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In
this knotty text punsterized by a cluster of “Will”
nameplays (8-10), the “female” is the recurring, handy conceit
for the Q project itself—a tormenting, perversely cruel companion
full of beauty and bawdy (1-5). The pun about “reading her lips”
(4) and the complex play “I do be-leaf her” (12)—with a
glancing, prurient joke about Eve—help sketch the equation “Mss.
= Mistress = Mysteries = Runes.” Will berates his “other”
muse, the absent, unnamed friend, for equally cruel inattention (5). The
poet also wonders what future readers (as in 11) will find in his “mss.”
The latency
“Is this a dag-Or?” may help explain the abrupt opening—“Ore?
[Metal?] If it were…,” a figure relevant to a “deep wound”
(7)—with the closing pun “Dies Dane” epitomizing Hamlet.
Similarly, “wood whose motion sounds” rustles like Birnam Wood
moving to Dunsinane; “Moor-gagged” (8) describes Desdemona;
and “Swear, toothy blind fool…” (10) may suggest Gloucester’s
renunciation of the world (Lear 4.6). Given such allusions, the
initial “O’er? If it were, it bore not beauty’s name”
may gesture toward Will’s whole oeuvre—the “unread mss.”
(cf. 4) not yet into print and thus still missed and likely undervalued
by those who “behold [onstage], and see not [in print] what they
see.”
Since “Blessed
Wood” is an epithet for The Cross, “whose motion sounds…”
means “the noises of crucifixion,” with “Zounds”—“His
Wounds”—a sacrilegious pun. Self-servingly, Will represents
himself as a silent Suffering Servant, using such words as “cruel”
(5); “torment,” “disdain” (6, 14); “deep wound”
(7); “mortgaged” (8) as “committed to pay a debt”;
the idea of “blind” onlookers (11); “I do believe”(12);
and other words in the couplet—”unkindness,” “heart,”
and “patience.”
The
motif of silence, in this unheard lyric, links “I…am more [Moor-]gagged”
(8) with “my tongue-tied patience” (14). Like Will’s “mouth,”
some “eyes” here are also inoperative (10-11).
“Medical”
wit clusters “torment,” “deep wound,” blindness,”
“patients,” “cure-all,” “bore” (suggesting
a drill, trepan), “she lies,” “red,” “sounds,”
and the body parts lips, heart, and tongue.
An
opening pun on “oar” triggers a funny phallic scenario
about “hose motion” and labia.
Sample Puns
1)
O’er [suggesting “runer,” coterie writer or reader];
Arisèd W., Harry, I’d bore in; eyed be whore; it be oar not;
bawdy ass; Beauty’s enemy; tease in a map; Erased we are aye; eye
taper in ode; O, Tybalt, eye his name
2) A
pun thought blessed (…that [row] B laughed, wood [i.e., crazy]);
Blessed Wood suggests Christ’s Cross; blest doo-doo see,
m’ ocean sounds (motion is hounds); Zounds
2-3)
W.H., ho! sea-motion, sounds I sluiced; Sicily’s ten eye Satan and
did ill aye; John, sound Cecil, you fit in ass
3) act
Ionian, dead, ill; Anne did ill action, lust
3-4) till
I seed, anal you stick your awl, asses are more red
4)
See Urals’ far moor; Hall is farmer, retainer; Cure Hall is far more
read; cure-all…red; Coral I suffer, moored; Moor, read Hen. here,
lips (laps) red
4-5)
t’ Hen, earl, I piss red as th’ hose who’ve bawdy ass prowed;
in hare-lip is reddest hoof (…is ready stuff you see); the gnarly
pisser dazed hose
5) Eye
Southy’s ewe, whose bawdy ass prowed Limey; my kid Ham sea rule;
see boat aye is prowed, Limey; As t’ O, fuse bawdy eye
5-6) Limey,
get hammock, Harvey’ll know; delay may get ’em sere, you’ll
know in jetty hard torment; sir, you’ll lick an O, inched here; you
Lincoln owe
6) An
“O” winged, high art, torment my wit; die, fat Annie; in jet,
y’ hard whore may end my wit heady; hard torment mewed Dis; Sore
that Deep-Wounded Jew, His misery end; Fart hated abounded; I use misery;
hearty whore meant mutatis t’ end
6-7)
aye fat Annie farted (if Dane farted), deep wound it gives my friend and
me; Jew’s ms., rune; m’ F-rune dandy
7-8)
May’s rain dandy may end; I use ms., rune, tant amunter [cf.
tantamount] myself, amour; miss [suggesting “prostitute”],
ruined Anne, damn Anne, die, myself am mortgaged to thy will; wounded
Jew is my serene Dan-demon
8) Handy
missal a Moor (amour) gagged toothy Will; our gag did owe t’
you ill
8-9)
you, island-dwelled, OO [= see] boat, and will aye an oar; Ann t’
Willy newer peals
10) Sewer-toad
ye be; Swarthy be line, deviled, haughty; Tybalt eye, end soledad;
end foul Anne [et] Hathaway Southy will; Tybalt insult
10-11) eight
Jews t’ hell, they Tybalt eye and see not; you eye Southy, Will’d
Hathaway behold and see not 10 [=vv] Hathaways
10-12) vestaled
Hathaway behold—Anne (end) divine, O twatty Fido
11) be holed
Anne dizzy, no twat they see; behold dandy synod, weighty see
11-12) see
not W.H., eye T.T., hayseed opal; Fido be Lear
12) I deux
“be-leave” here; thou jack in O’s; I do believe (be-leave)
hard Huguenots—hell, yes!
12-13) Thou,
Jack, know felicity
13) Tee! Hath-Y-V,
in kindness, lay supine, merdy; art; silly ass, you pawn merd
13-14) here
Tommy, tongue-tied, bayed
14) witty
O-muse hid his Dane; deaf Dane; die, fat Annie; why, Th., Thomas, hid
one fit [i.e., stanza] aye; Midden [i.e., dunghill], jetty deep attains
witty Tom; eye tomb; witty Tom you see, hideous, dying; My town jet I
debate aye, in sooth; Thomas hid eyes, dying; musy, deaf Diane
Acrostic Wit
The
downward acrostic codeline—OVIC AK FAAST ITM—may
encode such messages as these: “Office, ache of assed [fey Shakespeare]
item,” “104 [V+IC = 5+99] or 106 [6+100] Acts esteem [F=S],”
“O, vie, seek feisty Tom (team, time),” “O ‘V’
[crotch] I seek [eye, sick], fast item,” “O, six see a key,
vast (faced) item,” “House a key, fey state item,” “O,
Vic I kissed, assed item,” “…fast I’d hymn,”
“O, wick [pudendal or anal, phallic] ache of assed item,” “O
6 [suggesting, e.g., orifice + 6 (inches)] seek, sauced item,” “’06
see—a key (aqui), fey Shakespeare item,” and “O’
physic, faced item.”
The
upward (reverse) codeline—M TIT SAAF KAC IVO—suggests,
e.g., “My tidy, safe case avow,” “Empty its half case avow,”
“M’ titty, ass, aye eye, f--k a safe ‘O’,” “My
tight ass eye aye, f--k ass, eye ‘V’ [pictographic groin], ‘O’
[pictographic orifice],” “Empty it is aye: A f--k, a sigh, woe,”
and/or “My Titus eye, have key aye, see 1:50 [chapter, verse].”
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