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This touching
complaint recording the poet’s “sad interim”
explores the alternatives of hiding the muse (and Will’s love for
him) in a “chest” or of making both these public, like a picture
or wall sconce. These sober musings about personal and universal loss
prove prescient, given the real-time, four-century lag that has occurred
before the “oblivious enmity” between public Sonnets and hidden
Runes has been “recured” (3). The hidden “chest”
here is an analog for the Runes, while the openly viewed picture parallels
the visible Sonnets.
Several puns
encourage reading the rune more narrowly as a father’s elegy for
Will’s young son, Hamnet, who died in 1596: e.g., “that Hamnet-thought
you endless see, home, position bare, see you...” (2-3); “…th’
air [i.e., poem; archaic p = th] cannot provoke Hamnet
[Q him on, / T] hence” (8-9); and “But father-virtue
only eyes th’ heir show” (12), with for their punning
“father” and “for [soar] th’ heir.” One
pun may link Hamnet and Hamlet: “Let this sad [Late hiss said,]
‘Enter Hamlic [sic] to you’ scene be” (14). Since Hamnet
was baptized in early February 1585, one date-pun may be relevant: “The
bloody February scene ought provoke Hamnet hence; a Norse wit, Ham’t,
sire, keep. Pace” (8-9). Foison (11) puns, e.g., “sow
[saw] I son” and “so eye son.”
Figures
designating the hidden part of the poet’s “life’s
[leaf’s] composition” (3) focus on “chest” (6,
10) as both storage box—an actor’s chest, a coffin—and
heart or bosom.
By contrast,
the pun “O-scene” (14) points to a public performance in the
“wooden ‘O’,” Will’s own term (Henry
V. 13) for a round theatre such as The Globe. Thus the closing line
may mean, “Let this sad entr’acte go public.” Then,
the poet says, “my eyes would be blessed” (1), I would be
“re-cured” and would “recur”—i.e., duplicate
myself—and the Q texts would regain a state of wholeness (1-3).
Other figures also imply public compositions: “Title…empanelèd”
(4), e.g., suggests a tacked up broadside, while “ensconce”
(7) may mean, contradictorily, either “hide protectively”
or hang in open view. “Sconce” has other witty meanings that
include the head itself—and thus sense or wit. Will may also be
thinking of himself as astride either Pegasus (see Rune 46) or “beauty”s
head” (see Rune 49) and thus “ensconced.”
As
main aspects of “life’s composition,” spring
and “foison” (i.e., the harvest season) endure “oblivious
enmity” (13)—“lost contrast”—and help explain
Will’s concern with time (7, 10). The idea of “curing”
meat (3) links chests with a harvest. “To side this title is empaneled”
(4) and, later, “ensconce” (7) remark on the page position
of Sonnet 46 (which sits on the Set IV spread atop the right-side panel
of visible sonnet texts); the pun “this odd end-rhyme” (14)
points to “…Annie chest” (6) / “…my chest”
(10)--punning on “jest.”
The first
line and others illustrate the prolific punning that is universal in the
Q lines, each a phonic / alphabetic / pictographic code susceptible to
many readings. In line 1, “Howard” (How would...)
has topical links to Southampton, Will’s known patron; the form
“...(I say)...”—with its oddly italicized parentheses—puns
on “Susie” (Will’s daughter Susanna?), “Isaiah,”
and “Cecil”; and mine eyes puns “My Annie S.”
“How would, Isaiah, m’ Annie S. be Blessed Maid?” is
one of many decodings. Another (in 1-2) is “How would Susie, m’
Annie’s baby, laugh, dim-eyed beauty! Though tickles me.”
Line 5 puns, “Southy [i.e., Southampton], our bitty picture ormolu.”
And, in a sotto voce address to Will’s know printing agent Thomas
Thorpe, lines 13-14 read, “Emend, idle T.T., hiss odd, [and] end
our hymn like the ocean bay [= yelp].”
Puns
in 6-8 remark on Will’s fat wife: “The heavy Anne
odd, locked up in Annie’s heft [and] age: Anne Shakespeare [= st],
th’ ‘Hat.-i-may’ doughy, I ensconce, marry—the
bloody ass, th’ hearse Anne....” One closing pun is, “Let
hiss Satan, dreamlike, ‘Hideous Anne be’” (14).
The acrostic
(see below) seems “political.” (See below.)
Sample Puns
1) Howard, I see ye, man; …sees a leman; How wood I say
my neighs [knees] be, Blessed Maid; Isaiah; :my Annie S. be Blessed Maid?
Simon; Simeon; How would Sesame in eyes be? “Iffy” (Daffy),
m’ Annie’s baby, laughed; Hold dick easy, mine “I,”
ass be blessed made; Ol’ Daisy, my nurse, be blessed made; m’
Annie eyes “babel” sediment
1-2)
How would Susie, m’ Annie’s baby, laugh, dim-eyed beauty
2)
Butt, “I’d,” huge (hawk, hog), tickles me;
But a thought kills meated Hamnet; Hamnet thou get
2-3)
Dundee; done deal
3)
live, sick homme position, bury, cured; Untie leaves,
Composition B recurred; composition bare, see, you read; Untie Livy, his
composition bare assert; “Shun bears,” you read; see you red
3-4)
Until Livy’s composition be recorded off hide [i.e., vellum]…
4)
To fetus teat (dead), lass, imp, Anne led; berry cured tough
hide; this title is imp-annulled [the line puns on its page position “in
a side panel”: “To (the righthand) side (of the set leaf),
this title is empaneled.”]
4-5)
any lad sweeter; add, Southy, our bitty picture ormolu; “O”—reamy,
low 5 Sweeter, Betty picture, ormolu
6)
The half eye not, locked up in Annie’s heft
6-7)
Th’ heavy knot low seek t’ open, Annie’s hefty,
aging state t’ eye (t’ “I”)
7)
eye meadow aye in fecund seam here; Hat.-i-may dough I ensconce,
marry; see me, Harry
7-8)
hear Thebe-ludus pure, see a knot
8)
The below-Dis, perking; purse; Anne; pure sin; prow; oak; hawk;
hog; hymn; oakum [“picked” by convicts]; hymen; Hamon; Amen
8-9)
The bloody February’s end (scene) ought provoke Hamnet
hence
9)
row woke Hamnet, hence Anne, know hoarse wight Ham’et; Anne, no
horse, with my desire keep pace
9-10)
Thence Anne, whore, few eyed Mighty Sire, key be Pace’s;
Pace is wasted, emitted (...omitted)
10) Sue,
eye Southy, t’ eye me that keeps you; Keep Sue as Miss H.; keep
Sesames hefty
10-11) asthma-chest
speaks of the spring (speaks [speech?] disappearing); my chest speak oft,
hasp ringing, voicing oft hear; hefty is pee kissed, this peer inch ends;
use my chest, ass, pay Kiev, this Bearing gun diffuse; speak, host, aspiring;
ringing diffuse enough th’ ear
11-12)
Speak soft, hiss bearing, Anne, voicing oft hairy butt fartier
12) Southy
errs. How?
12-13) we
heard one Leicester show; Beauty sword, Howard, you only eye; Southy ire
is (iris, heiress) huge; Beauty, father virtue only, eye Southy arse hug;
F--king fitteth Anne, dull, oblivious, Amen; river tunnel ye eye
12-14) Beauty’s
sword here, weird, wan, lustier, f--king, fit death, end-all (an awl),
“O” below eyes enemy, let his Satan trim (Satan’d rhyme,
rim) lick the O; Livy, aye, O, you seem nigh
13-14)
thin dollop, Elysium in idol eddy suffered aye; Emend, idle T.T., hiss
odd, end our hymn
14) Let
this sad interim like the “O” [suggesting The Globe] scene
be; like hawk (hog, the oak) Anne be; Let this fade into rhyme; mélee
jet hawk and bee; Latticèd, I Anne “trim” like the
“O,” see Anne be; C, A, and B
Acrostic Wit
The
acrostic seems to focus at least partly on political wit. The
downward codeline—HBVTS TA TT SS BGL—e.g., suggests
such encodings as “Habits states speckle,” which translates,
“Customs [and court finery] decorate and flavor kingdoms.”
Other readings are these: “Hate [B= phonic 8] states speckle,”
“Habit sainted (cf. st; stated) is subtle,” “Ladder
bawdy is t’ T.T. s-s-subtle,” “Hated sty, T.T.-ass sate
[B=8], gull,” “Itch butt? Stat, t’ asses, ‘pickle’,”
“Habits tied asses speckle,” and “Hated Shakespeare
[=ST] t’ T.T. is his beagle (pickle).” Encoded are other phallic
plays on B=8, ATT, and asses [SS]. “Habits states speckle”
translates, “Customs [and court finery] decorate and flavor kingdoms.”
The
upward (reverse) codeline—LG BS ST TAT S T VBH—may
mean, e.g., “Large-piss Shakespeare taught ass ‘To be’,”
“Large be asses, T.T., eye ‘test tube’,” “Large,
Bess titty ate, stub,” “Legate [B=8], ass, saint taught Shakespeare
verb ‘itch,” “Large B.S., Shakespeare taught saint verbiage,”
“Large Bess [i.e., Eliz. I] Shakespeare taught (tied), Ass. (S.)
to Bitch [pronounce the ‘H’],” and “Large Bess
[&] Stated Ass [cf. James I, ‘instated’ as monarch, with
S. the ‘Stuart’ initial], divide [T+V+8] Age [H].” (The
codestring T-V-8 also suggests “deviate.”) The last reading,
as a complex,deeply encoded post-Elizabethan political comment, verges
on sedition but it typically unprovable as an intended comment. The Runes
allowed Will and his coterie the chance for such banter, with impunity,
in an era when speech was not free.
“Habit”
(down code HBVT) is a clue to “saint” (both ways).
The code element ST ( = saint) is also a form of the conventional
“Shakespeare cipher,” based on the lower-case digraph st,
a pictograph in which “long s” effectively “shakes”
a spear-like t, as it were, by the handle.
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