My favorite, from The Taming of the Shrew :
PETRUCHIO
Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
KATHARINA
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
PETRUCHIO
My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
KATHARINA
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,
PETRUCHIO
Who knows not where a wasp does
wear his sting? In his tail.
KATHARINA
In his tongue.
PETRUCHIO
Whose tongue?
KATHARINA
Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
PETRUCHIO
**What, with my tongue in your tail?** nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
KATHARINA
That I'll try.
Wouldn’t it be closer to “Rubbing another man’s rhubarb”?
We’re brushing this thread off again?
Lazy
April 21, 2012, 10:58pm
44
appleciders:
One of the dirtiest jokes in Shakespeare, in my opinion, is a line that rarely gets a laugh in Twelfth Night : Malvolio’s description of his lady’s handwriting. He references her “C’s, her U’s, and her T’s, and thus she makes her great P’s,” clearly referencing the word “cunt.” Aguecheek emphasizes it, asking “Her C’s, her U’s and her T’s: why that?” Audiences don’t seem to get it, as though they don’t think they should be laughing at a “cunt” joke at a fancy Shakespeare play.
This is quite a multiple-entrendre: the letters in the letter; spelling out “cunt”; and a series of masturbation images – seize, use, tease, and great pees.
My English prof back in the 80s claimed that German critics usually point out that there are no capital Ps in the letter (I guess showing that they are missing the multiple-entendre.)