TransbliterationsShakespeare's Sonnets, rewritten

Part III. Recovering

Fuck

Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXX → Transbliterated (104)

Shakespeare

O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wrack’d, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride:
    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
    The worst was this: my love was my decay.

Transbliteration

	Fuck
I just fuckin collapse
	When I write about you

	Knowing what you've done
'Fuck' could use a makeover
Measured against the sonnet and its Spanish

How this poem's lines relate to Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXX and to the Google Translate Spanish it was written from. Counts are made by script, and each line's label comes from an AI judge. Sentences in italics are Claude's reading, not the poet's. How it was measured →

From the English
  • Restated
  • Inverted
  • Transbliterated
  • Original
From the Spanish
  • Faithful
  • Noise
  • Untouched

The poem uses only the sonnet's first two lines, turning a poet fainting before a rival into a profane collapse and an accusation, then breaks off with a joke about its own first word. The Spanish, which moved better from the spirit to the use of the name, likely fed that closing joke.

The sonnet
The poet is left tongue-tied because a better poet praises the beloved, yet he sails on in the beloved's vast worth, and if he is wrecked, his love was his ruin.
Argument kept
1 of 4
Feeling
the speaker −1 → the beloved −2 (redirected)
Spoken to
the beloved → the beloved
Translation
adequacy 1.7 · fluency 1.6 · chrF 49. The rival's praise, the worthless boat and the closing line, my love was my decay, come through. The sea conceit in the middle sinks: the sail becomes a bear, the boat becomes tree bark and the ocean becomes principales.
Judge
medium confidence · close paraphrase

lift 0.29 aligned 14% (chance 3%) order — verbatim 0% Spanish look-alikes 0% (chance 0%)left in English 1%

Sonnet LXXX, with its Spanish

  1. S1O how I faint when I of you do write, O, ¿cómo me desmayo cuando me lo hace de escribir, adequacy 1 · fluency 1 · wrong sense · omission · grammar
  2. S2Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, Sabiendo trae el espíritu de un mejor uso de su nombre, adequacy 1 · fluency 1 · wrong sense · grammar
  3. S3And in the praise thereof spends all his might, Y en la alabanza del mismo gasta todas sus fuerzas, adequacy 4 · fluency 3
  4. S4To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame! Para que me traba la lengua, hablando de su fama! adequacy 3 · fluency 2 · grammar
  5. S5But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, Pero como su valor, ancho como el mar es, adequacy 4 · fluency 3
  6. S6The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, El humilde como el oso de vela más orgulloso ¿Acaso, adequacy 0 · fluency 0 · wrong sense · archaic misread · grammar
  7. S7My saucy bark, inferior far to his, Mi insolente corteza inferior a su medida adequacy 1 · fluency 3 · wrong sense
  8. S8On your broad main doth wilfully appear. En su amplio ¿Acaso principales voluntariamente aparecer. adequacy 1 · fluency 0 · archaic misread · wrong sense · grammar
  9. S9Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Su ayuda será más superficial me sostienen a flote, adequacy 2 · fluency 1 · grammar
  10. S10Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride; Una vez que tenía sobre su viaje sin sonido ¿Acaso profunda; adequacy 0 · fluency 0 · wrong sense · archaic misread · omission · grammar
  11. S11Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat, O se wreck'd, soy un barco sin valor, adequacy 2 · fluency 1 · untranslated · grammar
  12. S12He of tall building, and of goodly pride: El de un edificio alto y de orgullo bienhechor: adequacy 1 · fluency 2 · wrong sense · grammar
  13. S13Then if he thrive and I be cast away, Entonces, si prosperan y se desechó, adequacy 1 · fluency 2 · omission · grammar
  14. S14The worst was this: my love was my decay. Lo peor fue esta, mi amor fue mi decadencia. adequacy 3 · fluency 3 · grammar

Transbliteration

  1. P1Fuck no source · original
  2. P2I just fuckin collapse S1 · modernized — a cruder faint
  3. P3When I write about you S1 · verbatim
  4. P4Knowing what you've done S2 · transformed — the rival's praise becomes something the beloved did
  5. P5'Fuck' could use a makeover S2 · spanish-echo · via mistranslation «de un mejor uso de su nombre» — better moved from spirit to use: a word needing better use

Through the Spanish

  • mistranslationT2 → P5 «de un mejor uso de su nombre» “'Fuck' could use a makeover”

Where the translation failed

  • T6 “The humble as the proudest sail doth bear” → «el oso de vela más orgulloso ¿Acaso» The ocean that bears every sail becomes a proud sailing bear, and the line means nothing.
  • T10 “Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride” → «Una vez que tenía sobre su viaje sin sonido ¿Acaso profunda» The rival riding the fathomless sea disappears into silent trips and a stray question word.
  • T7 “My saucy bark, inferior far to his” → «Mi insolente corteza inferior a su medida» The poet's small boat becomes tree bark, so the ship comparison collapses.

See it in the garden →

Hear it read, and watch it turn

The reading, over an interpolation walk through this rendering's own images: each sculpture arrives on the last word of the lines it answers.

The poem, line by line

	Fuck
Sculpture for: Fuck
How this image was made
Triggering line
'Fuck'
Seed
708959808 · 4 steps
Run
20250508052943_708959808
Drift
  • substantive "fuck" → "'fuck'"
CLIP the short prompt T5 the long prompt
Art period De Stijl Harlem Renaissance
Material polyurethane ivory
Adjectives delicate, sidereal, fascinating fresh, spacey, uncannily, graceful, otherworldly, coalesce, chirality, amazing, disturbing
Background Parco Sculture del Chianti Grand Tetons in the distance
Time of day noon
Adverbs Chirality, through tear-streaked eyes, Juxtaposition of staccato isolations against legato full-body waves banach-tarski paradox, Knot invariants, non-linear, Nebulous narratives crystallized in muscular poetry, chilling tableau of misery, anatomically, reaction-diffusion system, infinite cardinal numbers, birefringence, universal number system
Image qualities Etherwave layered art, ultra photoreal, fine grain capture, ultra realistic, high contrast, OM system 12–40mm PRO, mottled discolored pussy, night cinematic lighting, flash-enabled, global illumination, 85mm lens, Lomography Color Negative 800, handheld
Shape sculpture garden sculpture garden 
I just fuckin collapse
	When I write about you
Sculpture for: I just fuckin collapse / When I write about you
How this image was made
Triggering line
I just fuckin collapse When I write about you
Seed
708959808 · 4 steps
Run
20250508052943_708959808
CLIP the short prompt T5 the long prompt
Art period De Stijl Harlem Renaissance
Material polyurethane ivory
Adjectives delicate, sidereal, fascinating fresh, spacey, uncannily, graceful, otherworldly, coalesce, chirality, amazing, disturbing
Background Parco Sculture del Chianti Grand Tetons in the distance
Time of day noon
Adverbs Chirality, through tear-streaked eyes, Juxtaposition of staccato isolations against legato full-body waves banach-tarski paradox, Knot invariants, non-linear, Nebulous narratives crystallized in muscular poetry, chilling tableau of misery, anatomically, reaction-diffusion system, infinite cardinal numbers, birefringence, universal number system
Image qualities Etherwave layered art, ultra photoreal, fine grain capture, ultra realistic, high contrast, OM system 12–40mm PRO, mottled discolored pussy, night cinematic lighting, flash-enabled, global illumination, 85mm lens, Lomography Color Negative 800, handheld
Shape sculpture garden sculpture garden 
	Knowing what you've done
Sculpture for: Knowing what you've done
How this image was made
Triggering line
Knowing what you've done
Seed
708959808 · 4 steps
Run
20250508052943_708959808
CLIP the short prompt T5 the long prompt
Art period De Stijl Harlem Renaissance
Material polyurethane ivory
Adjectives delicate, sidereal, fascinating fresh, spacey, uncannily, graceful, otherworldly, coalesce, chirality, amazing, disturbing
Background Parco Sculture del Chianti Grand Tetons in the distance
Time of day noon
Adverbs Chirality, through tear-streaked eyes, Juxtaposition of staccato isolations against legato full-body waves banach-tarski paradox, Knot invariants, non-linear, Nebulous narratives crystallized in muscular poetry, chilling tableau of misery, anatomically, reaction-diffusion system, infinite cardinal numbers, birefringence, universal number system
Image qualities Etherwave layered art, ultra photoreal, fine grain capture, ultra realistic, high contrast, OM system 12–40mm PRO, mottled discolored pussy, night cinematic lighting, flash-enabled, global illumination, 85mm lens, Lomography Color Negative 800, handheld
Shape sculpture garden sculpture garden 
'Fuck' could use a makeover
Sculpture for: 'Fuck' could use a makeover
How this image was made
Triggering line
'Fuck' could use a makeover
Seed
708959808 · 4 steps
Run
20250508052943_708959808
CLIP the short prompt T5 the long prompt
Art period De Stijl Harlem Renaissance
Material polyurethane ivory
Adjectives delicate, sidereal, fascinating fresh, spacey, uncannily, graceful, otherworldly, coalesce, chirality, amazing, disturbing
Background Parco Sculture del Chianti Grand Tetons in the distance
Time of day noon
Adverbs Chirality, through tear-streaked eyes, Juxtaposition of staccato isolations against legato full-body waves banach-tarski paradox, Knot invariants, non-linear, Nebulous narratives crystallized in muscular poetry, chilling tableau of misery, anatomically, reaction-diffusion system, infinite cardinal numbers, birefringence, universal number system
Image qualities Etherwave layered art, ultra photoreal, fine grain capture, ultra realistic, high contrast, OM system 12–40mm PRO, mottled discolored pussy, night cinematic lighting, flash-enabled, global illumination, 85mm lens, Lomography Color Negative 800, handheld
Shape sculpture garden sculpture garden

Sculptures

From line 1: “'Fuck'”
From line 2: “I just fuckin collapse When I write about you”
From line 3: “Knowing what you've done”
From line 4: “'Fuck' could use a makeover”