...huh. As a non-native speaker, that was... easy to read? Where did I learn this vocabulary again? I haven't read Shakespeare's works yet (though they are on my reading list).

What makes it hard to read for some people and not others (as with any translation problem) is unfamiliarity.

It's easier to learn just japanese honorifics and then read a partial translation than to learn all of japanese and read the original. But a full translation loses that dimension of meaning.

But it's not as difficult to learn some Early Modern English vocabulary, and this way you can avoid losing any meaning. I hear there are a lot of puns that wouldn't work with modern vocabulary.

If it wasn't required reading in English-speaking countries, "translating" it probably wouldn't be even in consideration.