And there’s always Andrew Marvel:
And as for Shakespeare, who is often low-browed:
Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophelia: No, my Lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap.
Ophelia: Yes, my Lord
Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?
I see nowadays the don’t shy away from the first syllable in “country,” but back in the day, there were all sort of convoluted explanations. (Shakespeare’s audience knew exactly what was meant, though.)
Next best thing to acute angina.
Interesting. The Audible recording I’ve listened to pronounces it “quim”. Perhaps a creative rendering by the reader.
Speaking of Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet Act 3, scene 1:
MERCUTIO Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels?
An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear
nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick; here’s
that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!
Pronounce “minstrels” as “menstruals” and it suddenly makes much more sense. And is a whole lot funnier.
I remember this from high school English class.
To me it was a innocent song about prison, and pre dates the open knowledge of the horror of prison rapes and certainly wasn’t covering anything topical, more making a joke…
It seems that we view such things with our modern eyes back in such a time… Elvis fans didn’t strike me as LGBT friendly either…
Yes, yes, I know well enough. (I’m the first person to even mention the word “queynte.”) My question was about “quim” being used in Chaucer.
Is it a modern English recording? From what I can find, it looks like at least one translation uses the word “quim” there, but there are many translations. But in Chaucer’s original, the word is “queynte,” and I think would be pronounced something like “hwayn-tuh” if I’m remember my Chaucer class right. Or maybe it was “kwain-tuh.” I can’t remember what happened to "qu"s back then.
Fr. Debosier read it to us in English at Catholic High.
“For he knew a woman hath no beard” brought laughs.
How does that make sense and why is that funny?
You left out the next line,
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Apparently “nothing” was Elizabethan vernacular for what a woman sees, rather than a penis, when she looks down. The title Much Ado about Nothing was probably quite salacious.
[Captain Obvious]
It’s Much Ado about Pussy???
[/Cap]
Oh Shakespeare - you rake.
I remember an Engineering roommate who had to get his English requirements out of the way. He comes to me with this poem he has to analyze and is like “Hey WordMan, can you tell me what this means?” It was some Walt Whitman poem about the power of a locomotive engine, straining to move forward and define America’s power. I took a look and replied “I think it means Whitman had a thing for giant throbbing penises.” He reread the poem and burst out laughing at the realization.
Ah - To a Locomotive in Winter: To a Locomotive in Winter by Walt Whitman - Poems | Academy of American Poets
“Menstruals” implies that Romeo and Mercutio are women, and probably references a sexual relationship between them, as Tybalt has already accused them of “consorting.” Remember, back to refer to a man as effeminate and a sodomite was a huge insult, and very funny.
And apparently there are those who did not realize in Forrest Gump , Jenny had AIDs
Here are the final lyrics of Only the Lonely by The Motels:
Only the lone-ly! (gasp)
Only the lonelyyy! (shriek)
Can play… (downbeat)
The song is about pointless sex and the last words portray the singer’s orgasm.