|
Comments: 111A
Musing
on his artistic role as immortalizer, Will in 111A comments “quietly”
but nervously on his silent Runes and how they “breed” multiplicity
(4, 5, 10, 14). An extended bawdy pun about Eve’s resourceful pudendum
amplifies his theme, with “conceit” (10) the common “country”
pun that one also hears in Hamlet.
One
version of the pun buried is this: “And thou in this shalt find
thy monument descending, the First Cunt: See it, oval’d, hairy,
bared ‘fore-nothing,’ this wide ‘V,’ never fecal…”
(9-11). Will’s “first conceit [pun: cunt-seat; cunt-site]of
love, oft lewd, hairy, bared” (10) is also a “no-thing”
(11)—here is more familiar Renaissance bawdry—that Will hurls
as a disparaging epithet for the “wide [witty, wet, wed, weighed,
white, weighty...] Universe” (11).
Construed
more soberly, the rune laments Will’s isolation and the
lack of virtue of his Age (7-8, 11); acknowledges the pointlessness of
things (11); reiterates his strong commitment to his “purpose”
(14); and asks for our sympathy (13). His modulating apostrophes address
any listener (1-2); the “muse” (3); “thou age unbred”
(6-10); and the “dear friend” (12-14). Lines 9-14 may address
those of us “unbred” (6)—an insult meaning “lacking
manners” (OED 1596) that also means “not yet conceived.”
Endwords “bred” (10, 14) and “unbred”
(6) anchor motific word clusters about living and dying (see 1, 2, 7),
while the motif of multiplication appears in “Give...fame faster”
(2), “more, much more” (5), and “first conceit [i.e.,
conception] of love” (10). Cancer, wasting, muteness, and “sitting”
inactive (1-5) all link with a joking series about annihilation (9, 11,
12).
Too, “eat” triggers the pun “bread” (6, 10, 14),
linked with “tongue” (4) and with outhouse wit such as “full
can” (1), “gummy loo” (2), “wastes,” “do
thy office” (2-3), “here I foamed, I’m holed midden
[dunghill]” (4), “more muck” (5), “loo’d
alone” (7), “pitty me” (13), “gummy well”
(12), and “conceit of loo there be read (...th’ air bred)”
(10). One goal of the poem is to “give my loo fame” (2). While
OED does not confirm “loo” (Br. “outhouse”) as
an Elizabethan pun, the word varies Fr. lieu, “place,”
a euphemism.
Self-consciously
echoic parallels in the text include “I sometime hold my
tongue” (4) and “nothing...I call” (11); “Therefore”
(4) and “For” (6, 8, 11); “her” (4) and “hear”
(4, 6); and “find” (9), “Finding” (10). Contrived
alliteration in the “key of F” colors every line; the F/V
interchange helps explain “Vniuerse” (11), where “V”
can be a pictographic groin. “Bread,” loaf,” and “love”
merge.
Comments: 111B
In
the 111B variant, flowers (1) takes a jab at cliched
poetic comparisons. Though line 1 is logically prefatory and hardly developed
in the text, the pun “The first conceit of love t’ Harry be
red (read)” (10) does point back jokingly to the first-line conceit;
and More in 111B.1—punning “Moor” (dark), “M’
whore”—finds an echo in “More muck moor, then,
in my verse can sit” (5). None (1), punning “nun,”
anticipates the pudendal play nothing (11) as well as heaven
(12).
The opener here,
further, clouds this text with the pun “Moor flow-ers I noted, yet
I nun cold see” (1), plus many variants—“Moor flow arising,
‘oded,’ ye et …,” “Moor flow errs, I note,
Ed.…,” “ye et ‘I,’ none could see”—to
hint that a “well-endowed Moor, flowing” is another conceit
that will do the beloved friend little good in the “fame”
department. Such a phallicism, perhaps, triggers separate-but-equal treatment
of Eve’s pudendum, the Mother of All Sin: “Sin-tinged, the
first conceit [cunt-seat] of love there be [a] red, fore ‘no-thing’
this wide…” (10-11).
The
111B acrostic opens with a play on “My jet...”
and “Midget....” (And see Acrostic Wit below.)
Both the A
and B texts encode the wonderful aside “Thin, doughty oaf, I see
my use: I teach theatre for liquor, I foam. Tommy [Thorpe], hold my tongue...”
(3-4).
In
more sober-faced and logical ways, too, the new starter connects
with what follows.
Sample Puns
111A
1)
You lick Anne carroty; you Lucan-garret eye; Lucan—crate
him up; fool can carry tea, mope, too; Ave in jest you like
1-2)
th’ gummy loo is a mess; thick, eye female office amiss; thick Himalayas,
a stair t’ Indie
111B
1)
Morris (Morse) lours in ode, editing, wan soul deaf is; Moor flow-ers
[i.e.,dark lines]; slurs; dieting uncle see; My whores, lower ass […“s”—not
caps]; ye et “I,” nun could see; in one-C [IC = 99] old; ye
“canonical” (t=c) see; ye tenants old see
2)
More “flow-ers” I noted, yet eye none could see [that]
gummy loo’s a mess (ass-t’-earth hint I; my use is t[oo] sly)
111A and 111B
2)
Sammy’s aster tend; Jew; Game (Gem) ye love; low; fast turd in time
whiff, ’tis lazy; time meter; Gummy, loose, amiss ass-turd—in
Tommy waste lies; …miss’s…tummy-
2-3) hint
amused slave to Hindu thief; William Shakespeare’s leaf (alive),
thin, doughty O’s I see; t’ amuse, tease lies; eye feet in
doughty O’s; eye Satan doughty
3) thief
I see amused each—thee, Howard, Herefor[d]; office, mufti itched
3-4) Thin,
doughty oaf, I see my use: I teach (ditch) theatre for liquor, I foam;
Tommy, hold my tongue; sassy muse I ditched hee-hawed, her foreleg erred;
I ditched the ode
4) T’
Harry, for liquor, I sometime hold demi-tone; lick Harry’s O, meaty
“I”, meal dim ye tongue; …I saw medium hole dim; eye
foe, meta-meal, dim (damn) Eton Jew
4-5) mighty
engine, dimmer hymn you see
4-6) June
demure must hymn our thin enema, verses unfit for ass-ears
5) Anne,
dim whore, mucky (m’ huge) martin (Morton), in my verse see unfit;
handy Moor; t’ Hen, enemy were fecund fit; eying dimmer Massey mordant
in my verse, see insight
5-8)
thin enemy, worse, see Anne sit (fit), sorcery of witch, horrid, hissed,
huge, wen bared, sour kin, dying, dead, rough, often livid, awl—wand—fore,
which in “O” be holed, heavy
6) Asser’s witch hurt his toe; Four fairies W.H.
eyes, he aye readies touch unbred; Sorcery of witch, harried, hissed,
Hugh-John be read (buried)
6-7)
aye John be red, fair, kind, dandy, rough, often lewd, awl wan
7) Firkin
dean did rue; Indian debtor halves tan, livid awl
8)
Forage in O, behold these present days; Sue, rouge now behold; Witch-nobility
has peers in it
8-9) W.H.,
eye China, behold the sea, present decent town; knobby, holed, heavy peer-fin,
titties, Anne did hone, this fault is ended
9) Eying
th’ Isolde, find dead hymn; Dido ends
9-10) Anne,
dead ewe—eying this, S.Hall, descended; hymen you men—descending
t’ heavy arsed cunt—seed; mend
9-12)
human descending, the first cunt, see it (seat o’ Flood), O, ass
lewd, hairy, bared fore-nothing, this V, never fecal, thin, gummy
10) Sin-tinged
the First Cunt, seeded, “O”-flow there be red; inched, his
“I” reft cunt’s hiatus low, t’ Harry bred for
nothing; nervous I see awl; Oslo, t’ Harry barred
11) this wide
“V,” Annie-verse I call; “this wide Universe”
[suggesting acorpulent Anne]; in your cycle
11-12)
Foreign oat in Judy’s wide V, never fecal, thin Jew, mule, come,
annexed, mewn; …I see awl thin give me welcome, annex “stemmy,”
hewn the best
12-13) Jew;
Will-come; Anne X’d my heaven, the beast, pity me then; mewn Thebes
type, eye Tommy t’ hinder his rune, Dandy of Fury
12-14)
in the Beast Pitty, meat endears randy Anne, deaf you (handy
few), rare, arose
13) endive
fear
13-14) Pity
me…, Anne…; Pit I’m t’ Hen., dear friend [“pit”
and “Universe” suggest The Globe]; Dandy Ass Surrey, your
ass oft wrongly in my pure pussy buried (bared); fear your asses, to wrong
line, maybe Europe’s Bard; Andes you rear; eye azure year of Austria,
England maybe
14) You are
a foe strong, legion [in = “John”]; my pure pose,
Bard; strong lion; you, orifice to wrong, lie in my pure pussy; Your foe,
fitter England, maybe Europe’s buried
Acrostic Wit
111A
The
downward acrostic code in Rune 111A—AGTT AFFFAFFT PY—suggests,
e.g., “A jet tough, aft, by,” “Edge, T.T., eye, fff,
a fit by [i.e., stanza finished],” “Edge T.T. tough aft, pay,”
“Itch taffeta th’ Y [i.e., groin],” “I jet aye
sauces [F=S] t’ pie,” “Age, titty, half-assed pie,”
“A jetty taste after pie,” “Eye jot [i.e., dot over
‘i’] assist pi[e],” “Aye God assessed pi [i.e.,
3.1416…],” and “Age, T.T., assessed pi.” (In Will’s
numbers game, pi stands for the ratio between parts of a circle and thus
suggests “round”—i.e., rune.)
The
reverse (upward) code—Y PT FF A FFFATT GA—suggests,
e.g., “Th’ [= y] pity double forte, effete (...a
fete) gay,” “Wiped, fey, fat jay,” “Yap tough
aye [eye], feet [metrical] gay,” “Yap tough, effete [i.e.,
exhausted], gay,” and “Th’ [= y] pit double forte,
effete, gay.” The pun “Pit-team thin (Pit teemed, Hen., dear
friend)…” in textual line 13 points to the last, “theatrical”
reading.
111B
The
downward acrostic in this variant—M GTT A FFF A FF T
P Y—suggests such readings as these samples: “Mighty tough,
a fit [i.e., stanza] by…,” “My Judy fey…,”and
“My jet/jetty [burst, blackness, pier] eye fff, eye
ff t’ p. Why?” The last reading presumes Will’s
use in his “hymns” of Italian terms for musical dynamics (cf.
OED piano [1683, abbrev. p] forte [1724, abbrev.
f, with forte forte ff]).
The
upward (reverse) code—YP TFF AFFFATT GM—may,
e.g., mean, “Yap tough, effete gome [i.e., man, cf. bridegroom],”
“Y[a crotchlike letter], pit fey, fffatt [imitative ‘fat’]
gem [gome].”
The
down/up hairpin suggests, e.g., “My Judy fff a
fit piped [i.e., a stanza played] ff—aye, fff—at
tea (a tidy game)” and/or “My Judy a fife fit piped ff,
effete gem (game).” With “yap” (OED 1668 bark sharply)
as a key, the hairpin yields “My Judy—fff, aye, ff
to p—yapped—ff, aye, fff—at
tea.”
Piping or yapping, the scenario may satirize the younger daughter’s
dynamically modulated musical virtuosity as a parlor performer. As a parallel,
“The wiry concord that mine ear confounds” (Sonnet 128.4)
sounds out in a sonnet whose initial-letter acrostic—HUWTD TWAT
AOMS G—may also comment on Judy’s musical heavy-handedness
(cf., e.g., the readings “Judy taught hommes [Amos] G”
and “Judy did weigh Tom’s G.” Here “G” is
a musical note, perhaps a common low-bass note for the “burden”
to carry—and “gee” is a right-turn signal to an ass
[1628]).
For other potential wit about Judy as performer, see
59X and 62.13-14.
|
