If, as Parks (2007: 9) argues, “we can say that given the profound differences between any two languages and cultures, the translator is forced to think hard about the function of the text,” it is fair to suppose that, in this case, the Italian translators intentionally detached from the source text for the sake of the readers, as they had a bias toward a purely target-oriented translation. Their evaluation criteria resemble those of the so-called trans-editors, who “[evaluate] the work of translation from the perspective of target readers’ needs” (Hu, 2018: 184) and devote special attention to the “functions of texts, analysing semantical and pragmatical equivalences between the source and target texts” (House, 2015: 63). In this direction, the second case study may prove such a hypothesis: the lines “La sua generosità non aveva inverno, era / Un autunno che tanto più cresceva quanto più veniva mietuto” [“For his bounty, there was no winter in’t, an / autumn it was that grew the more by reaping”; my emphasis] would sound reasonable to a diverse public, composed by both experts and theatre enthusiasts, thanks to a semantic continuum detectable between the lines, both revolving around nature and its cycle. Conversely, “Antonio” [Antony] as a replacement for “autunno” [autumn] may be interpreted as a hazardous deviation that would jeopardise the semantic structure of the passage, finally destabilising the reader.

In conclusion, the cases illustrated above reveal the complex relationship between the English editions of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and its Italian translations. However, debating about such a precious legacy contributes to ensuring that “age cannot whither” the text, “nor costum stale [its] infinite variety” (2.2.244).