Twisted Twine, Lustie Ver: Branding with Puns in Tudor Times.

It has recently been brought up, in a comment thread, at the Edward de Vere was Shakespeare Facebook Group, that “ever the same” in Shakespeare's sonnet 76 gives every appearance of being a pun on Queen Elizabeth's motto Semper Eadem: “ever the same”. This resolves with ease to “E. Ver, the same”:

Why write I still all one, E. Ver, the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

(The italics are my own.) This is punning on a level that was much appreciated by Tudor readers — including Tudor monarchs.

Interested to investigate more deeply, member Patrick Roux has asked 'are there extant examples of Edward de Vere using “Ver” or “Ver.” in his communications?' And the answer does, indeed, prove to be particularly interesting.

Perhaps it is best, however, to begin with the works of Thomas Twine. Though little known now, even to scholars, he was quite popular during the 1570s. As I have pointed out in my Shakespeare in 1573 (2021):

81. In 1573, Twine was at the height of his fame. In that year he published his continuation of the translation of the Aeneid left unfinished at Thomas Phaer’s death which would be both authors’ signature work to this day. It was one of several books he published in that year, including The Breuiary of Brytayne, etc., which he dedicated to “Edward Deuiere Lorde Bulbeck, Erle of Oxenford, Lorde great Chamberlayne of England”.¹

As it turns out, one can get a good idea of what portions of the Aeneid Twine translated because they contained an unusual number of instances of the words “twine” and variations upon “twisted,”and “twisted twine.”

This was true of all of the works of Thomas Twine. Not only that, but his friends were in on the branding. In the Breviary, a commendatory poem entitled “A freind, in prayse of the Authour,” includes the line “The Latin thou, the English Twyne did twyst,...”.

So then, it need not come as any surprise that an echo poem written by Edward de Vere appears in the Arundel Harington manuscripts under the heading “The best verse that ever th'author made” that includes the following lines:

O heavens quod she whoe was the fyrst that bredd in me this fevear – vear

whoe was the fyrst that gave the wound whose scar I wear for ever. vere

what cruell Cupide to my harmes vsurpes the golden quiver. vere

what wight fyrst caughte this hart & can from bondage yt deliver vere²

It is worth pointing out that the second quoted line would easily support the pun we are discussing: “the wound whose scar I wear for E Ver.”

All of these copies make clear that the author was Edward de Vere and the melancholy maid was Anne Vavasour. Because their illegitimate son was born on March 21, 1581 [N.S.], and the two separated at that point as lovers, the poem was very likely written before November of 1580.

Thus one of the poems Vere's close friend Thomas Watson contributed to the 1573 anthology An Hundreth Sundrie Flowers makes clear that Vere's name was regularly the instrument of pun and branding at least by that date.

The lustie Ver which whillome might exchange

My griefe to joy, and then my joyes encrease,

Springs now elsewhere, and showes to me but strange,...³

The pun here being upon the name Vere and the common Latin word for spring, ver. Another young woman is melancholy. This time because the “lustie Ver” once shown on her and now shines on someone other than her.

All the young women at court are said to have been greatly disappointed when Edward de Vere — the greatest catch at court — chose to marry Anne Cecil, on December 16, 1571. Likely this is the cause of the maid's grief.

In Watson's Latin envoi to his book Hekatompathia or Passionate Century of Love (1582) — a book he dedicated “To the Right Honorable my very good Lord Edward de Vere, Earle of Oxenford, etc.” — he turns the pun around.

Et tamen exhibitum Vero, qui magna meretur

Virtute et vera nobilitate sua.

*

Dum famulus Verum comitaris in aurea tecta,

Officj semper sit tibi cura tui.⁴

[And also [Vere / True] stands forth, who displays

Such great virtue [lustiness] and his true nobility.

*

While the family [Vere /true] accompanies the golden canopy,

The office forever entrusted to the care of you and yours.]⁵

I go more into the close relationship between Watson, Vere and Shakespeare and their poetries in my Shakespeare in 1573 and in various essays on my Virtual Grub Street linked from my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare Group and Page. There more there than Vere puns.

While there is much more to be revealed on the subject, I will finish for present purposes with one final example that seems yet to be noticed. An epistle attached to the 1609 First Quarto of the play Troilus & Cressida — published some five years after the death of Edward de Vere — entitled after a fashion long considered a mystery.

A never writer, to an ever reader. Newes.

At the beginning of the 17^th century, the Middle English and early modern English “ne” construction, meaning not, was rarely used. While it had gone out of use, however, it was well known from the reading of any educated person.

The author of the epistle, we should know, was quite well aware of the construction by the fact that the title was surely meant to be read among insiders as “A Ne Ver writer, to an E. Ver reader” or “A Not Vere writer, to an E. Vere reader.”

Perhaps Mr. Roux will consider his question answered.

1 Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Shakespeare in 1573: Apprenticeship and Scandal (2021). 81. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096GSQV14

2Hughey, Ruth. The Arundel Harington Manuscript of Tudor Poetry (1960). [179], II.215. Close variations appear in the contemporary manuscript collections Bodleian MS., Rawlinson Poetry, 85, fol. 11r., Archbishop Marsh's Library, MS. 183 Z 3.5.21, fol. 20V, and Folger MS. I,112, fol. 12r.

3Cunliffe, John W. The Complete Works of George Gascoigne (1907). A Hundreth Sundrie Flowers (1573). “Hearbes” I.334.

4 Arber, Edward. Thomas Watson Poems (1870). 32.

5 Sonnet 125. “Were't ought to me I bore the canopy,...” 

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Invention in a Noted Weed: the Poetry of William Shakespeare. September 21, 2024. “The coward conquest of a wretches knife,...”

• The Sonnets of Shakespeare: Sonnet 108. Edward de Vere to his son, Henry. “That may expresse my love, or thy deare merit?”

• Sonnet 130: Shakespeare's Reply to a 1580 Poem by Thomas Watson. September 7, 2024. “Interesting to see our Derek Hunter debating with Dennis McCarthy, at the North group,...”.
• Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”

• Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

• Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.