Jorge Luis Borges
First published in Veinticinco Agosto 1983 y otros cuentos. Madrid: Siruela, 1983
Translated into English by Andrew Hurley in The New Yorker, 13 April 1998: 66-69
Borges contemplates not so much a spirit of Shakespeare as the memory palace of the Bard, which has been transmitted to various takers over the years. When a Shakespeare scholar obtains the memories, he is finally able to understand his subject perfectly. But what at first seems a boon, soon becomes a curse.