Oh Shakespeare, Is there anything you can't do?

According to Ted Hughes in his introduction to Essential Shakespeare, Shakespeare was a master of "translating" words with Latin or Greek roots, many of which had never been heard by the groundlings, into coarser and more immediate Saxon words, creating a heterogeneous poetic language suitable for a a heterogeneous audience.

The argument is fascinating and here are some choice excerpts.

How was [a new word] to be understood? He could rely on the noblemen in the lord's gallery to give it instant meaning; they would simply trnaslate it from Greek or Latin. But what about the rest of the audience?

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute

"Capacity" is immediately reduced to a plain image "Receiveth as the sea." In other words, it is translated: capacity=spaciousness, roominess, infinite ability to ocntain. In a similar way, "validity" which was probably a new word to most, previously used only in law, is translated by "pitch," a common word meaning "height," or "calibreated position on a scale." Validy" becomes, instantly, place on a scale of values." He deals with "abatement" even more plainly. While he tosses the fine word to the lords' box, he bends to the groundlings, and quite shamelessly adds "that means--low price."

Faced with what were virtually two languages, made more distinctly and urgently so by the presence of the two audiences, Shakespeare rose to the occasion by speaking both--the full foreign text and the full translation--simultaneously. He was pushed to this, one might say, by his perverse insistence on using such a huge number of the new words...

Note: I just posted something about Wood's review of Aleksandar Hemon's new book, which touches on a related subject.