[lit-ideas] With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 07:17:29 EDT
why on earth is shakespeare so interested in nonnies
hey nonnie nonnie
ho nonnie nonnie
come nonnie nonnie
sit nonnie nonnie
wag your aspirant tail nonnie nonnie
what was a nonnie anyway
---
Well, the OED provides some earlier quotes than Shakespeare. There's
1533 J. HEYWOOD JPlay of Wether sig. Diii,
Gyue boys wether quoth a nonny nonny.
1535 COVERDALE Goostly Psalmes Introd. Epist. sig. iiv,
They shulde be better occupied, then with hey nony nony, hey troly loly,
One quote is Scottish:
c1550 Complaynt Scotl. (1979) vi. 51
The lang nounenou.
The OED suggest that the hidden meaning of the nonny is "the vulva" -- and
they quote from
1611 J. FLORIO
Queen Anna's New World of Words,
Fossa... Vsed also for a womans pleasure-pit, nony-nony or pallace of
pleasure.
[-- a meaning which can be traced back earlier than Shakespeare to:
1593 M. DRAYTON Idea iii. sig. C3,
These noninos of filthie ribauldry.]
So I would be more careful with your spontaneous refrains alla Elizabethan,
'come nonny nonny' and such.
In a way, reminds me of Formby and his 'fanny' -- which was OKAY in the
England, but tabooed in USA.
-- I would think that the 'nonny' is related to the 'nun', or the 'nunny' --
given that these places were not co-ed (but purely female) and Hamlet is
constantly advising Ophelia to go to a nunnery (and leave him alone). Where the
'filthy ribaldry' of nunneries come from Geary may provide us with a
first-hand.
There's also this PhD dissertation which I found in the UMI database
Gupta, I. R. The Bearded Nonny: Shakespeare's mysoginy from a homosocial
Sedgwickian perspective. University of Warwick. -- which traces the nonny --
the
abstract reads -- the the Medousa myth of the Greeks -- later developed by
Jung and Freud, as the unknown -- for a male -- and often unknownABLE
territory
of female sexuality.
Gupta does textual criticism on couple of Shakespearian texts. The first is
<NOB SHAKESPEARE A.Y.L. v. iii,
(1) With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino.
In this first interjection, Gupta propoes to replace 'hey' for 'phallus',
and 'ho' for prostitute'; 'nony-no' becomes the negation of the vulva. This the
becomes:
(1') With priapic energy, and a woman of license, and another priapic
energy, but no vulva.
-- the meaning of which is unclear.
The second interjection Gupta uses is from 1619 Two Wise Men VII. i. 87
(2) Hey niny, nony no. Hey niny no. Hey noniny nonino, Hey ninyno.
Here, she notes, the 'nony' is unnegated, and appears as female sexuality in
its pure form. In her rewrite, this becomes:
(2') Priapic energy, vulva, a little one -- a big one, no. Priapic energy
little vulva (sometimes no). Priapic energy, no-vulva, no-vulva. Priapic energy
little-vulva no.
Gupta concludes that Shakespeare's fears towards the 'nonny' and his
frequents rejections of it "nonny? no!" can be traced back to his unfulfilled
sexual
relationships with Anna Hattaway.
Cheers,
J. L.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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