|
Comments
Continuing the
main theme of Set I, the need for beauty to procreate, this quietly
rational lyric gives that advice to the poet’s unnamed muse. The
tone contrasts with Rune 10, with its frantic imagery.
Superficially, Rune 11
is the summary account and familiar argument it claims to be (2). But
the text is not ingenuous. If, as elsewhere in Q, the listener is male,
then the metaphor “bud” (1)—with strongly sexual innuendo—degrades
his dormant equipment, which could “flower” (while ironically
“deflowering”) into beautiful offspring. The “endowment”
line (11), punning on “...the Moor,” may be an old, stereotypical
joke about African males. Line 2 jokes about an apologetic “tally.”
“Beauty’s waste” (9) may mean unfruitful sex. Scatological
wit in “Nature calls” (4) forces new meanings onto line 1.
If “Shall”
(2; cf. 3, 6,14) encodes “S[ue] Hall,” Will’s daughter,
then “bud” may work as a metaphor for a woman’s
potential to “flower” into motherhood. “Content” (1),
“count” (2) and “con-verted” (7) encode conventional
wit about “country matters,” as Hamlet puts it (3.2.123).
Concurrent
puns are about the Runegame. “Bud” suggests “latent
rose [a pun on ‘rows’]” and objectifies Q’s potential
for textual “unfolding.” Talk of numeric tallies (as if in columns)
and of creating the poet’s “old X-queues” (2) may allude
to the traditional acrostic “numbers” game, demeaning it. Similarly
teasing are the epithet “runes [Q rough windowes] of thine
age” (3), plausible “runes of th’ neige [French ‘snow’],”
and the variable pun “beauty’s S-sect ” (5). Too, the text
accumulates doublets whose elements “thrive together” as quiet
analogies with the linked Sonnets/Runes: e.g., “sum…and make,”
“Beauty’s effect with beauty,” “sire and child,”
“gracious and kind,” “sweets and beauties,” and “truth
and beauty.”
A closely related motif
is about linkage and separation: e.g., “sum”; “make”
(i.e., mate); “excuse” (2), suggesting “leave”; “beauty’s
effect with beauty”; “bereft” (5); “depart”
(6); “Re[as]sembling...” (8); “presence” (10); “forsake”
(12); “Against” (13); and “together” (14). A “vision”
motif includes “windows,” “see” (3), “eyes”
(7), “th’ eye” (pun 10), “resembling” (8), and
“Look” (11).
Other
crafty plays add texture. Line 8 puns “reassembling fire
and chill.” “Pre-sense” (10) plays against “Sense”
(12). “Sewing” figures—in a knotty warp-and-woof—include
“dot hem” (12); “my cameo, Lady X, cuff / sew thou”
(2-3); “wear, barest, the new hat” (5); and “waist”
(9). “Stormy gusts” (13) points back to the pun “th’
rough wind” (3).
A
coterie reference to the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley,
may lie in the pun “My Count shall sum and ma[t]e my old X-queues”
(2)—i.e., “…add up and re-connect my time-honored acrostic
lines.” Because “Wriothesley” itself (pronounced “Risley,”
more or less) punned on “Rose-ly,” the word “bud”
(1) plays on the name, as do all the “Rose/Rows” figures in
Q. Subtextual letterstrings that pun on “W.H.”and “Rizzy”
include u riestthy (1, cf. “you, Rizzy”);
wh ennat u reca (4, cf. “W.H. innate, you,
Rizzy”); and nhow ‘wh ennat,’ ure call, sthee
to, beg one (4, cf. “Now [In ‘O’...] ‘W.H.
innate,’ your call, ‘Southy’ too, Big One”). The
phallic play “Be as thy [beasty] pee, Rizzy, inches gracious and
kind” (10) is also in the line.
Suggestive
plays on “Anne/end” permeate 8-10. Amid this deeply
buried Anne-wit, the pun “reassembling sire, Anne, child...”
(8) depicts a reunited family in the poet’s own household. Underlying
Set I is the biographical irony that Will himself has forsaken his own
family duties and that his advice may be partly self-directed. The pun
“S[ue] Hall, sum my count and make a mild excuse” ( 2) jokes
about the poet’s “numbers game” and its “errors.”
Lines 11-12 house puns on Will’s twins, Judith (“she, gaue
t...,” cf. “...Judy”) and Hamnet (hem-s,
cf. “Ham. S.”). The letterstring “gaue the more;
/ Since...” (11-12) encodes “Judy/Ham, arising, see...”
and “Judy-Ham orison [prayer] see....” “Gone” (4)
puns on “John” [son-in-law Hall?].
Sample Puns
1)
Witty, jaunty Annie on butt, bury Shakespeare thy cunt-end; bud
cf. rose, “rows”; Witty knight, aye known. Be you débris,
Shakespeare [=st]; Witty John, thy noun—“butt”—buries
T.T., aye content
1-2)
thick Anne tend, S. Hall, Sue; thick Anne tends Hall, Sue...
2) S. Hall, Sue, my cunt Anne, make [i.e., mate], my
old excuse; my old X-queues
3)
Sue; Southy, the rune does oft hie [i.e., escape]
3-4)
S. Hall ’tis Eden honed; oft eye neige fall,’tis
Eden
4)
Hen., O, W., Hen., nature calls thee “Top John”;
to be John
5)
Bawdy is a sect witty, bawdy W., Harry, bare is (tee!)
6)
The new Hat., Cold Death, dusty household stayed apart; staid
ape-art; cold death do eye, if thou, S. Hall, dost dip hard
7)
This Caesar do choose
8)
Our simple “I” inches higher, ends held (hell’d) and
happy m’ odor (…oather); Anne dab (dip, dub), pay m’
oather
9)
Butt, bawdy ass, was Shakespeare, hating the world; hath
cf. Hathaway
9-11)
you, Earl, Dane end, beast, high priest, in sighs gray show us Anne, dick
in d’ loo
10)
Bess, thy presence is gracious and kind; Beasty presence eye, succor seize,
Anne-kind; in seas gray, see joust unkind
11)
Loo-queue hums (hommes), Hebe fit in, daughter of He-Jove,
the Moor; beast; Moor (phallic); daffy Judy hymn o’er
11-12)
beast-endowed, she gave the Moor his inches (we tease)…
12)
Sin (Sign) see of wet-ass Anne débuted; Ass, John, see
sweetest end, début, just autumn of elves; sweet S. (ass),
Anne
12-13) Four
f--k a gay Anne Shakespeare, th’ fit whore, my Jew-Shakespeare soft.
When? Thursday
14)
Ashtaroth [Baal’s consort, fertility goddess] Anne, Beauty
S. Hall, together thrive (…there I view); As truth and beauty fall,
toga—there to here—I have; toga’d hard, hairy V; took
Ed hard, hairy ewe
Acrostic Wit
The
acrostic codeline houses not only “W.S.” (and ST, the
family name cipher) but also suggests Betty or “bitty” (code
BTT), Elisa or Lisa (LSAA), and “baby” (BB). These converge
to point toward hidden wit about Elizabeth Hall, Will’s granddaughter,
born 21 February 1608.
The string “TT” always suggests Thomas Thorpe, Will’s printing
agent, whose name appears as “T.T.” on Q’s title and dedication
pages.
The downward acrostic
codeline—WSST BTT R BB LSA A—thus offers such potential
readings as “Weest Betty, our baby lassie (Lisa), eye,” “Weest
Betty, our baby Elisa, eye” (with variants “Wisest,” “West,”
“Saint,” “bitty,” “Lisa,” and lassie”),
and “W.S.’s ‘To be...” T[homas] T[horpe]—or
baby—[wi]ll say aye.” Other potentialities varying similar
themes include “Wise St. Betty, her babbles aye eye (her babble
say; her ‘babel’ sigh),” “Wise St. Betty, our
Baby Eliza (Lisa),” “‘Was Shakespeare bitter?’
be Babel-sigh,” “W.S.’s ‘To be…,’
T.T., our babble, say,” “Wise saint be T.T., our babble say
aye,” “Wise St. T.T. ribald is aye,”and “W.S.,
ass tup, T.T. or baby lazy (…Eliza, Lisa).” “Trouble”
and “treble/triple” are possible variants here.
The
upward reverse code—A AS L B BRT T BT SSW—may
be read, e.g., “Aye ass’ll be bred t’ bite Sue [pictographic
‘asses’ teeth: SS VV],” “‘Aye, aye’s,’
liberty be t’ SSW,” “Asses’ liberty to bits [pur]sue,”
and “Ass-lip arty (red) bit Sue.”
|
