In the course of drafting my sonnet exercises (the ones using the first words of Shakespeare's sonnets rather than the end rhymes), I have found myself also consulting the Psalms. My reasons arise from the fact that I have to deal with words such as "thou" and "thine," which I have decided not to simplify to "you" and "yours" but to use contextually as a way to talk about the Society of Friends. I was raised in the Meeting but have never, to this point, written about Friends or that experience. Yet all my work with Milton seems to have given me leave to mull over issues of Protestantism and dissent, and Shakespeare's "thou" is forcing me to keep that language alive.

I've been reading the Psalms in both the King James and the Revised Standard versions, so I thought I'd copy out a translation pair so that you can see how extraordinarily varied they are.

Psalm 92

King James Version

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High:

To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.

For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands.

O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.

A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.

When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:

But thou, Lord, art most high for evermore.

For, lo, thine enemies, O Lord, for, lo, thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.

But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me.

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;

To shew that the Lord is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Revised Standard Version

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,

          to sing praises to thy name, O Most High;

to declare thy steadfast love in the morning,

          and thy faithfulness by night,

to the music of the lute and the harp,

          to the melody of the lyre.

For thou, O Lord, hast made me glad by thy work;

          at the works of thy hands I sing for joy.

How great are thy works, O Lord!

          Thy thoughts are very deep!

The dull man cannot know,

          the stupid cannot understand this:

that, though the wicked sprout like grass

           an all evildoers flourish,

they are doomed to destruction for ever,

          but thou, O Lord, art on high for ever,

For, lo, thy enemies, O Lord,

          for, lo, thy enemies shall perish;

          all evildoers shall be scattered.

But thou has exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;

          thou hast poured over me fresh oil.

My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies,

          my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree,

          and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

They are planted in the house of the Lord,

          they flourish in the courts of our God.

They still bring forth fruit in old age,

          they are ever full of sap and green,

to show that the Lord is upright;

          he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Often the King James is lauded as the more beautiful version. I think this claim is not necessarily true, though it is undoubtedly the bossier and more vigorous version. The Revised Standard is laid out in lines and stanzas like poetry, and so in that way it is prettier; yet it is also nicer in ways that weaken it as rhetoric. It has fewer hardheaded verb constructions (all those King James "shalls") and  fewer aggressive adjectives and nouns ("brutish" versus "dull," "workers of iniquity" versus "evildoers").

And then there is the curious difference between "But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn" and "But thou hast exalted my horn like that of a wild ox"). I find myself leaning image-wise toward "wild ox," just because a unicorn seems so grossly out of place in the Bible. Yet "an unicorn," as diction alone, is hard to beat. What do you think?