How do you read Shakespeare's iambic pentameters?

Answer 1

Your question is perhaps a bit ambiguous. If you are talking about reading silently to yourself, you can just ignore the format and treat it as prose. For example,

Helena:

Your virtue is my privilege. For that

It is not night when I do see your face

Therefore I think that I am not in the night

Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company

For you, in my respect, are all the world.

Then how can it be said I am alone

When all the world is here to look at me.

is the same as:

Your virtue is my privilege. For that it is not night when I see your face; therefore I think that I am not in the night nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, for you, in my respect, are all the world. Then how can it be said I am alone when all the world is here to look at me.

But if you are reading them out loud, it is different. The line endings are a guidepost so you take a slight pause every ten syllables--a longer one if the sentence ends at the end of the line, a shorter one if the line ends in the middle of the sentence. The pause after "For that" at the end of the first line may be barely perceptible. For the most part the line ending pauses coincide with natural pauses in the sentence.

Likewise, the iambic rhythm is natural. Say, "Your virtue is my privilege" in your ordinary voice. Without trying, you accent every second syllable: "your VIR-tue IS my PRIV-i-LEGE" Most of this passage is just like this, but not always: the stressed word "night" is followed by two unstressed words "when I" followed by the stressed "see". Shakespeare wrote these irregularities in the rhythm on purpose. Therefore when you are reading, use the natural rhythm of the words, but be aware that the natural rhythm is in fact usually iambic.