Dirty Shakespeare

[BrainGlutton]

From An Incomplete Education, by Judy Jones and William Wilson (Ballantine Books, 1987), p. 212:

DIE – Can mean “to come in lovemaking; to have an orgasm.” This is what Benedick means in Much Ado About Nothing when he says, "I will live in thy mouth, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.’ Heady knowledge, but use it sparingly: Die usually means, “to die.”

<snip>

HORNS – The adornment and symbol of the cheated-on husband, the cuckold. Alluded to when Othello says, “I have a pain upon my forehead here.” More often, the basis of the favorite family of jokes among the Elizabethans, who seemed to think any reference to horns was in and of itself uproarious.

[GilaB]

We got the semi-bowdlerized version of Shakespeare in my high school (the joys of religious education!), so I was very surprised recently to see a reference in a story I was reading to a dirty joke in the first scene of Romeo and Juliet, which I’d read multiple times in ninth grade when I was bored with what was going on in class. Anyway, an exchange between two Capulet servants:

Sampson: A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will
take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.

Gregory: That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
to the wall.

Sampson: True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,
are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids
to the wall.

Gregory: The quarrel is between our masters and us their men

Sampson: 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I
have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
maids, and cut off their heads.

Gregory: The heads of the maids?

Sampson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;
take it in what sense thou wilt.

Gregory: They must take it in sense that feel it.

Sampson: Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and
'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

Gregory: 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou
hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes
two of the house of the Montagues.

[jackelope]

Oddly, I was thinking of opening a similar thread recently as well, Johnny Bravo.

Sonnet 20:

A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all ‘hues’ in his controlling,
Much steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

This is written to the young prettyboy the narrator admires. The “addition” by which Nature “me of thee defeated” is of course a penis; “this person is so beautiful that I can’t help being in love, but dammit, he’s MALE!”

I picture him looking like young Elvis.

The rest of the sonnet is left open to the interpretation of your filthy minds.

[jackelope]

*Originally posted by jackelope *
Oddly, I was thinking of opening a similar thread recently as well, Johnny Bravo.

And my inner copyeditor begins to shriek. Make that: “It’s an odd coincidence: I was just thinking…”

I wasn’t thinking oddly. Or no more so than usual, I suppose.

[Walloon]

Henry V when the French princess Katherine is getting a lesson in English from her lady in waiting:

Katherine: Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe? [What do you call la pied and la robe?]
Alice: Le foot,* madame, et le count.**
Katherine: Le foot et le count! O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames de honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le count! [Le foot and le count! O Lord, those are bad words, wicked, coarse, and immodest, and not proper for well-bred ladies to use. I wouldn’t utter those words before French gentlemen for all the world. Foh! le foot and le count!]

• sounds like the French word foutre, “fuck”
  ** Alice meant to say “gown”; “count” sounds like the French word con, “cunt”

[Cervaise]

Romeo and Juliet Act III Scene 5 is full of this stuff. It’s the scene immediately following the consummation of their marriage, i.e. got down and most iambically dirty.

The first word of the scene is “wilt,” in Juliet’s question “wilt thou be gone,” but of course there’s a sense that they’ve been rockin’ the bed all night and Romeo just can’t get it up again. She also makes a few bird-related references that will go over the head of a modern audience, but that follow the theme; the one that the modern listener won’t miss is when she says a bird’s call “pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.”

Romeo, in his dialogue, continues the bird imagery, but also responds to the “wilt” reference when he says, “Night’s candles are burnt out.” He’s also probably thinking of Juliet’s boobalies when he describes how the breaking dawn “stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.” He finishes this speech by saying, “I must be gone and live, or stay and die,” with “die” of course being a double entendre both for death and for sexual climax.

It continues in this vein, though the references aren’t quite so explicit. The last thing Juliet says before the Nurse comes and interrupts them is “more light and light it grows,” and you know she’s only partly referring to the dawn.

I love this stuff.

[jackelope]

This thread rocks.