Rune 14

     To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee,
     And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold,
     Die single—and thine image dies with thee
 4  Which usèd lives, th’ executor to be:
     Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
     To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir—
     Unlooked on, diced unless thou get a son—
 8  Sings this to thee: Thou single wilt prove none,
     That on himself such murd’rous shame commits!
     That beauty still may live in thine or thee,
     Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
12 Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.
     You had a father. Let your son say so.
     Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.
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      Glosses: 1) eat = taste; due = recompense; To eat puns on 2-8—i.e., 28, the number of sonnets and runes now being wrapped up in Set I; 2) see...blood warm = feel anger; 5) Leese = Lose; their (ambig.) = death’s and your, the world’s (see 1); pun: “th’ heir”; 7) diced (Q diest) = punningly, cut up into little pieces; also, “[thou] diest!”; get = beget; 10) That = So that; 11) copy = pattern, text source; 12) to brave him = to face death (see 6), to ennoble your son (see 13).

        These reassembled end-lines from Sonnets 1-14 recap the theme of Set I: The beautiful auditor should sire offspring. Puns in this address suggest that Susannah Shakespeare Hall, plausibly “Sue,” is a primary muse: “Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die, / Sue. Breed. Too-brave Hamnet eggs thee hence. / You had a father, let your son say so. / Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date ” (11-14). As elsewhere, the listener may also be a man—or Q itself, which, “dyed [i.e., inked, printed] singly,” will bury half its texts.

        Belatedly by four centuries, we follow Will’s directive here as we “print more,” reviving the Sonnets’ mirror “image” (3), the Runes, which until now have lain in Q as “dead copy” (cf. 11).

          Concurrently the pun “Print More, [don’t] let that copy die” (11), perhaps aimed at Will’s printing agent Thomas Thorpe, reminds us that Will’s 3-pp. collaborative portion of the Play of Sir Thomas More—whose ms. houses our only full handwriting sample—had still not been published in 1609 (see E.M.Thompson’s Shakespeare’s Handwriting, Clarendon, 1916).

           This poem about oncoming death mixes jargon about printing and wills with musical terms and puns: “graven ditty,” “To-whit,” and “ground [= bass]” (1); “dye” (3, 7, 11); “dicing glee endeth” (3); “Leaf” (5); “Sings this [text] to thee” (8); “the tony missal see” (9); “Saw [a saying] be read, too [...bred two]” (12); and “a fatter ledger sounds aye” (13). What the poem “sings” (8-14) is like a warning anthem, and “doom and date” (14) are like epitaphs for Truth and Beauty--a linked couple loosely parallel to the coarse Runes and “prettier” Sonnets.

           Both the first and last lines pun on 28, the total number of texts in Set I, now ending: “To eate...” in line 1 puns “2-8.” Line 14 puns “The end is truth’s, and [em]bodies ‘Deux [i.e., 2] meaned [i.e., signified, portended] 8’.” Line 1 also puns “2-8, the world’s 2 x 8...” and “[No.] 28 [i.e., the 28th text in Set I] the world’s due, a bitty graven ditty,” varied as “...bi-thick rune [rown, round] did [dyed] he.” A “bi-thick rune” decodes as an “overlaid puzzle”—i.e., Sonnets/Runes. Since “yt” in line 1 seems to encode “8,” the acrostic codeline may also spell out 2 (TV = TU) and 8 (YT). The full codeline, TA DWL TV STTT S YT, suggests “Tie dual: 2 stat. [cf. L. statum, ‘at once’] is 8.” The 28 Sonnets/Runes in Set I, linked doublets, are a “tie dual.”

          One pun in line 8 is “Thetis [Achilles’ mother] in glee willed th’ [p = th] Rune 1.” (Lines 1 and 8 both pun on “rune.”) Other coy wit about the Runegame occurs amid talk of printing and documents, of not “proofing” and of things “diced.” “Dicing,” checked patterns on gameboards and bindings, is germane to an acrostic game that uses “rows.”

          Incidental wit about food starts with “To eat...” (1) and ends with “...date” (14), a sweet (cf. 5) not usually diced (cf. 7) or wilted (8). The text salts away other puns including “thick, raw viand” (1), “Leaf, butter—food here [fodder],” (5), and “m’ whore noodle et” (11). Plays about war include “see thy bloody war” and “army win” (2); death in single combat (3, 8); “conquest”; “war ms.” (6); “murderous shame” (9); “brave” (12); “fey foe” (13); and “doom and date” (14).

          Amid concern about death, “saving breed,” and Father and Son, a play on “Hamnet”—Will’s only son (d. 1596)—in Q’s him, when he t… (12) puns, “Ham, we need a kiss.” (Sue, Ham, and Judy recur as shorts for Will’s children’s names.) Q’s fhow,their (5) puns on “father.”

           Likely wit about Southy (i.e., Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton) includes the initial alignments Saue.../You.../Thy (12-14) and S/V/T/L/Wh…(8-4, cf. “Subtle W.H.”); nautical plays including “jettison sinks this” (7-8) and “prow none” (8) may joke about his naval background. Routine plays occur on “nun” (8), masturbation (e.g., 8, 9), “wilt,” “die,” and “Moor.” Q’s such (e.g., 9) is always a bawdy eyepun. The pun “merde rows” (9) likens Q’s lines to dunghills. (Merd is also an English word.)

Sample Puns

Acrostic Wit

          The downward acrostic codeline—TADW LT VS TT TS YT—suggests such decodings, e.g., as “Today let us T.T. tease yet,” “Tight-willed verse to T.T. sighed,” “Tad willed t’ use titties wide (white),” “T’ A.D.-well dusty ’tis yet,” “T’ a duel? (T’ O’Donnell?) To Southy? Decide,” and “Tad [snippet of text] will two, Shakespeare, T.T. cite.”

           The upward codeline—TYS TT TS VTL WDA T—suggests, e.g., “Teased T.T. Sue till wedded,” “’Tasty T.T., subtle, waited,” “Teased, T.T.’s vital, wet 8 [inches],” “Tea—yes, tea, tea, tea—Sue diluted,” “Teased T.T. Southy lauded (…Sue deluded),” “’Tie ass, T.T., t’ subtle, wet 8,” “Tasty T.T. Sue t’ Hall [Hell] wedded,” “’Tis titties, subtle, weighted (wedded),” “Tasty teas victual wedded,” and “Tad [fragment] willed to Southy sight.”

          Readings in either direction (like the initial ones above for the downward code) might focus on the T.T. of Q’s frontmatter, Thomas Thorpe, Will’s printing agent. The upward code, e.g., suggests “Thos. T., T.T., is vital, wedded (...utile, witty T.)” The letterstring YT encodes “witty,” “wide,” “white,” and Wyatt, Will’s sonneteering predecessor.