Shakespeare in German!

[bottersnike]

I have a quotation to translate :"Wenn du den Eindruck hast, dass das Leben Theater ist, dann such dir eine Rolle aus, die dir so richtig Spass macht."

Although I can find this quote all over the web in German, it does not turn up anywhere in English, and does not list the source! So either a) it's not Shakespeare or b) it's a very very loose translation.

Help anyone? I know what it means, but I would like to put the "original" in my translation, not just my version.

Thank you!

I don't think it's Shakespeare but my BIL will know or google. Will try to find out.

Thank you!

doesn't sound at all like Shakespeare to me, or his period; more like a very modern response to 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 (As You Like It)

the sentiment is all wrong for the Elizabethan/Jacobean age

Could it be Brecht? Or Durrenmatt?

It seems to be a standard translation now.
Schiller was one of the main translators of Shakespeare whose versions are studied in school (Goethe and Schlegel and others too).

Looking up Schiller and Shakespeare linked me to this site with translation of As you Like It:
"Wie es euch gefällt"
Übersetzt von August Wilhelm von Schlegel

www.macbeth.de/wie_es_euch_gefaellt/wie_es_euch_gefaellt_2_7.htm
'Die ganze Welt ist Bühne
Und alle Fraun und Männer bloße Spieler.
Sie treten auf und geben wieder ab,
Sein Leben lang spielt einer manche Rollen
Durch sieben Akte hin. '

Projekt Gutenberg has the same translation, but all modern translations seem to be the quote you have - can't find who first produced that as they all just say "William Shakespeare"!

Was fuer eine Uebersetzung ist das?! Goethe hat viel besser geschrieben.

Genau, aber ich konnte kein besseres im Internet finden!

(auf dem Internet? Beim Internet? Als ich in der Schule war, gab es ja kein Internet...)

Beide, glaube ich.

Auf's Netz ist auch moeglich.

Good god, that really ain't Goethe! 'so richtig Spaß macht'! It sounds like an extremely loose translation done by some teenager (or teenage wannabe) and then repeated ad nauseam on the net with nobody bothering to check its accuracy.

My daughter did an updated version of the Tempest in school recently, with more contemporary language - this quote sounds like some similarly doomed attempt to make Shakespeare cool for teenagers. Utterly foul.

I respect your attempts not to commit the cardinal sin of 'back translation', but in this case you'll just have to either give the As You Like It speech or do a literal translation yourself. Would you be allowed to put a question mark after the Shakespeare attribution?

It can't possibly class as a translation of the Shakespeare quote: Shakespeare just doesn't say that. It's not just Shakespeare in contemporary language, it's something else entirely. And as Tenebrist says, it's utterly foul .

The idea that men and women have a choice of roles and that the point of life is to have fun is very modern consumerist society; Shakespeare just would not have understood what they were on about.

When you have the impression that life is theater, then make sure you choose a role, that is fun!