Adultery, but by Who?

Spring

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
'Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
'Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

William Shakespeare

I don't ofter find Shakespeare humorous, but this poem made me smile.

Here is the poem read by a man with a wonderful accent.

Originally, this poem humored me because I thought it was a commentary on marriage. I thought what Shakespeare meant by "The cuckoo ... mocks married men; for thus sings he/ Cuckoo;/ Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear,/ unpleasing to a married ear!" was that the men felt stupid for getting married because in the spring, when everything is new and fresh and the natural thing to do is to procreate, the men want new, fresh, young women, not their old wives. Thus the cuckoo was mocking them, calling them cuckoo (coo-coo, crazy) for getting married in the first place. Upon further research, though, I learned it is actually the opposite. Apparently a cuckold is a man whose wife has cheated on him. In fact, Shakespeare isn't implying that the men are getting restless, but that the women are!

The way the man in the link above stresses the words "cuckoo" does make it seem more like a warning. In this reading, on the other hand, the words "cuckoo" do sound taunting, as if they are making fun of the married men for being married, like I thought. Maybe they're just making fun of them for being married to an adulterer. That is the thing about poetry. It's all about how you read it and how you interpret it. Every poem could have a million meanings.