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Comments
While some first-line
texts in the 11 sets of Q seem predictably easier than the others,
this allusive textual assemblage may leave us floundering. Its riddlic
nature illustrates a tendency of many of the Runes to press a reader/play
to “solve” the text.
Sonnets editor Stephen Booth
notes that an engraving printed by Henrie Denham in The Newe Jewell
of Health (1576) depicts Alchymya (i.e., Alchemy) holding an alembic—a
“still” for transmuting things. Booth thinks that this print
may be on the poet’s mind when Will puns here about his “tongue-tied
Muse” who “in manners holds her still.” Elsewhere,
in Sonnet 119.2, Shakespeare speaks of Lymbecks—i.e., “alembics.”
Denham’s Alchemy—who does look “mute” and perhaps
“mannered”—appears in front of a ledge-like railing
before an open sky as if she might be onboard ship, with windy clouds
behind her, and a sun and moon that might suggest contrasting seasons
(see 13-14). Thus the suggestions (in 1-4) of setting sail—and even
the pun on “some salt” in 5, echoed in 3, 12—may all
take their cues from this illustration.
As Booth also notes,
alchemy and medicine overlapped in Will’s day. I deduce,
then, that the coy alchemical allusion may be aimed partly at Dr. John
Hall, the poet’s literate son-in-law, a physician. Further, the
nautical diction might have been conceived with the idea in mind
of perking up the ears of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton,
Will’s only known literary patron and a man with naval experience.
In any case, main image clusters
here are about sailing—starting with toung-tide (1), a strained
pun on “two-inch tide”—and about archery.
The poem makes new
starts at lines 7 (which echoes line 1 by rhyming with it) and
12. Lines 13-14 are somewhat like a couplet close to a this blank verse
sonnet.
Will’s apostrophe (i.e.,
a verse address to an abstract or absent auditor) is both to “great
verse” and to the unnamed, absent friend, identified through metonymy
with poetry because he (or she?) is its inspiring “Muse” (1).
(The gender of the muse seems an issue in 1-2, where her and
his seem in conflict. Such vague pronouns are typical of the
runic genre as Q exemplifies it.) The diction of the poem keeps a self-conscious
focus on the theme of separation between poet and muse: Terms in the poem
include “Farewell” (3); “set me light” (4); “forsake
me” (5); “steal thyself away” (8); “the shame”
(11), a reference to the friend’s departure; “thy fault”
(12, see 5), with a pun on “division” or gap; and “absence”
and “absent” (13-14).
This mist-shrouded
scene, I believe, is meant to sketch a poet left stranded on
the shore (if not thrown overboard in the harbor) as a bark called Great
Verse puts out to sea; the first part of the poem, especially, insists
on the conceit of seagoing. A figurative metonymy not beyond Will’s
range of wit is the pun “thou didst forsake me for foam salty (...some
salt)” (5), meaning either salty water or, just possibly, a sailor
(salt = sailor OED 1840). The poem ties the friend to the image of the
departing Ship of Verse, with its “proud full sail” (2), using
such a complement of language as “glory” (7), “true”
(9), “power” (10), “sweet and lovely” (11)—and
“wantonness” (12), which might be like a fickle wind. Covertly,
Q’s terms fome wantonesse (12; cf. “...wa-n-to-n-esse”)
embeds the “nautical” directive “Foam[y], weigh into
Anne S. (...an ass)!” And even the business of “winter”
and “spring” (13-14) may have to do with seasonal winds.
Another scenario that grows
from an allusion to Artemis (Diana)—that bow-equipped goddess of
the hunt—invites us to consider the poet’s departure as an
arrow shaft speeding from its bow. “Proud full sail” (2) in
this sense means the full arc of a well-shot arrow, and “disbowed
[Q dispode] to set me light” (4) likens Will himself to
a shot arrow. As an arcing “arrow,” the poet later might land
in “some fault” (5). “Wilt” (6) punningly suggests
drooping feathers; “berth” (as “sheath”) and “skill”
(7) set up a dichotomy between the sheathed and the shot shaft; the further
puns “th’ arrow berth” and “th’ air skill”
intrude; the pun “steel thyself away” (8) is congruent with
the image of an arrow being shot; “true” (9) implies “on
target”; and “have power to hurt” (10) fits a weapon.
The strongest (if slyest)
clue that the poet’s riddle alludes to bow-shooting lies
in the fact that “absent” (13, 14) puns on “absinthe,”
which is wormwood or Artemisia (OED 1548): Artemis is Diana the
huntress, whose enduring stereotype shows her “in the spring”
(see 14 here) bathing, when luckless Actaeon happens upon her. “Eye
bene Absinthe in the spring” thus puns, “Note well
Diana in her bath,” underscoring the allusion. Other details tied
to the bathing incident include being tongue-tied (1); “stealing
oneself away” (8); “having power to hurt” (10); and
the phrase “sweet and lovely…shame” (11). “Absinthe
in the spring” also jokes about bitter water.
The bladder- and organ-shaped
alembics in Denham’s engraving are ripe with broad implications.
And a shot arrow is at root a phallic conceit.
The Q texts often
seem to play with various forms of the name of the patron Henry Wriothesley,
the Earl of Southampton, plausibly Southy and Harry. (Southampton is one
candidate for the slot of “Mr. W.H.,” a name that occurs in
Q’s puzzling dedication, signed “T.T.”) Several initial
clusters here encode “Southy”—e.g., SAy tha
(5), SO... / THey (9-10), and SO... / HO[w]...
/ TH[ey] (12-10, up)—while even more covert plays on “Wriothesley”
(pronounced something like “Rozley” or “Rizley”)
occur in the second column vertical string (3-9) and its intersection
with the first four words of line 9 to form rAVAHOV / SO shall
I liue. Too, the second vertical column (14-9) read upward from
the bottom to the same intersection generates ROOOH / O shall I
liue....
More “direct”
jokes aimed at Southy include the plays “Weigh, Southy,
proud full sail” (2), “Foamy Southy’s old, his youth
foam(y),” (12) and “thou didst forsake me for some salt [i.e.,
a sailor?]” (5).
Several
initial “SO’s” concurrently may signal plays on “Sue,”
Susanna, Mrs. John Hall. Examples include “Sue may glory in th’
heir-birth” (7) and “Sue, S. Hall, eye, [a]live, Sue...”
(9).
Sample Puns
1)
Mighty “O,” you in jet eyed; muffin man arse-holed
is, hearsed ill; muffed; John (join) m’ Anne, arse holed, share
ass, till; you Seine may near, shoaled sheriff
1-2)
loose, eye titty, help her out; loose Southy period, full of ale’s
high, secret verve
2)
We sight the parodies, you’ll fail; Waist; Waste; Weigh, Southy,
proud full sail; office; great war (were, weir) see; peer owed fool Phyllis
his great verve
2-3) greedy,
visceral thou art; hies greedy Vere, several, t’ Howard; eye Tower’s
fare, will Tower T.T. owe?
3)
Pharaoh held Howard; Farewell t’ Howard, too dear…; toad a
river may possess; …for my pussy-inch; hard, heart; Sorry Will,
thou art Tudor, eyesore my posies; Feral th’ O; aye ruled Howard,
odorous whore
3-4)
engine; if in June thou shalt…set me light…; send Jew into
house, Hall t’ bed; arid (a red) “O,” odd “ear,”
fore (sore) m’ pussy’s sanguine; Farewell t’ Howard
Tudor if o’er my pussy-ass inch W.H.; toad, I reform y’ pussy
4) I’ve
potty to set me light; W., Hen., thou…; you, S. Hall, “To
be” deaf post, to set me light; tough Anne [et] mellowed;
dive, boat tossed me light
4-5) Sodom
legates eye; too, set, Miletus eye; Miletus aided th’ O; to see
Tom, Elijah decided; to set meal, I get Southy, T. T., O you didst forsake
me for some salt [sea; sailor?]; foam-salt
5) Sated;
out, eyed, of thesaurus aye came Eve or some salt; Southy, T.T., how did
Shakespeare [ft] source ache; Monsieur S., Homme, is
alt (faulty)
5-6) some
sultan had me, W.H., in tow; some faulty hen; T.T., Hen hate; mewn, thou
wilt; Will, ’tis your rune, O; sore foe, my evil T.T.
5-7) T.T. innate, mewn, thou will tease, ever an awesome
glory
6) in tow, well-deserving O
6-7)
’tis Eve, in awesome glory; Tommy, W.H., entoweled, aye swear Anne
awesome; aver in O some eagle, Orion, th’ air, bird, if omen’d,
Harry S. kill; Sue, my glory, John, th’ heir—birthsome in
their skill
7) foam
in th’ arse kill; berth
7-8)
eye liberty, doughty war, fit to…
8) Beauty
odd, whore Shakespeare toast; heal thyself; fit tough tilde seals
away
8-9) teal
thistle see, aye wise, awfully loose
9)
Social, alive, ass, you pose (puff) in jet; Sue, S. Hall, aye live, if
you pussy inch t’ Howard true
9-10) sing
t’ Howard rude, hated, half-poor turd
10) porter
t’ Anne dwelled Onan
10-11) eye
Lydian Aeneas, Wita (wet and lovely); tanned Will, twin-Aeneas, witty
and lovely; poor turd, Anne dwelled on one house witty and lowly; The
hated have power to hurt Anne, Will do none (how sweet and lovely); know
Sweden, dull of ladies’ “O’s”; will duenna
house wit and love?
11) fame;
House we’d end; do stomach the shame; House we attend, Anne, lowly
dost thou make this home; lovely dust; lowly dust thou maketh, S., Ham[net]
11-12) famous
homme [suggesting Tristan] faith, Isolde eyes; dost thou make the
famous homme Phidias hold his youth? does T.T., homme,
ache, the famous homme fades; dost thou make this a maze, homme?
12) Foam;
Sue, my fey thistle; Sue, ms. eye, this old (thistled) aye; Phidias old
is youthsome, wanton ass; Southy’s old, his youth, foam
12-13) mew
one tone, F, howl like a winter at hymn; you Antony see howl; silly cue
(queue) entereth
13) Howl eye,
quainter; How will “I,” cunt, err; Howl, acquaint her, Hath-my-absence
[cf. …-away] be Annie; Howell; wind-wrath; wrath o’ May be
seen (fancy)
13-14) see
bane, sorrow move aye; hymn may be fancy bane of Rome; you heavy bane
eye, base intent hiss, peer, in [the key of?] G; eye cue in turd
14) Fair homme,
you have aye been absinthe in the spring [i.e., bitterness in the well];
Ben; Fair O, mirror eye, be neb of end, inspiring [contrast line 1, about
lack of inspiration]; bee-nap offend; spring coil, “round,”
cf. “winder” [pun 13]; bane, abyss end, tennis appearing;
of Rome, you a fabian ape scent
Acrostic Wit
The
downward acrostic code is, as always in first-line runes, “double”
because of Q’s pattern of emphatic initials, creating a “ladder”
with two side supports. The closing pun encoded as HOOOR is insistent
in the full code (in its down/down permutation)—i.e.,
MV[V] FV[V] STS BST HS HF YAA HAHOV O HOOOR. With F=S, conventionally,
this form of the code suggests, e.g., “Muse of S., ’tis Bess.
This have ye: Half o’ her [i.e., half the Q texts only, Sonnets,
not Runes].” Another variant reading (of many possible) is “Move
you [Mew few (i.e., Isolate, Coop up, a few of)] Shakespeare’s best,
his half ye have o’er [ye half o’ whore].”
Deducibly,
one has “half o’ her” because Q’s Sonnets but
not her Runes are apparent.“Bess” may mean Will’s granddaughter
Elizabeth Hall (b. Feb. 1608) or his queen before 1603.
Part of the
joke also seems to be about “halving” the W to make “VV,”
with possible Roman numeral plays such as these samples: “1010—if
10, Shakespeare’s best ladders [pictographic H = a “ladder”
= a vertical acrostic rune] half ye—half a whore,” and/or
“Hymn 5 of 5, Shakespeare’s best hiss halve ye, half-a-hour
(...heavy hour).”
The
reverse of this same code—ROOOHOV OH AH A A YF HS HT
SB ST S[V]V F[V]VM—is one of two up/up forms, this
one starting from the bottom inside position. Readings of this
codeline include, e.g., “Rough is it sub-Shakespeare. Sue, fume”;
“Rough, O, I halve a shit; as beasts, you fume”; “…ass
be Shakespeare’s, you [5, 10] fume”; and “Roof, O, I
visit, as Bess t’ Sue fume.” The last reading may mean
Sue’s Bess has dirty diapers when Will sees them in Stratford.
The
full acrostic code can also be read in various other ways including
“hairpin” variants (i.e., down/up and up/down),
each with a different starting position. Two of these codes are reverses
of the other two.
One
can also generate four additional inherent codelines by reading
“across” the rungs of the ladder, starting from different
positions. The most obvious form—MY... VVA... FA... VVH... SA...
TH... SO...—starts at top left and suggests, e.g., “My
wife always hath Sue...” and “My wife, Away, is Hath...,”
with a nameplay on “Hathaway.”
Trying
to decide exactly which acrostic codeline forms the author manipulated
to generate consciously embedded meanings (or potentiality for meanings)
is one of a reader/player’s conundrums.
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