Re: Yet am I not altogether an ass (MWW I.i)
Anne—
Thomas Middleton uses the “ars”/”arse” joke in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (4.1.64-74).
Derek
From: Anne Prescott <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:49:49 -0500
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Yet am I not altogether an ass (MWW I.i)
I've gotten a bit lost in this discussion and maybe somebody has
raised the matter already, but were there ever any puns on "arse" and
"ars," as in the "liberated Latin" (to go with "fractured French")
translation (my mother of all people told me): "Ars est celare artem"
or "Arthur is hiding behind your . . . um . . . back"? This requires
the British pronunciation of "arse," of course.
A student of mine wanted to know, when we were talking about
Sidney, Phil-hip and horse(loving) if there were ever puns on "Nay"
and "Neigh." Yes, I know. Ouch. Anne.
On Nov 12, 2009, at 3:09 PM, James C. Nohrnberg wrote:
> I don't mean to suggest that the pun donkey/arse is impossible to
> Elizabethans; indeed that's precisely why I brought up ass-worship
> in connection with arse-service, to possibly give the arse/ass
> disjunction (from which I started) the lie, and why I used the word
> preposterous (i.e. ass-backwards). Bottom is a weaver, a sedentary
> trade that presumably had its effect on one's figure. But Bottom
> is also a fool, and fools, as Bottom's translation makes him
> technically out to be, wore ass's ears. So here is a bottom
> identified an ass. (St. Francis called his body Brother Ass, and
> given the body-ness of the posterior, this might tend in the same
> direction, towards identifying the arsinine with the asinine.)
> That ass means "a stupid and blockish fool" is of course the
> presumption of much Shakespearean usage (e.g., Dogberry in MAAN),
> but the treatment of the Syracusan Dromio (in CofE) as a beaten
> slave seems to also cast him as the beast of burden in question
> (see MofV, "your asses ...you use in abject and in slavish
> parts"). See Bottom's "I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but
> tickle me, I must scratch" (is he scratching his beard or his
> bottom?) and "Man is but an ass..." (cp. 'butt'). See also
> Coriolanus, II.i, "Your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as
> to stuff a botcher's [clothes mender's] cushion, or to be entombed
> in an ass's pack-saddle." A weaver's stuffed seat seems here to be
> associated with sitting on an ass (donkey). -- Jim N.
>
> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:25:04 -0500
> Hannibal Hamlin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Digressing somewhat, I'm not quite convinced about the traditional
>> arguments
>> re. arse/ass in British English. I had an ongoing argument about
>> this with
>> Winfried Schleiner while I was at the Folger, and I think I have a
>> decent
>> case for Bottom's arse (involving tracking puns that suggest the
>> two words
>> weren't that different in pronunciation). My motivation has to do
>> with the
>> layers of biblical allusion in Bottom's Dream (surprise, surprise).
>> More eventually, if I can get the argument down on paper sometime!
>> Hannibal
>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 2:14 PM, James C. Nohrnberg <
>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> The phrase is "arse-kissing," because English English reserves
>>> ass for the
>>> beast of burden; Despite the impression it has on Americans,
>>> Bottom's name
>>> in Shaksepare's MND does not refer to the ass's head he is so
>>> preposterously
>>> saddled with. See Spenser Ecyclopedia (p. 457), sub Marx &
>>> Spenser, where
>>> the epithet, from The Ethnological Notebooks, ed. Lawrence Krader
>>> (Adden,
>>> 1972), is linked to "England's 'Arch poet,'" and to the satyrs'
>>> kissing of
>>> Una's feet--but they also worship her ass, which seems to bring
>>> this thread
>>> full circle. (I managed to keep The Crown Jewels of Zembla out
>>> of my index,
>>> but the editors of the Encyclopedia were not afraid of their
>>> sense of humour
>>> [English spelling].) Jim N.
>>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:54:36 -0600
>>>
>>> Donald Stump <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anyone have a reference for the attack on Spenser as the
>>>> Queen's
>>>> "ass-licking poet"? I've heard it attributed to Marx,
>>>> but I can't find it.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Donald Stump
>>>> Professor of English
>>>> English Undergraduate Director and
>>>> Director of the Micah Program
>>>> 229 Humanities
>>>> Saint Louis University
>>>> St. Louis, MO 63103
>>>> (314) 977-3009
>>>>
>>>
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> James Nohrnberg
>>> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
>>> Univ. of Virginia
>>> P.O Box 400121
>>> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
>>>
>> --
>> Hannibal Hamlin
>> Associate Professor of English
>> The Ohio State University
>> 164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
>> Columbus, OH 43210-1340
>> [log in to unmask]
>> [log in to unmask]
>
> [log in to unmask]
> James Nohrnberg
> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
> Univ. of Virginia
> P.O Box 400121
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
