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REASON-RAISIN-RAISING
Helge Kökeritz, in Shakespeare's Pronunciation, lists Shakespeare's puns, many of which are only understandable with some knowledge of the GVS. One of the more famous is from I Henry 4, 2.4.260 and following:
| POINS: Come,
your reason Jack, your reason.
FALSTAFF: What, upon compulsion? No: were I at the Strappado, or all the Racks in the World, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion? If Reasons were as plentie as Blackberries, I would give no man a Reason upon compulsion, I. |
Falstaff is punning on the word reason, which he would pronounce with a long e. This makes a seemingly random utterance into an understandable joke: "If Reasons [raisins] were as plentie as Blackberries . . . " The e in reason will later move up to e and then to PDE i. |
The jokes get bawdier when Shakespeare puns on reason and raising;
Kökeritz cites this example from Taming of the Shrew, pr.2.1.126-7:
| LADY: I hope
this reason stands for my excuse.
BEGGAR: I, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. |
[See Kökeritz 138-9 and Pyles and Algeo 180-1 for more discussion of these passages]
ACE-ASS
This scene is from Midsummer Night's Dream, 5.1.312 and following:
| PYRAMUS: Now
dye, dye, dye, dye, dye, dye.
DEMETRIUS: No Die, but an ace for him; for he is but one. LYSANDER: Lesse then an ace man. For he is dead, he is nothing. DUKE: With the helpe of a Surgeon, he might yet recover, and prove an Asse. |
The words ass and ace could be homonyms for some speakers in Shakespeare's time. The word ass has a short vowel and was pronunced as it is in PDE: [æs]. As Kokeritz notes, however, in the 16th century, ace could be pronunced with the æ as a variant of the long e. With the GVS, the æ moved up to e and then to e, where it is today: [es]. |
[See Kökeritz 89
for more discussion of this passage]
Copyleft © Melinda J. Menzer 2000