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Comments
Another
of the self-pitying laments in Set III, this runic text seems
a relatively harder nut to crack than some others. The pun amisse
(7) and the apparent non sequiturs in 13-14—where “a woman”
and “she” seem to crop up out of the blue—suggest a cherchez
la femme approach while raising all the larger issues traditionally
tied to the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. I propose that Will’s abusive
“ms.” is, at least on one level, the Q writing project itself.
Atypically,
I’ve settled here on an edited version that reads Q’s
forms (in 14) as namepuns on two real women in Will’s life. Scholarly
precedent exists for reading Q’s And as a pun on Anne (see,
e.g., editor Stephen Booth’s note on Sonnet 145.13); none that I
know of exists for finding “Sue” in Q’s So, but
until now readers have not known that Q is a punning tour de force. The
tenuous logic of “my” ending is associational: The notion that
a woman “woes” when she sees her son deceived or abused (see
13) suggests a contrary situation in which two female family members are
the poet’s own abusers (in 14). Other students of the text will find
other solutions to this set of playful conundrums.
As usual Will’s
pungame includes local variants of “find the antecedent,” “shift
the number,” and “shift the mode of address.” Vague pronouns
include “them” (4) and “their” (9). Key thematic puns
are “well” (6), “salve / salving” (6-7) and “amisse
/ a miss / a ms.” (7). “Salve” (as ointment) is a latinate
pun on “well” that suggests “Will,” inkwell, the pudendum,
and “salvo.” Q’s form salue also allows eyepuns
on valve / fallow / value / false / fail / sail. By 1666 “Miss”—a
clipped form of “mistress”—meant a woman of easy virtue.
The pun “man well” (6), suggesting an orifice, picks up the
initial masculine emphasis—“this man’s…that man’s”
(1)—in the context of plays on the f-word (in Q’s form of such,
always a bawdy eyepun) and wit about “peaking” and lubrication.
The
“wo-man” that is implied by “a miss” equates
with “woe” (2, 13)—a routine pun in 1609 that’s not
dead yet in 2003—and with abuse (13-14). The “woman well”
implied here may also be a “dumb” female scribbler (see 10).
Further, “love’s sole effect” (8) may joke about
a misfired ejaculation toward the feet. Opening the poem is the linepun
“Desiring thy semen’s ardent height, my Anne’s scope...”
(1).
“Entitled
in” (9) may point to the marriage of Will’s titled patron Southampton,
Henry Wriothesley—to Elizabeth Vernon, thereafter Countess of Southampton—in
1598. “Who’s so dumb that cannot Write-to-thee?”
(10) jokes, I think, about the spelling of “Wriothesley,” with
the phrase “that-by-this separation” (11) hinting that one might
sound out the syllables. The “seaman” joke (in 1) might’ve
caught the eye of Southy, who had a naval background.
Dr.
John Hall, Will’s son-in-law and Susanna’s (“Sue’s”)
husband, would’ve enjoyed the wit about “salving.” “Salving
thymus [OED 1693, from mod. L and Gr]” (7) is an insistent joke with
bawdy implications in the linepun “Missile see, corrupt inch salving
thymus [a gland in the throat].” (Homoeroticism in the Sonnets is
an old topic.) As the conceit goes, it may be that Will “corrupts”
himself not just by writing bad verse but also by loving the male muse
(7), hiding his identity, and “salving” his flaws. In doing
so, he invites the wrath of the “other woman” (13-14), whose
claims are “entitled in” as the result of “love’s
sole effect” (8-9).
Tangential
“clerical” puns include “cope” (1), “sins canceled,”
“celled woe” (2), “a sinner,” “rest of the dead”
(3), “world’s vice aged” (5), “Salve…”
(6, 7), “my cell see” (7), “Witch,” “altar,”
“lose soul,” “soul’s sect” (8), “rite taught
he” (10), “eye Magi you,” “image eye you,” and
“eye m’ Jew” (11). “What woman’s son?” suggests
Christ, another abused figure who liked to say “for my sake”
(see 13-14). “What woman [i]s son?” and “What woman’s
fon [i.e., silly]?” (13) are both rhetorical questions,
with joking answers, “None” and “All.”
Economic
legalese (which Will uses routinely in Q) includes “Canceled,”
“interest,” “reserve,” “value,” “effect,”
and “entitled.”
Sample Puns
1)
Desire inched high, my end’s (Anne’s) certain death—8,
my end’s (Anne’s) scope; seaman; semen; Simeon
1-2)
Simon certain did eye Timon’s scope and, dewy, piss
2)
A frieze, (Raise) Heloise long since canceled; Eye fair fellows, long
of inches; we piss ruffles long; Undo a pisser if itch low is; see, Anne,
Celled Woe; dewy pee I freeze; ankle; uncle; weep as racial office, “long
sins” canceled woe
3)
A center of tossed, heady adieus in “O” appear; Ascend rest
of the dead; witch in “O” appear; ape-ear
4) Reserved
hymn formula; Our ferret (...varied) hymns, our mellow knot, afford (assert...)
higher rhyme; Monsieur My Love
4-5) Harry
amends “roam,” the furlough new; Rome; my low knot fartier,
wry, mean (m’ end, m’ Anne)
5) End
of Rome, the forlorn world’s Vice, aged; End, fair homme,
this earl o’er, new earl dies, why? f--ked foreign omen; lore new;
new whore, Lady Savage, eyed
6) Fore
know man-well, O, f--k; a salve see, Anne’s peak (pique); see Anne
speak; Will; of F--k-Ass Hall you see enough (a knave); “I’s”
ornamental “O” f--k, I see Lucan’s pique (icy Lucan,
speak)
6-7) a
fey Luke eye, nice pee came
7) Ms.-elf;
a miss; My cell (Missal, Missile) see, corrupt inch, salving thymus [gland
1693, from Gr.]; salving, thymo- [comb. form, antiseptic powder,
from Gr.] I see
8) Witch,
though jet [black], altaring; altar knot loves; low is “sole,”
ass-sect; low vessel’s f--ked; wassail; laugh-sect
9) I
knighted lady knight; Anne, titled in th’ air, [de]parts; do [musical];
Doc runed fit; Entitled (End idled), John, th’ heir, part ass, Doc
[cf. “Spread your cheeks, Dr. Hall”]; parts sad o’ Crow
Nate F. eyed; zero
9-10)
In tittle-din, th’ err-parts darker win Ed. fit of errors
10) Sorrows;
Furrows so dumb t’ Hat., see Anne-knot right toothy; foe-rows fought
you, homme; bed Hat., see Anne “O”
11-12) by
this ass-operation, I’m a Jew butt, yet be belamed; Taught by this
separation, image I view, Beauty, babe lame, deaf
12) if thou
this cell sad see, eye you Shakespeare [st] 12-13 See dick Eve,
aft, undoing; fit and dewy, Nehemiah new “O” sought, woman’s
“sun”
13) Anne;
Undone; Anne-twin; W. Hen., a woman; eyed womb, Anne’s son; Hat.-woman’s
sunny; womance [a tongue-tied form]; ...Anne [= w = IN]Hat-woe,
my Anne, is fon [i.e., silly]
14) Anne forms
ache, event’s odd; oath’s heap you see, me; sod o’ this
(hee!) above me; End 4…even [a numbers pun]; Anne deforms ague (a
cue); Anne forms, yes, a queue, and…does…abuse me; Anne, Dis-whore,
m’ f--king foe, doth she abuse me; aye in desire, ms.-ache [cf.
“mistake”], even so does Phoebus may [v.]; whore may say cue
(seek you); fetid, heavy ape you see
Acrostic Wit
The
downward acrostic codeline—DAARA FM WIFT BAA—
suggests such decodings as these: “Dare [Dear,] affirm [that] wifed
be I aye,” “Derive ‘my wife-to-be’,” “Dear,
a femme, wife-to-be, eye aye,” “Dairy femme
[i.e., Dairymaid] whiffed ‘baa!’,” “Dairy (Diary,
Dear eye, Dear ‘I’) of m’ Wife-to-be I eye,” “Day
arrive, m’ wife t’ bay (…my whiffed ‘8’
[B=8] I eye,” “Dear ass, my wife-to-be,” “Day
eye, raft, my wife t’ bay,” “Dear half muffed [the mute
runes], bay,” “Dear half muffed be,” “Derive m’
wife-to-be,” “Tariff mew…,” and “Dear half-hymn,
W.-Ovid (whiffed) be I aye.”
The
upward (reverse) codeline—A ABT F IW M FARAAD—suggests
forms of “butt” and “fume,” capped by an insistently
germane Saxonism. Readings include, e.g., “Aye a butt, few m’
fart,” “Eye a bit of eye (‘I’), Wm.-forehead,”
“Eye a bit of you, homme: forehead,” “A bitty
femme forehead,”“Abbot, fume of Herod (…view m’
fart; …m’ effort),” “Eye a bit of you, muff horrid
(arid),” “Abbot, fie! Whim of art,” “Eye Abbot
fume afar, 1 A.D.”
With F = S,
alternative readings include “De arras mews Tubby,” “Abbot
femme’s (Swami’s?) aired (heard),” “I
a butt-fume sorry add,” “Eye Abbot fume fart,” “Eye
a bit of ‘I’—William’s hard (…horrid; …a
reed; …aright; …our 8),” and “Abbot swims hard.”
A
practiced player finds the acrostic code readily triggering “foreign”
terms. (Will overtly interpolates French speech in Henry V, 5.2,
with delightful results.) Here the codestring FIWM obviously suggests
femme.
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