"What's in a name?" References to women in Romeo and Juliet and their translation into Italian

The article examines the words used to refer to women in Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet', using opensourceshakespeare.org, an online searchable corpus of Shakespeare's complete works. The study focusses in particular on the word 'maid' in its singular, plural and combined forms, as this lexical item appears to be the most morphologically productive and the most amenable to ambiguity and to wordplay in 'Romeo and Juliet'. The word 'maid' is analysed in its co-text and context of use, and its combinatory patterns and meanings, especially with negative connotation as regards sex and violence. The paper analyses the Italian equivalents for this word chosen by different translators of this tragedy for the page and for the stage, in 1852, 1949 and 2005. The article identifies some translation tendencies which are due to the target context in which the translations are produced, the medium of transmission and the function of the target text in the receiving culture.