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Comments
Again
the poet addresses the childless muse, here clearly male, and—as
elsewhere in Set I—makes the case for procreation.
Two processions, a life in motion and a funeral train, dominate the imagery.
In his progress through life, the self-attended friend could increase
his entourage by siring offspring (8-10) who would also swell his death
procession (11-13). The snow-peaked mountain (5) that vaguely paints both
a setting and lofty destination also symbolizes the friend in his old
age and death (5, 12). “So great a sum of sums” (4) suggests
the muse’s “loftiness.” “Golden” (7) describes
his sunstrewn path while he is still at his peak—and contrasts with
“o’ersnowed” (5). Similarly, cruell in 1—which
denotes “curly” and implies youthful locks—foils “white
and bristly beard” (12).
The numerous details that sketch out this “pilgrimage”
(7) include “stop” (3); “Attending on” (7); “repair”
(10, as “turn back”); the pun “make the world a way”
(11); “find” (14); and various plays on “bear” (5,
8, 12, 13). The image of a litter-borne personage in a retinue gets comically
reinforced in the deep pun “see heaved Sire” (in chiefe
desire, Q10). Other terms and puns imply music, processional songs
or hymns of tribute: e.g., “praise” (2); “low to stop”
(3); “dinned be air” (5); “happier beat” (6); and
“the parts that thou shouldst bear” (8). (To “carry
the burden” in music is to “sing the bass.”) More “strained”
musical puns include “hearse band’s fey paean, m’ end”
(9); “hold beat, high C” (10); and “sweet F” (13).
Congruent with this “musical” focus is a numeric motif: e.g.,
“thriftless” (2); “…sum of sums” (4); “ten
times” and “ten for one” (6), with a hidden sense that
the ten syllables per line “unite in procession.” Other numeric
details include “singleness” and “parts” (8); the
pun “re-pair” (10), which routinely puns in Q on patching together
the Runes; “threescore” (11); and the buried metaphor of an
“issued” coin embossed with the friend’s “form”
(13—see “golden” [7]). Too, each of four B’s in the
vertical capital-letter acrostic (which opens with TWO. . .) puns visually
on 8, the rune number. One decoding of this “numeric” acrostic,
with B = phonic 8, is this: “To sight zero [i.e., ‘see nothing],
ape, wait, wait” (Code: TWO S8 O AIB WA8 W8).
Bawdy
humor includes jokes about hair “o’ersnowed” with
ejaculate (5, 12) and about oral sex (e.g., “awl-eating shame”
[2]). Other wit suggests self-abuse (1, 3, 12); body parts (8-10) needing
“assemblage”; phallic size (4, 7); phallic “I’s”
(9, 14); “knots” (4); seminal “issue,” and “sweaty
sewers, witty forms” (13).
Other puns include, e.g., “th’ race car ye are would make thee
whirled away!” and “Anne, threescore year, would make [i.e.,
mate] thee. . .” (11). The pun “et [= and = Anne] Hurled-away”
varies Anne’s name. “World” suggests The Globe. “Repair”
(10) reiterates “mend” (pun, 9).
As
a personal lament, the rune may show the poet contemplating his
own “singleness,” his theatrical “parts,” his neglect
of parental duty (8), the way his children must see him as “her husband”
and a “shape in mind” (9). He thinks of how he ought to go home
and make reparations (10), pass a peaceful old age (11-12) and perhaps
watch his grandchildren (13)—and of how he plans to, someday (14).
“Sweet issue” (13) applies both to the poet’s writings
and his children, while “beard” (12) puns on Bard.
Sample Puns
1) Thistle see, this “O-8” [i.e., Rune 8]
ode is witty; cell see, too cruel
1-2)
Cruel were Anne, awl-eating
2)
We rune; Were Anne a laddie, inches amended her “I-less” praise;
famine; Hamnet there I fit (set, fed); amend th’ wry fit [stanza],
laugh, peers
3)
cf. “playing a pipe” (phallic); oft heard, “Why?”
4)
Sue greet, a sum of sums; wide (= yet) see Anne Shakespeare,
not loo
5)
Bawdy whores; an ass, you roar
5-6)
you, Harry, are ten times happier beaten, sore, wan
6-8)
sore one, attending [Dr.] John, his golden pill grim again essential
in ass, th’ part Southy, T.T. house, holed is it, bare
8-9)
John single, an ass, departs t’ Hathaway’s hall,
dusty, bare; [body] parts…thou should’st bare; thou, S. Hall
Shakespeare [= st] be eerie (…here)
9)
Bitch, I let her in; Bitch ill I’d rune; eyes cf. phallic
“I’s”
9-10)
Caesar, you ass (use), be Anne’s fop, enemy, night witch
10)
Witch tore peer, foaled Betty; Witch, to rip air, fooled Bede;
S. Hall, Betty see
10-11)
be this heavy desire, Anne, threescore year, wood [crazy] make, t’
you “Hurled-away”
11) Anne,
threescore-year-old make [mate],… [Hath]away
11-12) t’ you, Earl, “dewy” be “horn”
12)
Born; Bare, rude-hued Anne, debris [i]s t’ Libbie art
12-13) witty
Anne, bristly Bard, When your sweet issue your sweet form S. Hall bear
13) W.,
Hen, your feud (foot, foot) is azure, sweet, sore mess, holed, bare
14) that “I” (phallic) in heaven sinned; biased “pre-dick,”
that “I” in you, an ass, end
Acrostic Wit
The
downward acrostic codeline—TWO S BOA I B WA B WB—suggests,
e.g., “Twist, boa, I be webby web,” “Two-ass boa I ate.
Why? A baby,” “Two-ass baby, wipe, wipe,” “Two-ass
baby weigh, bewipe,” “Toss baby, baby, baby [generated from
overlaid codestrings],” “Two sob, wipe, wipe, wipe,”
and “Two-ass boy (beau) I eye, boy bewipe (baby whip).”
Potential
readings of the upward codeline—BW BAW BIAO B SOWT—include,
e.g., “By W. Boy Boy be sought,” “Be W.-bow [phallic?]
boy-besought,” “…boy be sot,” “Baby I wipe,
I owe [acknowledge] Bess-ode,” “Boy, boy, boy be sowed (sought),”
and “Be W. boy by ape besought.” Also: For “boy,”
substitute “boa” (ME, from L.).
The rune’s capacity to reiterate “baby,” “boy,”
“boa,” and web / wipe / whip by TWOS (and threes, in overlaid
forms) is a main witty feature. Capital Bs play routinely on 8s, with
phallic suggestiveness. The suggestion of the surname Boys may be a topical
allusion.
The
commentary above discusses some other numeric potentialities
in the acrostic letterstring.
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