In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice comments on a description of herself, “that I had my good wit out of the ‘Hundred Merry Tales.’” That text—also known as “Shakespeare’s Jest Book” because of the many stories in it that can also be found in Shakespeare’s plays—is available in various forms including a reproduction of the 1526 version and somewhat modernized language version from 1866.

WORK

Tale XXVII: “Of the gentleman who wished his tooth in the gentlewomen’s tail”

A gentleman and a gentlewoman sat together, talking. The gentleman had a great pain in one of his teeth and he happened to say to the gentlewoman, “Truly, mistress, I have a tooth in my head that is giving me a great deal of pain. I would it were in your tale.”

Hearing him say this, she answered, “In good faith, sir, if your tooth were in my tail it could do but little good. But if there be anything in my tail that could do your tooth good, I would it were in your tooth.”

By this you may see that a woman’s answer is seldom to seek.

—Unknown (modernized by me)
—from Shakespeare’s Jest Book: A Hundred Mery Talys, from the Only Perfect Copy Known

[now, note this passage from The Taming of the Shrew. The more you know…]

WORD(S)

susurrus /soo-SIR-us/. noun. A soft sound; a whispering; a rustling. See also: susurration, also whispering, though in early use maliciously so as in tattling or gossip.

“A brief uproar…too feeble…to ascend by so much as an infantine susurrus to the ears of the British Neptune” (Thomas De Quincey)

“The long corridors were susurrous with rumour.” (Mervyn Peake)

“…they walked him into the cane—never had he heard anything so loud and alien, the susurration, the crackling, the flashes of motion underfoot (snake? mongoose?), overhead even the stars, all of them gathered in vainglorious congress.” (Junot Diaz)

“The tram-lines, like wings of fire—
Their long, retreating sparks, their susurrant cries” (Charles Wright)

WEB

1. A few of Lynd Ward’s wood engravings for her 1930 “wordless novel” Madman’s Drum.

2. “Can we have a virtuous sense of worth without the vanity of self-love?” So asks Simon Blackburn in “Know Thy Selfie”.

3. How “Shakespeare defined our concept of nothingness”.

4. “28 ‘Favorite’ Books That Are Huge Red Flags”.

5. Today in 1892, Lizzie Borden took her axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. Except it wasn’t her mother, it wasn’t an axe and it wasn’t 40 whacks. Oh, and she was acquitted. Read a thorough account of the case (and myth) or just watch the History Channel documentary.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• It turns out there is a term for words whose sound/appearance are at odds with their meaning: they are called phantonyms. More good examples at the link.

• Also fun: antagonyms are single words with multiple, contradictory meanings, such as “skin,” which can mean to cover something or to remove that covering.

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