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In
Rune 118 Will reassures his unnamed muse—calling him ideal
and permanent and imagining a scenario in which he saves the friend from
“loss.” Though frilly figurative analogies seem devious and
inadequate (1-3), and though the poet’s life is full of unpleasantness
(5-6), he also sees writing (i.e., the Q project) as exciting sport (9)
that admits a chance of heroism (13-14).
Imagery
here seems helter-skelter but focuses partly on time. The puns
“tempus sand” and “shaken” (4) define
an hourglass, and “Will pluck thee back” (14) shows the poet-hero
turning the glass over to admit a fresh start. In fact, the cryptic “shape”
mentioned in 1 may be the distinctive profile of an hourglass—one
“answer” (of many) to the riddle here.
Other
image clusters are about religion, economics, and cards and gaming.
Contrasting with “celestial” and religious diction are, e.g.,
“creep,” “bitter sauces,” and “hell.”
A buried, ironic allusion to the Crucifixion lurks in such details as
“suffers not” and “much rent” (13), that is, quite
torn apart—like Christ’s garment, and like the Q texts, seamless
but paradoxically rent into Sonnets and Runes.
Though Will
admonishes the muse to persist (10) and sees his attributes as immutable
(11-12), “foist” has negative implications, and Will finally
admits that the profligate friend may run out of capital (13-14). The
language of economics is pervasive: e.g., lack, given, purchased,
buy, subsist, lose, paying, and rent. Such terms link with
a buried allusion to cardplaying and gaming that’s detailed in plays
on cardlike decorations (1-2), “Jack” (1), “Kings”
(3), “Ace,” “passed” (8),” “sportive
blood” (9), “Witch it [the deck?] doth lack” (1), “foist”
(11, a dicing term), “falls” (12); “Lose” (13),
and “pluck the back” (14).
Even
the acrostic code may be read as a gaming pun: e.g., “O’s
[i.e., ‘snake-eyes’] see, a loaded die [= tat (OED
1688), code TAT] t’ wage you I lay.” A “dodge”
(code TWAGH, also ‘t’ wage’) is a shifty trick. (See
Acrostic Wit, below.)
These
samples of encoded puns (with some codes spelled out) illustrate
the cornucopic potentialities in Will’s carefully calculated letterstrings:
1) Bardolph;
2) azure; Reubens; hairpins (Q herubines); Caesar is humble,
“Caesar” assemble (Q se[I]sere s emble,);
3) rows; Towsend, Davison (Q t vowes,and), perhaps topical
plays;
5) Angevin; Tommy, “Grenada” eye (Q time yourownede
a), with a “misspelling” that cries out for “editing”
by Thomas Thorpe, the “T.T.” of Q’s frontmatter; “Tommy,
you runed, [and] I reproach as dear aide...” (Q time you
rownede a repurch as’ dr ight,); poor jester (...Chester)
eyed (Q pur chas’dr ight); Oedipus half deride (Q
edearepurc ha[f]’ dright);
7) Hathaway jetted seas subtle, fed in ewer (Q hathth-o-[v] ghtit
se[i]se soble [ff]ed n euer);
8-9) He’ll oft eye Magus’ “awl” (...eye Magis
all) (Q hell ofT i me,Giues al); Hall, you Titan tome
give Portia (Q al u tation tom y[f] portiue); poor Tybalt
odes I see (Q por tiuebl ood?Haue[s] a c); and
14) aye Southy goest onward; you seek the Bacchae; you seek Thebes quay
(Q u cke theebac ke,).
See below
for other expansions of puns in the lettercode lines.
Q’s
visually insistent gaps bracketing the comma in 8 link with a
nameplay on “Tommy” (Q Time) to encode a typical
collaborative joke executed by the poet through his known printing agent,
Thomas Thorpe, who signs as “T.T.” on Q’s title page.
One pun here suggests that Will is “painting a picture” of
T.T. for their buyer/readers: “Never a sigh, buyers: Ye have (halve...)
pastel of Tommy.” The “pastel” in 8, a miniature typographic
pictograph, suggests a cherub’s rear-end (see 2). The derogatory
link between “Tommy” with “Jew” (here in 8-9,
...Time, / Giue...) is recurrent: Will razzes his entrepreneurial
printer friend over his penny-pinching.
Sample Puns
1)
Of Bard; Oaf Bardolph, ass low, rear’s happy, W.H. aye
shitted oath, alack; fop; whore is happy witch; Awes Bard—oft slurrer—if
happy witch, “I’d,” doth jack; a pew high shitteth Jack
1-2) kiss
you Caesar; kiss huge Aruban ass, azure (a sour-sweet cell); rear of a
puked oat Jack sucks; kiss you cheese here; Jack sucks Harry, buying (baying)
ass; Jack sucks her, you be Annie’s ass
2) Reubens’
azure sweet see; Suck his hairpins as your sweets, liver assemble (a symbol);
be aye in ass azure if you eat (“8”) cell of Ralph
3) See
rapine to eye; [set] XII we sent, changed a series o’ f--kings;
acres; “dicker,” ease O, f--king ass; See raping twigs, thousands
hanged; Towsend see hang, degrees of kin guess; pain tweaks Davison [see
Akrigg 138], see, hanged he
3-4)
In two, I “X’d” voice; Southy tail, “O,”
kiss; Kings thought Luke a saint, maybe; saint changed Creusa, seeking
Southy
4)
eye sinner f--king
4-5)
saint, eye sinner shaking Anne; ’tis Anne, designer of a keen end
(...of aching)
5) Tommy
“Grenada” [Q yourownedea, “misspelled”
and needing editing] repairs; Angevin toad eye, mirroring a deer (Adair);
rite,Tommy, you rune; I mirror nadir, pure, chaste rite; poor Chester
eyed; Oedipus half deride
5-6)
a satyr, I get up, eye terrace, a wise ass, die
6) obit
tears a wise ass; forces, voices; Too bitter sauces, died I, fair Amos
heeding; Titus or Amos heed; O, bitter Sue sees deed I frame, ms. heeding;
aye disarray maims Ed
6-8)
seeding Jew’ll state Hathaway jetted cells so blessed in ewer (in
your ass)
7) see
foe bless dinner
7-8)
Satan erase I; haughty, tough elf, sob less, Ed, in ewer; recipe you receive
8) buyer,
shave Pa’s tail; buyer, save pastel of Tommy; Pa, fiddle esteem;
eye Hellas, Tommy; Eye Siberias…; A sigh, buyers… [pictographic
caesura] ye have, paste, a hell of time [suggesting wretched meter]; as
a buyer, ass, ye half pay Shakespeare, aye [I], half Tommy!
8-9)
lost, eye Magi’s awl; Magus; Tommy, give salutation to my sportive
blood [i.e., Thorpe, write me a preface—Q’s dedication page
is signed “T.T.”]; Jew’s awl you tied, aye, onto miss
poor, too bloody; eye my Jew’s awl you tied John to
9)
Jews eluded John; Jew saluted…; I shun Tommy’s port; Jew,
Saul, you’d eye; you Titan Tommy sparred
9-10)
poor Tybalt odes I see; miss poor to eye, feeble, odd, half sick, you’ll
tie; sportive be ludus aye
10) Half-fecal
Tibi; Half-ass, a cul type in, add your toes (typing a turd);
shackled; half-shekel
10-11) is
twat out oft? Half say guilty be y’ nature, tough you be—fist
twat, thou dost
11) hoist
tup on you, stated Isolde; fit o’ Pontius t’ Hat I sold
11-12) stat
eye Saul die
12) banner
falls
11-13) Hat.
assaulted Sue, if her snot ends my line cheap, homme-pain or
faults, love, Hall, Anne the more by paying too much rent; W.H, eye T.T.,
who dost foist upon us that I sold, it is user-snot in smiling pomp (an
arse Hall is), level and more (lose, Hall and Moor), be ye paying Thomas
our end (rent)
12-13) false
Lovell end
13) Love Hall,
Anne demure; Love awl-end, Moor; Lowell eye in dim Araby
13-14) eying
Thomas, here end a stalk [phallic], often warty
14) Aye Southy
goest onwards, Shakespeare ill; eye stoic Afton weird; As thou Jew stone,
words still…; seek Thebes’ key (quay); ghost-tone [that] words
fiddle Will plucked; Will plus Kitty be ache; lucky (you seek) the Bacchae;
words still Willobie, look to Hebe’s key; Luke; fiddle
will the lucky Oedipus
Acrostic Wit
The
downward acrostic codeline—OS CTAT WAG HW IL A—suggests
such readings as these: “Host-seeded wag you allay,” “Host
sated wag, you I lay,” “O, sated wag, Will, eye,” “O,
seated (seeded) wag, Will eye (Willy),” “…jewel eye,”
“O, scat! A dog you’ll eye,” “Hosted, we Jew ill
eye,” “Host cat ate whale. Aye!” “Housecat ate
whale eye (...Willy),” “O, scat [i.e., tax] ate wage o’
Willy,” and “O-scat [i.e., rune-tax]….”
The little
encoded couplet “O scattered way, / Jew I lay [jewel aye, Jew ill
aye (…allay)]” evokes the Via Dolorosa scenario.
The
upward (reverse) codeline—A LIWHG AWT A TC SO—encodes
such potential meanings as these: “Ah, liege, ought I tease so?”
“All eye W.H., God at sea. So?” “A loo-itch got I (A
loo gaudy...), ’tis so,” “Awl-itch got I to see Sue,”
“A loo-ladder [=H] got I to see-saw,” “Allege a wit,
aye ’tis so,” “Holy witch, oddity seize, O,” “Halloway
got a tick, so,” “Alloway God aye teases, O,” “Alloway
audit see, Sue,” “Ail you jaw, titties, O,” “A
loo-Jew to tease so,” “A lay W.H. got at sea, so…,”
and/or “Awl I W.H., good at see-saw [i.e., sex].”
The
down/up hairpin code suggests, e.g., “Hosted, we Jew Ill eye—a
low Jew t’ tease, O,” “Host seated wiggly Luigi…,”
and “O-sated wag Willy Luigi would aye tease so.” “Hosted”
suggests the sacraments, and “Jew Ill” is a mild sacrilege
suggesting Christ.
Q’s recurrent form giue (for
“give”) in the linear text always encodes “Jew”
and suggests Judy, Will’s daughter.
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