Headaches of Sonnet 6
Buffalo
getting a little unwieldy.
Subject: Thinking about Lynne's interpretation of lines 5-7.
1 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
2 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
3 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
4 With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
5 That use is not forbidden usury,
6 Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
7 That's for thyself to breed another thee,
8 Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
9 Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
10 If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
11 Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
12 Leaving thee living in posterity?
13 Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
14 To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
>I still think "Which happies those that
>pay the willing loan" goes with
>"forbidden usury" and "That's for thyself to
>breed another thee" goes with "That use."
In other words, she sees line 7 as one that starts with a relative pronoun
that locks to an antecedent two lines before. Cutting out what's in between,
we have "that use that's for thyself to breed..." It has one thing going
for it at least, which is that it answers the question Gary asked a couple
of days ago:-
>to what is he referring with "That's"?
"That's for thyself...". If it isn't a relative pronoun, then we have to
ask: *What's* for thyself? It looks like a "nonce" word, something a
certain kind of writer slaps down on the page because his thinking is woolly
and amorphous. We don't think Shakespeare was one of those, so let's go with
the relative pronoun and see where it leads.
Let me just outline the difference between a defining and a non-defining
clause.
1. The house that stands on the corner belongs to a doctor.
2. The house, which stands on the corner, belongs to a doctor.
In sentence 1, "stands on the corner" is a defining clause because it
defines the house you mean. Without it, you could mean any house. Sentence
2, which looks superficially similar, actually depends upon some previous
sentence where the house was properly defined - a sequence something like "A
house in our street was burgled last night. The house, which stands on the
corner, belongs to a doctor". There the phrase "which stands.." is a
non-defining clause, because the house we're talking about is already
defined ("the burgled house").
In the non-defining role, a clause just gives us a bit of gratuitous
information, almost in the form of an aside. We could emphasise the fact by
putting it in brackets. "The house (which stands on the corner) belongs to a
doctor."
A non-defining clause is usually found within commas, or dashes, or
parentheses,and it could be dropped from the sentence without damaging the
grammar of the sentence or its essential meaning. Doing that in this case,
"The house belongs to a doctor" makes sense when the house has already been
defined as the house that was burgled. But when no house has been mentioned,
"the house belongs to a doctor" makes no sense.
These days we use "that" and "which" pretty well interchangeably, but
strictly we should use "that" for defining clauses and "which" for
non-defining, and I followed that rule in the two sentences above.
However, in my reading of Sonnet 6 up to now, I have taken line 6 for a
defining clause, even though it starts with "which". I reasoned that it was
an aesthetic choice - allowing the poet to avoid another "that" when lines
5,6 and 7 already have one each. Otherwise it would be hard on the ear:-
That use is not forbidden usury
That happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Too many "thats". So our poet took poetic licence and made it "which". Or so
I reasoned.
But (leaving it for the moment as "that"), I took the line to be a defining
clause starting with a relative pronoun connecting back to "that use" -
"that use that happies.." The problem is, it leaves a spare "that"
on the next line with nothing to connect to.
So I could be wrong. Possibly it isn't a defining clause at all, and the
poet was simply being grammatically exact. Line 7 is the defining clause
with its relative pronoun linking back to "that use", while line 6 is a
non-defining clause. He wrote "which" because he meant "which".
Following that hypothesis, we should be able to drop the non-defining clause
and still have something that makes sense. Trying it out, we get "That use
is not forbidden usury that's for thyself to breed another thee". Or, to
invert the grammar, "that use that's for thyself to breed another thee is
not forbidden usury". And if we take "use" as related to "the use of money",
then he is talking about a loan of nature that is not usurious. And that (I
think) is Lynne's reading.
So far, so good. But it leaves us with the problem of what to make of line
6. Because, with "that use" being claimed by the relative pronoun of line 7,
all that is left for it to link up with is "forbidden usury". So we have to
contemplate the idea of "forbidden usury, which happies those that pay the
willing loan".
I don't like it much. I am strong for "will" in this sonnet being primarily
related to inheritance. If it has any sexual meaning, that
must be secondary. The whole sonnet is about bequeathing, or "willing". In
support I would cite the last two lines:-
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
To be "self-will'd" is to bequeath upon oneself the treasures that should be
passed down to posterity, an idea reinforced by the last word of the last
line - "heir". Thus I am confident in reading "willing loan" as a bequest.
Now, whether "those that pay" means those who make the loan or those who
pay it off, neither connects well with "forbidden usury". I cannot see
forbidden usury as a happying agent for anyone. But that's what it means,
if line 6 is indeed a non-defining clause - "forbidden usury, which happies
those that pay the willing loan". And we should also remember that this
clause is preceded by the word "not". Forbidden usury happies someone or
other, but "that use" he is praising is *not* to be confused with it,
apparently, being something else entirely.
Don't like it at all. If forbidden usury is to be dismissed by the poet, why
is it then accorded powers of happying? In particular, why does it contain
that very positive "willing loan" as part of some overall negative?
Shakespeare's sonnets are marvels of compression, where every word counts.
But this is, at best, irrelevant, at worst, contradictory.
What is clear is that it's the negative that's messing things up, and I
think it's worth trying to lose it. That word "forbidden" is one of the
fuzzier words in English, in the sense that we get a bit dithery about how
to deploy it. Should we say "You are forbidden to smoke" or "You are
forbidden from smoking"? Well, I think it's the former, but you see the
latter quite a lot. Also, it's a word that seems to hedge its bets about
what grammatical component it would like to attach itself to. We can say,
"You are forbidden to smoke", but we can also say "Smoking is forbidden".
You are forbidden, and so is smoking. It's an odd word and it can generate
ambiguities.
Here's one: "The children are not forbidden sweets before lunch". Children
aren't, of course, sweets at all, never mind forbidden ones. But common
usage rescues us from any misinterpretation. We do know what the sentence
means, even though an "intelligent" computer would almost certainly get the
wrong end of the stick.
But there are cases where we might be misled:-
The children are not forbidden sweets before lunch
That use is not forbidden usury which...
Guided by the first example, we can read the second in such a way as to
effectively overturn the negative - "not forbidden" means "permitted". Usury
is permitted so long as it's the kind that happies. But only, of course, if
I change my mind again on the grammar and say that line 6 *is* after all a
defining clause, and that the poet did choose "which" instead of "that" for
aesthetic reasons. Because not any old usury is acceptable, only the
benevolent kind - "usury that happies". It has to be a defining clause,
singling out one kind of usury as a special case.
So what we have are two constructions, each involving a defining clause, one
nested inside the other.
"That use is not forbidden <<usury that happies...>> that's for thyself..."
We can paraphrase the three lines, 5-7 as: "To lend yourself to breed
another self is sanctioned usury, benefitting both lender and borrower."
Why does he make a distinction between "use" and "usury"? I think I read
somewhere that the legal limit on interest was set at 10% earlier in the
century. If that's right, this transaction spills over from "use" to "usury"
in the next few lines with a return of 10:1, or 1000% on the principal.
It still leaves the question of who pays the "willing loan", and I've
already posted my opinion that it's those who receive the loan - namely, the
offspring, the beneficiaries of the "will". The lender "makes" a loan; the
borrower "pays" it. And where does the 1000% interest come from that the
lender will enjoy, if not from them? The word "pay" always carries the
implication of a quid pro quo, something given in return for something else,
a settling of accounts. It is not used even today in relation to an action
that opens the account - the loan, the service, whatever - but only in
relation to the action that closes it. The young man opens the account with
the "loan"; his offspring "pay" the loan with their mere presence, in the
form of the satisfaction it affords him to see himself reflected in them.
There is also another consideration, connecting with the line's grammatical
function. Since it's a defining clause, one kind of usury is being singled
out from all others as a worthy kind - usury that happies the payer. That
would make sense if the payer were the borrower, making it a very uncommon
usury. It makes rather less sense if you're talking about the lender.
Presumably a lender is always happy to make a loan; it needs no special kind
of usury to happy him.
The case is made stronger if we interpret the word "happy" as having an
older meaning than the modern one - that is, happy in the sense of
"fortunate" rather than in the sense of "contented". Even today we talk of
"a happy accident", meaning fortunate or lucky. If we could interpret
"happies" as "enriches", it would sit quite comfortably in a line dealing
with a paradoxical usury, where the payment enriches the payer, since the
standard result of a usurious transaction is that the payer is impoverished.
It's a nice Shakespearean paradox.
But I acknowledge that there's a problem, insofar as the happying being
spoken of seems to develop in subsequent lines into something that applies
to the lender.
I also do not know why line 8 begins with "Or".
<Imagine a day's rest at this point. I returned to the problem today>
I am tempted to read "Ten times thyself were happier than thou art" in line
9 as a reference to his offspring ("Your children would be richer than
you...") . Because "thyself" is not normally used as a subjective pronoun,
except sometimes as an emphasiser appended to a real subjective pronoun, as
in "You yourself will be there". But you never see something like "Yourself
will be there". (Well, just once: "because myself have seen his demeanour no
less civil than he excellent...")
Except that it doesn't scan, I'd expect to see "Ten times thou were happier
than thou art", if the reference is to the addressee's being ten times
happier. It's questionable whether Shakespeare would have chosen "thyself"
instead of "thou" just because it contains an extra syllable. This reading
is only tentatively suggested, but it does have the advantage of solving the
problem stated above. It preserves the continuity, where the "happying" of
the *borrowers* continues into subsequent lines.
If line 5 -"Which happies those that pay the willing loan"- represents the
happying of one child, then the "or" that starts line 8 no longer jars as
before, being an expansion of the thought, encompassing the happying of ten
children.
Which happies those that pay the willing loan
........
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art..
Of course, with one problem solved, the solution causes another to
materialize. If the happying is entirely focussed on the borrowers, what
happened to the lender's "interest"?
I don't know. My eyes are starting to rotate in their sockets. But it's
always possible that the ambiguities of this poem are deliberate - and
fitting - since it's a commonplace of our own time as well as Shakespeare's
that the interests of the parents and child are fused. The parents begin to
live through the child, regarding the child's happiness as their own. So
maybe we shouldn't complain when the money-lending metaphor breaks down, and
the lender and the borrower merge.
Sorry to be so long-winded. But once in a blue moon I like to write a long
post.
Buffalo
biancas842001
"Buffalo" <none...@here.com> wrote:
> Pardon me for starting a new thread on Sonnet 6, but the offical one is
> getting a little unwieldy.
>
Not bad. But do we know Buffalow well enough to be willing really to
suss all that out?
> Subject: Thinking about Lynne's interpretation of lines 5-7.
I don't remember quite what Lynne's own interpretation was? Some
thoughts anyway, first on line 7 in particular and then something your
analysis made me think of.
>
> 1 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
> 2 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
> 3 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
> 4 With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
> 5 That use is not forbidden usury,
> 6 Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
> 7 That's for thyself to breed another thee,
> 8 Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
> 9 Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
> 10 If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
> 11 Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
> 12 Leaving thee living in posterity?
> 13 Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
> 14 To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
>
>
>> I still think "Which happies those that
>> pay the willing loan" goes with
>> "forbidden usury" and "That's for thyself to
>> breed another thee" goes with "That use."
>
>
> In other words, she sees line 7 as one that starts with a relative pronoun
> that locks to an antecedent two lines before. Cutting out what's in between,
> we have "that use that's for thyself to breed..." It has one thing going
> for it at least, which is that it answers the question Gary asked a couple
> of days ago:-
>
>> to what is he referring with "That's"?
I can't remember exactly what made me think of this, but one thing I
thought of, possibly relating to the idea in this line, was the idea
of a sourdough starter. There must be other situations, culinary or
horticultural [*], where you preserve a little of the almost-final
product, in order to get the results you need in the next batch.
"Seed corn" might be another term. I don't know whether this works.
I don't see anything that might specifically be referred to by this,
but the idea almost fits.
* - "You can lead a whore to culture," as my high-school English
teacher said, "but you can't make her think."
As for the rest, let me cut to the chase, or this post will be very
unbalanced:
[snip]
If I'm reading you right (or even if I'm not), this, I think, suggests
that lines 5-9,
5. That use is not forbidden usury,
6. Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
7. That's for thyself to breed another thee,
8. Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Could mean, teased out into constituent parts, first:
5. That use is not forbidden usury,
6. Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
Usury pleases or satisfies its victims.
But usury is forbidden.
But _that_ use is not usury.
7. That's for thyself to breed another thee,
_That_ use, on the contrary, is given to you so that you can breed
another you,
8. Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Which means you will be ten times happier,
Even than you would have been if the interest had been 10:1.
Then, possibly,
9. Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
Could mean that you can't get 10:1 interest because then you would
have more than you deserve, and then,
10. If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Could mean that even if you were 11 times better than you are, 11:10
interest would be too high a payment. (Or that even if you were 10
times better than you are, 10:1 would be too high, in other words,
that 1:1 would be too high for you?)
And, then,
11. Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
12. Leaving thee living in posterity?
Would mean that you would have messed up the proper scheme of things,
by cheating death, leaving more of yourself (that one-eleventh) than
there was when you were brought into the world.
And then we run into lines 13 and 14:
13. Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
14. To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
Which then could mean that the addressee is too good to end up in the
normal mortal way, by rotting in the ground, but will surely go
straight to Heaven, and shouldn't do anything to mess that up.
Does anybody object to this?
----
Bianca S.
Gary Kosinsky
<none...@here.com> wrote:
SNIP
Quite the tour de force there, Buffalo! After
reading it twice I'm still not completely sure that I follow
your reading, as well-written as it was. But I'll probably
read it a third time tomorrow. A couple of things, though:
You seem to be treating line 5's "That use" in
isolation from the previous quatrain. Do you think "that
use" is a reference to making sweet some vial, treasuring
some place? Or, to put it another way - making sweet some
vial, treasuring some place is not forbidden usury? Since
most of your commentary seems to concentrate on what follows
line 5, I'm not sure if you think it also applies to what
preceded it.
Also, one other thing from your post:
>If line 5 -"Which happies those that pay the willing loan"- represents the
>happying of one child, then the "or" that starts line 8 no longer jars as
>before, being an expansion of the thought, encompassing the happying of ten
>children.
The one problem that jumps out at me here is the use
of the word "those". Isn't that a plural reference? If so,
how can it apply to one child?
SNIP
>
>I don't know. My eyes are starting to rotate in their sockets.
You're not the only one! But a very interesting
post.
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> 1 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
> 2 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
> 3 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
> 4 With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
> 5 That use is not forbidden usury,
> 6 Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
<Snip>
First (as I'm sure your teachers have always
told you) -- you should always try to work
with the original text, or as close to it as you
can reasonably get.
1. Then let not winters wragged hand deface,
2. In thee thy summer ere thou be distil'd:
3. Make sweet some viall; treasure thou some place,
4. With beautits treasure ere it be selfe kil'd:
5. That use is not forbidden usery,
6. Which happies those that pay the willing lone;
7. That's for thy selfe to breed an other thee,
8. Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
9. Ten times thy selfe were happier then thou art,
10. If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee,
11. Then what could death doe if thou should'st depart,
12. Leaving thee living in posterity?
13. Be not selfe-wild for thou art much too faire,
14. To be deaths conquest and make wormes thine heire.
> >I still think "Which happies those that
> >pay the willing loan" goes with
> >"forbidden usury" and "That's for thyself to
> >breed another thee" goes with "That use."
Lynne (and you) should have noticed that
a) the wording of the original is 'willing lone';
b) 'happies' can have at least two other
quite different meanings -- which were
current around 1600 (although we should
expect to be able to also apply the standard
meaning);
c) 'usery' also has another meaning, which
the poet certainly exploited;
d) the poet made a point of multiple ambiguity;
so while the standard senses of 'loan' and 'usury'
probably apply, they will certainly not be the
only meanings and they mean be relatively
minor ones.
> Let me just outline the difference between a defining and a non-defining
> clause.
The lesson in grammar is not really to the
point, unless you are making a case. It
should be sufficient to say that we should
be able to extract a sense (or, more likely,
senseS) from the words that fit the grammar
we encounter -- and fit it well.
[..]
> I don't like it much. I am strong for "will" in this sonnet being primarily
> related to inheritance. If it has any sexual meaning, that
> must be secondary. The whole sonnet is about bequeathing, or "willing". In
> support I would cite the last two lines:-
>
> Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
> To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
>
> To be "self-will'd" is to bequeath upon oneself the treasures that should be
> passed down to posterity,
Nonsense. That's meaningless. How can
anyone bequeath treasures to themselves?
They will be dead. If I thought you had a
sense of humour, I'd be sure you were joking
here. The notion of doing anything like this
is unknown in Shakespeare or in any literature.
They can, maybe, spend it on a vast tomb
(like the Pharaohs) or leave it all to the Cats'
Home, but nothing like that is suggested.
> an idea reinforced by the last word of the last
> line - "heir". Thus I am confident in reading "willing loan" as a bequest.
It must be nice to be able to be so confident
about total foolishness.
> Now, whether "those that pay" means those who make the loan or those who
> pay it off, neither connects well with "forbidden usury". I cannot see
> forbidden usury as a happying agent for anyone.
So read it as 'forbidden usery' i.e. 'forbidden
usage'. That was a current sense of the word.
And if it's sex we are talking about, then the
'forbidden' aspect may strengthen it ability
to 'happy'.
> But that's what it means,
> if line 6 is indeed a non-defining clause - "forbidden usury, which happies
> those that pay the willing loan". And we should also remember that this
> clause is preceded by the word "not". Forbidden usury happies someone or
> other, but "that use" he is praising is *not* to be confused with it,
> apparently, being something else entirely.
>
> Don't like it at all. If forbidden usury is to be dismissed by the poet, why
> is it then accorded powers of happying?
Lots of forbidden things have the powers
of 'happying' -- if often only temporarily.
We can tell that the poet disapproves of
these uses, and is urging his beloved to be
more responsible and think of the longer term.
> In particular, why does it contain
> that very positive "willing loan" as part of some overall negative?
The poet was capable of sarcasm. I see
the 'willing lone' as a person he detested.
> Shakespeare's sonnets are marvels of compression, where every word counts.
> But this is, at best, irrelevant, at worst, contradictory.
>
> What is clear is that it's the negative that's messing things up, and I
> think it's worth trying to lose it. That word "forbidden" is one of the
> fuzzier words in English, in the sense that we get a bit dithery about how
> to deploy it. Should we say "You are forbidden to smoke" or "You are
> forbidden from smoking"?
You are getting lost in irrelevancies. Make
the word work in the context you have -- or
forget it. The kind of 'argument' you deploy
here might be justifiable if you have a case
to make. It is a waste of time when you
haven't, and are merely speculating.
On another and much more general point,
try to take a step back, and look at what
the poet was doing with this sonnet (and
others like it) . Why did Shakespeare set
out to make his meaning so obscure?
The question is relevant, (a) because you
assume an answer which manifestly does
not work and is leading you down all kinds
of blind alleys and (b) there aren't too many
possible answers, and at least one of them
should give you some clue as to how to
tackle the individual problems he sets in
each sonnet and each line.
You assume that he was a more-or-less
ordinary poet writing more-or-less ordinary
sonnets, largely for the entertainment of
his public and/or for that of some soldier-
like 'fair youth' -- but that he no reason
to encode anything particularly complex
or obscure.
Of course, I am guessing as to what you
think you assume. But then you will
never be willing to bring it to light nor to
discuss it.
Paul.
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
>On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:19:22 +0000 (UTC), "Buffalo"
><none...@here.com> wrote:
>
>SNIP
>
> Quite the tour de force there, Buffalo! After
>reading it twice I'm still not completely sure that I follow
>your reading, as well-written as it was. But I'll probably
>read it a third time tomorrow. A couple of things, though:
>
> You seem to be treating line 5's "That use" in
>isolation from the previous quatrain. Do you think "that
>use" is a reference to making sweet some vial, treasuring
>some place? Or, to put it another way - making sweet some
>vial, treasuring some place is not forbidden usury? Since
>most of your commentary seems to concentrate on what follows
>line 5, I'm not sure if you think it also applies to what
>preceded it.
The first 'that' refers forward, surely, to be picked up by 'which' in
the next line. 'That use which makes the borrower happy, is not
forbidden usury'. There is still something of a problem with the
second 'that' - I think it has to be separated from the first.
...
--
Robert Stonehouse
To mail me, replace invalid with uk. Inconvenience regretted.
BCD
> think it's worth trying to lose it. That word "forbidden" is one of the
> fuzzier words in English, in the sense that we get a bit dithery about how
> ambiguities.
>
> Here's one: "The children are not forbidden sweets before lunch". Children
> aren't, of course, sweets at all, never mind forbidden ones. But common
> usage rescues us from any misinterpretation. We do know what the sentence
> means, even though an "intelligent" computer would almost certainly get the
> wrong end of the stick.
***Just a tiny bit of miscellaneous and perhaps inconsequential jetsam
to toss into the interesting maelstrom of your posting: In "The
children are not forbidden sweets before lunch," aren't we simply
dealing with an elliptical "to have" between "forbidden" and "lunch"?
The phrase "Forbidden to have" is familiar and--at least, at
present--comes trippingly off the tongue of authoritarian types; a
Google search on it provides quite an interesting bouquet of
incidences, a high proportion of which have to do with all-time
favorite subjects such as sex, war, and eating. Whatever their
subjects, I can't detect any connotative difference between, say,
"Chinese workers forbidden to have sex with Israelis" and "Chinese
workers forbidden sex with Israelis" (though the Chinese and the
Israelis may).
Best Wishes,
--BCD
Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor
Visit unknown Los Angeles: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal1.html
biancas842001
> defining clause, even though it starts with "which". I reasoned that it was
> an aesthetic choice - allowing the poet to avoid another "that" when lines
> 5,6 and 7 already have one each. Otherwise it would be hard on the ear:-
>
> That use is not forbidden usury
> That happies those that pay the willing loan;
> That's for thyself to breed another thee,
>
> Too many "thats". So our poet took poetic licence and made it "which". Or so
> I reasoned.
>
We have been assuming, I think, that the poet is contrasting "that
use" and the "that" in "that's" with what's "forbidden." Perhaps
that's incorrect? Perhaps the poet is saying: "That use, or habit,
is not forbidden, which makes others happy; but _that_ use does not
make others happy, only yourself"?
Amazing how difficult it is to get a straightforward, prose meaning
out of a poem when the poet isn't clear what's positive, what's
negative.
> But (leaving it for the moment as "that"), I took the line to be a defining
> clause starting with a relative pronoun connecting back to "that use" -
> "that use that happies.." The problem is, it leaves a spare "that"
> on the next line with nothing to connect to.
>
> So I could be wrong. Possibly it isn't a defining clause at all, and the
> poet was simply being grammatically exact. Line 7 is the defining clause
> with its relative pronoun linking back to "that use", while line 6 is a
> non-defining clause. He wrote "which" because he meant "which".
----
Bianca S.
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
SNIP
>It must be nice to be able to be so confident
>about total foolishness.
Just in case anyone missed it.
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
(Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 05:00:40 GMT, gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky)
>wrote:
>>On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:19:22 +0000 (UTC), "Buffalo"
>><none...@here.com> wrote:
>>
>>SNIP
>>
>> Quite the tour de force there, Buffalo! After
>>reading it twice I'm still not completely sure that I follow
>>your reading, as well-written as it was. But I'll probably
>>read it a third time tomorrow. A couple of things, though:
>>
>> You seem to be treating line 5's "That use" in
>>isolation from the previous quatrain. Do you think "that
>>use" is a reference to making sweet some vial, treasuring
>>some place? Or, to put it another way - making sweet some
>>vial, treasuring some place is not forbidden usury? Since
>>most of your commentary seems to concentrate on what follows
>>line 5, I'm not sure if you think it also applies to what
>>preceded it.
>
>The first 'that' refers forward, surely, to be picked up by 'which' in
>the next line.
I don't know, does it? It seems possible to me that
it refers back to the use described as "make sweet some
vial; treasure thou some place".
> 'That use which makes the borrower happy, is not
>forbidden usury'. There is still something of a problem with the
>second 'that' - I think it has to be separated from the first.
I was reading this again last night, and the thought
occurred that the "that's" of line 7 refers back to "willing
loan".
The poet mentions "the willing loan" in line 6.
What willing loan? The willing loan that is for the
addressee to breed a copy of himself. The willing loan that
makes sweet some vial, that treasures some place, and which
happies the borrower.
The addressee lends some of his beauty's treasure,
in order to make a copy of himself, and in the process makes
happy the person to whom he is making the loan. And that
type of loan is not forbidden usury.
I keep coming back to the idea that the person who
is being happied in this sonnet is the mother of the
addressee's children.
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
(biancas842001) wrote:
SNIP
>Amazing how difficult it is to get a straightforward, prose meaning
>out of a poem when the poet isn't clear what's positive, what's
>negative.
Just be glad that today is Thursday, which should
mean that Robert will be posting Sonnet 7 tomorrow or the
next day. Which means we can sweep this one into a closet
and lock the door!
- Gary Kosinsky
Buffalo
"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message
news:40d124c1...@news.individual.net...
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:19:22 +0000 (UTC), "Buffalo"
> <none...@here.com> wrote:
>
> SNIP
>
> Quite the tour de force there, Buffalo! After
> reading it twice I'm still not completely sure that I follow
> your reading, as well-written as it was. But I'll probably
> read it a third time tomorrow. A couple of things, though:
>
> You seem to be treating line 5's "That use" in
> isolation from the previous quatrain. Do you think "that
> use" is a reference to making sweet some vial, treasuring
> some place? Or, to put it another way - making sweet some
> vial, treasuring some place is not forbidden usury? Since
> most of your commentary seems to concentrate on what follows
> line 5, I'm not sure if you think it also applies to what
> preceded it.
No, there is no need to look back. It connects forwards. Somebody a few days
ago produced a line from Sonnet 116 that has a similar structure. "Love is
not love which alters when it alteration finds" . The word "love" (the first
one) connects forwards to a relative pronoun "which". In the same way, "that
use" connects forwards, (cutting out what is in between):
"That use that's for thyself to breed another thee". And the meaning of
"that use", in this context, is the legitimate use of money - as opposed to
usury - acting as a metaphor for lending oneself through reproduction.
It doesn't connect backwards in any grammatical sense, but of course it does
connect back in terms of the metaphor. There is a switch of metaphor in the
preceding lines. The "distillation" imagery carried over from the previous
sonnet is sustained for another two and a half lines, before giving way to
imagery of money, with "treasure" being the transitional image.
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
> Also, one other thing from your post:
>
> >If line 5 -"Which happies those that pay the willing loan"- represents
the
> >happying of one child, then the "or" that starts line 8 no longer jars as
> >before, being an expansion of the thought, encompassing the happying of
ten
> >children.
>
> The one problem that jumps out at me here is the use
> of the word "those". Isn't that a plural reference? If so,
> how can it apply to one child?
Well, I think "those" here is a general "those" identifying a class to which
a possible child belongs. The child is singularized on the next line:
"That's for thyself to breed another thee". But I agree that the whole
problem of who exactly is being spoken about from line to line, and how many
of them there are, makes this a particularly tricky sonnet. I don't think
there's any interpretation that does not raise problems. But I think the one
I propose gives the cleanest reading.
Buffalo
Buffalo
"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote in message
news:40d1473b...@news.cityscape.co.uk...
Here are lines 5-7:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
The first "that" certainly refers forward, but not to "which". It skips a
line and connects with the "that's" the starts line 7. The grammatical sense
is "That use that's for thyself to breed another thee". It solves the
problem of the second "that" you referred to above.
Buffalo
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
> ...
Buffalo
"BCD" <odin...@csulb.edu> wrote in message
news:be4a0014.04061...@posting.google.com...
> "Buffalo" <none...@here.com> wrote in message
news:<capven$m71$1...@titan.btinternet.com>...
> >
> > What is clear is that it's the negative that's messing things up, and I
> > think it's worth trying to lose it. That word "forbidden" is one of the
> > fuzzier words in English, in the sense that we get a bit dithery about
how
> > to deploy it. [...] It's an odd word and it can generate
> > ambiguities.
> >
> > Here's one: "The children are not forbidden sweets before lunch".
Children
> > aren't, of course, sweets at all, never mind forbidden ones. But common
> > usage rescues us from any misinterpretation. We do know what the
sentence
> > means, even though an "intelligent" computer would almost certainly get
the
> > wrong end of the stick.
>
> ***Just a tiny bit of miscellaneous and perhaps inconsequential jetsam
> to toss into the interesting maelstrom of your posting: In "The
> children are not forbidden sweets before lunch," aren't we simply
> dealing with an elliptical "to have" between "forbidden" and "lunch"?
We are. And that was the whole point. Here is another example from Henry VI
Part I.
First Serving-man:
Nay, if we be forbidden stones,
We'll fall to it with our teeth.
It doesn't mean that the serving-men are stones that are forbidden. It means
they are not allowed to *use* stones. "If we can't use stones, we'll use our
teeth."
In the same way, "that use is not forbidden usury", can be read as "that use
is not forbidden to be usurious". That's what I meant in my post by
"overturning the negative". Up until then, my reading, and everyone else's,
had assumed that "forbidden" was an adjective attached to "usury" -
"forbidden usury". But that reading makes line 6 impossible to make sense of
- "forbidden usury, which happies..." But, read in the same way that you
*have* to read the line from Henry VI, it does make sense. "That use is not
forbidden to be usurious when it happies the payer"
Buffalo
Buffalo
"biancas842001" <bianca...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:456bd92f.0406...@posting.google.com...
> > However, in my reading of Sonnet 6 up to now, I have taken line 6 for a
> > defining clause, even though it starts with "which". I reasoned that it
was
> > an aesthetic choice - allowing the poet to avoid another "that" when
lines
> > 5,6 and 7 already have one each. Otherwise it would be hard on the ear:-
> >
> > That use is not forbidden usury
> > That happies those that pay the willing loan;
> > That's for thyself to breed another thee,
> >
> > Too many "thats". So our poet took poetic licence and made it "which".
Or so
> > I reasoned.
> >
>
> We have been assuming, I think, that the poet is contrasting "that
> use" and the "that" in "that's" with what's "forbidden." Perhaps
> that's incorrect? Perhaps the poet is saying: "That use, or habit,
> is not forbidden, which makes others happy; but _that_ use does not
> make others happy, only yourself"?
I would find it difficult to make that interpretation. You seem to be taking
the same entity - "that use" - as something that makes others happy and also
does not make others happy. I should also say that my understanding of the
grammatical function of "forbidden" in that line is at variance with yours.
See my reply to BCD.
Buffalo
Buffalo
"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message
news:W5hAc.2473$Z14....@news.indigo.ie...
> "Buffalo" <none...@here.com> wrote in message
news:capven$m71$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
>
> > 1 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
> > 2 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
> > 3 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
> > 4 With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
> > 5 That use is not forbidden usury,
> > 6 Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
> <Snip>
>
> First (as I'm sure your teachers have always
> told you) -- you should always try to work
> with the original text, or as close to it as you
> can reasonably get.
My teachers only taught science. If they knew anything about literature,
they kept the knowledge to themselves. Yes, I did look at the original text,
especially as Robert Stonehouse went to the trouble of posting it. And I
did, momentarily, consider the possibility of a pun in the word "lone".
However, unlike you, I always subject possible puns to a series of rigorous
tests before accepting them. In this case, I could see nothing to support
the idea, so I rejected it. I did the same with "viall". And "beautits" I
never considered for a moment. Your problem is that you think that just
because something looks like somethng else, or reminds you of something
else, or sounds like something else when you say it in a twentieth century
cockney accent, it must be something else.
> The lesson in grammar is not really to the
> point, unless you are making a case.
Since making a case was what I was doing, it was to the point.
> > To be "self-will'd" is to bequeath upon oneself the treasures that
should be
> > passed down to posterity,
>
> Nonsense. That's meaningless. How can
> anyone bequeath treasures to themselves?
> They will be dead.
It would be impossible to imagine this kind of stupidity being inborn. You
must have learned it as you went along, growing denser as the years
progressed. Your pronouncements on this sonnet, as on all others, bear about
the same relation to literary analysis as the Mickey Mouse watch does to
chronometry. Don't bother me with any more of this. Go and play in some
other thread.
Buffalo
Buffalo
> > That use is not forbidden usury
> > That happies those that pay the willing loan;
> > That's for thyself to breed another thee,
> >
> > Too many "thats". So our poet took poetic licence and made it "which".
Or so
> > I reasoned.
> >
>
> We have been assuming, I think, that the poet is contrasting "that
> use" and the "that" in "that's" with what's "forbidden." Perhaps
> that's incorrect? Perhaps the poet is saying: "That use, or habit,
> is not forbidden, which makes others happy; but _that_ use does not
> make others happy, only yourself"?
>
After I posted my last reply, I looked again at this, and I think I misread
what you were saying. "That use would not be forbidden if it happied others,
but if fact it only happies yourself". Is that what you mean? Well, the
thought, as a thought, makes sense, but the grammar of the lines doesn't
support it. It's also unsupported by the rest of the sonnet, where the poet
is urging "that use" upon the addressee which (you say) advantages only
himself. It's hard to see why he would be advocating something in one part
of the sonnet that he was condemning somewhere else.
Buffalo
LynnE
God, Buff, that's a real stretch. And not very grammatical either. Hard to
make the lines, as they appear on the page, mean that.
It seems to me that poetry, even modern poetry, is often opaque. How then
can we come to a definitive reading of these particular lines, written four
hundred years ago? Perhaps Shakespeare's contemporaries could read them and
immediately know what they meant and what double entendre was intended. Or
perhaps even they could not.
Best wishes,
Lynne
>
> Buffalo
>
>
>
>
Buffalo
"LynnE" <lynnek...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:vyoAc.46103$7H1.1...@news20.bellglobal.com...
Well, Lynne, you might reject the reading, if you can find a better one. But
you cannot call it a "stretch" when I've produced a line from the poet
himself which has the same construction. Surely no one would read the line
"Nay, if we be forbidden stones" as if the word "forbidden" were a
participle describing stones, since that would make the serving-men stones.
The word obviously attaches to "be", making "be forbidden". Why then do you
think it's a stretch to do the same with the line from the sonnet, to attach
"forbidden" to "not" rather than to "stones"? Instead of "forbidden stones"
we have "not forbidden", meaning "permitted".
That use is not forbidden usury which happies those that pay the willing
loan
That use is permitted the kind of usury that happies the payer
And why do you think it's not grammatical. It's perfectly grammatical. More
importantly, it actually makes sense. It's "forbidden usury which happies "
that doesn't make sense. Those that pay the willing loan under the terms of
"forbidden usury" are never happy to pay, since the reason why such usury
would be forbidden is that its rates of interest are exorbitant. How can
that kind of usury "happy" those that pay?
Buffalo
LynnE
No, I can reject it without finding a better one. Just because I feel
something doesn't work doesn't necessarily mean that I can find something
that does.
>But
> you cannot call it a "stretch" when I've produced a line from the poet
> himself which has the same construction. Surely no one would read the line
> "Nay, if we be forbidden stones" as if the word "forbidden" were a
> participle describing stones, since that would make the serving-men
stones.
> The word obviously attaches to "be", making "be forbidden". Why then do
you
> think it's a stretch to do the same with the line from the sonnet, to
attach
> "forbidden" to "not" rather than to "stones"? Instead of "forbidden
stones"
> we have "not forbidden", meaning "permitted".
>
> That use is not forbidden usury which happies those that pay the willing
> loan
> That use is permitted the kind of usury that happies the payer
>
> And why do you think it's not grammatical.
There's a difference between the other examples and this and I'm trying to
figure out what it is. But I'm really confused, so please feel free to
correct me.
The children are forbidden (to eat) sweets before lunch.
If we be forbidden (to use) stones
but
That use is not forbidden (to be) usurious
The first two are followed by an object (a noun). Yours is followed by a
complement (which is an adjective). I think. I'm not on Terra Firma here. We
could change it to a noun (although still a complement) by saying: "That use
is not forbidden to be usury." But it's horribly awkward. Besides, it boils
down to: "That use is not forbidden to be that us(ag)e," which doesn't make
too much sense to me, whereas "That use, which is not forbidden usage" does.
>It's perfectly grammatical. More
> importantly, it actually makes sense. It's "forbidden usury which happies
"
> that doesn't make sense. Those that pay the willing loan under the terms
of
> "forbidden usury" are never happy to pay, since the reason why such usury
> would be forbidden is that its rates of interest are exorbitant. How can
> that kind of usury "happy" those that pay?
"That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the the willing loan"
That use is not forbidden usury. i.e. masturbation
That makes happy only those who (on their own--lone) practise self love
or
"That use is not forbidden usury
Which happies those that pay the willing loan."
That use, which is not forbidden usury, i.e. masturbation
Makes happy those who (impregnate others and so lend out their essence?)
I'm so mixed up at this point that I'm going to duck out of the
conversation.
Lynne
>
> Buffalo
>
>
>
>
Buffalo
>
>
> There's a difference between the other examples and this and I'm trying to
> figure out what it is. But I'm really confused, so please feel free to
> correct me.
>
> The children are forbidden (to eat) sweets before lunch.
> If we be forbidden (to use) stones
> but
> That use is not forbidden (to be) usurious
>
> The first two are followed by an object (a noun). Yours is followed by a
> complement (which is an adjective). I think.
I wrote "to be usurious" to clarify. The original is of course, a noun -
"usury", just like "stones" and "sweets".
Let me lay it out this way:-
Nay, if we be [FORBIDDEN STONES] - wrong interpretation
Nay, if we be forbidden [STONES] - right interpretation
That use is not [FORBIDDEN USURY WHICH HAPPIES] - wrong interpretation
That use is not forbidden [USURY WHICH HAPPIES] - right interpretation
The right interpretation, of course, involves wording that is implicit, but
missing:-
If we be forbidden (to have, to use, to throw) stones.
That use is not forbidden (to be, to have, to deploy, to incorporate) the
kind of usury that happies the payer.
As for your suggestion that masturbation is being implied somewhere, yes, I
agree that in this sonnet, as in some of the others, there are masturbatory
overtones. The problem here is that as soon as people light on possible
sexual puns they promptly forget about primary meanings. This whole sonnet
is about passing on, handing down, bequeathing. We have to tease out the
ideas and imagery relating to the primary meaning before exposing secondary
meanings that are to be found in occasional flashes of sexual word-play.
Bufffalo
LynnE
I'm wondering if it's not meant to be both. It seems pretty ambiguous to me.
>
>
> As for your suggestion that masturbation is being implied somewhere, yes,
I
> agree that in this sonnet, as in some of the others, there are
masturbatory
> overtones. The problem here is that as soon as people light on possible
> sexual puns they promptly forget about primary meanings. This whole sonnet
> is about passing on, handing down, bequeathing. We have to tease out the
> ideas and imagery relating to the primary meaning before exposing
secondary
> meanings that are to be found in occasional flashes of sexual word-play.
The primary meaning is no more about bequeathing, Buff, than it is about
self love. The two appear to go hand in hand. The argument in most of these
early sonnets appears to be: Don't do this (masturbate or be dissolute), do
this (impregnate some woman and have children) instead. To say there are
"occasional flashes of sexual word-play" is an enormous understatement,
particularly in 6. Just some of the words or phrases that can have a double
entendre or are overtly sexual are: summer (?) distilled, sweet some vial,
treasure, place, beauty's treasure, self-killed, use, forbidden usury,
willing loan, breed, refigured (?) self-willed, etc.
L.
>
> Bufffalo
>
>
BCD
worth, here are Shakespeare's usages of "That's for" (if someone else
has already supplied this, I cry you mercy), aside from the incidence
in Sonnet 6:
--Coriolanus, I:9
MARCIUS:
Pray now, no more: my mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
As you have done; that's what I can; induced
As you have been; that's for my country:
He that has but effected his good will
Hath overta'en mine act.
--All's Well That Ends Well, I:1
HELENA: You go so much backward when you fight.
PAROLLES: That's for advantage.
--Titus Andronicus, III:2
TITUS:
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him;
Flattering myself, as if it were the Moor
Come hither purposely to poison me.--
There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.
--Titus Andronicus, IV:3
TITUS:
Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus;
[He gives them the arrows]
'Ad Jovem,' that's for you: here, 'Ad Apollinem:'
'Ad Martem,' that's for myself:
Here, boy, to Pallas: here, to Mercury:
To Saturn, Caius, not to Saturnine;
You were as good to shoot against the wind.
--Hamlet, IV:5
OPHELIA:
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. That's for thoughts.
_________
I was going to propose that perhaps Shakespeare is simply pulling a
rhetorical "That's" out of the air to the effect of a strengthened
"It's" ("It's for thyself to...")--that is, not referring to anything
but the poet's wagging his finger at the addressee--and had hoped to
find another such usage in the oeuvre. But, alas...
Gary Kosinsky
KQKnave) wrote:
>gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky) wrote in message news:<40d1e01c...@news.individual.net>...
>These particular headaches are self-imposed, by some who have decided
>that they don't want to understand the English language for this poem.
And JimKQ weighs in....
>"That use is not forbidden usury,
>Which happies those that pay the willing loan;"
>
>Rearranging the words in a more natural prose/speech-like order:
>
>"It is not forbidden usury to use that which makes
>happy those that pay the willing loan."
Or: "That use which makes happy those that pay the
willing loan is not forbidden usury."?
If so, so far so good.
>In a normal loan with interest, the person paying back the loan
>is not happy because of the interest.
Okay.
>There is no interest to
>pay in this kind of loan, where the beloved's parents have given
>the "willing loan", and the beloved will "pay" back by having
>beautiful children of his own, thus making him happy.
Now I'm getting confused. By "beloved", do you mean
the addressee? If so, then do you mean that it is the
addressee's *parents* that have made the "willing loan"?
Well, hell, why not? We've had the addressee, his wife, his
kids and his grandkids brought into this - why not his
parents?
>If the
>poet had used "act" in instead of "use" in that line,
>"That act is not forbidden usury
>Which happies those that pay the willing loan;"
>
>the meaning would be the same. It's interesting that the phrase
>"that use" can be paraphrased as "use that", because even though
>the words in each phrase have different meanings, the phrase
>retains the same meaning, i.e., "that use" = "that procreation";
>"use that" = "use procreation". But Shakespeare obviously preferred
>"use" over "act" because of the alliteration.
Okay, so "use" in line 5 is being used as a
substitute for 'procreation'. I'll ask you the same
question that I asked Buffalo: do you think line 5's "that
use" refers back to line 3's "make sweet some vial; treasure
thou some place". I thought it did. Buffalo and Robert
disagreed.
>The confusion over "those" is just silly. The lines are phrased
>as a generic precept, as when someone gives advice to
>another, "Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it",
>when the "those" is intended to mean the person spoken
>to.
Okay - so you think the person being 'happied' in
line 6 is the addressee?
>"That's for thyself to breed another thee,
>Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
>Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
>If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
>Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
>Leaving thee living in posterity?"
>
>The rest is self-explanatory.
Oh? What is the "That's" of line 7 referring to? I
think it refers to "the willing loan", but others disagree.
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
Buffalo reads the poet as advising his beloved
not to bequeath his/her treasure to him/herself.
Buffalo now insists that this is a perfectly
reasonable assumption.
Have you EVER heard of anyone bequeathing
his/her wealth to him/herself?
What on earth is he on about? Does he/she
think that Shakespeare would really suggest
such a thing.
He/she/it seems unwilling to address the topic
or answer questions. So can you? Or anyone
else?
Paul.
Art Neuendorffer
> 1 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
> 2 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
> 3 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
> 5 That use is not forbidden usury,
> 7 That's for thyself to breed another thee,
> 8 Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
> 9 Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
> 10 If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
> 11 Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
> 12 Leaving thee living in posterity?
> 14 To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
WIZARD O(XF)ORD VIVERE VERO
----------------------------------------------------------------
QUICK, a. [As. cwic, CUCU, cwiCU, cwuCU, LIVING;
L. vivus LIVING, VIVERE to LIVE]
but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides,
tack about, and take advantage of all winds,
by the QUICKness of his Wit and Invention.>> - THOMAS FULLER
[I]n thee thy summer ere thou be distil'd:
[M]ake sweet some viall;treasure thou some place,
With beautits treasure ere it be selfe kil'd:
Which happies those that pay the willing lone;
[T]hat's for thy selfe to breed an other thee,
[O]r TEN times happier be it TEN for one,
[T]en times thy selfe were happier then thou art,
If TEN of thine TEN times refigur'd thee,
Be not selfe-wild for thou art much too faire,
To be deaths conquest and make wormes thine HEIRE.
From fairest creatures we desire increase
That thereby beauty's rose might nEVER die,
But, as the riper should by time decease,
His TENder HEIRE might bear his MEMORY.
------------------------------------------------------
It would be rather silly to ask a noble to have 10 sons
or even 10 Daughters (; look at the trouble
King Lear had with just 3 Daughters).
---------------------------------------------------------------
HET/HETe, v. t. & i. To PROMISE. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
------------------------------------------------------------
They burn in love, thy children Shakespear HET them
Go, wo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<The earliest poem EVER addressed to Shakespeare>>
_Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion._
Ad Gulielum Shakespear
.[H]onie-tong'd Shakespeare when I saw thaie issue
[(I)] swore Apollo got them and none other,
.[T]heir ROSie-tainted features cloth'd in tissue,
.Some heaven born goddesse said to be their mother:
.ROSE checkt Adonis with his amber tresses,
.Faire fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
.Chaste Lucretia virgine-like her dresses,
.Prowd lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her:
.Romea [sic] Richard, more whose names I know not,
.Their sugred tongues, and power attractive beuty
.Say they are Saints althogh that Sts they shew not
.For thousands vowes [sic] to them subiective dutie:
.
.Go, wo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.
HET/HETe, v. t. & i. To PROMISE. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
.
[T] OT__ [H] EONLIEBEGETTEROFTHESEINSVINGS
[O] NN- [E T] SMRWHALLHAPPINESSEANDTHATETE
[R] NI_- [T(I)E] PROMISEDBYOVREVERLIVINGPOET
[W] IS [H E T H] THEWELLWISHINGADVENTVRERIN
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
18: Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the
children of HETH, before all that went in at the gate of his city.
19: And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the CAVE
an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.
9: And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the
http://www.geocities.com/litpageplus/shakemoul_rape.html
(Pleasing the World) thy Praises cloth containe;
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece (sweet, and chast)
Thy name in Fame's immortall Booke have plac't.
Well may the Body die, but Fame die nEVER.
King Henry VI, Part ii Act 4, Scene 1
A gentle WAFTing to immortal life. --Milton.
WIZARD O(XF)ORD VIVERE VERO
--------------------------------------------------------
[T]he louely gaze where euery eye doth dwell
[W]ill play the tirants to the very same,
[A]nd that vnfaire which fairely doth excell:
[F]or neuer resting time leads Summer on,
[T]o hidious winter and confounds him there,
[S]ap checkt with frost and lustie leau's quite gon.
Beauty ore-snow'd and barenes euery where,
Then were not summers distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in WALLS of GLASS,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
-Edgar Allan Poe - LENORE
Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I!- to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
But WAFT the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"
He is floating down to his native grove ...
Death darkens his eyes and unplumes his wings,
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings.
Live so, my son, that when death shall come,
Swan-like and sweet, it may WAFT thee home.' ”
-- Dr. G. Doane.
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky) wrote:
Thanks for a hearty laugh, Gary -- I did miss it.
Robert Stonehouse
<none...@here.com> wrote:
>"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote in message
>news:40d1473b...@news.cityscape.co.uk...
>> On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 05:00:40 GMT, gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky)
>> wrote:
>> >On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:19:22 +0000 (UTC), "Buffalo"
>> ><none...@here.com> wrote:
>Here are lines 5-7:
>
> That use is not forbidden usury,
> Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
> That's for thyself to breed another thee,
>
>The first "that" certainly refers forward, but not to "which". It skips a
>line and connects with the "that's" the starts line 7. The grammatical sense
>is "That use that's for thyself to breed another thee". It solves the
>problem of the second "that" you referred to above.
Then what does 'which' refer to? 'Forbidden usury'? (I think this has
been discussed.) Is there a reason why 'forbidden usury' make anyone
happy, except perhaps Mr Scrooge?
Buffalo
"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote in message
Very good point - which I spent some time making when I wrote the post that
started the thread.
I said:
"Now, whether "those that pay" means those who make the loan or those who
pay it off, neither connects well with "forbidden usury". I cannot see
forbidden usury as a happying agent for anyone. "
I suggested that the line was actually being misread. In reply to Lynne's
post querying this, I produced a parallel case from Henry VI Part I:
First Serving-man:
Nay, if we be forbidden stones,
We'll fall to it with our teeth.
Let me just reproduce the summary that I provided for Lynne:
Nay, if we be [FORBIDDEN STONES] - wrong interpretation
Nay, if we be forbidden [STONES] - right interpretation
That use is not [FORBIDDEN USURY WHICH HAPPIES] - wrong interpretation
That use is not forbidden [USURY WHICH HAPPIES] - right interpretation
Inverting the grammar in both "right-interpretation" cases:
If stones be forbidden...
Usury which happies those that pay the willing loan is not forbidden.
Buffalo
Peter Farey
"Buffalo" wrote:
>
> Robert Stonehouse wrote:
I have just taken a short break from HLAS, so forgive
me if I am saying something which has already been said
about this. This is how I see it.
Usury is forbidden because it causes misery to those who
are forced to repay the loan at high rates of interest.
Where doing so would make people happy, however, is OK.
That use of it - in other words - is permitted, and is
therefore *not* forbidden usury.
"That's for thyself..." then goes on to explain how this
could be achieved.
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2,prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Buffalo
"Peter Farey" <Peter...@prst17z1.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cb0udr$t8i$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
That's right. It just requires connecting up "forbidden" with "not", rather
than with "usury", giving it a different grammatical function in the line.
Buffalo
Robert Stonehouse
<none...@here.com> wrote:
>"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote in message
>news:40d28d6d...@news.cityscape.co.uk...
>> On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:22:02 +0000 (UTC), "Buffalo"
>> <none...@here.com> wrote:
>> >"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote in message
>> >news:40d1473b...@news.cityscape.co.uk...
>> >> On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 05:00:40 GMT, gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky)
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:19:22 +0000 (UTC), "Buffalo"
>> >> ><none...@here.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> >Here are lines 5-7:
>> >
>> > That use is not forbidden usury,
>> > Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
>> > That's for thyself to breed another thee,
>First Serving-man:
> Nay, if we be forbidden stones,
> We'll fall to it with our teeth.
>
>Let me just reproduce the summary that I provided for Lynne:
>
>Nay, if we be [FORBIDDEN STONES] - wrong interpretation
>Nay, if we be forbidden [STONES] - right interpretation
>
>That use is not [FORBIDDEN USURY WHICH HAPPIES] - wrong interpretation
>That use is not forbidden [USURY WHICH HAPPIES] - right interpretation
>
>Inverting the grammar in both "right-interpretation" cases:
>
>If stones be forbidden...
>Usury which happies those that pay the willing loan is not forbidden.
Have I understood this? "That use (i.e. usury which happies...) is not
forbidden; instead it is (allowed, the purpose being) for thee to make
another thee".
It looks good: 'That use' is what we start from, 'which' then refers
back to it descriptively to explain what use 'that use' is, then 'that
is for thee ...' refers back a second time, differently, to 'That use'
and says what follows as a consequence of its not being forbidden.
biancas842001
So, you prefer a reading that has,
"We are permitted that use because we are not forbidden UWH,"
rather than a reading that has,
"We are not permitted that use because we are forbidden UWH";
is this correct?
Or, is your distinction between,
"Some UWH may be forbidden, but that use is not UWH that is
forbidden,"
and,
"Some us[ag]es are forbidden to use UWH, but that us[ag]e is not
forbidden to use UWH"?
It seems to make more sense that you would mean the former
distinction, but if that's the case then your analogy breaks down.
----
Say goodnight, Bianca--
--"Goodnight, Bianca"
Buffalo
"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote in message
Not quite - "which" actually connects directly with "usury". Perhaps it
would be better to replace the word "forbidden" with "denied", which does
not generate the same ambiguity. First, the Henry VI line:-
Nay, if we be denied stones,
We'll fall to it with our teeth.
Then the sonnet:-
"That use is not denied usury which happies those that pay the willing loan"
We have "which happies those that pay the willing loan" being a description
of the kind of usury that is permitted. "That use" is allowed to employ
usury of that special kind, the kind the happies the payer. (Because of
course, that kind isn't really usury at all).
Buffalo
Buffalo
Actually, none of the above, though the first of them is the closest. "That
use" is not forbidden to employ "usury which happies". Because "usury which
happies" does not exploit or impoverish anyone.
Buffalo
Paul Crowley
> news:cb0udr$t8i$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
> > I have just taken a short break from HLAS, so forgive
> > me if I am saying something which has already been said
> > about this. This is how I see it.
> >
> > Usury is forbidden because it causes misery to those who
> > are forced to repay the loan at high rates of interest.
> > Where doing so would make people happy, however, is OK.
> > That use of it - in other words - is permitted, and is
> > therefore *not* forbidden usury.
>
> That's right. It just requires connecting up "forbidden" with "not", rather
> than with "usury", giving it a different grammatical function in the line.
The first requirement is to (largely) forget
the financial sense of the term. Look at the
OED. The word has _other_ senses:
(obs.)3. pl. Instances or kinds of usury. Obs.
1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 284 Their rootes of debts . . . bring
foorth infinite troubles and intolerable usuries. 1603 Shakes. Meas.
for M. iii. ii. 7 Since of two vsuries the merriest was put downe, and
the worser allow'd by order of Law. 1611 I Cymb. iii. iii. 45 Did you
but know the Citties Vsuries, And felt them knowingly.
(obs.)4. transf. Increase, augmentation; advantage.
1576 Fleming Panopl. Epist. 352 Howe bountifull a seruitour is the
earthe, to the husbandeman? what vsurie doeth it pay for that which
it borroweth? 1599 T. M[oufet] Silkwormes 71 Diuine we hence, or
rather reckon right, What vsury and proffit doth arise, By keeping
well these . . . creatures white. 1613 Heywood Silver Age iii. G3, With
full sickles You shall receiue the vsury of their seeds. 1624 I Gunaik. 31
The profitable usurie arising from agriculture.
(obs.)5. The use or employment of anything. rare.
1607 Tourneur Rev. Trag. iv. ii, To prostitute my brest to the Dukes
sonne: And put my selfe to common vsury. 1625 Gill Sacr. Philos. ii. 127
That thou mightest inioy the usury of this aire but for the time.
Hence(obs.)"usury v. trans., to give out (favours), with a view to
advantageous return. Obs.
1654 Whitlock Zootomia 368 We usury out, not bestow our Favours,
each Curtesie being a Designe not so much of doing, as receiving
good, with unconscionable Advantage.
Paul.
Buffalo
> "Buffalo" <none...@here.com> wrote in message
news:cb13ce$4f3$1...@hercules.btinternet.com...
> >
> > "Peter Farey" <Peter...@prst17z1.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:cb0udr$t8i$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> > > I have just taken a short break from HLAS, so forgive
> > > me if I am saying something which has already been said
> > > about this. This is how I see it.
> > >
> > > Usury is forbidden because it causes misery to those who
> > > are forced to repay the loan at high rates of interest.
> > > Where doing so would make people happy, however, is OK.
> > > That use of it - in other words - is permitted, and is
> > > therefore *not* forbidden usury.
> >
> > That's right. It just requires connecting up "forbidden" with "not",
rather
> > than with "usury", giving it a different grammatical function in the
line.
>
> The first requirement is to (largely) forget
..... forget what I told you only yesterday? By no means should you do that.
Here it is again:-
"Your pronouncements on this sonnet, as on all others, bear about
the same relation to literary analysis as the Mickey Mouse watch does to
chronometry. Don't bother me with any more of this. Go and play in some
other thread."
No, your first requirement is to remember it. I long ago noticed that your
most hysterical insults - like "yellow lily-livered cowardly shit" - are
reserved for the only person on hlas who is still polite enough to give you
the time of day. In attempting to engage with me, you might be mistaking me
for another such. I am far from that. The only way I would engage with you
is to kick you all the way to the next town. Shove off.
Buffalo
biancas842001
Are you under the impression that we can tell what you're doing here,
or do you really not care? Or am I the only one who's confused?
Because I fail to get the impression that you yourself can tell what
you're doing here.
It seems you are saying that if "usury which happies" were exploiting
or impoverishing anyone, then "that use" would not be permitted to
employ "usury which happies." Though it seems you are making a
different point to Lynne Kositsky, and yet another point to Robert
Stonehouse -- all on the same question. And you have yet to show how
your understanding of the important bits of this question relates to
some overall reading of the sonnet under examination, or why this fact
is interesting or important, in some other way.
I would like to try to be nice, but you seem to be deliberately trying
to come across as a total snot.
----
Bianca S.
Chess One
---------------------------------------------------------------
HET/HETe, v. t. & i. To PROMISE. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
------------------------------------------------------------
They burn in love, thy children Shakespear HET them
Go, wo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.
Five other meaning of HET w. cits:
1) Heated [North] Gifford's dialog on Witches, 1603
2) It. Also, to hit or strike [West
3) Promised. Towneley Mysteries, p. 39
4) Hight, or named. [Lanc
5) Have it [North
HETE: to promise, also a subst. [A. Sax]
The scheperde seid, I wille with the goo
I dar the hete a foule or twoo.
/MS Cantab. Ff. v. 48, f. 51
HETELICH: this word occurs in the title /Romance of Guy of Warwicke/ and
means hotly; eagerly;-
And Guy hent his sword in hand,
And hetelich smot to Colbrand.
HETLIK: Fiercely; vehemently [A. Sax]
Hetlikhe lette of ilk fere;
To Godd self wald he be pere.
/MS Cot. Vespas. A. iii. f. 4.
HETTER: Eager [North
HETTLE: Hastry, eager [Yorksh.
HETING: A promise [A. Sax]
Phil
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/Queens/Record/1997/History/Shakes.html
<<The earliest poem EVER addressed to Shakespeare>> _Epigrammes in the
Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion._ JOHN WE-EVER (1599)
Ad Gulielum Shakespear
.[H]onie-tong'd Shakespeare when I saw thaie issue
[(I)] swore Apollo got them and none other,
.[T]heir ROSie-tainted features cloth'd in tissue,
.Some heaven born goddesse said to be their mother:
.ROSE checkt Adonis with his amber tresses,
.Faire fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
.Chaste Lucretia virgine-like her dresses,
.Prowd lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her:
.Romea [sic] Richard, more whose names I know not,
.Their sugred tongues, and power attractive beuty
.Say they are Saints althogh that Sts they shew not
.For thousands vowes [sic] to them subiective dutie:
.They burn in love, thy children Shakespear HET them
Art Neuendorffer
WE-EVER, JOHN, 1599
.
__- /O/ NN _ [E T] SMRWHALLHAPPINESSEANDTHATETE
__ /R/ NI___ [T(I)E] PROMISEDBYOVREVERLIVINGPOET
_ /W/ IS___ [H E T H] THEWELLWISHINGADVENTVRERIN
>
>
> 1) Heated [North] Gifford's dialog on Witches, 1603
> 2) It. Also, to hit or strike [West
> 3) Promised. Towneley Mysteries, p. 39
> 4) Hight, or named. [Lanc
> 5) Have it [North
>
> The scheperde seid, I wille with the goo
> /MS Cantab. Ff. v. 48, f. 51
Chess One
Phil,
Clearly PROMISE was intended for the "Masonic eye" benben.
_____________
**Dear Art, a clue may lie in BEN~ of which I can find 10 meanings,
significant are:-
(2) oil of Ben, hence Benzoin - and I have found other spellings, BENZAMINE,
and also BENZWINE in Topsell's Four-footed Beasts, p. 240.
(3) Bees [A. Sax]
So dafte hii gonne aboute him scheve,
Ase don ben aboute the heve.
/Beves of Hamtoun, p. 56.
(8) The 'true ben' the utmost stretch or bend [Exmoor].
(9) The truth [Devon]
However, a BENATURE is: A vessel containing the holy water. William Bruges,
Garter King of Arms, 1449, bequeaths "a gret holy-water scoppe of silver,
with a staff weyng xx. nobles in plate and more." Test Vetust. p. 266.
BEND is [a. Sax] and BENDE [A. Norman], BENE is A. Sax 'to be' and another
quite distinct A. Sax. meaning is 'a prayer, or a request' whcih may relate
to your 'PROMISE' above, North country nurses say to children "clap bene"
meaning to join hands together to ask for a blessing, to pray, hope for,
wish?
BENEDAY: prayer day, from the earlier A. Sax. BENTIID, rogation days.
BENEME: is also A. Sax and means to take away or deprive, but:-
BENET: is one of the orders in the Roman Catholic church, the /exorcista/,
who cast out evil spirits by imposition of hands and aspersion of holy
water.
There are some dozen other words from both A. Sax and A. Norman with similar
references to the granting or taking away, very often specifically 'with the
hands' and often involving water or holy water. BENISON current in Yorkshire
in 1703, and also used in Piers Plowman and Chaucer, Coventry Mysteries,
Sevyn Sages, Sir Tristrem, langstoft.
BENNET: is a Somerset word for bent grass, and another Somerset word is
BENNICK, a minnow.
BENT: A plain; a common; a field; a moor; so called from those places being
frequently covered with the bent grass. Willan says bents are "high pastures
or shelving commons." The term is very common in early English poetry.
Appone a bent withowt the borghe,
With scharpe arowes 3e schote hym thurghe.
/MS. Lincoln A. i. 17, f. 128
To your comment below: not readily, can you summarise it or provide me a
vector, or some elements for comparison? Cordially, Phil
Art Neuendorffer
<<a BENATURE is: A vessel containing the holy water. William Bruges,
Garter King of Arms, 1449, bequeaths "a gret holy-water scoppe of
silver, with a staff weyng xx. nobles in plate and more." Test Vetust. p. 266.
with similar references to the granting or taking away, very often
--------------------------------------------------------
CASCA: SPEAKE HANDS FOR ME !
________ and BRUTUS stab CAESAR]
---------------------------------------------------
_______ SPEAKE HANDS (f)OR ME!
_______ SHAKESPEARE D(e)MON
---------------------------------------------------------
http://www3.telus.net/oxford/oxfordspoems.html#toppoems
.
"That I do WASTE with OTHERS' LOVE,
that HATH myself in HATE," - E.O.
.
But beauties WASTE HATH in the world an end,
And kept vnvsde the vser so destroyes it:
No LOUE toward OTHERS in that bosome sits
That on himselfe such murdrous shame commits. - Sonnet 9
---------------------------------------------------------
<<If OTHERS have their WILL Ann HATH a way.>> - James Joyce
.
'I HATE' from HATE away SHE threw,
And sav'd my life, saying 'not you'
.
_____ Sonnet 145
---------------------------------------------------------
Capital Letters: 145 (= 5 x 29)
.
__ T O.T H E.
__ O N L I E.
__ B E G E T
__ T E R.O F.
__ T H E S E.
__ I N S V I
__ N G.S O N
__ N E T S Mr
_ [W]H A L L. W{H}
A H[A]P P I ___ {H}A
_ | _ N E[S]S E. ______ S
_ | _ A N D[T]H _____ T
[2 9] A T.E T[E] ______ E?
_ | _ R N I T I
_ | _ E P R O M
_ v I S E D.B
__ Y.O V R.E
__ V E R-L I
__ V I N G.P
__ O E T.W I
__ S H E T H.
__ T H E.W E
__ L L-W I S
__ H I N G.A
__ D V E N T
__ V R E R I
__ N.S E T T
__ I N G.F O
__ R T H.T.T.
.
Shakspere Blazon and Coat of Arms:
"Gold on a BEND sable, a spear of the first,"
.
BEND: a diagonal bar, 1/5th the width of the shield,
from upper left to lower right as one faces the shield.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"SUPER" : Latin for "OVER"
He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William, in the plays,
a SUPER here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his face
in a DARK CORNER of his canvas. He has REVEalED it in the sonnets
where there is Will in O-VER(pl)US. Like John o'Gaunt his name is dear
to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a BEND
sable a spear or steeled argent, hoNorificabIlitudiNITatibus,
dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country.
What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood
when we write the name that we are told is ours.
--------------------------------------------------------
h_ o N orific
a_ b_ I litudi
N I_ T atibus
Sylvie and Bruno Concluded:
close, and the brief wintry day hardly gave light enough to recognize
the old familiar objects bound up with so many happy memories, as the
train glided round the LAST BEND into the station, and the hoarse
cry of "Elveston! Elveston!" resounded along the platform.
------------------------------------------------------
<<BEND is [a. Sax] and BENDE [A. Norman], BENE is A. Sax 'to be'
whcih may relate to your 'PROMISE' above, North country nurses
say to children "clap bene" meaning to join hands together
to ask for a blessing, to pray, hope for, wish?
Here a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand.
Cold as paddocks though they be
Yet I lift them up to Thee,
For a BENISON to fall
On our meat and on us all. Amen.
and Chaucer, Coventry Mysteries, Sevyn Sages, Sir Tristrem, langstoft.>>
lyra wrote:
> BENISON on...!
>
> and note the picture of him making the sign of BENEdiction
> or blessing, in The Chess Picture
>
> http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm
------------------------------------------------------------
Is Gabriel Harvey = BEN IONSon/"God's BENISON light"?
------------------------------------------------------------
King Lear Act 4, Scene 6
The bounty and the BENISON of heaven
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!
--------------------------------------------------------
Gabriel Harvey (1550-1631) & Thomas Nashe(1561-1601)
got into great pamphlet battles:
Nashe for the Anglican side;
acquainted himself with the collier, and for no other cause pretended.
And whether are you going, qd. I? Marry sir, qd. he, am going to
Cambridge to three sons that I keep there at school, such apt children,
sir, as few women have groaned for, and yet they have ill luck. The
one, sir, [Richard Harvey] is a divine to comfort my soul, and he
indeed, though he be a vainglorious ass, as divers youths of his age be,
is well given to the shew of the world, and writ a-late the LAMB OF GOD,
and yet his parishioners say he is the limb of the devil, and kisseth
their wives with holy kisses, but they had rather he should keep his
lips for Madge, his mare. The second, sir, [John Harvey] is a physician
or a fool, but indeed a physician, and had proved a proper man if he
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. For the eldest, [Gabriel],
he is a civilian, a wondrous witted fellow, sir reverence sir,
he is a doctor, and as Tubalcain was the first inventor of music,
was the first that invented English hexameter;>>
---------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Chess One
lyra wrote:
> BEN IONSon (anagram)
> BENISON on...!
>
> and note the picture of him making the sign of BENEdiction
> or blessing, in The Chess Picture
>
> http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm
Dear Art - what interesting images [especially the final one, the x-ray]
however...
**In the strange commentary [AA]:-
"The Chess Portrait has van Mander's signature at the top right corner and
its 1604 date is just about right for the time van Mander seems to have been
in London. The paint dates to the period and the painting is authentic.
One may find a discussion of it in Frederick J Pohl's *Like to the Lark, The
Early Years of Shakespeare.* For my money this is the most authentic of all
the possible paintings. Jonson is clearly the man on the left, at 286 pounds
and towering over other Elizabethans, his features are unmistakable. He is
conceding the game three moves before mate. The man on the our right
(Shakespeare?) is holding the board or stage with his left hand and moving a
knight with his right. Behind them are the initials SS, two ink horns, one
of which has a pen in it and a crumpled paper beside it. A third man,
likely a player, because of the course red outfit, watches. Jonson has
taken four of the winner's pawns...a type of game generally called a "pawn
sacrifice."
**The final comment is a nonsense, and would not make sense to a
chessplayer. Where a player sacrifices material, [pawns or pieces], the
player is said to /gambit/ the material.
**It is also not at all clear that 'Jonson' is conceding the game, and from
what I can determine from the board, there is no mate-in-three that I can
discern and why that claim should be made is not clear to me, in fact White
has considerably more material at hand, and, other things being equal,
apparently could defend against current threats to the extent of continuing
to win the game.
**Another photograph carries the caption:-
" It [sic] title is "Unknown Melancholy Man." Like the Cambridge portrait
of Marlowe, the sitter's hands are concealed, suggesting he is a keeper of
secrets. The sword guards form an SS. The tree behind him is a Greenwood
tree or Poplar. The house is vaguely like the Old Palace at Hatfield. He is
certainly not happy about who is walking that woman in the garden."
**However, I have several objections to this commentary:-
(a) the first has to do with the title itself, since /in the period/ and
certainly later, 'melancholy' has another, an esoteric, and indeed a primary
meaning: the same sense as used by Durer.
(b) frank observation of the subject's features may or may not suggest
'melancholy' in our modern sense, but would certainly do so in Durer's
sense.
(c) melancholy is not synonymous with 'sad', and in fact meant nothing of
the kind, and instead refers to a contemplative quietness of mind which
traditionally is often associated with Saturn. The Durer image explicitly
allows us to see what the meditator is contemplating, and if we allow for
the original meaning of the word, then this 'author?' portrait shows us the
subject of his contemplation :)
Cordially, Phil
NB: The conjunction below provides a date.
--------------------------
The second, sir, [John Harvey] is a physician
or a fool, but indeed a physician, and had proved a proper man if he
had not spoiled himself with his Astrological Discourse of the terrible
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.
so he, God's BENISON light upon him,
Art Neuendorffer
> > BEN IONSon (anagram)
> > BENISON on...!
> >
> > and note the picture of him making the sign of BENEdiction
> > or blessing, in The Chess Picture
> >
> > http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm
"Chess One" <inn...@verizon.net> wrote
>
> Dear Art - what interesting images [especially the final one, the x-ray]
> however...
>
> **In the strange commentary [AA]:-
> "The Chess Portrait has van Mander's signature at the top right corner and
> its 1604 date is just about right for the time van Mander seems to have
been
> in London. The paint dates to the period and the painting is authentic.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Baker wrote (March 1999):
>> Its called the Chess Portrait by Karel van Mander dated 1604.
volker multhopp wrote:
> I didn't find the van Mander, but I did find:
> http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/art.htm.
<<Here is a list of known chess artists or artists who play chess.
Mander, Karel van
Middleton, Thomas; "A Game At Chess" (1624)>>
Why it's our old friend Thomas Middleton! :-)
Fancy meeting HIM here.
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.fwkc.com/encyclopedia/low/articles/b/b003002760f.html
BRUEGHEL, Pieter, the Elder (c. 1525/30-69),
Modern scholars are far from interpreting Brueghel's art
as simple drolleries and folk subjects painted by an artist
from mere peasant stock, as Karel van Mander (1548-1606)
described him in 1604. Recent writers see him as a knowledgeable
man with such intellectual friends as geographer Abraham Ortelius.
Brueghel's art has been variously interpreted as referring to the
conflicts between Roman Catholicism & Protestantism, to the political
domination of the Lowlands by the Spanish, and as parallels to dramatic
allegories performed publicly by Flemish societies of rhetoric.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
1603, 31 August, Karel van Mander writes about Caravaggio
in _Het Schilderboek_ (1604):
<<There is also a certain Michelangelo da Caravaggio who paints wonderful
things in Rome. He has laboriously emerged from poverty by means of hard
work, tackling and accepting everything with foresight and daring, as is
done by some who do not wish to remain inferior through timidity and
cowardice. He is one who cares little for the works of others without at the
same time overtly praising his own. He holds that all works are nothing but
childish trifles, whatever their subject and by whomever they are painted
unless they are made and painted from life and that there can be no good or
better way of painting than to follow nature. He is a mixture of grain and
chaff: indeed he does not continuously devote himself to this study but when
he has worked for a couple of weeks he swaggers about for a month or two,
his sword at his side and a servant behind him and goes from one ball game
to another ever ready for a duel or a scuffle so that it is almost
impossible to get to know him.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/Newsletter/NewsletterMain.htm
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/Ashbourne.htm
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/Newsletter/Ashbourne-Part_II_Winter_2002.pdf
_A Golden Book, bound richly up_
By Barbara Burris ©2001
<<The Dutch painter Cornelius Ketel, whose initials Barrell found in
the painting through X-rays, was in England from 1573 to 1581. Hatton
introduced Ketel as a painter to Elizabeth's Court in 1578. Van Mander
notes Ketel painted a portrait of Oxford. In 1580 Harvey mocked Oxford's
wearing of large French Camerick ruffs. Barrell's X-ray examination
revealed a large circular ruff under the visible ruff. Lord Russell's
1580 French ruff fits perfectly over the outlines of this hidden ruff.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Phil -
There was a lot of discussion 5 years ago about the "Chess Portrait"
but you are the first (that I recall) to analysis the actual chess play.
> **Another photograph carries the caption:-
> " It [sic] title is "Unknown Melancholy Man." Like the Cambridge portrait
> of Marlowe, the sitter's hands are concealed, suggesting he is a keeper of
> secrets. The sword guards form an SS. The tree behind him is a Greenwood
> tree or Poplar. The house is vaguely like the Old Palace at Hatfield. He
is
> certainly not happy about who is walking that woman in the garden."
>
> **However, I have several objections to this commentary:-
> (a) the first has to do with the title itself, since /in the period/ and
> certainly later, 'melancholy' has another, an esoteric, and indeed a
primary
> meaning: the same sense as used by Durer.
> (b) frank observation of the subject's features may or may not suggest
> 'melancholy' in our modern sense, but would certainly do so in Durer's
> sense.
> (c) melancholy is not synonymous with 'sad', and in fact meant nothing of
> the kind, and instead refers to a contemplative quietness of mind which
> traditionally is often associated with Saturn. The Durer image explicitly
> allows us to see what the meditator is contemplating, and if we allow for
> the original meaning of the word, then this 'author?' portrait shows us
the
> subject of his contemplation :)
>
> Cordially, Phil
> -------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Chess One
to address only the chess portrait:-
I must qualify what I have said therefore: from the resolution of the
painitng on my monitor I can't tell Kings from Queens for white or black,
but given the worst placements from white's perspective, I would still hold
these views, [even though black is holding a piece in the air].
My qualifications for saying so is that I was nearly an international
master, with a rating of 2450, which is a tolerably qualified level to offer
an opinion - for example, Nil, who used to post here before splitting, so to
speak, was a player of about 1400 rating, and this "ELO" scale is not
linear. This is not to say that Nil could not also resolve the situation
over the board - but given the best imagined placements for black and the
worst for white, it is hard or even impossible to assert "mate-in-three" if
a board position cannot be resolved.
Phil
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> Art Neuendorffer
>
>
Spam Scone
Jonson has
> > > taken four of the winner's pawns...a type of game generally called a
> "pawn
> > > sacrifice."
> > >
> > > **The final comment is a nonsense, and would not make sense to a
> > > chessplayer. Where a player sacrifices material, [pawns or pieces], the
> > > player is said to /gambit/ the material.
In the "British Language", perhaps, but hardly in most chess circles.
Baker's calling the "game" a pawn sacrifice is tortured at best, but
he's used the right term.
> > > **It is also not at all clear that 'Jonson' is conceding the game, and
> from
> > > what I can determine from the board, there is no mate-in-three that I
> can
> > > discern and why that claim should be made is not clear to me, in fact
> White
> > > has considerably more material at hand, and, other things being equal,
> > > apparently could defend against current threats to the extent of
> continuing
> > > to win the game.
> >
> > Dear Phil -
> > There was a lot of discussion 5 years ago about the "Chess Portrait"
> > but you are the first (that I recall) to analysis the actual chess
> play.
>
> I must qualify what I have said therefore: from the resolution of the
> painitng on my monitor I can't tell Kings from Queens for white or black,
> but given the worst placements from white's perspective, I would still hold
> these views, [even though black is holding a piece in the air].
I can't determine which pieces are what from the scanned image either.
> My qualifications for saying so is that I was nearly an international
> master, with a rating of 2450,
LOL! Philsy, keep taking the tablets. One day you will be restored to
sanity.
Folks, Philsy's claims of 'almost' becoming an Internation Master (a
FIDE title) are as laughable as all his other claims.
which is a tolerably qualified level to offer
> an opinion - for example, Nil, who used to post here before splitting, so to
> speak, was a player of about 1400 rating,
Philsy not only manages to get my rating wrong, but also opines some
twaddle that an 'almost' International Master can better analyze a
chess position than a 1400 player WHEN HE CAN'T TELL WHAT THE PIECES
ARE! "I can't tell Kings from Queens for white or black..." - Phil
Innes