On 5/11/06 18:33, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
CHW: "Brevity is the soul of wit. Nevertheless Oscar Williams' jeu d'esprit might be clarified by inserting an extra stanza between I. and II. As follows:Thy eye I eyed. [Thanks Will --- sonnet 104. Incidentally, does the idea that "Will" was an Eizabethan euphemism for penis, as asserted by someone a few postings ago, have any solid foundation? I haven't checked Partridge, but it sheds new light on Schopenhauer.]
The information was S K-B's, but Schopenhauer was not another Will so... is the name Arthur also used euphemistically?
JM/CHW: I picked up the Elizabethan ‘Will’ as penis directly from a lecture by A L Rowse some 40 years ago. He had just announced his ‘identification’ of the sonnets’ Dark Lady. She was Emilia married to a musician in Shakespeare’s theatre company. He was also a William (sorry I’ve forgotten the surnames). Rowse found her in some recently uncovered diaries described as ‘very browne in youth.’ All very exciting and controversial! Emilia even published sonnets of her own, as I recall. Anyroad, Rowse cited the so-called ‘Will sonnet’ where the bard writes that his lover (Emilia) “ ... hath Will ... and Will in overplus” meaning she was, to use a Scouse idiom, as happy as a dog with two dicks.
Jansy subsequently asked if ‘Will as penis’ could be connected with the slang ‘Willie?’ It’s plausible but more likely just one of those coincidences that confound the etymologists. As I mentioned earlier, almost ANY noun can emerge euphemistically as the ‘one-eyed snake!”
Stan Kelly-Bootle