Editing Double entendre (section)

=== Literature ===
In [[Homer]]'s ''The [[Odyssey]]'', when [[Odysseus]] is captured by the [[Cyclopes|Cyclops]] [[Polyphemus]], he tells the Cyclops that his name is Oudeis (ουδεις = No-one). When Odysseus attacks the Cyclops later that night and stabs him in the eye, the Cyclops runs out of his cave, yelling to the other Cyclopes that "No-one has hurt me!," which leads the other Cyclopes to take no action under the assumption that Polyphemus blinded himself by accident, allowing Odysseus and his men to escape.

[[File:Wanderer-Exeter-Book-first-page-Bernard-Muir.jpg|thumb|The first page of the poem "The Wanderer" found in the [[Exeter Book]].]]
Some of the earliest double entendres are found in the 10th-century [[Exeter Book]], or ''Codex exoniensis'', at [[Exeter Cathedral]] in [[England]]. In addition to the various poems and stories found in the book, there are also numerous riddles. Answers to the riddles were not included in the book, but have been found by scholars over the years. Some of these employ double entendres, such as [[Exeter Book#Riddle 25|Riddle 25]]:
{{Blockquote|text=I am a wondrous creature: to women a thing of joyful expectation, to close-lying companions serviceable. I harm no city-dweller excepting my slayer alone. My stem is erect and tall––I stand up in bed––and whiskery somewhere down below. Sometimes a countryman's quite comely daughter will venture, bumptious girl, to get a grip on me. She assaults my red self and seizes my head and clenches me in a cramped place. She will soon feel the effect of her encounter with me, this curl-locked woman who squeezes me. Her eye will be wet.}}
This suggests the answer "a [[Human penis|penis]]" but also has the innocent answer "an [[onion]]."<ref>{{cite web |title = Exeter Book Riddles |url = http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/flowers/enigmata.html |website = penelope.uchicago.edu |access-date = 1 October 2015}}</ref>

Examples of sexual [[innuendo]] and double-entendre occur in [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' (14th century), in which the [[Wife of Bath's Tale]] is laden with double entendres. These include her use of the word "queynte" (modern spelling "quaint") to describe domestic duties while also alluding to genitalia ("queynte" being at the time an alternate form of "[[cunt]]," a term for the [[vulva]]).

The title of [[Sir Thomas More]]'s 1516 fictional work ''[[Utopia (More book)|Utopia]]'' is a double entendre because of the [[pun]] between two [[Greek language|Greek]]-derived words that would have identical pronunciation. Spelled as it is, or especially spelled as "Outopia," the title means "no place;"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.webster.com/dictionary/Utopia |title=Utopia – Definition of utopia by Merriam-Webster |website=Webster.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071020052252/http://webster.com/dictionary/utopia |archive-date=20 October 2007 |access-date=3 January 2008}}</ref> meanwhile spelled as "Eutopia," with the same English pronunciation,<ref>{{cite web | author=A. D. Cousins | work=Macquarie University | url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8578 | title=Utopia | publisher=[[The Literary Encyclopedia]] | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711213449/http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8578 | archive-date=11 July 2007 | date=25 October 2004 | url-status=live}}</ref> it would mean "good place."