of Venice. Baada sekondari, sisi tuliokwenda "high school" tulipata fursa ya kusoma na kutafakari tamthilia zake ngumu zaidi, kama vile Hamlet na Othello.

Mwandishi maarufu wa ki-Swahili, Shaaban Robert, alimwenzi Shakespeare. Alisema kwamba akili ya Shakespeare ilikuwa kama bahari ambayo mawimbi yake yalitua kwenye fukwe duniani kote. Laiti kama wa-Tanzania tungefuata nyayo za Shaaban Robert, tukaachana na ufinyu wa fikra kuhusu umuhimu wa lugha mbali mbali na fasihi za ulimwengu, kwa kisingizio cha kukienzi ki-Swahili.

Maandishi ya Shakespeare yana kauli nyingi maarufu. Sijui kama kuna msomaji wa Shakespeare ambaye hakumbuki ile hotuba ya Hamlet inayoanza hivi:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

Sijui kama kuna msomaji wa Shakespeare ambaye hakumbuki ile hotuba ya Mark Antony iliyomo katika Julius Caesar, inayoanza hivi:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interréd with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Kuna pia kauli maarufu katika tamthilia ya As You Like It, ambayo ni ya mhusika aitwaye Jaques. Anasema kuwa dunia ni jukwaa, ambapo kila binadamu ni kama mwigizaji:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

Shakespeare aliona mbali. Kwa mfano, unaposoma The Merchant of Venice, unajionea jinsi Shakespeare alivyokuwa na upeo wa fikra wa kutambua tabia ya ubepari mapema kabisa, wakati ulipokuwa unachimbuka. Haishangazi kwa nini Mwalimu Nyerere, ambaye alikuwa katika harakati za kupambana na ubepari na kujenga ujamaa aliamua kuitafsiri tamthilia hii, akaiita Mabepari wa Venisi.

Shakespeare alizielezea kwa umakini tabia za binadamu, njema au mbaya. Katika tamthilia ya Macbeth, kwa mfano, tunashuhudia jinsi binadamu anavyoweza kuwa mbaya, na kama wewe ni msomaji wa Shaaban Robert utakumbuka jinsi naye alivyoielezea dhamira hii, kwa mfano katika Adili na Nduguze.

Shakespeare alikuwa mtunzi wa tamthilia na mashairi. Alitunga mashairi mengi, na baadhi ya hayo yako katika tamthilia zake. Haiwezekani kumtendea haki Shakespeare kwa kuelezea mchango wake katika makala ndogo kama hii. Kuna makala nyingi na vitabu juu yake na kazi zake, na maandishi yanaendelea kuchapishwa katika lugha nyingi. 

Kama Shaaban Robert alivyosema, akili ya Shakespeare ni kama bahari, ambayo mawimbi yake yanatua kwenye fukwe duniani kote. Ni miaka mia nne imepita tangu Shakespeare afariki, lakini mawimbi ya akili yake yataendelea kumwagika duniani kote.