Hey, hey! I retired to Key West, Florida, where native born Keys folk
are known as "conchs." As it happens, I am not one of those.
Susanne
On 10/27/09, Tom Bishop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> An inch in a man's conk is much.
>
>
> On 28/10/2009, at 2:41 PM, David Miller wrote:
>
>> I love raw oysters.
>>
>>
>> On Oct 27, 2009, at 9:26 PM, anne prescott wrote:
>>
>>> I may seem to be mixing up my oysters with my conchs, but I
>>> remember reading (in Edgar Wind on pagan mysteries? may'be he's too
>>> respectable) that the "concha"--which can also be what we would
>>> call a scallop, was Roman slang for vulva. I've usually read Denny
>>> as making an obscene joke connecting her making herself available
>>> in print with making herself available otherwise. I haven't checked
>>> with my learned classicist sister on this, but I did check concha
>>> (related to our conch shell) on the Perseus on-line database, which
>>> put me on to the great Lewis and Short dictionary, which says that
>>> "concha" is a whole variety of bivalve shellfish, including the
>>> pearl bearing ones, and sure enough cites one Roman writer who uses
>>> it as slang for "cunnus," which means . . . well I think it means
>>> the part of Mary Wroth that Denny is making a dirty joke about. It
>>> also gives a whole new look to Bottecelli's Venus on the shell--
>>> she's riding on a symbol of her trade (poor St. James, who carries
>>> the scallop shell--at least not an oyster).
>>>
>>> In my youth we didn't discuss such things with professors.
>>> What's important is the association of female publishing with
>>> sexual looseness, but that's an old story. Anne.
>>>
>>> On Oct 27, 2009, at 7:49 PM, Joel Davis wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'd like to propose a less learned possibility than either Andrew
>>>> or Amy, though I'm agnostic about which is the best solution:
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps Denny begins with something like Andrew suggests,
>>>> comparing Wroth to the inquisitive mouse, but then, realizing he
>>>> has hit upon an especially nasty slur, he abandons his metaphor.
>>>> The pattern seems pretty similar to invectives in Nashe and
>>>> Shakespeare. It might be that the decorum for a relatively low
>>>> form doesn't exclude mixing metaphors...
>>>>
>>>>> Whose vaine comparison for want of witt
>>>>>
>>>>> Takes up the oystershell to play with it
>>>>>
>>>>> Yet common oysters such as thine gape wide
>>>>>
>>>>> And take in pearles or worse at every tide
>>>>
>>>> Joel
>>>>
>>>> Joel B Davis
>>>> Associate Professor
>>>> Director, MA Program in English
>>>> Stetson University
>>>> 421 N Woodland Blvd Unit 8300
>>>> DeLand FL 32721
>>>> 386.822.7724
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [SIDNEY-
>>>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of andrew zurcher
>>>> [[log in to unmask]
>>>> ]
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:39 PM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: Wroth's "oystershell"
>>>>
>>>> Hi Zack,
>>>>
>>>> I suspect it's a reference to the emblem tradition involving
>>>> oysters,
>>>> which is pretty extensive. I think it began with Alciato (see
>>>> 'Captivus ob
>>>> gulam', which is listed as no 86 from the Emblematum libellus
>>>> collection,
>>>> digitised at Glasgow: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk).
>>>>
>>>> The basic scenario is this: some stupid mammal, usually a mouse,
>>>> happens
>>>> upon an oyster; he licks the shell, believing it to be a bone;
>>>> then gets
>>>> his head trapped inside when the oyster abruptly clams up. The
>>>> emblems
>>>> seem to focus on the way in which the mouse exposes himself to
>>>> ridicule,
>>>> after trapping and immobilizing himself. The Alciato poem makes
>>>> much of
>>>> the mouse's sensitive whiskers and inquisitive tongue. Ouch.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> andrew
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andrew Zurcher
>>>> Queens' College
>>>> Cambridge CB3 9ET
>>>> United Kingdom
>>>> +44 1223 335 572
>>>>
>>>> hast hast post hast for lyfe
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Zackariah Long wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm teaching Wroth's *Pamphilia to Amphilanthus* for the first
>>>>> time this
>>>>> week and would like to frame our discussion using Denny's and
>>>>> Wroth's poetic
>>>>> back-and-forth over *Urania*. There are some lines in Denny's
>>>>> poem that
>>>>> have been puzzling me:
>>>>>
>>>>> Whose vaine comparison for want of witt
>>>>>
>>>>> Takes up the oystershell to play with it
>>>>>
>>>>> Yet common oysters such as thine gape wide
>>>>>
>>>>> And take in pearles or worse at every tide
>>>>>
>>>>> Now I'm pretty sure what's going on in the bawdy second two lines
>>>>> but the
>>>>> first reference to the oystershell--"Takes up the oystershell to
>>>>> play with
>>>>> it"--gives me pause. I understand that in terms of the metaphor
>>>>> Wroth is
>>>>> surface without substance, only a "shell" of wit without the
>>>>> "pearl" inside
>>>>> (which must be, ummm, "deposited" from without), but is there
>>>>> anything else
>>>>> going on here? Does it mean something particular to "take up" or
>>>>> "play with"
>>>>> the oystershell? This sounds like a contemporary expression
>>>>> whose meaning
>>>>> is lost for me. I've searched the OED, but nothing seems
>>>>> definitive.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any assistance would be appreciated. Many thanks in advance...
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Zack Long
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Zackariah Long
>>>>> 211 Sturges Hall
>>>>> Department of English
>>>>> Ohio Wesleyan University
>>>>> 61 S. Sandusky St.
>>>>> Delaware, OH 43015
>>>>> Office phone: (740) 368-3596
>>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>>
>>>
>>
>
> Tom Bishop
> Professor and Head of English
> University of Auckland
> (64-9) 373-7599 ext 85586
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
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