Comments
Like
many conventional apologies and mea culpas in the runic texts
of Q, this complaint about the persona’s frustration over his “labor”
and “offspring” belies real accomplishment. Will’s interest
in the topic of birth is likely a part of his grandfatherly interest in
his own new granddaughter, born in 1608. A key pun (3) reminds us, that—like
her poet-father—Susanna has “born a miss.”
The
dominant “offspring” metaphor—consistent with
the Christian truism that children are “born in sin”—begins
at “laboring…, bear amiss [ms.]” (3). We hear about
Will’s “sin” (6) and find that any child of his is a
poor orphan (6, 10-12), a bastard offspring, a poor copy of handsomeness
(12). We get hints about nightly crying (9), red-facedness (7), and changes
in the brat’s mood (10). Jokes about the child’s “end”
or his (?) “ornament of beauty”—his “lofty tower
downrazed”—intersperse the comedy. (The Tower and “rival
poets” lines [8, 13] suggest Southy as a main auditor.) But “needy
No-thing” (10) and “bear/bare a miss” suggest the contrary
idea that the “bastard” is a girl—in which case “beauty”
would have, or need, no “ornament” (14).
A
concurrent masturbatory joke opens with the puns “I have
no precious time à tail to spend” (1) and “at
your hand” (2). The next lines joke about an unskilled hand at work
(3) and about successive strokes or interchanging hands (4), about being
kept up nights by the “sin without remedy,” and about “draining
his blood.” The ambiguous “he” (5-7) facilitates the
phallic wit, which becomes blatant in the line about “sometime-lofty
towers” that are “downrazed” (8)—with the overlaid
pun “I seed.” “This rage” (9) thus epitomizes
autoeroticism, and “needy Nothing trimm’d in jollity”—perhaps
pudendal—may describe a small, happy phallus, the terminal “ornament
of beauty” (14) that is “suspect” because it’s
a “sinner.” “Needy” puns on “Kneady”;
“trimm’d” suggests “cut short”; “All
tongues…give thee that end” implies oral sex; and “Fore,
this fin” (6) is fishy, too. “Dost thou desire my slumber’s
fold be broken” (5)—a pun about counting sheep—suggests
penetration in a crevice. “Mice lumber” is a neat kenning
for “small penis.” Wen (“protuberance”), “low
sty,” and “foamtime” (8) add witty texture.
The
oxymoron “downraised” (8) suggests both burial and
“rearing” children. The closing pun “Isus pecked (pissed)”
partakes of sacrilegious bawdry that colors other elements. Connections
between “acrostics” and the Cross (as implements of torture)
may help explain recurring “biblical” wit in Q.
Sample Puns
1)
I halve an “O,” precious time [meter]; I have no peer; a tale
to spin; eye metal to spend
1-2) S.
penned “O,” read you our handy account
2) Orator
Anne, thick cunt; O reader, handy cunt of whores to crave; crow; C-row;
zero; you into forest to crow; Tower handy th’ S.-count offers;
a boring foreign wind I own; bury a ms.
2-3) our
stoker, W.H., I see
3) Witch,
laboring for invention, bear amiss; a ms.; Pyramus
3-4) a
ream I siege; bury m’ ass-itch, see “hanging place”
witty Hat.-witch goes before; Jew-ass be sore
4) play’s
witty; police, witty t’ Hat.; Sue eyed Hittite
5)
Dusty; Dost thou defy rheumy slumbers; a firm wife lumbaris should
be broken; old baby rock, Anne
5-6)
Canaan deserts sin; If Hall (Ass-holed) be B-row keen, Anne farts finite
6) Harry
S. know remedy; Anne; Anne farts seen, there (th’ air) is no remedy;
Fore this senator I snore; Harry, eye snow
6-7) this
sin, the reason our Medea W.H. inures, half drained his blood
7)
W., Hen., whores have drained his blood; Anne filled [filed, suggesting
changing letter shapes in the type tray] his B-Row; should Rhine die?
die, Sibyl odd and defiled; our Shottery ends, bloody and defiled
7-8)
Anne S., ill, dies; his B-rune, sometime lofty, towers
8) summit;
omit Himalayas t’ eye towers; Tower is, I see, downrazed; W., Hen.,
foamed aye, mellow, fit, ate whores; is he down her ass, Ed.? 9 Howard
hits, rages
9-10)
rage, asshole bawdy, hold apple, ending Eden; lea Andean, Eden, owe
9-11) S.
Hall, beauty holed, aye plain, denied John “O”—th’
inch trimmed in jollity that sin by him advantage should achieve
10) Nothing
[pudendal]; join jet rhyme-din, jolly t’ eye; eye Medean jollity
10-11) eye
midden [i.e., dunghill], Io-elated Hat. is in; elate that Finn, buy him
advantage
11) fin
[phallic]; hymn odd, wan, t’ ages faulty; Ham’et, wan
t’ ages, old, dead, see high
12) Be sore;
B4 [a gameboard position in the Q Game]; hard fig, in ass of fire we’re
boring; heavy bastard is Anne S.; hard, fine saucer were borne; hard sickness
12-13) signs
of fair Europe or Nile t’ own
13) tongues
[bawdy]; fowls, souls, fools; Sue, you lass; All tongues…Judith
attend (Hall tongues…Judith at end); eye Cecil, ass
14) Thorn
o’ men, tough be, haughty; Th’ horn o’ man, tough beauty
(bawdy, body); Thor enemy end ; Jew, the thought end: The ornament? Host,
bawdy Jesus, pissed
Acrostic Wit
The
downward (and visually most emphatic) acrostic codeline—I
OWE DAW WHAT BAT—is particularly convincing as an authorized
contrivance because the letters coalesce into recognizable lexical forms.
The letterstring, typically ambiguous, yields such potential readings
as these: “I owe daw [i.e., simpleton] white bait [as opposed, say,
to the black of printed characters],” “Io, widow, I debate,”
“I owe daw wheat bait,” “I owe widow Hat.[a] bite (bat
[phallic]),” “I owed [i.e., admitted] aye, weight (...weighty)
be Hat.,” “Eye ode, ode-bait,” “…ode odd
be had,” “Jawed, aught [anything] be ate,” “Judith
[code IOWEDAWWHAT] bide,” “Judith be 8 (…bayed),”
“Judith, 8 [B=8], 8,” “Judy, 8+8+8 [in February 1609,
Judith was 24],” “Judy weighed 88,” and “Judy
witty bayed” (cf. puns Rune 59.13). The opening letterstring elements
also suggest“Judah.”
The
upward codeline—TA BTA HW WADE WO I—suggests, e.g.,
“T’ Betty, you aid woe aye,” “T’ Betty,
you, adieu. Why?” “To beat a hue, a dew, owe I [masturbatory],”
“Tee! Bitty, you weighed VV [10 pounds?]. Why?” “Tidy
[B=8] Hugh, aid woe,” “‘To be,’ to H.W. weighty
woe.”
The
down/up code suggests, e.g., “Judah we debate a bit: Await
woe I,” “...I bet I await woe aye,” “Judy weighed
Betty, Betty weighed 1001,” and “Judith bayed ‘To be’
to you. Adieu.” (Various subtextual scenarios in Q depict Judy as
an unskilled musical or theatrical performer childishly seeking attention.)
The
codeline plays not only on the Will’s younger daughter’s
name (Judith) but also on his wife’s. As an anagram (which I tend
to avoid getting into unless the instance is insistent), the down
letterstring houses AWW [a typographic variant of ANN] HAT...
as well as the phonic components of Hathaway, HAT-OWE-I. Forms
of the encoded joke include “I, O, wed Anne Hat-body” and
“...Anne Hat-bait”; “Tin-wit, Anne Hat...”; and
“I owed [i.e., acknowledged] awe: What a body!” The derogatory
linkage of Anne with BAT is an insinuation that transcends time.
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