|
Comments
However
one “ill-wrests” this text, Will’s “bliss
in proof” asks the affectionate reader (see 5, 12) to “bear
witness” (5) and “mourn” (6) for him so as to “add
to Will” (9) by helping create what will not otherwise “exist”
(11). Thus the poet’s reader can help correct the “ill-wresting"
(14) that Will expects his work to generate.
This
male reader/collaborator, “an oather” (5) or coterie
member, varies the two-man/one “woman” situation that recurs
toward the end of Q, but the perverse, “wo-ful” ms.
is companion to both—the object of both their “fingers’
walk” (2-3). “She” here is Will’s usual “Perverse
Mysteries,” a conceit for his inky text and particularly for the
Runes, which occupy a medial relationship between himself as poet and
the unnamed friend/muse whom he addresses (here, e.g., in 5ff., and overtly
in 8).
As
usual, too, distracting multiplicity is the norm in Will’s Runegame.
The fact that Q’s A blisse in proofe (3) puns “I
be lassie and pair off’ illustrates how slippery these lines are
to construe. Puns on I/eye(s) and on to/two (eyes) are
routine here, as elsewhere. Suggestive bawdry about men “on one
another’s neck” is another one of the obfuscatory tangents.
Because “O” means “round / rune” and also conveys
anal/pudendal bawdry, Will is ambiguous when he puns “O-love’s
beast-habit is in seam, inch-thrust ended here for S. rheumy” (12-13),
and “Fingers will queue aye th’ genital gate” (2).
Legal
terms—e.g., will, sue, proof, grant, witness bear,
guard, debtor, hold, trust—establish the motif of imprisonment.
Perhaps the implicit dramatic situation goes this way: Will is in debtor’s
prison (8), “kept” (7) and “held” (10) in the
dark (11), trusting in a “rich” friend (9) who grants him
a last, tearful interview and promises not to forget him (5-6). The item
that the poet scans (1-4) may be the writ dooming himself to prison—analogous
to the confining Q project. Amplifying the idea of prison are the topic
of a lack of fairness (1) and the phrases “gentle gate” (2)
and “seeming t’ rust” (12).
A
set of approbative terms (e.g., fair, gentle, bliss, goddess,
grace, friend, rich, love) is a foil to an antithetical cluster (e.g.,
woe, mourn, debtor, nothing, foes, ill, bad).
The opening
line, in addition to housing potential bawdy in Q’s insistent eyepun
such, opens with the punning variants “Eights you see, hewn odd...”
and “A tease (80s...) you see, hewn ode, born Assyrian.” Lines
2-3 pun, e.g., “well-queued genital gaiety ably see in proof....”
Family
nameplays (linked with the overt plays on Will) occur. Puns such
as “At suck…” (1) and “let my art Bess guard,
and Sue use...” (7-8) suggest that the “she” who attracts
Will’s eyes in a darkening world (13-14) may mean baby Bess (b.
1608), his granddaughter Elizabeth Hall. Other puns seem aimed at the
Stratford physician Dr. John Hall, Bess’s father: e.g., “Ablest
John, peer, owes Anne deeper ode; endeavor you owe ig’orant Anne....”
(3-4) and “Ig’orant, eye newer foe, a God is John, Onan-oather
nighs...” (4-5). Various impolite, denigrating jokes about Anne
inhere in 13; one of the nicer versions is, “Anne did here a sore
form, my ‘sass’ she’d earn, a seamy sauce.”
The
hidden play “sea bird o’ morn forms in seam”
(5-6) is of a more polite order, as is “Edo [i.e., Tokyo], wide
enough, be arid (buried homme)” (5-6). “Our menace
(Harmonies...) see in jet, hisses, 8 hisses, note” (11) jokes about
lack of euphony in the Runegame.
Lines 13-14
pun, lyrically, “Snow, thistle resting were lead, ice....”
Line 14 puns, e.g., “Notice allure, often Jew-hurled, is growing
fob [i.e., trick, artifice],” “In Odyssey low rift eye, Jew
or lady sage rowns [i.e., whispers] o’ bad,” and “World,
is G-row [i.e., line 7] nice o[r] bad?’
I
deduce from finding a recurring pattern in Q that the letterstring
G-row here in 14 is a conventionally encoded signal for reader/players
to insert the complete form of Row G (i.e., line 7) into line 14 at that
point: The resulting, expanded closing line is this: “Now this ill-wresting
world is whoe’er keeps me.Let my heart be his garden so
bad.” The meaning is partly that we, as confused modern readers
of Q, continue to cultivate what Will has planted, anticipating us.
Sample Puns
1)
Eight [8] f--k W.H., O, knot be horny, S., Harry, know bawdy
Jack; At f--k, W.H., owned, boring sir, no beauty; naughty be horn o’
S., Harry, in “O”; A tease (80s) you see, hewn ode, born Assyrian
1-2) horny
Assyrian up you tills core, W.H.; tie Jack o’er W.H.
2)
Rome ethers injure ass; Harry S., injure sulky, witty Gentile; O’er
W.H., O, meteor, avengers walk; Whore Who? Meet Harry S. (John jeers);
wall, queue t’ genital gate; wail; well-queued genital gaiety; Ore;
O rheum [the line suggests manual manipulation of a “genital gate”]
2-3)
handle gay tables, John, proving deep Row D; o[f] meatier ass-injuries
Will queued, hugging tail gay, tupless (topless)
2-4) gay,
tupless John, peruse Anne—deep, rowdy endeavor you owe “I,”
grunting ever
3) O,
rue metier rough; Able ass, in proof, end th’ Row D; Anne “prowed”;
endive, rue; Ablest John, peer, owes Anne deeper ode, and weary woe; John…owes
Anne deep, eroding (routing) dive
3-4)
Danver[s] you owe—I grant a newer “s”
3-5)
a rogue rowned in your f--ked ass, John
4) Eye
G-rune 10 (tan), you or foe; Eve; eye newer foe
4-5)
A newer foe, a God, is John, Onan, aye naughty (a knot); I never f--k
a wicked, deaf Jew (Onan I note here)
4-6) you,
rough, awe a goddess, John, on an oather’s neck, doe-eyed, an ass
bare, Tom; neuer rune (reversed)
5-6)
I note here snake doe-eyed in ass buried (bare); Jew wan, Onan, oathers
nicked (necked, naked), doe-eyed in ass buried; … in ass buried,
homme horny is o’er me since morning: doughty Grey see;
see bird o’ morn forms in seam; Edo, wide enough, be arid (buried
homme)
6) Tom,
our niece or miss, in seam earn (urn) inch, doughty grace
6-7)
the gray sewer key piss, melody merdy, base
7) W.,
Harry, keeps me; see, whore keeps me, Lady Merdy Bess
7-8) guardian;
W., Harry, keeps M’lady May, Howard be his guardian, Sue a friend;
…keeps some lady-merd by his garden; dandy Sue-ass randy came, dead
or sore
8)
sue, debtor economic puns; Sue; come did
err fore, miss ache; deep, terser ms. eye
8-9) Eye
Cassio tup, injure itching Will; Sore my f--k’s “O”
9)
you banker aye see, Hen willed it (debt); Southy, O, you being rich in
Will, add to thy Will; Sue, thou being rich, John will add debt; add to
thy Will fore-nothing [pudendal], holed me, sewed place t’ heal;
lady taught you ill
10) Hall dim;
Hall damns “O”; Fore-nothing galled me; in gold m’ Esau
eyed pleas
10-11) Old
O [pictographic], Roman eye is seeing this
10-14) dour,
m’ Annie eyes seeing this, say this is not, O, love’s best habit,
I sin, see m’ inch thrust, Anne, therefore, from my face she turns,
my Sue S. notes ill, resting, whirled, “I’s” grown (groan)
soppy, odd
11) Our menace
(Harmonies) see in jet; Whore, my Annie S.; Oar, my Aeneas see; O’er
my Aeneas see, in jet, is fey Theseus; eye thesis in ode; see inch, thighs,
fetuses note
11-14) eye
snot, olives, beef, the bites, John, see m’ inched, rusting, dead,
hairy sore form, my saucy shit you earn, a seamy sauce notice
12) O, loo’s
beast, abbotess, eye in seam
12-13) I sin:
See my inched ruse tended Harry S.
13) Anne did
heifer form, Miss Ass-Shit earns my sauce; urn is my Sue S.; of Rome,
mace’s heavy, Turnus my foe is; see shitter, an ass, mess O’s
(hose); if whore of Rome misses fate, you’re an ass
13-14) Snow,
thistle resting were
14) Know,
W., thy silver sting, W., Earl, died, grown fop odd; fitting world eyes
G-row, nest o’ bad; Earl’s G-rune forbade; Nov. V, this ill-resting
world is grown so bad; Notice allure, often Jew-hurled, is growing fob
[trick, artifice] odd; In Odyssey is ill rift; I seal rift (is Isle o’
Rest); is G-row nice o[r] bad?
Acrostic Wit
The downward
letterstring codeline—A O AIOT WAS FOOAN—suggests
such decodings as these: “Aye, ’08 was fon [silly, cf. ‘fun’],”
“I owe [admit] aout [i.e., August] was fon,” “Aye
white…,” “Aye ‘O,’ a jot, was…,” “A
weight…,” “I-0-8 weighs foe Anne,” “[A cry].
It was [a] fawn [ME young animal],” “I-0-80, weigh ass, foe
Anne,” “I owe [i.e.,acknowledge] I tend to ass fon.” and
“Aye weighty was Foe Anne” (one of many jokes in Q about Anne’s
weight). With F=S, the line puns, “Aye Wyatt [the antecedent sonneteer]
was swain”; “Aye white was swan”; and “Aye white
was son,” a plausible reference to the poet’s dead son, Hamnet.
The
upward codeline—NAOOF SAWT OIA OA—may be decoded,
e.g., “Knave sawed away, away,” “Neigh oaf sawed, ‘Oy,
Oy’,” “Naive Sue toy I owe aye,” “Nigh, oaf sought
a way away,” “Enough ass owed…,” “Enough [Naif]
is ode, away, away,” “Knave saw twat was fon.” “Nave
[i.e., wheel hub, body of a church] sought way,” and “Naive
saw [i.e., a saying] to weigh.”
The down/up
hairpin suggests, e.g., “Aye ‘08 was soon [F=S] enough sought
[naive is ought/aught], away, away!” The up/down hairpin suggests
“Nov. 5 [=S], [n]ought-8 [= ’08] was fon (found).” Such
dateline readings are provocative but typically inconclusive.
|
