Note 8 — SUMMARY
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Footnote 8:
(return)
The homophones sun = son. There is a Greek epigram on Homer, wherein, among other fine things, he is styled,
Ελλανων βιοτη δευτερον αελιον
which Mackail translates 'a second sun on the life of Greece'. But second son in English means the second male child of its parents. It is plain that the Greek is untranslatable into English because of the homophone. The thing cannot be said.
Donne would take this bull by the horns, pretending or thinking that genuine feeling can be worthily carried in a pun. So that in his impassioned 'hymn to God the Father', deploring his own sinfulness, his climax is
But swear by thyself that at my death Thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now,
the only poetic force of which seems to lie in a covert plea of pitiable imbecility.
Dr. Henry Bradley in 1913 informed the International Historical Congress that the word son had ceased to be vernacular in the dialects of many parts of England. 'I would not venture to assert (he adds) that the identity of sound with sun is the only cause that has led to the widespread disuse of son in dialect speech, but I think it has certainly contributed to the result.'