Theme: Will
Content: A further play on the author's first name with exactly half the 14 puns of Sonnet 135 in a 14-line sonnet.
If thy soul check
thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy
blind soul that
I was thy Will,
And will,
thy
soul knows, is admitted
there;
Thus far for love
my love-suit,
sweet, fulfil.
- The Will in line 2 refers to the author's first name.
- The will in line 3 refers to the author's sexual organ.
- admitted there refers to the female subject's genitalia.
- thy soul appears three successive times in the opening 3 lines.
Will will
fulfil the treasure
of thy love,
Ay, fill it full
with wills, and
my will one.
In things of great
receipt with ease we prove
Among a number one is reckoned none.
- The first Will in line 5 refers to both sexual desire and the author's sexual organ.
- The second will in line 5 augments the first Will so exemplifying the author's desire to fulfil which is itself augmented in the next line by fill it full.
- The wills in line 6 refers to other lovers' sexual organs and the will in the same line refers to the author's sexual organ.
- treasure is Elizabethan slang for a woman's genitalia.
- Among a number one is reckoned none means that the author being one more who is sexually active with the female subject will not count for anything, i.e. "what difference would another one make?" as well as the fact that, literally, the number 1 was not considered a number.
- one is repeatedly reinforced via one is reckoned none.
- The reference to great receipt suggests that the female subject is in receipt of a great many lovers and the financial terminology in the sonnet (receipt, number, account, reckoned and possibly check) may allude to the woman being a prostitute.
Then in the number
let me pass untold,
Though in thy store's
account I one
must be;
For nothing
hold me, so it please thee hold
That nothing me a something,
sweet, to thee.
- Possible pun on "passion" in pass untold.
- Possible pun on tolling numbers in untold.
- Possible pun on "cunt" in account.
- store is a further reference to the female subject's genitalia.
- I one must be is a plea by the author to be one of the men with whom the female subject has sexual relationships, one of those who is added to her store's account. In this quatrain's play on numbers "I one" may also be a pun on "1 one", i.e. emphasising the author's desire to be the woman's first choice.
- nothing in line 11 is a further pun on the female subject's genitalia as per Hamlet's and Ophelia's speech in Hamlet (see critique of Sonnet 131). Shakespeare plays on the slang meaning of nothing also relating to himself as counting for nothing in the account of the number of men who have been sexually intimate with the female subject. He wants to turn that zero account of nothing into something by having a sexual relationship with her, by way of her nothing.
- The author's name is absent from this quatrain as he in unaccounted for, a nothing who wants to be something. In the absence of Will there is inevitably an absence of love too.
- I one must be suggests that the word one is now a substitute for the author's name which is now absent from this quatrain. The word love is also absent from this quatrain suggesting love is only present with Will. There are 7 occurrences of Will / wills, 5 occurrences of love, and 3 occurrences of one making a total of 15. As one is reckoned none effectively cancels out one of the one's then we may have the expected perfect 14 occurrences of the author in a 14-line sonnet: the author represented by Will, love and one.
- Will has morphed to the phonetically alliterative one (I one must be) which in Q2 is reckoned to be the rhyming none (one is reckoned none) which in Q3 morphs to the alliterative nothing (nothing me) which in the couplet morphs to the alliterative name (Make but my name thy love) which resolves back to the author's name of Will (for my name is Will).
Make but my name thy love,
and love that
still,
And then thou lov'st me for
my name is Will.
- Explicit statement in for my name is Will of what the author's name is and its significance in being a pun on sexual desire and the sexual organs.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net