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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1591  Monday, 25 June 2001

[1]     From:   Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Jun 2001 09:38:29 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1587 Re: "What's in a name?"

[2]     From:   Rainbow Saari <raynebowe@xtra.co.nz>
        Date:   Saturday, 23 Jun 2001 12:23:50 +1200
        Subj:   Re: R & J query

[3]     From:   Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Jun 2001 09:38:29 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1587 Re: "What's in a name?"


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
Date:           Friday, 22 Jun 2001 09:38:29 -0700
Subject: 12.1587 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1587 Re: "What's in a name?"

Since Stuart Taylor is pleased to call me a knave, I'd like to
knaviously point out that burden of proof is on the person making a
claim.  Please show a phallic reference to the name Peter in English
dating back to early modern times, or the time machine you use when you
do your research.

Knave Jensen

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Rainbow Saari <raynebowe@xtra.co.nz>
Date:           Saturday, 23 Jun 2001 12:23:50 +1200
Subject:        Re: R & J query

I didn't intend to take so long to get back to this; the flu has dealt
to me this past week. There are quite a variety of interesting responses
to my interpretation of the Capulet/ Paris dialogue in the post! Don
Bloom writes ( SHK 12. 1509 )

Perhaps I tend to take things too literally, but I try to imagine what
sort of man would engage in this extended dirty joking about his
daughter- with a man hoping to marry her. And I fail.

A reasonable point. But while I see/hear in their dialogue a level of
sexual meaning ( and I'm not claiming that's the only level of meaning
there is here ) I don't see this as 'extended dirty joking'. I will
admit though that my use of the 'Nudge, wink, say no more', phrase may
sound sleazier than I had intended. They have talked about the marriage
before and Capulet is restating, with language that suggests to me the
issue of her sexual readiness has been discussed, that, " Hey, we're
both men of the world; I think you understand me. " If Juliet actually
desires/loves Paris, his own objection (because of her tender years)
will not count. (Oops! Better watch my language.)  I said in my original
posting on this topic "I think Juliet's father shows in this scene a
genuine interest in securing an alliance for his daughter in which she
stands (!) a chance of being physically/ sexually happy. Does the line
"And too soon marred are those so early made" hark back to the
difficulties of his own marriage to a sexually unwilling bride? Juliet's
mother tells her  "By my count (cunt; indeed!) I was your mother much
upon these years that you are now a maid."

No one has chosen to comment on the validity (or otherwise) of my
perception but this is the conclusion I came to, based on the ambiguous
language of several passages in their dialogue. Whether I 'should' have
arrived at this conclusion is a matter I think Robin and I are unlikely
to agree upon.

What your comment brought to mind for me, Don, was the account I read
(and I've honestly no idea where to find the reference to this at
present) of Sir Thomas More pulling the bedclothes off his sleeping
naked ( ? ) daughters so that his prospective son in law, William Roper,
would be able to assess the physical charms of his future bride.
Something to do with the concept that one wouldn't buy a horse without
close scrutiny of the beast; wasn't it more sensible to know what you
might be getting in a prospective bride, than to be unpleasantly
surprised after the wedding? ( I'm not aware of any account of Margaret
being given the opportunity to examine her future husband. I hope she
was given the same option. )

More does propose in his Utopia ( 1515 )that couples should be given the
opportunity to see each other naked before marriage, because the
physical/ sexual dimension of a marriage is important to the happiness
of both parties. The relevant paragraph, which begins, "In choosing
their wives ..." is found at the link below. The language of this text
is somewhat modernised; both  my printed texts have "Furthermore, in
choosing wives and husbands..."

http://www.orst.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/more/utopia-slaves.html

I'm not suggesting a Capulet/ Sir Thomas More connection here, but I
believe that the possibility of a father caring about his daughter's
future physical happiness in a marriage and talking about it with her
wooer (even joking, perhaps to cover possible embarrassment ? ) may not
have been in the 1590's quite as unlikely as we might choose to believe.
One of the customs associated with Lammastide, my book on English folk
customs tells me, was that for the duration of the the Lammas Fair
couples could conduct a 'trial marriage' and if at the end of the period
either party was unhappy with the other, they could part with no ill
feeling or obligation. The book doesn't tell me if this practice existed
in Elizabethan times. It would be interesting to know.

I thoroughly enjoyed the humor of your posting, Abigail, and thank you
Robin for that delightful quote from Donne. You both express well the
idea that just because a ribald reading of a word is possible, it is not
necessarily appropriate. We do agree on that.

It is a fact that a vast number of words over the centuries have
acquired additional phallic/ yonic/ anal/ scatological dimensions of
meaning, and it is hard to avoid using words that can be construed in
this way ( I think I just failed).

The point you raised (oh dear!), Robin, about the linear progression of
a play in  performance, as opposed to the reading of it, is an important
one.  Certainly we, as audience, are some distance from the Gregory/
Sampson dialogue when Capulet and Paris are before us, but there is no
shortage of sexual innuendo in the preceding 'scene' between Romeo and
Benvolio ( whose name means 'good will' ; good grief! ). I perceive
sexual puns in 'she hath Dian's wit', 'nor bide th'encounter of
assailing eyes', in ' The precious treasure of his eyesight lost'.,
amongst others. Perhaps you do not. My impression of young Romeo, is
that he's far from being 'ruled' by Benvolio, because in his love for
Rosaline he is ruled by his rooster ( otherwise known as his cock or his
good 'will' ). ( I couldn't resist the 'ruled by his rooster' ; I'm not
claiming it's an Elizabethan useage.)  And from this we are taken
straight into a discussion about whether a young woman is 'ripe enough
to be a bride.'

>I said I thought "the 'ear' of at least
>some of the audience is primed to hear in the phrase " may stand in
>number, though in reck'ning none" the possibility of a sexual allusion."

You say "I think the juxtaposition between the two scenes [ Gregory/
Sampson, Capulet/ Paris ] could be used to make exactly the opposite
point.  We shift from two lower class characters indulging in
clearly-signalled bawdy by-play in prose, to two upper class figures
speaking in verse --  different contexts, different registers, quite
different expectations."

But in making this point haven't you just taken us outside the linear
progression of the play? The dialogue that precedes 1. 2, is conducted
by two upper class characters, Romeo and Benvolio, speaking in verse
with plenty of, if perhaps more subtle, bawdy language.

Fair enough, your comment on my use of a Troilus and Cressida reference
here. WS certainly hadn't written his  Comical Satire on the Trojan war
yet and though I think there was another version on the boards, it may
well not have been performed as early as R & J. So it's perhaps
reasonable to postulate that the illiterate masses would not be
expected  to know much about Paris at that time. However Marlowe's
popular Faustus mentions Paris. When Faustus has Helen ( of  "Is this
the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of
Ilium?" fame. Eat your heart out, Will! )brought to him to ' glut the
longing of [his] heart's desire' and to be his 'paramour', he tells her
"I will be Paris, and for love of thee, /Instead of Troy, shall
Wurtenberg be sacked." He then goes on to list some of his deeds.

My thanks for the info on Paris being taken from Brooke's Romeus and
Juliet. I hadn't read it before and found it charming. But I notice that
both the references to Paris you quote

Emong the rest was one inflamde with her desire,
Who County Paris cliped was, an Earle he had to syre ...

[Arden (1980), p. 264]

cf. earlier in the poem:

At length he saw a mayd, right fayre of perfect shape
Which Theseus, or Paris would have chosen to their rape ...

[p 244]
emphasize both the  Paris of myth, and Juliet's suitor, County Paris'
think lustfully, not just lovingly, of women; 'rape' , and 'one inflamde
with her desire' [desire of her] are not  terms one associates with a
pure, chaste or unsexual love.Likewise, Chaucer in his Troilus and
Criseyde, Bk I. verse 9 states;

It is well wist how that the Greekes stronge
In armes with a thousand shippes wente
To Troyewardes.....
The ravishing to wrecken [avenge ] of Eleyne
By Paris done,...

It is the 'ravishing' that gets mentioned.  Paris was, admittedly,  a
pawn in Zeus' game but I still think that those in the R & J audience
who knew the story of the Trojan War, 'the greatest love story ever
told' , would be aware that  it was also the greatest lust story ever
told.

I found it interesting that in Brooke's Romeus and Juliet, Juliet is
sixteen. I assume the tender age of  the  Juliet of Shakespeare's play
is pointed out because the boy playing her appeared too young to
credibly be a 16 yr old Juliet. ( ? ) Also interesting is the fact that
physical/ sexual happiness is remarked upon;  by the Nurse.

"There is no loss," quod she, "sweet wench, to loss of time,
Ne in thine age shalt thou repent so much of any crime.
For when I call to mind my former passéd youth,
One thing there is which most of all doth cause my endless ruth.
At sixteen years I first did choose my loving fere,
And I was fully ripe before, I dare well say, a year.
The pleasure that I lost, that year so overpast,

A thousand times I have bewept, and shall while life doth last.
In faith it were a shame, -- yea, sin it were, y-wis,
When thou may'st live in happy joy, to set light by thy bliss."

An aside; In the 'nothing new under the sun' department, may I say that
the Nurse here expresses exactly my own reaction to the discovery of
marital bliss, though I was more inclined to make up for lost time than
bemoan the unrecoverable.

As Shakespeare knew Brooke's poem, and utilises the Nurse's concept of a
girl being 'fully ripe' in the Capulet/ Paris  dialogue,  I feel my
assertion- that an undercurrent of a parent's concern over his
daughter's sexual happiness exists in that scene- is not unreasonable.

I mentioned Marlowe's lines from Ovid because they illustrated the
pronunciation of 'cony', not because there's any pun there ( there
isn't. ) You indicated that 'consent' must have been an aural pun; I
agree. 'Cunsent' not 'consent'; 'cunny' not 'cony'. 'Stand ' in these
lines illustrates another use of the word with sexual overtones, though
it's not a reference to an erect penis.

OK. Braincells are refusing to cooperate any more.

Cheers,
Rainbow

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com>
Date:           Sunday, 24 Jun 2001 22:27:27 +0100
Subject: 12.1587 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1587 Re: "What's in a name?"

At the risk of tediously repeating myself (to the pain, no doubt, of
all) I can't really see how to deal with Stuart Taylor's points without
retracing old routes on this thread.  So here goes (delete now if
thoroughly bored)
...

> I don't understand the assumption, insisted on by Robin Hamilton and
> suggested by others, that in order to substantiate a claim about
> language, an example must be documented in a book: that someone, X
> number of years ago, said exactly such and such in a particular language
> and meant specifically such and such.

The past has been abolished:  all that exists of it are black marks on a
white page.  Alas.  (And with the obvious qualifications of an appeal to
visual art and archaeology.)

The onus to establish the plausibility of a connotative reading lies on
the proposer.

All that I have done (as far as I'm aware) is to point out that [in the
period in question] (a) there's a wealth of documented material for
slang synonyms for 'penis', and (b) there's a singular +lack+ of any
documentation for "(P)peter"/penis.

I remain, I very MUCH remain, to be convinced -- so +convince+ me, with
better evidence and arguments than have been adduced so far.

> Who makes up such rules?

No one makes these rules up.  Who needs rules?  They are (to use a much
abused and maligned phrase) simply 'common sense' [scare quotation-marks
added, with consideration aforethought].  We're in the arena of Common
Law here, not the Napoleonic Code.

> And
> what other kind of history does Mike Jensen think is obtainable and
> relevant?

As above.  Painting.  Archaeology.  Tape recorders are a relatively
recent invention

>  How absolute the knaves are.  We must speak by the card, or
> equivocation will undo us?

No.  We simply, tiresomely, patiently, ask for evidence.  ANY kind of
evidence.  Documented word-use would obviously be best, but,  "When I
hear the word 'rock', I think of 'penis'," doesn't (in my book) count as
evidence.  Early 21st century blah, maybe.  But not evidential.

> Hamilton's syllogism is rather too concrete.

Quasi-syllogism.  It wouldn't precisely fulfill Aristotle's formal logic
rules.  I could rewrite it as an authentic syllogism if you like, but
frankly, it seems too much bother.  (I could probably even recast it as
a Venn-diagram, or couch it in P:Not-P modern logic terms, but the
thunder of fingers hitting the delete button in that case would probably
resonate across The Pond.)

I admitted it was simplified, but I notice you don't challenge the
substance of what I said.

> And I do not find
> convincing his and his friend's dismissals of Farmer's Rabelais reading.

If you will read my earlier post more carefully, you will note that my
friend (who is, if this is a factor, Chancellor Professor of French
Literature and Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth) does not reject the possibility of Rabelais' quibbling on
"pierre" as penis (as neither did I), but simply says that in the books
he has to hand, there is no evidence of this. And that there is no
evidence in the _Petit Robert_ of pierre=penis in general French useage.

> 6.  English:  The pitra/petra/pierre stem gives rise to not only Peter,
> but to the name, Piers, and the word pier (a column or breakwater).

Jeezus! (sorry).  OK, the derivation of "peter" in English runs as
follows (SOED):

peter

LME. [Male forename f. eccl.L Petrus f. eccl.Gk Petros lit. 'stone', tr.
Palestinian Aram. kepa the rock, surname of Simon given by Jesus (Matt.
16:18).]

1  The name of one of the Apostles, used in asseverations. Only in LME.
2  slang.
a  A trunk, a suitcase; a bundle. M17.
b  A safe, a cash-box; a till. M19.
c  A prison cell; a prison. L19.
d  A stupefying drug. US. L19.
e  The penis. E20.
3  Bridge & Whist. = ECHO n. 6. L19.

Right.  "peter" in English is derived from church Latin (via,
ultimately, Aramaic).  As both English and Latin (and directly derived
-- French, Italian, Spanish) are Indo-European, surprise bloody
surprise.  If (big if) we trust the dictionaries,  as "peter" (in
English) only carries the connotations of "rock" by means of a Latin
pun, we're very much not into "accepted quibbles" but more into "Sell
fridges to the Inuit".  Latin-trained grammar schoolboys (like Bill the
Bard) might have got this [if they were, which I seriously doubt,
remembering their schooldays when they were flogged at age ten by the
ushers] via the Vulgate, but few else.

"peter" [= 'rock'] seems to be a classic case of a common Indo-European
form which passed directly into Latin (and thereafter
French/Italian/Spanish), but missed out on the Germanic stem (among
which English), but later got adopted in English via cross borrowing
(pretty obviously via Jerome and post-Jerome Latin translations of the
Bible by means of the Christ's joke on "Peter the Rock").

Whatever,  "The pitra/petra/pierre stem" doesn't seem to me to make a
+whole+ lot of sense in terms of English.

To return to:

> 6.  English:  The pitra/petra/pierre stem gives rise to not only Peter,
> but to the name, Piers, and the word pier (a column or breakwater).

Plausible, but, alas, wrong.  "pier" derives from the Anglo-Norman term
'pera', +not+ 'petra'.  (SOED, Onions, ODEE).  Also, to be pedantic,
"pier" as 'A support of one of the spans of a bridge' dates from the
12C; as 'A solid structure extending into the sea or a river to protect
a harbour and form a landing-stage for vessels; a breakwater, a mole'
only from the 14C.  Perhaps more to your purpose, if you'd noted it,
would be a meaning traced back to the 17C -- 'pier' = (upward pointing)
'pillar'.  I'm perfectly aware that these are all first +recorded+ uses,
and the meanings may have been in circulation before.  However, that's
all we have to go on.

As to Piers the surname, as you don't give any sources, I really don't
know just what to make of this, other than to make the obvious
observation that "Piers" is merely one spelling of a whole set of
related surnames -- Pierce, Piers, Peirs, Perse, Peirse, Peers, Pairs.

> As for Hamilton's claim that the Peter / rock association does "not,
> perhaps curiously" hold in Italian. Oh cielo!  Per piacere lasciaci in
> pace, San Pietro.  Il professore ha la testa dura.  O dovrei dire "testa
> di pietra"?

OK, I withdraw that.  pietra = stone in Italian.  Makes more sense, and
solves one of my earlier queries.  But substantively, doesn't effect the
argument.  Latin has (no argument) petra=rock.  And what little
relevance the various excurses into Indo-European cognates has, the
crunch of any argument over the peter=rock turns on the existence of the
pun in the Vulgate.  That it previously existed in Greek (although +not+
in Aramaic) is interesting but not germane.

(Stuart Taylor's calling up the Aramaic cognate

> 1 Aramaic: Kephas is a male name and kephas means rock.

-- is a peculiarly unfortunate example of foot-shooting, as one of the
reasons biblical scholars put forward for +rejecting+ the words "You are
Peter, and on this rock I will build my church" as having been spoken by
the historical Jesus, is the very fact that it +doesn't+ exist as a pun
in Aramaic, but only appears in the Greek rendition of the Gospels, and
from there moves into the later Latin translations.  Jerome, initially,
I'd imagine, but I haven't checked that out.

(Don't forget, by the way, that Jesus would have been speaking Western
Aramaic, not Eastern Aramaic.  I'm not quite sure where you get "Kephas"
as a proper name from.  I'd guess (and I stress that in this case I +am+
guessing) that it's a post-biblical back-formation from the non-Aramaic
Peter-the-rock pun.)

> In the related thread about "dick," Robin Hamilton says "Then suddenly
> several different slang usages appear.  Can anyone think of an
> explanation for this?"  As we have learned, the explanation is likely
> not that "dick" as slang for penis was not in circulation at the time.
>
> Such an apparent lack of printed explicit examples could also be
> explained by
> a) no-one bothered to write it down  (there was nothing comparable to
> the OED soliciting philologic evidence)

Except that the OED does list it, but from late 18C (Partidge is later
-- 1860 is his date.)

It simply isn't the case that terms for the penis weren't documented --
if you bother to consult the Early Modern English Dictionaries Database
(http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/english/emed/emedd.html), and insert the
term "pillicock" into the search engine, you will find the following
synonyms:

A childes pillicocke or prick
a prick, a pillicock, a pintle, a dildoe
a mans pricke or yard, a pillicocke or dildoe
a pillicock, or dildoe
Vitault: [m.] [A great toole, or, one that hath a good toole;] also, [a
flattering word for a young boy, like our, my pret­ tie pillicocke;]
whence,
[Mon vitault.]

-- also, twice (in both instances from Florio) the non-penile if sexual
"minion".

(And for those John Skelton fans among us, the following: one of
Florio's two:

Tata, a darling, a dilling, a pug, a pigs­ neye, a pillicock, a sweet
hart, a minion.)

> b) it was written down but lost/destroyed  (think of scholarship in
> classics, et al)

We're not talking about Sappho, we're talking about Early Modern English
-- totally different ball-game.

> c) a written example is still extant but none of us has located it yet

Much work has been done, most notably by Partridge.  Much remains to
+be+ done.  But nevertheless, much +has+ been established.

> d) other reasons?

Blah.  Name them.

> The question of when a word-usage begins in a language may not be
> answerable.  The (now documented) occurrence of  "dick" as slang for
> penis in early modern English also does not necessarily mean that the
> word's use began then.

I never said this -- what I +did+ point to was the singular blank of 300
odd years.  (And with a subsequent reservation that Kevin de Ornellas'
later post may qualify this.  I'm open to evidence when it's properly
presented, as there.)

 > And the presence or absence of printed examples
> says quite little about the association of words with ideas (based on
> everyday perceptions) in and across languages.

See above, ad nauseam.

> My guess is that such
> associations inform the use of words and the eventual occurrence of a
> specific word-denotation, long before that specific occurrence.

Naturally. (An, if I might say this, singularly trite observation.)  The
question at issue is how long before?

> Again, "What's in a name?"

Quite a lot.  If Romeo hadn't been called Montague, he might be alive
today.  (Or at least lived to father children and dandle his grandchicks
on his knee.)

Robin Hamilton

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