The Major Hidden Poet of Shakespeare's Time

[Sabrina Feldman]

A coterie of writers in Elizabethan England admired a major hidden poet whom they believed to be capable of writing at the Bard's level. This man really existed; he was not invented by snobs, fantastists, or conspiracy theorists. Although his existence doesn't prove that a Shakespeare authorship deception occurred, it does make a deception more possible.

The clearest evidence for the major hidden poet's existence can be found in Thomas Edwards's 1593 poem "Envoy to Narcissus" from "Cephalus and Procris, and Narcissus," in which Edwards lauded a mysterious poet who wore "purple robes" (a color restricted by the Elizabethan sumptuary laws to the ultra-elite), and who wielded immense power throughout the land:

Eke in purple robes distain'd,
Amid'st the Center of this clime,
I have heard say doth remain
One whose power floweth far,
That should have been of our rhyme
The only object and the star.

In "Orchestra, or A Poem of Dancing" (1596), Sir John Davies also pays tribute to a major poet whom literary historians have yet to identify. Davies concludes "Orchestra" by singing the praises of one living English poet far above the rest: the Swallow,

...whose swift Muse doth range
Through rare Ideas, and inventions strange,
And ever doth enjoy her joyful spring,
And sweeter then the Nightingale doth sing.

O that I might that singing Swallow hear
To whom I owe my service and my love,
His sugared tunes would so enchant mine ear,
And in my mind such sacred fury move,
As I should knock at heav'ns great gate above...

The "singing Swallow" was not Edmund Spenser or Samuel Daniel, highly regarded poets whom Davies had already praised. He is also not likely to have been William Shakespeare, since Davies was an ambitious court sycophant who would not have felt that he owed his "service" to a stage actor. By a process of elimination, the Swallow appears to have been a major aristocratic poet who avoided publishing under his own name.

A third contemporary allusion to a major hidden poet can be found in John Marston's 1598 "Scourge of Villainy." In Satire IX, Marston longs for the poet he loves best of all, a man whose name is bounded by a single letter, to achieve the fame he so richly deserves:

...Far fly thy fame,
Most, most of me beloved, whose silent name
One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style
I ever honour, and if my love beguile
Not much my hopes, then thy unvalu'd worth
Shall mount fair place when Apes are turned forth.

It is possible that Thomas Edwards, John Davies, and John Marston were referring to different major poets who could not be named. However, the simplest explanation is that they meant to praise a single great poet at court in the 1590s whose identity was a closely guarded secret among members of the London intelligentsia. The hidden poet is most likely to have been Thomas Sackville, because he matches the collective description implied by Edwards, Davies, and Marston's verses. He was a poet of very high ability; he wrote many works that were never published under his name; he was entitled to wear purple robes as an elite member of the Knights of the Garter; he wielded enormous political power as a privy councilor and the queen's second cousin; and his titled name, Thomas Lord Buckhurst, began and ended with the single letter 't.'

Two poems which the major hidden poet might have written are Ignoto's commendatory verses in Edmund Spenser's 1590 "The Faerie Queene," and Phaeton's commendatory sonnet in John Florio's 1591 "Second Fruits." Sackville is a plausible author of both poems, both of which contain Shakespearean echoes. To begin, he was an admired friend of Spenser's whom Spenser asked to "evermore vouchsafe" his masterwork against its envious detractors, as Ignoto did in his commendatory poem. Also, he matches the three essential traits held by the author of the Phaeton sonnet: he was a close friend of John Florio's, he was admired for his excellent sonnets, and he was a poet who self-identified with the mythological figure Phaeton.

It was not unheard of for an Elizabethan poet of high social rank to present his verses under another man's name. Evidence for this can be found in Robert Greene's 1591 pamphlet "Farewell to Folly," in which Greene bemoaned those "Theological poets, which, for their calling and gravity being loathe to have any profane pamphlets pass under their hand, get some other Batillus to set his name to their verses." Greene had a specific Batillus in mind, whom he identified by alluding to two passages from "Fair Em," an apocryphal play attributed to William Shakespeare in a volume belonging to the library of King Charles II. If the Stratford actor really did write "Fair Em," then Greene's words imply he had begun serving as a front man by 1591.

Indirect evidence that William Shakespeare may have served as a front man for the author of Shakespeare's works can be found in several works from the period, beginning with Thomas Nashe's 1594 picaresque novel "The Unfortunate Traveller." In his dedication to the Earl of Southampton, Nashe slyly mimicked the dedication to Southampton in Shakespeare's 1594 narrative poem "The Rape of Lucrece," signed by William Shakespeare. Nashe concluded by announcing his plan to get "a new brain, a new wit, a new style, a new soul...to canonize your name to posterity." One wonders whether he knew or suspected that William Shakespeare had taken on "a new brain, a new wit, a new style, a new soul" to canonize Southampton's name to posterity.

Nashe specialized in ingeniously veiled satire on the rich and famous. His story "The Unfortunate Traveller" relates how Jack Wilton, a knavish page from the court of Henry VIII, exchanged identities on the European continent with the Earl of Surrey, a magnicent poet who spends much of his time writing poetry in honor of his love "Geraldine." It is not impossible that he was lampooning a Shakespeare authorship deception.

The following year, Edmund Spenser published his autobiographical pastoral poem "Colin Clout's Come Home Again." In this work he highly praised ten of his poetic contemporaries, concluding with the gifted poet "Aetion":

And there, though last not least, is Aetion:
A gentler Shepherd may nowhere be found;
Whose Muse, full of high thought's invention,
Doth, like himself, heroically sound.

Aetion's pseudonym implies he was the first poet of the period, a "beginning, example or cause"--an older man whose works inspired those who followed him. He is most likely to have been Thomas Sackville, whose name has a heroic ring (sack-ville or sack-village) and whom Spenser had earlier commended for his heroic poetic style. Spenser was surely aware that Shakespeare also wrote in a heroic style, and had a heroic sounding name, but he never openly complimented William Shakespeare before his death in 1599. Spenser may have intended to subtly compliment Sackville as the author of Shakespeare's works.
Another hint that a literary coterie knew or suspected William Shakespeare wasn't the Bard can be found in John Marston's 1598 "Scourge of Villainy," which contains a satirical description of a lazy poet who falls asleep and begins to dream. Right away,

Out steps some fairy with quick motion,
And tells him wonders of some flow'ry vale;
[He] Awakes, straight rubs his eyes, and prints his tale.

One interpretation of Marston's lines is that he believed William Shakespeare was surreptitiously given the play A Midsummer Night's Dream about fairies in a flowery vale, rather than inventing it himself.

Then there is the character Ovid Junior in Ben Jonson's topical satire "Poetaster" (1601), who logically should have represented England's Ovid, as Francis Meres had memorably hailed Shakespeare in 1598. But instead of resembling William Shakespeare, Ovid Junior is a conflicted poet and lawyer manqué who denies to his father that he wrote the play Medea for the common theatres. "They wrong me, sir, and do abuse you more, that blow your ears with these untrue reports. I am not known unto the open stage, nor do I traffic in their theatres."

Another glimpse of a major hidden poet can perhaps be found in the first edition of Ben Jonson's "Sejanus, His Fall," printed in 1605. In a preface to the play, Jonson explains that the printed version differed from the staged version of 1603 because he had removed all those passages which had been written by "a second pen," choosing to substitute "weaker, and no doubt, less pleasing, [verses] of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation." Jonson had become friends with Thomas Sackville by this time, and it is at least possible that Sackville was the second pen. The poet Thomas Campion praised Sackville for his "public and private" poems in 1602, and after Sackville died in 1608, Joshua Sylvester honored him as a poet who had been secretly devoted to the muses.

http://www.apocryphalshakespeare.com

[Don]

>Then there is the character Ovid Junior in Ben Jonson's topical satire "Poetaster" (1601), who logically should have represented England's Ovid, as Francis Meres had memorably hailed Shakespeare in 1598. But instead of resembling William Shakespeare, Ovid Junior is a conflicted poet and lawyer manqu� who denies to his father that he wrote the play Medea for the common theatres. "They wrong me, sir, and do abuse you more, that blow your ears with these untrue reports. I am not known unto the open stage, nor do I traffic in their theatres."

>
>Another glimpse of a major hidden poet can perhaps be found in the first edition of Ben Jonson's "Sejanus, His Fall," printed in 1605. In a preface to the play, Jonson explains that the printed version differed from the staged version of 1603 because he had removed all those passages which had been written by "a second pen," choosing to substitute "weaker, and no doubt, less pleasing, [verses] of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation." Jonson had become friends with Thomas Sackville by this time, and it is at least possible that Sackville was the second pen. The poet Thomas Campion praised Sackville for his "public and private" poems in 1602, and after Sackville died in 1608, Joshua Sylvester honored him as a poet who had been secretly devoted to the muses.
>
>http://www.apocryphalshakespeare.com

Also to be factored in, it seems, is the circulation of unpublished
poems among certain groups. It was necessary to do this, given the
lack and suspicion of publishing and printing, so evidently poems were
handed off, from person to person, which might be only a select group
with certain interests?

So the phenomenon of "hidden poet" comes close to the practical need
for circumspection in sharing poems among those in London, say.

So it may have been that Shakespeare's sonnets were circulated among
familiars, perhaps ones of long-standing interest in his poetry,
perhaps those attending a "circle" of literary patrons.

My speculation is mostly deduced from circumstances of the time, such
as the vogue for poems about Gloriana early on, and perhaps poems with
erotic abandon, along the lines of Shakespeares bawdy. bookburn

[Bob Grumman]

The HLAS search engine was kind enough to make the discussion below available to me. It should be useful since it includes the entire text of the poem under discussion. I note that my argument is against Price, not Sabrina. I'm sure Sabrina's argument is taken up elsewhere at HLAS. I don't have time for it now.

Bob Grumman
3/26/01
I'm now about seventy pages from the end of
Diana Price's book, and having trouble with
its Ogburnianism. I just finished reading
about L'Envoy to Narcissus, by Thomas Edwards,
from a poem in Cephalus and Procris (1595):

Adon deafly masking through
Stately tropes rich conceited,
Shewed he well deserved to,
Loves Delight on him to gaze,
And had not love her self entreated,
Other nymphs had sent him bays.

Eke in purple robes distained,
Amidst the Center of this clime,
I have heard say doth remain,

One whose power floweth far,
That should have been of our rhyme
The only object and the star.

Well could his bewitching pen,
Done the Muses objects to us,
Although he differs much from men,
Tilting under Friaries,
Yet his golden art might woo us,
To have honored him with bays.

Price wants this to be saying "Adon"
(Shakespeare--since other poets in
this work are referred to by the
names of men they wrote about) was
the one in purple robes, which
Shakespeare supposedly couldn't have
been (even in a poem) since he was
a commoner. Etc.

Of course, the second and third stanzas
given are to a second person--else it would
have said, "HE I've heard say doth remain."
And Adon is finished when love her self
gives him bays. (I suspect the poem as
a whole is about a series of poets
getting bays.)

To clinch this interpretation, though, it'd
be helpful to know how the rest of the Envoy
goes. (Terry or someone else, I think,
may have quoted and discussed it, but
where, when, I know not.) Did the author
generally treat his poets with one stanza,
for instance? So, does anyone know where
I can see the whole of L'Envoy?

--Bob G.

--
Posted from nut-n-but.net [205.161.239.5]
via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Click here to Reply
Terry Ross
3/26/01
On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Bob Grumman wrote:

> I'm now about seventy pages from the end of
> Diana Price's book, and having trouble with
> its Ogburnianism. I just finished reading
> about L'Envoy to Narcissus, by Thomas Edwards,
> from a poem in Cephalus and Procris (1595):

. . .

> So, does anyone know where

Here it is:

L'ENVOY.

Scarring beautie all bewitching,
Tell a tale to hurt it selfe,
Tels a tale how men are fleeting,
All of Loue and his power,
Tels how womens shewes are pelfe,
And their constancies as flowers.

Aie me pretie wanton boy,
What a sire did hatch thee forth,
To shew thee of the worlds annoy,
Ere thou kenn'st anie pleasure:
Such a fauour's nothing worth,
To touch not to taste the treasure.

Poets that diuinely dreampt,
Telling wonders visedly,
My slow Muse haue quite benempt,
And my rude skonce haue aslackt,
So I cannot cunningly,
Make an image to awake.

Ne the frostie lims of age,
Vncouth shape (mickle wonder)
To tread with them in equipage,
As quaint light blearing eies,
Come my pen broken vnder,
Magick-spels such deuize.

Collyn was a mighty swaine,
In his power all do flourish,
We are shepheards but in vaine,
There is but one tooke the charge,
By his toile we do nourish,
And by him are inlarg'd.

He vnlockt Albions glorie,
He twas tolde of Sidneys honor,
Onely he of our stories,
Must be sung in greatest pride,
In an Eglogue he hath wonne her,
Fame and honor on his side.

Deale we not with Rosamond,
For the world our sawe will coate,
Amintas and Leander's gone,
Oh deere sonnes of stately kings,
Blessed be your nimble throats,
That so amorously could sing.

Adon deafly masking thro,
Stately troupes rich conceited,
Shew'd he well deserued to,
Loues delight on him to gaze,
And had not loue her selfe intreated,
Other nymphs had sent him baies.

Eke in purple roabes distaind,

Amid'st the Center of this clime,

I haue heard saie doth remaine,

One whose power floweth far,

That should haue bene of our rime,
The onely obiect and the star.

Well could his bewitching pen,
Done the Muses obiects to vs,

Although he differs much from men,
Tilting under Frieries,
Yet his golden art might woo vs,
To haue honored him with baies.

He that gan vp to tilt,
Babels fresh remembrance,
Of the worlds-wracke how twas spilt,
And a world of stories made,
In a catalogues semblance
Hath alike the Muses staide.

What remaines peerelesse men,
That in Albions confines are,
But eterniz'd with the pen,
In sacred Poems and sweet laies,
Should be sent to Nations farre,
The greatnes of faire Albions praise.

Let them be audacious proude,
Whose deuises are of currant,
Euerie stampe is not allow'd,
Yet the coine may proue as good,
Yourselues know your lines haue warrant,
I will talke of Robin Hood.

And when all is done and past,
Narcissus in another sort,
And gaier clothes shall be pla'st,
Eke perhaps in good plight,
In meane while I'le make report,
Of your winnings that do write.

Hence a golden tale might grow,
Of due honor and the praise,
That longs to Poets, but the show
were not worth the while to spend,
Sufficeth that they merit baies,
Saie what I can it must haue end,
Then thus faire Albion flourish so,
As Thames may nourish as did Po.

FINIS.

Tho: Edwards.
====

I see no reason to identify "Adon" with the "One" who is featured in the
next two stanzas.

You might want to be careful about identifying characters too closely with
their authors. If Amyntas is Watson and Leander is Marlowe, does that
mean both Watson and Marlowe were royal ("deere sonnes of stately kings")?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


me (Bob Grumman change)
3/27/01
Thanks much for the text of the poem, Terry.
I was wrong about "bays" but right in suspecting
no poet got more than two stanzas from Edwards,
and Marlowe and Watson just got part of a single
one. Yes, no reason to consider Adon and the "One"
later on the same, and good reason to consider them
not the same, the fact that the "One" is treated
as a new subject for the poet.

Good point about identifying characters too closely with
their authors. ("If Amyntas is Watson and Leander is
Marlowe, does that mean both Watson and Marlowe were
royal ('deere sonnes of stately kings')," which makes
the purple of the "One" not much in the way of evidence
that Adon, even if equated with the "One," was noble.

--Bob G.

[Sabrina Feldman]

Hi Bob, as you point out, your argument is against Price (who equates Edwards' poet in purple robes with Adon = Shakespeare), rather than against me. I think Edwards' lines allow Price's interpretation without insisting on it. My argument is instead that Elizabethan England held a major hidden poet, despite Stratfordian protestations to the contrary, and it is not countered elsewhere at HLAS.

[marco]

Art N

[Dominic Hughes]

On Sunday, October 5, 2014 2:10:43 AM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> A coterie of writers in Elizabethan England admired a major hidden poet whom they believed to be capable of writing at the Bard's level. This man really existed; he was not invented by snobs, fantastists, or conspiracy theorists. Although his existence doesn't prove that a Shakespeare authorship deception occurred, it does make a deception more possible.
>
>
>
> The clearest evidence for the major hidden poet's existence can be found in Thomas Edwards's 1593 poem "Envoy to Narcissus" from "Cephalus and Procris, and Narcissus," in which Edwards lauded a mysterious poet who wore "purple robes" (a color restricted by the Elizabethan sumptuary laws to the ultra-elite), and who wielded immense power throughout the land:
>
>
>
> Eke in purple robes distain'd,

Why is it anti-Stratfordians so often take things out of context.

The robes are not purple. The robes are "distain'd" with purple. The image has nothing to do with nobility or sumptuary laws. The purple is blood.

There was an excellent discussion of this subject a few years back here at HLAS.

[Sabrina Feldman]

Dominic, this argument has always seemed so strange to me. Poetic meter requires a certain length for each line, and "distained" is a useful substitute for "died." If Edwards meant to refer to a poet who had been bloodied with purple blood, staining his robes (what a weird image), why would he also say this man wielded power throughout the land? Edwards doesn't write as if the poet in purple robes is some sort of jailed or otherwise bloodied martyr, he writes as if he's talking about a man who wields political power.

[Dominic Hughes]

On Monday, October 6, 2014 12:45:32 AM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> Dominic, this argument has always seemed so strange to me. Poetic meter requires a certain length for each line, and "distained" is a useful substitute for "died." If Edwards meant to refer to a poet who had been bloodied with purple blood, staining his robes (what a weird image), why would he also say this man wielded power throughout the land? Edwards doesn't write as if the poet in purple robes is some sort of jailed or otherwise bloodied martyr, he writes as if he's talking about a man who wields political power.

Here's how Shakespeare uses the word:

That which is now a horse even with a thought
The rack distains, and makes it indistinct
As water is in water.
(A&C 4.15.9-11)

`Were Tarquin night, as he is but night's child,
The silver-shining queen he would distain;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defiled,
Through night's black bosom should not peep again.
(RoL 785-8)

And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles streamed, like rainbows in the sky.
(RoL 1586-7)

She did distain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes. None would look on her,
(Per 4.3.31-2 - although 'disdaine' in Q)

You having lands and blessed with beauteous wives,
They would distrain the one, distain the other.
(R3 5.6.51-2)

The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the praised himself bring the praise forth.
(T&C 1.3.239-40)

"Blood-stained" is a "weird image"? If you say so. Blood-stained robes appears to me to be a more plausible reading, and there is no hint of anything being dyed. Are you able to find any uses of the word to show clothes having been dyed?

And Edwards doesn't say that "this man wielded power throughout the land."
That's an invention.

[Sabrina Feldman]

Hi Dominic,

Distain was the long version of stain, just like disport is the long version of sport. It was often used in a perjorative sense, as is the word stain, but it could also be used in a plain sense meaning "dye."

"Stain goes back to tingere via a shortening of distain, from old French disteindre 'tinge with a colour different from the natural one'"-- From the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins:

"The pallid hue that dyes his looks amain? / The plenteous shower that does his cheek distain?"
-- William Shenstone

"Let a warm rosy hue distain"
-- version of a line in John Keats' Hyperion, rejected in manuscript

"In antique garbs, for modern they disdain'd,
By Greek and Roman artists whilom made,
Of various woofs, and variously distain'd,
With tints of every hue, were they array'd;
And here and there ambitiously display'd
A purple shred of some rich robe..."
- from Gilbert West's Education: A Poem in Two Cantos

Edwards states that the poet in purple robes can be found "amidst the center of the clime," and his "power floweth far." Why is it an "invention" for me to say he wielded power throughout the land? I'm sure I could have phrased this idea better, but Edwards describes this poet as an unusually powerful man at the center of things.

Sabrina

[Dominic Hughes]

On Monday, October 6, 2014 9:40:31 AM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> Hi Dominic,
>
>
>
> Distain was the long version of stain, just like disport is the long version of sport. It was often used in a perjorative sense, as is the word stain, but it could also be used in a plain sense meaning "dye."
>
>
>
> "Stain goes back to tingere via a shortening of distain, from old French disteindre 'tinge with a colour different from the natural one'"-- From the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins:
>
>
>
> "The pallid hue that dyes his looks amain? / The plenteous shower that does his cheek distain?"
>
> -- William Shenstone
>
>
>
> "Let a warm rosy hue distain"
>
> -- version of a line in John Keats' Hyperion, rejected in manuscript
>
>
>
> "In antique garbs, for modern they disdain'd,
>
> By Greek and Roman artists whilom made,
>
> Of various woofs, and variously distain'd,
>
> With tints of every hue, were they array'd;
>
> And here and there ambitiously display'd
>
> A purple shred of some rich robe..."
>
> - from Gilbert West's Education: A Poem in Two Cantos

So I take it you can't find any uses of "distain'd in Shakespeare where he used it to mean "dyed"?

In addition, the color purple was often used to describe blood, and, having just mentioned Adonis in the previous section, the following is pertinent to the discussion:

By this, the boy that by her side lay killed
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled
A *purple* flower sprung up, chequered with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

(V&A lines 1165-1170)

Immediately following the reference to Adon, we have Edwards writing,

Eke in purple roabes distaind,

or

Also [eke] in robes stained with purple [blood]

> Edwards states that the poet in purple robes can be found "amidst the center of the clime," and his "power floweth far." Why is it an "invention" for me to say he wielded power throughout the land? I'm sure I could have phrased this idea better, but Edwards describes this poet as an unusually powerful man at the center of things.

My opinion is that Edwards is speaking of poetic power, and I see nothing in the context of the poem that makes this line an allusion to political power. Hence, I think that is an invention designed to fit your objective.

[Bob Grumman]

test. I thought I posted something that hasn't shown up yet. This is to see how quickly posts get posted.

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

Bob Grumman wrote:
>
> test. I thought I posted something that hasn't shown up yet.
> This is to see how quickly posts get posted.

--------------------------------------------------------------
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/monrefs.html

17th-century References to SHAKESPEARE's Stratford Monument
by David Kathman

<<One of the First Folios in the Folger SHAKESPEARE Library (no. 26 according to the Folger numbering) contains three handwritten poems on the last end page of the volume, written in a secretary hand dating from approximately the 1620s. The first of these is the poem from SHAKESPEARE's monument in the Stratford church ("Stay passenger why go'st thou by so fast").
.
The second is not recorded elsewhere, and goes as follows:
.
. Heere SHAKESPEARE lye(S) whome none but Death could *SHAKE*
. and h(E)ere shall ly till judgement all awake;
. (W)hen the last trumpet doth unclose his (E)yes
. the wi{T}tie{S}t po{E}t in {T}he w[O]rld [S]ha(L)l *RISE*.
.........................................................
__ <= 4 =>
.
. e w i {T}
. (T) i e {S}
. (T)<P> o {E}
. (T)<I> n {T}
. (H)<E> w {O}
. r l d {S}
. h a l l
. *R I S E*.
..............................................
{SO TEST} -4 (Prob. skip <5 ~ 1 in 2580)
---------------------------------------------------------------
David L. Roper's {SO TEST} (HIM) {I UOW} Monument array
.
_______________ <= 34 =>
.
.{TER R ATE [G] I T,P O PULU S M Æ R ETO LYMPU SHABE T}
......................................................................
. STA Y PAS_ {S} E N G \E\RWHYGOE/S/ TTH OVBYS OFAST R
. EAD I FT_ (H){o} V C AN \S\TWHOM/E/ [N] VIO VSDEA THHAT H
. PLA {S} TW- (I){T} H{I}NTH \I\SMO/N/ [U](M) [E] NT[SHAKS PEARE]W
. IT {H W H} O (M){E} Q{U}ICKN \A\T/U/ R [E D](I) [D] E[WHOSE NAMED]O
. THD {e} CKY {S} T{O}MBEFA {R}M O [R E] t(H) E NCOST SIEHA L
. LYT {H} EHA- {T} H{W}RITTLE A V [E] SLIV INGAR TBVTP A
. GET O SER V E H ISWITT
....................................................................
[{E}UERE][DE] 34
{SO TEST} 34
{I UOW} 34 : VOVERE: to *VOW, PROMISE, DEDICATE*
{HeW} -34
......................................................
/RUNES/ -33 : Prob. (in Roper array) ~ 1 in 7800
------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

[Sabrina Feldman]

Dominic,

You are moving the goal post. You asked me, "Are you able to find any uses of the word to show clothes having been dyed?," and I promptly provided a clear example from Gilbert West: "In antique garbs, for modern they disdain'd, / By Greek and Roman artists whilom made, / Of various woofs, and variously distain'd, / With tints of every hue." To this, you reply,

> So I take it you can't find any uses of "distain'd in Shakespeare where he used it to mean "dyed"?

No, I never claimed to either. It is Edwards' poetry we're discussing, not Shakespeare's.

You also state:

> In addition, the color purple was often used to describe blood,

Yes, and when purple is used to describe blood, usually the word blood appears too! The phrase "purple robes" had an extremely specific meaning in Elizabethan England, which Edwards knew perfectly well. Purple robes were the exclusive garb of monarchs, Earls and above, and the Knights of the garter. Can you find a single other example of "purple robes" meaning some sort of Catholic martyr or stabbed man in a robe?

>and, having just mentioned Adonis in the previous section, the following is pertinent to the discussion:

> By this, the boy that by her side lay killed
> Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
> And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled
> A *purple* flower sprung up, chequered with white,
> Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
> Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

I'm glad you brought this up, since the purple flower was *stained* by Adonis's blood, just like the purple robes were stained with the color purple. If Edwards intended a chain of association from Adon = Shakespeare to Adon = Adon's stained purple flower to stained purple flower = (eke, equal) stained purple robes, this actually strengthens the argument for the poet in purple robes being hinted at as the author of "Adon" (Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis). However, this is not my central argument; instead I am only arguing that multiple lines of evidence including Edwards' poem point to the existence of a major hidden poet during the 1590s.

I wrote:
> > Edwards states that the poet in purple robes can be found "amidst the center of the clime," and his "power floweth far." Why is it an "invention" for me to say he wielded power throughout the land? I'm sure I could have phrased this idea better, but Edwards describes this poet as an unusually powerful man at the center of things.

You reply:

> My opinion is that Edwards is speaking of poetic power, and I see nothing in the context of the poem that makes this line an allusion to political power. Hence, I think that is an invention designed to fit your objective.

You see nothing in the context of the poem that refers to political power? What about the phrase "purple robes"?! Men in purple robes were typically leading members of Elizabeth's inner circle, privy council, and political leadership class. Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, is probably an exception as he does not seem to have been politically active in the 1590s.

[Sabrina Feldman]

Bob and Dominic,

I would add that another important point, usually overlooked when discussing the identity of Edwards' 1593 poet in "purple robes," is that Edwards viewed this man as a supremely gifted poet, someone who should have been of his rhyme "the only object and the star." You really think this refers to the Catholic martyr Robert Southwell? Who wasn't even martyred, thus bloodied, until 1595? Southwell may have been a decent poet, but he was not writing at Shakespeare's level in the 1590s. Here is perhaps his most famous poem, The Burning Babe, showing that Southwell had not yet progressed past the beginner's phase of simple aa-bb-cc-dd rhyme scheme, excessive alliteration, and an over-reliance on the rhetorical tricks taught to Latin students:

As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris'd I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
"Alas!" quoth he, "but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."
With this he vanish'd out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

Also, is there any evidence that Thomas Edwards was a secret Catholic drawn to devotional Catholic poetry? Or that anyone other than Edwards (according to your interpretation) viewed Southwell as the greatest poet of his age? I am genuinely curious, since I haven't yet seen this research presented in any of my readings on this topic.

In contrast, Sackville was regarded as a poet of the highest order by contemporaries such as George Turberville and Edmund Spenser. And it is very likely that the great metaphysical poet John Donne sent his "Six Holy Sonnets" to Thomas Sackville, the "E. of D." (Earl of Dorset) for review around a year before Sackville's death. Surprisingly, Donne scholars have never noticed that Thomas Sackville is the most likely candidate to be the "E. of D.", instead proposing several implausible or near-impossible candidates from the Earl of Doncaster to the Earl of Derby to Richard Sackville, who became Earl of Dorset after his father Thomas Sackville died in April of 1608.

Here's why I'm convinced that Donne sent his "Six Holy Sonnets" to Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset for his critique around 1607, some months before Sackville's death in April of 1608. Although Donne's tribute to the E. of D. is undated, there are strong reasons to believe Donne's "Six Holy Sonnets" refer to six of his seven La Corona sonnets, a tightly linked group of religious sonnets composed around 1607, the year before Sackville's death. Given Donne's high praise for the E. of D.'s "fatherly yet lusty" poetry, which he credited with inspiring his own sonnets, by far the most credible E. of D. is Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, the greatest aristocratic poet of the time, the greatest English poet of the early Elizabethan age (after which none of his works were printed under his own name), as well as a known sonnet-writer and plausible father figure to Donne (who was thirty-six years younger than Sackville). Donne's tribute to the Earl of D. reads in full:

SEE, sir, how, as the sun's hot masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Nile's dirty slime,
In me your fatherly yet lusty rhyme
--For these songs are their fruits--have wrought the same.
But though th' engend'ring force from which they came
Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit
Seven to be born at once; I send as yet
But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.
I choose your judgment, which the same degree
Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,
As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,
Or as elixir, to change them to gold.
You are that alchemist, which always had
Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.

Donne was addressing a very major poet indeed, an alchemist whose wit held such power that a single spark of it "could make good things of bad." His tribute to the Earl of D. does not in any way convey the sense that he is writing to an aristocrat whose last great poetic work was composed some forty decades in the past. Instead, Donne is writing to a revered older poet whose power of invention still inspires.

[Dominic Hughes]

On Monday, October 6, 2014 9:45:21 PM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> Dominic,
>
>
>
> You are moving the goal post.

No, I was asking you a question. But a better question would have been to ask if you had found any contemporary of Edwards who used "distained" to mean "dyed".

>You asked me, "Are you able to find any uses of the word to show clothes having been dyed?," and I promptly provided a clear example from Gilbert West: "In antique garbs, for modern they disdain'd, / By Greek and Roman artists whilom made, / Of various woofs, and variously distain'd, / With tints of every hue." To this, you reply,
>
> > So I take it you can't find any uses of "distain'd in Shakespeare where he used it to mean "dyed"?

Yes, I did. And I note that the other two examples you cite don't have anything to do with "distained" meaning "dyed".

>
> No, I never claimed to either. It is Edwards' poetry we're discussing, not Shakespeare's.
>
>
>
> You also state:
>
>
>
> > In addition, the color purple was often used to describe blood,
>
>
>
> Yes, and when purple is used to describe blood, usually the word blood appears too!

Really? And you know this how?

>The phrase "purple robes" had an extremely specific meaning in Elizabethan England, which Edwards knew perfectly well. Purple robes were the exclusive garb of monarchs, Earls and above, and the Knights of the garter. Can you find a single other example of "purple robes" meaning some sort of Catholic martyr or stabbed man in a robe?

I doubt I can find that, but I do like the following link:

http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/search/results.cfm

I particularly like this:

Empourpré.
Impurpled; clothed, or decked with purple. Vn traict empourpré de sang. Died, distained, imbrued with bloud.

And I like the fact that the first connection of "distained" with "dyed" there is in 1677.

And there is much more there supporting the probability that "Distained" meant "stained with blood" in this instance.

> >and, having just mentioned Adonis in the previous section, the following is pertinent to the discussion:
>
>
>
> > By this, the boy that by her side lay killed
> > Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
> > And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled
> > A *purple* flower sprung up, chequered with white,
> > Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
> > Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.
>
>
>
> I'm glad you brought this up, since the purple flower was *stained* by Adonis's blood,

No, actually, the flower was not stained with his blood. It sprang up, and was purple and white, "resembling well" the blood on his pale white cheeks.

> just like the purple robes were stained with the color purple.

Exactly.

> If Edwards intended a chain of association from Adon = Shakespeare to Adon = Adon's stained purple flower to stained purple flower = (eke, equal) stained purple robes, this actually strengthens the argument for the poet in purple robes being hinted at as the author of "Adon" (Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis).

No, actually, it doesn't since your reading of "Eke" would make zero sense grammatically in the line. It would make perfectly good sense if the word meant also. The name "Adon" is used just as "Collyn" is used earlier in the poem to identify a specific author. Edwards then turns to another author [eke = also], "one" he has only "heard" tell of [does that sound like Shakespeare to you], but Edwards does not give him a name.

Eke in purple robes distained,

Amidst the Center of this clime,
I have heard say doth remain,

One whose power floweth far,
That should have been of our rhyme
The only object and the star.

Well could his bewitching pen,
Done the Muses objects to us,
Although he differs much from men,
Tilting under Friaries,
Yet his golden art might woo us,
To have honored him with bays.

> However, this is not my central argument; instead I am only arguing that multiple lines of evidence including Edwards' poem point to the existence of a major hidden poet during the 1590s.

Okay.

> I wrote:
>
> > > Edwards states that the poet in purple robes can be found "amidst the center of the clime," and his "power floweth far." Why is it an "invention" for me to say he wielded power throughout the land? I'm sure I could have phrased this idea better, but Edwards describes this poet as an unusually powerful man at the center of things.
>
> You reply:
>
> > My opinion is that Edwards is speaking of poetic power, and I see nothing in the context of the poem that makes this line an allusion to political power. Hence, I think that is an invention designed to fit your objective.
>
> You see nothing in the context of the poem that refers to political power? What about the phrase "purple robes"?! Men in purple robes were typically leading members of Elizabeth's inner circle, privy council, and political leadership class. Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, is probably an exception as he does not seem to have been politically active in the 1590s.

Simply repeating your argument about purple robes does nothing to alter my opinion that the robes are stained with purple blood.

[John W Kennedy]

On 2014-10-07 13:36:20 +0000, Dominic Hughes said:

> On Monday, October 6, 2014 9:45:21 PM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
>> Dominic,
>>
>>
>>
>> You are moving the goal post.
> No, I was asking you a question. But a better question would have been
> to ask if you had found any contemporary of Edwards who used
> "distained" to mean "dyed".

Careful. Anyone /might/ have used it so. Never forget Lewis's
distinction between the word's meaning and the speaker's meaning.

--
John W Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"

[Dominic Hughes]

On Monday, October 6, 2014 11:48:15 PM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> Bob and Dominic,
>
>
>
> I would add that another important point, usually overlooked when discussing the identity of Edwards' 1593 poet in "purple robes," is that Edwards viewed this man as a supremely gifted poet, someone who should have been of his rhyme "the only object and the star." You really think this refers to the Catholic martyr Robert Southwell? Who wasn't even martyred, thus bloodied, until 1595?

Southwell was captured in 1592 and subjected to torture then. Do you think the torturer drew no blood?

>Southwell may have been a decent poet, but he was not writing at Shakespeare's level in the 1590s. Here is perhaps his most famous poem, The Burning Babe, showing that Southwell had not yet progressed past the beginner's phase of simple aa-bb-cc-dd rhyme scheme, excessive alliteration, and an over-reliance on the rhetorical tricks taught to Latin students:

Perhaps you don't notice that you are doing this, but you are substituting your modern opinion for that of men who have been dead for around 400 years.

Who was it who said the following:

....that "so he had written that piece of [Southwell's], 'The Burning Babe,' he would have been content to destroy many of his."

That would be one of Ben Jonson's remarks to Drummond of Hawthornden.

From wiki:

Southwell addressed his Epistle of Comfort to Philip, Earl of Arundel.[9] This and other of his religious tracts, A Short Rule of Good Life, Triumphs over Death, and a Humble Supplication to Queen Elizabeth, circulated in manuscript. Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears was openly published in 1591. It proved to be very popular, going through ten editions by 1636. Thomas Nashe's imitation of Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears in Christ's Tears over Jerusalem proves that the works received recognition outside of Catholic circles.[4]

"Soon after Southwell's death, St Peter's Complaint with other poems appeared, printed by John Windet for John Wolfe, but without the author's name. A second edition, including eight more poems, appeared almost immediately. Then on 5 April, John Cawood, the publisher of Mary Magdalen's funeral tears, who probably owned the copyright all along, entered the book in the Stationers' Register, and brought out a third edition. Saint Peter's Complaint proved even more popular than Mary Magdalen's Funeral tears; it went into fourteen editions by 1636. Later that same year, another publisher, John Busby, having acquired a manuscript of Southwell's collection of lyric poems, brought out a little book containing a further twenty-two poems, under the title Maeoniae. When in 1602 Cawood added another eight poems to his book, the English publication of Southwell's works came to an end."

"In fact, there is a strong case to be made for Southwell's influence on his contemporaries and successors, among them Drayton, Lodge, Nashe, Herbert, Crashaw, and especially Shakespeare, who seems to have known his work, both poetry and prose, extremely well."

> As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
> Surpris'd I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
> And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
> A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
> Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
> As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
> "Alas!" quoth he, "but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
> Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
> My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
> Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
> The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
> The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
> For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
> So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."
> With this he vanish'd out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
> And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

>
> Also, is there any evidence that Thomas Edwards was a secret Catholic drawn to devotional Catholic poetry? Or that anyone other than Edwards (according to your interpretation) viewed Southwell as the greatest poet of his age? I am genuinely curious, since I haven't yet seen this research presented in any of my readings on this topic.

See above. Many of those drawn to Southwell's works were not secret Catholics.

Although he differs much from men,
Tilting under Friaries,

How was your man Sackville different from other men because he was "tilting under Friaries"? That sounds like a pretty fair description of a priest.

> In contrast, Sackville was regarded as a poet of the highest order by contemporaries such as George Turberville and Edmund Spenser. And it is very likely that the great metaphysical poet John Donne sent his "Six Holy Sonnets" to Thomas Sackville, the "E. of D." (Earl of Dorset) for review around a year before Sackville's death. Surprisingly, Donne scholars have never noticed that Thomas Sackville is the most likely candidate to be the "E. of D.", instead proposing several implausible or near-impossible candidates from the Earl of Doncaster to the Earl of Derby to Richard Sackville, who became Earl of Dorset after his father Thomas Sackville died in April of 1608.
>

None of which is evidence that makes Sackville Edward's unidentified poet -- much less Shakespeare.

> Here's why I'm convinced that Donne sent his "Six Holy Sonnets" to Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset for his critique around 1607, some months before Sackville's death in April of 1608. Although Donne's tribute to the E. of D. is undated, there are strong reasons to believe Donne's "Six Holy Sonnets" refer to six of his seven La Corona sonnets, a tightly linked group of religious sonnets composed around 1607, the year before Sackville's death. Given Donne's high praise for the E. of D.'s "fatherly yet lusty" poetry, which he credited with inspiring his own sonnets, by far the most credible E. of D. is Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, the greatest aristocratic poet of the time, the greatest English poet of the early Elizabethan age (after which none of his works were printed under his own name), as well as a known sonnet-writer and plausible father figure to Donne (who was thirty-six years younger than Sackville). Donne's tribute to the Earl of D. reads in full:
>

See above.

> SEE, sir, how, as the sun's hot masculine flame
> Begets strange creatures on Nile's dirty slime,
> In me your fatherly yet lusty rhyme
> --For these songs are their fruits--have wrought the same.
> But though th' engend'ring force from which they came
> Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit
> Seven to be born at once; I send as yet
> But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim

> I choose your judgment, which the same degree
> Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,
> As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,
> Or as elixir, to change them to gold.
> You are that alchemist, which always had
> Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.
>
> Donne was addressing a very major poet indeed, an alchemist whose wit held such power that a single spark of it "could make good things of bad." His tribute to the Earl of D. does not in any way convey the sense that he is writing to an aristocrat whose last great poetic work was composed some forty decades in the past. Instead, Donne is writing to a revered older poet whose power of invention still inspires.

Or he was writing seeking patronage. Sounds a bit over the top to me.

[Sabrina Feldman]

Hi Dominic,

> Southwell was captured in 1592 and subjected to torture then. Do you think the torturer drew no blood?

Possibly not. Didn't the Elizabethan torturers prefer the rack? Either way, I think Southwell would not have been obviously identified with martyr's blood until his actual killing in 1595, and even then I don't think the phrase "purple robes distained" was at all a likely choice to refer to a martyr, because "purple robes" were so strongly associated with upper echelons of the aristocracy.


Me: "Southwell may have been a decent poet, but he was not writing at Shakespeare's level in the 1590s."

You: "Perhaps you don't notice that you are doing this, but you are substituting your modern opinion for that of men who have been dead for around 400 years."

I certainly knew I was expressing a personal opinion of Southwell's poetry that may differ from that of his contemporaries, but a poet of the caliber Edwards describes should have been capable of writing lasting poetry. I appreciate the information you shared on Jonson's appreciation for Burning Babe, but this doesn't mean Jonson thought Southwell was the best poet of the period -- and I don't see any reason to think Edwards did either. None of Southwell's poems match the adjective "bewitching," for instance -- to me, that one word points firmly away from a devout Catholic poet known for dark-themed religious poetry, who published "Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears" in 1591, and instead to the author of more fantastical, playful, and enchanting works.

> Who was it who said the following:....that "so he had written that piece of [Southwell's], 'The Burning Babe,' he would have been content to destroy many of his." That would be one of Ben Jonson's remarks to Drummond of Hawthornden.

That is interesting.


You write: "Many of those drawn to Southwell's works were not secret Catholics."
Good point, I believe you make a convincing case for this.

You ask: "How was your man Sackville different from other men because he was 'tilting under Friaries'? That sounds like a pretty fair description of a priest."

The purple-robed poet didn't tilt under Friaries himself; he differed "much from men tilting under Friaries." Since a tiltyard was an enclosed courtyard where men jousted, I take this to men he had little in common with actors who mock-jousted in play yards inside converted Catholic friaries, like the Blackfriars theater.

The reason I quoted Donne's laudatory praise of the elderly, sonnet-writing "Earl of D."'s poetry is that it is part of a pattern where Sackville was often praised as the best poet of his time or a supremely gifted poet. And this not just by his contemporaries, but by future literary critics who call him a poetic genius, a major poetic talent, etc. I don't find anything similar for Southwell, who wasn't qualified to wear purple robes and whom future literary historians bury with faint praise.

Finally, I would like to point out that my argument for Sackville as the poet in purple robes is not an isolated conclusion based on Edwards' poem alone. It is also based on evidence for Sackville as the author of Ignoto's commendatory poem in Spenser's The Faerie Queen, evidence he wrote Phaeton's 1591 Shakespearean sonnet to John Florio, other evidence he was a hidden poet, the fact that his hidden/silent name began and ended with the same letter "t" as "Thomas Lord Buckhurst," just like John Marston's favorite poet who could not be named; and Orchestra, or A Poem of Dancing, a minor poem by the court poet John Davies (Sir John after 1603). In the concluding stanzas of Orchestra, composed around 1594 and published in 1596, Davies regrets that he is not a better poet. He charmingly wishes he could mingle his brain with the minds of Homer, "Geoffrey" (Chaucer), "Colin" (Edmund Spenser), "Delia" (Samuel Daniel), "sweet Companion" (apparently Davies' friend Richard Martin), and other talented poets of the age:

O that your brains were mingled all with mine,
T'enlarge my wit for this great work divine.

Davies then declares that two English poets were so excellent they could "all for one suffice": "Astrophil" (Sir Philip Sidney, who died in 1586), and "the Swallow" (an unidentified living poet). Davies felt that if he could write as well as either of these men, he wouldn't need to borrow poetic skill from anyone else:

Yet Astrophil might one for all suffice,
Whose supple Muse Chamelion-like doth change
Into all forms of excellent device:
So might the Swallow, whose swift Muse doth range

Through rare Ideas, and inventions strange,
And ever doth enjoy her joyful spring,
And sweeter then the Nightingale doth sing.

O that I might that singing Swallow hear
To whom I owe my service and my love,
His sugared tunes would so enchant mine ear,
And in my mind such sacred fury move,
As I should knock at heav'ns great gate above

With my proud rhymes, while of this heav'nly state
I do aspire the shadows to relate.

The Swallow seems as if he should be Shakespeare. To begin, Davies had already complimented Edmund Spenser and Samuel Daniel, the most admired living poets of 1596 other than Shakespeare. And if the Swallow was not Shakespeare, Davies failed to include the Bard on the list of English poets whose brains he wished he could mingle with his own in 1596. Like the Swallow, Shakespeare was a poet of swift-moving thought, rare ideas, and strange inventions, who sang sweeter than the nightingale and whose sugared tunes enchanted the ear and engendered sacred fury. Finally, the Swallow seems as if he should be Shakespeare because if he was another man, this man was a better poet than Shakespeare in Davies' eyes. England has never produced a better poet than Shakespeare, and we should not assume Davies was incapable of recognizing truly great poetry.

But whoever the Swallow was, he is not likely to have been William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon. Davies was a sycophantic writer who wielded his pen to gain political and social influ¬ence, receiving a knighthood for his efforts in 1603. He would not have felt that he owed his "ser¬vice" to a stage actor and village glover's son. Service was only owed to men of higher social rank. Since no English aristocrat printed major poetry under his name during the 1590s and early 1600s, the Swallow was presumably a major court poet who refrained from publishing under his name. Davies's Swallow, an aristocrat and the best English poet of the 1590s in the eyes of an elite member of the literati, can safely be assumed to be Edwards's purple-robed poet in another guise.

It is worth noting that Davies did not associate the Swallow with any of his poetic works, just as Edwards did not explicitly link the purple-robed poet to a poetic character. This contrasts with their usual practice. One omission might be random, but two suggest a pattern. If both were aware that a major hidden poet at court was presenting his works under another man's name, Davies and Edwards would naturally be careful not to link the hidden poet to his writings.

[Dominic Hughes]

On Tuesday, October 7, 2014 11:42:12 PM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> Hi Dominic,
>
>
>
> > Southwell was captured in 1592 and subjected to torture then. Do you think the torturer drew no blood?
>
>
>
> Possibly not. Didn't the Elizabethan torturers prefer the rack? Either way, I think Southwell would not have been obviously identified with martyr's blood until his actual killing in 1595, and even then I don't think the phrase "purple robes distained" was at all a likely choice to refer to a martyr, because "purple robes" were so strongly associated with upper echelons of the aristocracy.

We disagree. I think it is pretty clear what "distained" means in context with the purple robes.

> Me: "Southwell may have been a decent poet, but he was not writing at Shakespeare's level in the 1590s."
>
> You: "Perhaps you don't notice that you are doing this, but you are substituting your modern opinion for that of men who have been dead for around 400 years."
>
> I certainly knew I was expressing a personal opinion of Southwell's poetry that may differ from that of his contemporaries, but a poet of the caliber Edwards describes should have been capable of writing lasting poetry. I appreciate the information you shared on Jonson's appreciation for Burning Babe, but this doesn't mean Jonson thought Southwell was the best poet of the period -- and I don't see any reason to think Edwards did either. None of Southwell's poems match the adjective "bewitching," for instance -- to me, that one word points firmly away from a devout Catholic poet known for dark-themed religious poetry, who published "Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears" in 1591, and instead to the author of more fantastical, playful, and enchanting works.

Again, we disagree. My speculations are different from your speculations. Jonson gave Southwell's poem pretty high praise and other authors were influenced by his work. I wish we were able to ask them what they actually thought, and could ask Edwards who was intended -- but, of course, we can't, and so we do our best to try to figure it out. We place Shakespeare on a pedestal above all others [this side bardolatry] but we forget too often that, at the time, although his poems were popular there was an influential segment of the population, the scholars and "serious" authors, who looked down upon his "love" poetry [and even his "love" plays like R&J]. All one has to do to get some of the flavor of that is to read the 'Parnassus' plays or look into the Marston v. Hall dispute.

> > Who was it who said the following:....that "so he had written that piece of [Southwell's], 'The Burning Babe,' he would have been content to destroy many of his." That would be one of Ben Jonson's remarks to Drummond of Hawthornden.

> That is interesting.

> You write: "Many of those drawn to Southwell's works were not secret Catholics."
>
> Good point, I believe you make a convincing case for this.
>
> You ask: "How was your man Sackville different from other men because he was 'tilting under Friaries'? That sounds like a pretty fair description of a priest."
>
>
>
> The purple-robed poet didn't tilt under Friaries himself; he differed "much from men tilting under Friaries."

You left out the comma. The way that he differed from other men was that he tilted under friaries. My opinion, of course.

> Since a tiltyard was an enclosed courtyard where men jousted, I take this to men he had little in common with actors who mock-jousted in play yards inside converted Catholic friaries, like the Blackfriars theater.

He was different from other men because he had little in common with actors? Okay, but I think that reading is extremely strained.

> The reason I quoted Donne's laudatory praise of the elderly, sonnet-writing "Earl of D."'s poetry is that it is part of a pattern where Sackville was often praised as the best poet of his time or a supremely gifted poet. And this not just by his contemporaries, but by future literary critics who call him a poetic genius, a major poetic talent, etc. I don't find anything similar for Southwell, who wasn't qualified to wear purple robes and whom future literary historians bury with faint praise.
>

None of which makes Sackville a hidden poet, much less Shakespeare.

> Finally, I would like to point out that my argument for Sackville as the poet in purple robes is not an isolated conclusion based on Edwards' poem alone. It is also based on evidence for Sackville as the author of Ignoto's commendatory poem in Spenser's The Faerie Queen, evidence he wrote Phaeton's 1591 Shakespearean sonnet to John Florio, other evidence he was a hidden poet, the fact that his hidden/silent name began and ended with the same letter "t" as "Thomas Lord Buckhurst," just like John Marston's favorite poet who could not be named;

Labeo was Marston himself. [imo]

> and Orchestra, or A Poem of Dancing, a minor poem by the court poet John Davies (Sir John after 1603). In the concluding stanzas of Orchestra, composed around 1594 and published in 1596, Davies regrets that he is not a better poet. He charmingly wishes he could mingle his brain with the minds of Homer, "Geoffrey" (Chaucer), "Colin" (Edmund Spenser), "Delia" (Samuel Daniel), "sweet Companion" (apparently Davies' friend Richard Martin), and other talented poets of the age:
>
>
>
> O that your brains were mingled all with mine,
>
> T'enlarge my wit for this great work divine.
>
>
>
> Davies then declares that two English poets were so excellent they could "all for one suffice": "Astrophil" (Sir Philip Sidney, who died in 1586), and "the Swallow" (an unidentified living poet). Davies felt that if he could write as well as either of these men, he wouldn't need to borrow poetic skill from anyone else:
>
>
>
> Yet Astrophil might one for all suffice,
>
> Whose supple Muse Chamelion-like doth change
>
> Into all forms of excellent device:
>
> So might the Swallow, whose swift Muse doth range
>
> Through rare Ideas, and inventions strange,
>
> And ever doth enjoy her joyful spring,
>
> And sweeter then the Nightingale doth sing.
>
>
>
> O that I might that singing Swallow hear
>
> To whom I owe my service and my love,
>
> His sugared tunes would so enchant mine ear,
>
> And in my mind such sacred fury move,
>
> As I should knock at heav'ns great gate above
>
> With my proud rhymes, while of this heav'nly state
>
> I do aspire the shadows to relate.
>
>
>
> The Swallow seems as if he should be Shakespeare.

Maybe, or maybe not. See above as to the reputation of Shakespeare with the wiser sort.

>To begin, Davies had already complimented Edmund Spenser and Samuel Daniel, the most admired living poets of 1596 other than Shakespeare. And if the Swallow was not Shakespeare, Davies failed to include the Bard on the list of English poets whose brains he wished he could mingle with his own in 1596. Like the Swallow, Shakespeare was a poet of swift-moving thought, rare ideas, and strange inventions, who sang sweeter than the nightingale and whose sugared tunes enchanted the ear and engendered sacred fury. Finally, the Swallow seems as if he should be Shakespeare because if he was another man, this man was a better poet than Shakespeare in Davies' eyes. England has never produced a better poet than Shakespeare, and we should not assume Davies was incapable of recognizing truly great poetry.
>

> But whoever the Swallow was, he is not likely to have been William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon. Davies was a sycophantic writer who wielded his pen to gain political and social influ¬ence, receiving a knighthood for his efforts in 1603. He would not have felt that he owed his "ser¬vice" to a stage actor and village glover's son. Service was only owed to men of higher social rank. Since no English aristocrat printed major poetry under his name during the 1590s and early 1600s, the Swallow was presumably a major court poet who refrained from publishing under his name. Davies's Swallow, an aristocrat and the best English poet of the 1590s in the eyes of an elite member of the literati, can safely be assumed to be Edwards's purple-robed poet in another guise.

I think you are making quite a few leaps that may or may not be justified. Of course, none of this has anything to do with whether or not Shakespeare wrote the plays that Jonson, Heminge and Condell said he wrote.

> It is worth noting that Davies did not associate the Swallow with any of his poetic works, just as Edwards did not explicitly link the purple-robed poet to a poetic character. This contrasts with their usual practice. One omission might be random, but two suggest a pattern. If both were aware that a major hidden poet at court was presenting his works under another man's name, Davies and Edwards would naturally be careful not to link the hidden poet to his writings.

I see nothing in either of these texts which justifies the proposition that the "hidden" poet was presenting his works under another man's name. But I think you are right that Edward's hidden poet is a different man from the one who was identified as Adon.

[Sabrina Feldman]

We must agree to disagree, but I am only trying to make a single point here: Stratfordians have long argued that there is no evidence for a major hidden poet during Shakespeare's time, or have completely ignored and overlooked this evidence. I am trying to correct the record and show that there is evidence for a major hidden poet, and that Thomas Sackville is a plausible candidate. He did not abandon poetry in his mid-twenties as scholars long assumed, nor did he abandon poetry after writing Sacvyle's Olde Age -- first discovered in the 1980s -- around 1574. Instead there is evidence he continued writing throughout his life. Sackville was a major poetic talent, nothing he wrote his youth survives under his name, ergo there should be evidence for Sackville as a major hidden poet.

I do not think that Edwards' hidden poet is a different man than Adon, I think Edwards had heard rumors that Thomas Sackville was the author of Venus and Adonis and meant to discreetly allude to these rumors when he wrote about the poet in purple robes. But that is not an argument I am trying to make here, I am making it instead in my new book, Thomas Sackville and the Shakespearean Glass Slipper, coming out in a couple of months.

Finally, I wasn't referring to Marston in context of the Labeo discussion, and my own opinion is that Labeo refers to Richard Lynche, author of Diella, Certain Sonnets. That is a topic for a different discussion if you're interested.

I was instead referring to Marston's 1598 poem, "A Toy to Mock an Ape" (from The Scourge of Villainy) in which Marston deplores the state of the contemporary literary scene. He longed for the poet he loved "most, most" of all to achieve the fame he so richly deserved. This man was unknown to the general public, but Marston hinted that his "silent" (unspoken) name began and ended with the same letter. He wrote in a "true judicial style," meaning a style that is wise, thoughtful, and reasonable. Although this poet was still "unvalued," Marston hoped he would rise to his "fair place" in literary history once "apes" (a common term of abuse for actors, also used to describe literary imitators) had been turned out. In full, Marston's lines about the hidden poet read:

Far fly thy fame,
Most, most of me beloved! Whose silent name

One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style

I ever honor; and, if my love beguile
Not much my hopes, then thy unvalued worth
Shall mount fair place, when apes are turned forth.

This passage raises more questions than answers. Who was Marston's most beloved poet? Why did his name have to be kept "silent," or unspoken? Why didn't Marston's contemporaries already value the poet's worth? What did this poet have to do with apes, or mimics? Why did Marston hope he would rise to his "fair place" in the poetic pantheon someday, but mention that apes would have to be "turned forth" before this could happen? What works had the poet composed in his "true judicial style" by 1598? Whose name was associated with these works if not the poet's "silent name"? One way to answer these questions is to postulate that Marston was aware that a great hidden poet at court, a man whose name began and ended with the same letter, had been publishing his works under an actor's name. He wished to publicly honor this poet, but that wouldn't be possible until the actor-pretender had been exposed as a front man.

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

Sabrina Feldman wrote:

<< Far fly thy fame,

Most, most of me beloved! Whose silent name

One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style

I ever honor; and, if my love beguile
Not much my hopes, then thy unvalued worth
Shall mount fair place, when apes are turned forth.

This passage raises more questions than answers....

Whose name was associated with these works
if not the poet's "silent name"?>>

-----------------------------------------------

Whose name was associated with these works

if not the poet's "silent name one letter bounds"?
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.whowasshakespeare.org/Who_Was_Shakespeare/Oxford_Was_Shakespeare.html

Ron Song Destro wrote:

<<[John Marston] gave us the clue that the secret writer's silent name
is bound by one letter: like the "e" for example, in "[E]dward Ver[E].">>
-----------------------------------------------
http://sirbacon.org/wsaundersHallandMarston.htm

THE IDENTIFICATION OF 'LABEO' AND 'MUTIUS'AS FRANCIS BACON
IN HALL AND MARSTON'S SATIRES
By Walter Saunders 2011

<<In 1597 Joseph Hall, a Cambridge graduate of twenty-three, published a volume containing three 'books' of satires, entitled Virgidemiarum or 'of harvests of rods'. In 1598 he published a second volume of three further 'books'. A century later Alexander Pope described this work as the 'truest satire in the English language'. Hall's later writings were mainly in prose and they reveal his high principles on contentious religious subjects. As an Anglican he entered the church in 1601 and became a bishop in 1627.

O what a tricksy learnèd nicking strain
Is this applauded, senseless, modern vein!
When late I heard it from sage Mutius lips
How ill me thought such wanton, jigging skips
Beseemed his graver speech. Far fly thy fame,

Most, most of me beloved, whose silent name
One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style
I ever honour, and if my love beguile

Not much my hopes, then thy unvalued worth

Shall mount fair place, when Apes are turnèd forth.

'Mutius' means 'silent one' and no-one seems to fit the name better than Francis Bacon. Marston provides a clue that it is so indeed, when he says that 'One letter bounds' (i.e, 'encloses') 'his silent name'. In simple cipher the letters of Francis Bacon add up to 100*. This is signified by one letter in Roman numerals: [C].

So the 'silent name' that 'one letter bounds' is Francis Bacon.>>
-----------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

[Phil Innes]

> No, I was asking you a question. But a better question would have been to ask if you had found any contemporary of Edwards who used "distained" to mean "dyed".
>
>
>
> >You asked me, "Are you able to find any uses of the word to show clothes having been dyed?," and I promptly provided a clear example from Gilbert West: "In antique garbs, for modern they disdain'd, / By Greek and Roman artists whilom made, / Of various woofs, and variously distain'd, / With tints of every hue." To this, you reply,
>
> >
>
> > > So I take it you can't find any uses of "distain'd in Shakespeare where he used it to mean "dyed"?

There seems to be some confusion here about the word DISTAINE, which means To discolour, [note this means to en-colour] in contradistinction to stain [v], which means to take away the colour. Both words are A. N. See M.S. Cantab Ff i 6 f 141.

A citation follows, but I write this note to accommodate the question above by asking further, who would not have read Chaucer?

Ye washe cleyne fro mole and spots blake,
That wyne nor lyle not hit none inks disteyne.

Evidently there are two (incidental?) references to purple in that couplet, the wine and the ink, both being so colored. The term is also used more broadly, indicating sometimes, to calm, still, or pacify, and its root is destaindre.

A similar word is DISTRAIN with meaning of; to strain anything, to catch, to hold fast, to afflict or torment, but a word not used by The Author, but who did use DISTEMPERED meaning intoxicated. Almost all British prefixes DIS~ are Anglo Norman or direct Latin.

I think it would be difficult to confidentially assert find Gilbert Wests' sense written 150 years later than Elizabethan times, and hence I venture this note suggesting the sense carried in MS Cantab 150 years earlier.

Cordially, Phil Innes

[Sabrina Feldman]

Phil, thank you for posting this interesting use of 'distain' from Chaucer. I agree it is a much better example than Gilbert West, and you've saved me the trouble of looking for an earlier example this weekend. Regards, Sabrina

[Dominic Hughes]

On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 8:56:35 PM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
> Phil, thank you for posting this interesting use of 'distain' from Chaucer. I agree it is a much better example than Gilbert West, and you've saved me the trouble of looking for an earlier example this weekend. Regards, Sabrina

Perhaps we had better keep looking for a relevant usage of "distained" as "dyed".

DISTAINE. To discolour; to stain; to take away the colour. (A.-N.) Sometimes, to calm, still, or pacify, from destaindre.
Ye washe cleyne fro mole and spottes blacke, That wyne nor oyle nor yit none inke distyene,
MS. Cantab. Pf. L6, f. 14L

- A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words. Obsolete Phrases, etc., From the Fourteenth Century; James Orchard Haliwell-Phillips

Do you think that the passage cited has something to do with dying or "en-colouring" clothes? And who says that the wine and ink are purple? I don't see that anywhere in that passage. By the way, I've searched my Chaucer and haven't found these lines yet, but I will keep looking.

==========

Here is the definition of "disteynen" as provided in the Glossary of my copy of 'The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer' [New Cambridge Edition, 1957] , F. N. Robinson:
disteynen = stain, bedim

==========

Now, to the OED, which, at first glance, may give you some initial support, but eventually serves to bolster my theory.

DISTAIN. v. arch. [a. OF, desteindre [stem desteign), mod F. detiendre == Pr. destenger, Sp. destenir, Com Rom. f. des-, Dis- I + L. tingere to dye, colour, TINGE. The prefix has been conformed to the L. type]
1. tarns. To imbue or stain (a thing) with a colour different from the natural one; to discolour, stain, dye, tinge.

1393 GOWER Conf. I. 65 Whan his visage is so desteigned.
1586 MARLOWE 1st Pt. Tamburl. III. Ii, The tears that so distain my cheeks.
1590 SPENSER F. Q. III. Xlix. 9, I found her golden girdle cast astray Distaynd with durt and blood.
1612 DRAYTON Poly-olb.viii. 113 The Romans that her streame distained with their gore.
1704 OLDMIXON Blenheim iii. II Whose golden Sands are now distain'd with Blood.
1839 BAILEY Festus xxi. (1852) 382 Like autumn's leaves distained with dusky gold.

Me: There appears to be a prevalent association of "distained" with blood-stained. And no dying of robes.

2. transf. And fig. To defile; to bring a blot or stain upon; to sully, dishonour.
[usages omitted]

3. To deprive of its colour, brightness, or splendour; to dim; to cause to pale or look dim; to outshine. [usages omitted]

It still looks like blood to me.

[Jim F.]

Some of my notes about Adon and Eke. (Purple robes are gayer clothes.)

"Adon deafly masking thro"
- Adon: William Shakespeare. To a'don is to put on clothing, to cover.
- deafly: lonely, solitary and silent (OED). He must not discuss his work.
- masking: his face with a poet's mask.
- thro: throughly silenced and masked (or he might disappear like Marlowe).

"Eke in purple robes distained,"

- Eke: indicating E.K. in The Shepheardes Calender (1579).
E.K. is the personified eke that does the eking job in TSC.
E.K. wrote "the Lady disdeigning, shaked her speare at him," the
earliest link to Shakespeare. Lines about Eke are next to Adon.
- purple: brilliant, splendid, gay (OED).
- robe: a garment worn by both sexes (OED).
- distain: to deprive of its brightness or splendour; to dim (OED).
The above are hinted in later lines:

And when all is done and past,
Narcissus in another sort,

And *gayer clothes* shall be placed,
*Eke* perhaps in good plight,

Without being distained, purple robes become gayer clothes
when all is done and past (i.e., end of the Shakespeare game).
"Narcissus in another sort" is a fair maid who cares others.

"Amid'st the Center of this clime"

- These poets form a band of near-crime clime in literature.

"Although he differs much from men"

- A woman disguised as man "differs much" from men; men could
mean people, so friar (brother) is added to secure this riddle.

"Tilting under Friaries"
- To tilt is to cover with a tilt or awning (OED v2); or to contest.
E.K. is covering and contesting under fraternities.

"Yourselves know your lines have warrant"
- Poets know their works are being protected.

"I will talk of Robin Hood"
- This concept of heroic outlaw is similar to the "merry men" in AYLI.
"They say he is already in the Forest of _Arden_,
and a many merry men with him; and there they
live like the old _Robin Hood_ of England" (AYLI).

Edmund Spenser (Philip Sidney), Samuel Daniel, Christopher Marlowe,
Abraham Fraunce (who translated Amintas) are close to Mary Sidney.
She has the power to protect and "eke" them. Eke is the key in
this L'envoy.

E.K. in 1579 TSC was in learning stage still. This can be seen from
E.K.'s glossaries (quite basic sometimes). Mary Sidney was 18 then.

[Phil Innes]

On Thursday, October 9, 2014 5:28:47 PM UTC-4, Dominic Hughes wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 8:56:35 PM UTC-4, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
>
> > Phil, thank you for posting this interesting use of 'distain' from Chaucer. I agree it is a much better example than Gilbert West, and you've saved me the trouble of looking for an earlier example this weekend. Regards, Sabrina
>
>
>
> Perhaps we had better keep looking for a relevant usage of "distained" as "dyed".
>
>
>
> DISTAINE. To discolour; to stain; to take away the colour. (A.-N.) Sometimes, to calm, still, or pacify, from destaindre.
>
> Ye washe cleyne fro mole and spottes blacke, That wyne nor oyle nor yit none inke distyene,
>
> MS. Cantab. Pf. L6, f. 14L
>
>
>
> - A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words. Obsolete Phrases, etc., From the Fourteenth Century; James Orchard Haliwell-Phillips
>
>
>
> Do you think that the passage cited has something to do with dying or "en-colouring" clothes?

Certainly, since it is a direct reference, albeit you note our contemporary inversion of dying, to remove stains, et ca

> And who says that the wine and ink are purple?

I do, having suffered both.

> I don't see that anywhere in that passage. By the way, I've searched my Chaucer and haven't found these lines yet, but I will keep looking.

MS Cantab is difficult, can contain Chaucer but can also contain Gower, and other writers subsumed by both. It is not important to substantiate Chaucer as the period of Chaucer, which the documents do.

>
>
> ==========
>
>
>
> Here is the definition of "disteynen" as provided in the Glossary of my copy of 'The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer' [New Cambridge Edition, 1957] , F. N. Robinson:
>
> disteynen = stain, bedim
>
>
>
> ==========
>
>
>
> Now, to the OED, which, at first glance, may give you some initial support, but eventually serves to bolster my theory.

As you will, but you will understand that OED is not representative of English Language, but of omnium sourced English. OED reports on 1% Anglo Saxon, whereas we now still speak 60 to 80 percentum A. Sax. OED reports only on some written sources, and these often culled dialectal ones; this is to say, some fashion of spelling during the period reported by part of the country.

>
> DISTAIN. v. arch. [a. OF, desteindre [stem desteign), mod F. detiendre == Pr. destenger, Sp. destenir, Com Rom. f. des-, Dis- I + L. tingere to dye, colour, TINGE. The prefix has been conformed to the L. type]

You see here the difference between Halliwell's report on what constitutes dye? Do you see there is an inversion, as if to say that the dye is to blanche or remove colour, rather than input it?

How does the OED explain its own term?

> 1. tarns. To imbue or stain (a thing) with a colour different from the natural one; to discolour, stain, dye, tinge.

In which case we have a conflict or alternate sense of the term. Gower, contemporary of Chaucer uses the term to en-colour, rather than to remove colur

> 1393 GOWER Conf. I. 65 Whan his visage is so desteigned.

That is not a citation utilizing the word in aspect to descriptive sense.

>
> 1586 MARLOWE 1st Pt. Tamburl. III. Ii, The tears that so distain my cheeks.

Is this evidently something to do with coloring or removing such?

>
> 1590 SPENSER F. Q. III. Xlix. 9, I found her golden girdle cast astray Distaynd with durt and blood.
>
> 1612 DRAYTON Poly-olb.viii. 113 The Romans that her streame distained with their gore.

These do not employ an sense or coloring nor removing same.

>
> 1704 OLDMIXON Blenheim iii. II Whose golden Sands are now distain'd with Blood.

And 1704!

>
> 1839 BAILEY Festus xxi. (1852) 382 Like autumn's leaves distained with dusky gold.
>
>
>
> Me: There appears to be a prevalent association of "distained" with blood-stained. And no dying of robes.

It is interesting, but wherefore this new 'blood'

I think I take from MS Cantab that the use of the term we now say stain, is to remove stain, albeit, the equally atavistic Gower, quoted above but which lacks sense. Gower uses a term, but what is cited does not describe his sense, right?

>
> 2. transf. And fig. To defile; to bring a blot or stain upon; to sully, dishonour.
>
> [usages omitted]

What source what date?

> 3. To deprive of its colour, brightness, or splendour; to dim; to cause to pale or look dim; to outshine. [usages omitted]

Which would seem to accord with the removal of color or stain.

But again, since if we here view some difference in about 1700 to what was understood 1600 and before, the dates of these sources would divide our attention to an early source, or some laterlly reference, nothing to do with Elizabethan understanding or meaning.

Cordially, Phil Innes

[John W Kennedy]

On 2014-10-12 21:42:00 +0000, Phil Innes said:
>> And who says that the wine and ink are purple?
>
> I do, having suffered both.

Period ink is brown or black.

--
John W Kennedy
"The grand art mastered the thudding hammer of Thor
And the heart of our lord Taliessin determined the war."
-- Charles Williams. "Mount Badon"

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

On Sunday, October 5, 2014 8:10:43 AM UTC+2, Sabrina Feldman wrote:
>
> ...Far fly thy fame,

>
> Most, most of me beloved, whose silent name
>
> One letter bounds.

It has been said that E...e is the letter bounding
the silent name of Edward de Vere.

O Romeo, Romeo!

Here we have one letter bounding the exlamation, O...o.
Even more: the -eo in Romeo gives the initials of
Earl (of) Oxford. If we add the silent E of 'Edward de
Vere' to the exclamation 'O Romeo, Romeo!' we have

EO Romeo, Romeo!

EO (pronounced io) sono Romeo, Romeo!

I (Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford) am Romeo, Romeo!

I found this equation four years ago, and interpreted
the play of Romeo and Juliet as a love story with
an autobiographic background. We humans live and
reflect on our lives. In like manner several plays
by Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare unfold,
in the case of Romeo and Juliet as a world famous
and heart wrenching love story, while on another level
the play tells about the author in the guise of Romeo
and his poetry in the guise of Juliet. And a lot of
the Shakespearean well sounding gibberish is beginning
to make sense ...

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

(continuation of the message quoted below - my online hour
was over, had to go to another library for one more hour)

Edward de Vere in the guise of Romeo confesses to the killing
of a young man. This gives the ambiguous formulation 'purple
robes distain'd' an explicit double sense -- one o r the other
meaning? one a n d the other meaning! Edward de Vere was raised
to belong to the inner circle allowed to wear purple robes, robes
died red. But as a young man he stabs another young man in the leg,
so unluckily that this one dies, bleeding to death, in a purple
robe distain'd. This makes the queen exclude him from the inner
circle, and, moreover, obliges him to write under a pseudonym.
In the guise of Romeo he can't come together with his own work

in the guise of Juliet.

When Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare is involved
you can't apply mathematical logic (a = a) but have to
consider the logic of nature and life and art as formulated
by Goethe: all is equal, all unequal ...

[marco]

i can just imagine how your students react,
after this "lecture"

something like HUH?

marc

[Phil Innes]

On Sunday, October 12, 2014 7:27:50 PM UTC-4, John W Kennedy wrote:
> On 2014-10-12 21:42:00 +0000, Phil Innes said:
>
> >> And who says that the wine and ink are purple?
>
> >
>
> > I do, having suffered both.
>
>
>
> Period ink is brown or black.

Which period John?

Between the eighth and the eleventh Century, a chemical ink, iron gall ink developed from tannic acid and iron salt; it became a popular colorant bound by resin.

As to 'purple' here is a source indicating the essential blue nature of ink before the C16th.

Albertus Magnus (A. D. 1193-1280) also refers to the preparation of an ink from green vitriol in his treatise De Rebus Metallicis. Pliny's writings have recorded ink made from soot, charcoal and a gum, although he neglects to state the type of the gum. However, he does mention that addition of acid normally acetic acid or vinegar was a binding agent to adhere the ink to the papyrus.

At this time, two acerbic substances were added to black ink, a yellow additive Misy that was a yellow coloured earth and slimy mineral sediment Salsugo. Salsugo was referred to as "kalkanthum" or "chalkanthum" and it was sulphate of copper. Once it was mixed with lampblack or other black substances, it became an acceptable writing medium to the priests. This type of ink was called blue vitriolic ink for several Centuries; its disadvantage was that it was extremely corrosive it not only eroded the delicate papyrus, but also vellum, and parchment.

The evolution of black ink proper was not complete until the C16th, and 800 years before there was:

...development of black ink improved in the eight Century towards the later chemical inks. In one blue vitriol, yeast, the lees of wine, the rind of the pomegranate, was used during the reign of Charlemagne, the text still survives intact today, and the British museum has several examples of texts written with pomegranate ink. The Latin word "clericus" or "clerk," in effect meant priest, literacy was taken as proof that you had taken Holy Orders. Even the verb to sign a letter evolved from this time. If a letter written by a priest had to be authenticated, by a monarch they were instructed to place a sign next to the sign of the cross, which was next to the name of the scribe.

You will note the reference to blue and also wine dregs.

And so that we can both be correct! here is the chemical process from which blue ink turns black

Nutgall or iron tannin inks are made from gallic acids and ferrous sulphate, or green vitriol. When mixed together these chemicals form a substance which is virtually colourless, but which darkens when it is exposed to air. Once the ink comes into contact with paper it reacts with the paper fibres, forming a black iron compound in the fibres, which will last as long as the paper survives. Unfortunately, an almost colourless liquid is not much use as a writing material so an indigo or water-soluble blue aniline dye is added. As the ink writes the colour is blue, but with time the blue fades leaving a predominant black, which results from the

the oxidation of the ferrous tannate and gallate. Blue black ink describes the inks which write blue but become black. Because of the permanent nature of nutgall ink they are used for recording official documents.

Back to the top, as it were. If you spill this ink onto clothing [cloth] then it is colored blue, or blue purple depending on constituents, and therefore the stain is that color. Over time, especially upon paper, oxidization takes place so that the bluish ink turn black.

Cordially, Phil Innes

[Phil Innes]

Someone has ventured these opinions on EKE


"Eke" is indeed a somewhat nebulous word. One might even say "eke" is oblique by design, because you can't be sure what is meant by someone using it. If an old friend, encountered on the street after many years, says that he "manages to eke out a living," he could be saying he squeaks by with odd jobs, perhaps tutoring the dim spawn of investment bankers. (I know people who have done this, and it isn't pretty.) But he also might be an investment banker himself with a nine-figure income and a warped sense of humor.

In modern usage, "eke" is almost always found in the verb phrase "to eke out," meaning "to get by" in a task or to narrowly achieve a goal by means of extra effort, thrift, or initiative. A good 80% of uses of "eke" I found on Google News today, for instance, are in sports stories about teams who managed to "eke out" a victory in the last quarter, inning or whatever.

Although "eke" is found only in its verb form today, it started as a noun. This "eke" meant "an addition, an increase" or "something added on." The noun "eke" originally appeared in Old English, where it was used to mean reinforcements for troops in the field. The roots of "eke" lie in the Proto-Germanic "aukan," which also eventually gave us the English "augment."

"Eke" as a verb originally meant literally "to increase, to lengthen," a sense which lives on in the use of "eke" or "eke out" to mean "to pad a speech or piece of writing in order to fill up time or meet a quota of words," a device familiar to any student assigned a term paper ("To eke out any thing, signifies to lengthen it beyond its just dimensions by some low artifice." Samuel Johnson, 1747).

Outside of the Sports pages or election returns, most of us probably rarely encounter "eke," but nearly anyone who speaks English is familiar with a descendant of "eke," albeit one disguised a bit by its own history.

A "nickname" is an "additional" name given to (or adopted by) a person. It may be a familiar form of their proper name (e.g., Chuck for Charles, Bill for William, etc.) or may be drawn from an avocation, hobby or distinguishing act or characteristic of the person. Nicknames exist in most human cultures, and in English they came to be known, in the 13th century, as "eke-names" or "ekenames," names which were "added" to one's existing name. Thus one would refer to one's friend by an "ekename" such as "Moose" or "Binky." Over the centuries, however, the "n" from "an" drifted over to the front of "ekename," giving us "a nekename," and eventually "a nickname." This common linguistic process, called "metanalysis," also transformed "a napron" (from the Old French "naperon," tablecloth) into "an apron" during the same period.

[Phil Innes]

EKER: [A. Sax] water cresses

EKE:
1) to cease, to kill, to rid [Hearne] [English antiquary, Thomas Hearne or Hearn (July 1678 - 10 June 1735)
2) Also, common in old ballads
3) An addition to a bee-hive [North]

EKKEN: to prolong [A. Sax]

In the classification Phonym, there are several suggestions for shifted but similar sounds, including in which part of the mouth a syllable is construed -- more simply, words however spelled may have similar sound. In old words we are obliged to reconstruct sound from varieties of spelling, [and best of all from end-rhymes] but you can't always find those. This applies Latin, and also to Anglo Saxon. Those caveats in mind:--

EGHE: an eye [A. Sax.] [MS Linc A i 17 f 222

Thow salle gym se with eghe
And come to Criste thi freunde

EGHGE: edge [A. Sax.]
EGHNE: eyes [A. Sax.] [Morte Arthure MS Linc 57]

And mawgree his eghne

This spelling also means FEAR in Beves of Hamptoun

EIKE TREE, an oak [Yorks.]

[Dominic Hughes]

On Thursday, October 9, 2014 5:28:47 PM UTC-4, Dominic Hughes wrote:

Loke well youre lawne, youre homple & youre Lake,
Plesaunce, Reyns, & eke the fin Champeyn,
Ye washe cleyn fro mole and spottes blake
That wyne nor oyle nor yit none ink disteyen.

These lines are most likely from *Treatise for Lavenders [Laundresses]*, which was a poetic instructional guide for women as to how to keep clothes and fine linens clean. It is thought that the poem was written by John Lydgate.

The passage has to do with keeping lake [fine linen], homple [a variety of fine cloth] and lawne [another type of fine linen] clean, and how to wash them to get them clean from mole [a spot or stain] or black spots, so that they are not stained by wine, oil, or ink. It has nothing to do with dying clothes -- the operative verb is "washe":

washen (v.) Also wash(e, washine, washshe(n, wasse(n, wasson, wach(e(n, waish(e(n, waishun, waiȝshen, wais, woshe, wosse, whash(e(n, whas(se, whoshe(n, (N or chiefly N) was(e, waisse, (SWM) wasȝen, (WM) vasshe, (chiefly early) wasce(n & wesh(e(n, weish(e, wishe, whesh, whes, whech, (chiefly K) wesse, (N) wes, wis & (early) washce, waxen, waxan, wæcs, weashs, weaschen, (SWM) weosch & (early infl.) wassende & (?error) wahs, (error) whasseche; sg.3 washeth, etc. & washit, (N) weches, (K) wesst & (early) weshed; pl. washen, etc. & washuth, (impv.) washetz & (?error) wassheheth; p.sg. washed(e, etc. & washt, wesht, weste, wist & wash(e, waish(e, wesh(e, weshs, weschz, wesc, weȝsh, weȝs, wes(se, wech(s, weis, wish(e, wiche, wosh(e, woschsse, wos(se, wochs, woesh, wush(e, wuesh, vesh, vishe, whesh(e, whish, whisse, which, (N) was, wex, wois(se & (early) weosh(s, weosc, (SW) wuchs; pl. washed(e(n, etc. & washedde & washe, wesh(e(n, weshshen, wish(e(n, wissin, woshe(n, wosse, wush(e(n, whashe, whesh, whushen, (K & SW) wesse, (N) wexs, (WM) wush & (early) wessen, (SW) wuschschen & (error) wesshenden; ppl. washed, etc. & wash(e(n(e, washon, washun, wascin, wasse(n, wasin, waish(e(n, waishun, wesh(e(n(e, weishe, weishsen, wishin, whashe(n, (WM) wahche, (N) wessen & (errors) washer, wesseh. Contraction: washem (wash hem).

[OE wæscan, wacsan, waxan, waxsan; p. *wōsc, *wōcs, wōx, wēox; ppl. -wæscen, -wacsen, -waxen (from gewascan v. or unwæscen ppl.).]

(a) To do household washing or cleaning [quot. c1400(?a1387)]; wash (sth.) in or with water or other liquid, clean by scrubbing, rinsing, soaking, etc. in liquid; wash (a dish, vessel); also, wash (sth., a vessel) for purposes of ritual purity; also in fig. context;

(b) to clean, exsanguinate, or season (meat, shellfish, an animal carcass, etc.) for use as food by rinsing or soaking it in a liquid; also, cleanse (meat, etc.) for ritual use;

(c) to cleanse (cloth, clothing, a garment, wool, etc.) in a liquid, wash, rinse; also fig. & in fig. context; wash (clothing) for the purpose of ritual purity; ~ clene; ~ (clene) oute of, rinse (cloth, clothing) free of (a substance, excess dye, etc.);

(d) to remove (a stain) by washing; ~ awei (of, oute), wash away (a stain, blood, sweat, etc.), rinse away; also in fig. context.

(a) c1275(?a1200) Lay. Brut (Clg A.9) 5078: Heo letten alle þa scrud at þere dure werpen vt; wascen [Otho: wassen] þa waȝes wel mid þan bezsten.

c1300 SLeg.Cross (LdMisc 108) 543: Huy wenden forth and founden þe Rode‥huy wuschen hire clene and setten hire up ase heo was er bi-fore ido.
a1325 Add.46919 Cook.Recipes (Add 46919) 52.43/2: Nim rys itried & wahs am veyre, & soþþen druen, & soþþen grind in an morter al to poudre.
a1325 SLeg.Blase (Corp-C 145) 100: Ȝoure godes vnclene beoþ‥bringe hom‥to þe clene water & we hom wolleþ wasse clene.
a1350 St.Alex.(1) (LdMisc 108) 52/311: Ofte-siþes, broþ of ffissches, & water, as he wessch [vr. þei wosschen] here dissches, þei caste vp-on his croun.
(a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) Lev.6.28: Þe bretyl vessel‥in þe wheche hit is soden shal be brokyn, & ȝif hit were abrasyn vessel, hit shal be rubbed & washe wiþ water.
(a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) Lev.15.12: Þe brityl vessel þat he toucheþ shal be to-broken; þe trene vessel forsoþe shal be whasche [vr. wasshid; WB(2): waischun] wiþ water.
(a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) 3 Kings 22.38: Þe blood of þe wounde flowide in to þe bosum of þe char‥& þei weshyn [WB(2): waischiden; L laverunt] his chare in þe fischpond of Samarie & houndis lickeden his blood.
(a1387) Trev. Higd.(StJ-C H.1) 8.235: He wesche [vrr. weesche, wuesch; Higd.(2): waschede] þe woundes of þe ymage of the crucifixe.
c1390 NHom.Narrat.(Vrn) 42.308/24: Heore vessel clene heo wochs [rime: schoos].
(a1393) Gower CA (Frf 3) 7.2283: Whanne he hath gadred what him liketh, He‥wyssh his herbes in the flod.
c1400(?a1387) PPl.C (Hnt HM 137) 10.80: Poure folke‥suffren‥wo in winter-tyme with wakynge a nyghtes To ryse to þe ruel to rocke þe cradel, Boþe to karde and to kembe, to clouten and to wasche, To rubbe and to rely, russhes to pilie.
a1425(a1399) Form Cury (Add 5016) 98.3/3: Take benes‥And hulle hem wele and wyndewe out þe hulkes and waisshe hem clene.
?a1425 Orch.Syon (Hrl 3432) 381/4: My sone‥took þat keye of obedience out of þe fenne & clenside it in þe fier of his dyuyn charite & weischide it in his precious blood & makide it briȝt wiþ þe swerd of riȝtwiisnes.
(1440-41) Visit.Alnwick 125a: We enioyne yow‥that thai that shalle be in the fraytour hafe conuenyente seruauntes to wesshe and clenne thair‥vesselle and to make their mete.
(c1449) Pecock Repr.(Cmb Kk.4.26) 230: A good huswijf‥now doith oon werk, now an othir werk‥now sche weischith disschis, now sche berith aischis out.
a1450 Mandev.(3) (BodeMus 116) 15/11: They wele not suffere a maner of men that me calle Latynys syngyn vpon here auterys; And if it falle thas cas that ony of hem do, they wele thanne wasche here auterys with holy watyr.
c1450(c1415) Roy.Serm.(Roy 18.B.23) 289/7: Fischers ȝeden done and wascheden hur nettes.
a1475(a1400) Man ȝyf þat (Hrl 3954) 38: A nunne‥hath here drawe to lounesse‥In here kytchoun she is‥for to wache dych.
?a1475(?a1425) Higd.(2) (Hrl 2261) 3.315: Aristippus seide to Diogenes waschenge herbes‥‘thow scholde not haue nede to wasche these herbes.’
?a1475(?a1425) Higd.(2) (Hrl 2261) 4.67: The Romanes usede euery yere to kepe a feste‥whiche was callede the feste of bathes‥for the ymage of that godesse‥was waschede in a floode nye to Tiber.
a1500 Ld.Cook.Recipes (LdMisc 553) 112: Nym rys, whas hem, drie hem, & bray hem al to doust in a morter.
a1500 Ld.Cook.Recipes (LdMisc 553) 114: Nym ye ris, whess hem clene.
(b) (a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) Ex.29.17: Þat weþer þou schalt cutte in gobetis &, þe entrels of it weschid [WB(2): waischun] & þe feet, þou schalt‥offer all þe weþer‥apon þe auter.

(a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) Lev.1.9: Þe entrailes‥wasche [WB(2) vr. weishe; L lotis] wiþ water‥þe prest shal brenne hem vpon þe auter.
(a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) Lev.8.21: Þe lemes & þe talwe he brente wiþ fuyr, wasched byfore þe entrayles.
a1425(a1399) Form Cury (Add 5016) 110.55/1: Take noumbles and waishe hem clene with water and salt.
?c1425 Arun.Cook.Recipes (Arun 334) 458: Take hares, hilt and wasshe hom in brothe of beef with alle the blode, and boyle the blode and skym hit wel.
a1450 Hrl.Cook.Bk.(1) (Hrl 279) 23: Walkys in bruette: Take an sethe in Ale, þen pyke hem clene; þan wasshem in Water an Salt be hem-self, & fyrst with Ale & Salt, an do so whele þey ben slepyr.
?a1450 Poem Hawking (Yale 163) 17: Be waschen mete that ys fulle clene She shall be a-seymed wyth castyng þer-to; For blody flesshe gaderyth wyth-yn, Wyth-out tyryng the ree also.
c1450 NPass.(Add 31042) 164/571*: The watir was bothe swete & fresse ther In þay weschede alle þaire flesche that to the tempill come thase tithes.
c1450 Yale 163 Cook.Recipes (Yale 163) 36.47/2: Shele oystrys; perboyle hem in fayre watyr‥& wesch hem yn fayre watyr.
a1475 Hrl.Diseases Hawk A (Hrl 2340) 34: Lat hir hete euer more hote mete, wached in warme watyr or ellis in warme mylke.
?a1475 Noble Bk.Cook.(Hlk 674) 98: Ye may tak turn sole and wesshe it and wringe it well in wyn that ye sesson it up with.
(c) ?c1200 Orm.(Jun 1) 1103: Siþþenn comm he till þe follc & wessh himm hise claþess.

a1225(?a1200) Trin.Hom.(Trin-C B.14.52) 57: Sume bereð sole cloð to þe watere forto wasshen it clene.
a1225 Wint.Ben.Rule (Cld D.3) 79/5: Ðære cycenen wuceðenestre on þone seternesdæȝ æȝðer ȝe fatan þeawan [read: þwean], ȝe wæterclaðas waxan þe hy heore honde & fet mid wipodan.
(c1300) Havelok (LdMisc 108) 1233: He sholen hire cloþen washen and wringen, And to hondes water bringen.
c1350 Apoc.(1) in LuSE (Hrl 874) p.58: Þai‥ben comen fro grete tribulacioun & han wasshen her stoles & maden hem white in þe blood of þe lombe.
(a1382) WBible(1) (Bod 959) Lev.15.23: Who so er toucheþ shal whasche his cloþes.
(c1384) WBible(1) (Roy 1.B.6) Apoc.22.14: Blessid thei, that waschen [WB(2): waischen] her stooles in blood of the lomb.
c1400(c1378) PPl.B (LdMisc 581) 13.460: Thus haukyn þe actyf man hadde ysoiled his cote, Til conscience acouped hym þere-of‥Whil he ne hadde wasshen [vrr. whasshen, wasched] it or wyped it with a brusshe.
c1400(c1378) PPl.B (LdMisc 581) 14.18: I shal kenne þe‥contricioun to make, Þat shal clawe þi cote of alkynnes filthe; Dowel wasshen it and wryngen it þorw a wys confessour.
c1400(c1378) PPl.B (LdMisc 581) 15.446: Cloth þat cometh fro þe weuyng it nouȝt comly to were, Tyl it is fulled vnder fote or in fullyng stokkes, Wasshen wel with water and with taseles cracched.
c1400(?c1380) Pearl (Nero A.10) 766: In hys blod he wesch my wede on dese, And coronde clene in vergynte.
a1425 Ben.Rule(1) (Lnsd 378) 26/8: Þe‥sal opo þe setirday‥waisse þe tuailis þat tay sal wipe þaire hend opon and taire fete.
a1450(1410) This holy tyme make (Dgb 102) 172: Prestis‥resceyue þe charge euery del To wasche synful soules serkis.
a1450 Diseases Women(2) (Sln 2463) 100: Wete þerin wolle of a shepe that is not wasshen.
c1450(?c1400) 3 KCol.(1) (Cmb Ee.4.32) 94/23: Sche‥visshe his clothis and her owne in þe same water.
c1450(c1415) Roy.Serm.(Roy 18.B.23) 274/15: A lawndur in weshynge of cloþes‥takeþ lie and casteþ cloþes þer-in‥Aftur she draweþ hem owte, turneþ, betes, and washes hem, and hanggeþ hem vp, and so is þe clothe clene.
c1450(c1415) Roy.Serm.(Roy 18.B.23) 274/24: I trust to God þou shalt mow gett þe freshe watur to washe þe cloþes owte of þis lie.
c1450 Hrl.Cook.Bk.(2) (Hrl 4016) 84: Take hit vppe in a faire lynnen cloth that is clene wasshen.
(1459) Will York in Sur.Soc.30 237: I witt to the house of Newsom‥j houle basyn for to whessh thare corporaxes in.
a1475 Limn.Bks.(Brog 2.1) 89: Ȝe moste breke up the aschys welle with the flote afore or ȝe cast in ȝour clothe, and thanne handylle hit welle with a staffe abowte; and when hit is masteryd, take hit up and wasche hit clene oute of the ayschys.
a1475 Limn.Bks.(Brog 2.1) 90: Thanne ȝour flote is made fore ȝour sangweyns, and also for ȝour viollettes, and ȝour viollettes saddere thanne ȝour morreys: and thanne ȝe moste weysche heme oute of that‥and in lyke wyse madere hem, and mastry heme, and thenne wesch heme oute clene thereof.
a1475 Limn.Bks.(Brog 2.1) 91: Ȝe moste a lytylle browne hit afore owte of the whytte‥thanne ȝe moste wasche hit owte clene thereoff.
a1475 Rev.St.Bridget (Gar 145) 17/36: Lynen cloth‥lesyth nott hys coloure, bot the ofter it is wesh, the clenner it is.
a1500(?a1449) ?Lydg. Lavenders (Cmb Ff.1.6) 10: Loke well youre lawne, youre homple, & youre Lake‥Ye washe cleyn fro mole and spottes blake.
a1500(a1450) Gener.(2) (Trin-C O.5.2) 1182: She toke the Shirte‥And wesht it onys and ryneshed it so clene That afterward was noo spotte on it seen.
(d) a1325 Stond wel moder (Roy 12.E.1) 14: Þu wasse [vrr. wosshe; vipe] awey þo blodi teren.

(c1390) Chaucer CT.ML.(Manly-Rickert) B.356: She shal haue nede to wasshe [vr. whasse] awey the rede Thogh she a font ful water with hir lede.
c1400(a1349) Rolle MPass.(1) (Cmb Ll.1.8:Horst.) 91: Þei toke of þe rode þi blessyd body‥þei weschen of þe cold blod and made þe clene.
(a1438) MKempe A (Add 61823) 193/33: Sche wesch a-wey þe blod of hys face wyth þe terys of hir eyne.
(?a1439) Lydg. FP (Bod 263) 2.3460: Bachus bad hym go bathe in a ryuer To wasshe a-way the colour aureat.
a1450(1408) Vegetius(1) (Dc 291) 51/27: Þe salt swote of ȝonge men, þat wiþ rennynge and rydynge and oþer dedes of armes in þe feld was gedered, in þe ryuer of Tybre wiþ swymmyng was waschen [vr. wyschyn] awey.
c1460(?c1400) Beryn (Nthld 55) 661: Yet, or he cam in company, he wissh a-wey the blood.
a1475(?a1430) Lydg. Pilgr.(Vit C.13) 21856: Wyth wych water, dame Penaunce Maketh a lye‥To wasshen a-way al ordure.
a1475 Hrl.Diseases Hawk A (Hrl 2340) 22: Take persely rotys‥and wach a wey þe herþe.
a1475 Hrl.Diseases Hawk A (Hrl 2340) 35: Take þe sode of clene wode or of tymbyr‥And strew þt full hyr throte and hyr mowþe‥Than wach owte þt wt womannys mylke.
a1500(a1415) Mirk Fest.(GoughETop 4) 96/2: Þys woman‥segh hyr hond blody, and wold haue waschen hyt away.



a1500(?a1449) ?Lydg. Lavenders (Cmb Ff.1.6) 15: Of wyn away the moles may ye wesshe In mylk whyt.
a1500(?a1449) ?Lydg. Lavenders (Cmb Ff.1.6) 18: Wasshe with wyn the feruent inkes spott.


It is still about staining and not about dying.

[Jim F.]

Name E.K. an eke-name (not initials) is a good one.

>
> It is still about staining and not about dying.

So Dominic, how do you explain this context?

And when all is done and past,
Narcissus in another sort,

And gaier clothes shall be pla'st,
Eke perhaps in good plight,

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

Bob Dylan wrote some of his best songs in ten minutes,
Leonard Cohen some of his in ten years. What kind of
a writer was Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare?
Three lines in Romeo and Juliet may inform us that he
wrote easily, it may even be that his play almost wrote
itself. Act 2 Scene 1, Romeo speaking

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Sigh of a lover, and sigh of a poet obliged to use
a pseudonym - Juliet symbolizes poetry, her cheek
the cheeky play, her hand the work that wrote itself
(so to say), and the glove the name of William
Shakespeare instead of Edward de Vere in the guise
of Romeo

O, that I were a glove upon that hand
I, Vere, a glove upon that hand

Edmund de Vere E...e (12 letters)
O gentle Romeo O...o (12 letters)
Earl of Oxford E.O. (12 letters)

Romeo -eo E.O. Earl of Oxford

Did he know his rank? Yes, he did. On a further level
of word play Romeo alludes to Rome and Juliet to Julius
Caesar whose family traced themselves back to the Roman
love goddess Venus.

Compared to de Vere alias Shakespeare's writing on
"Caesar's wing" Ben Johnson was "but, as you would say,
a cobbler" (quotes from Julius Caesar, Act 1 Scene 1).

Writing quickly he could work in secret, preparing
a play in his mind, dashing down scene for scene,
and once in a while a sonnet.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare was confident
that his authorship will be recognized in time. A quote
from sonnet 76

every word doth almost tell my name

But he also feared this might happen too early and
put him at risk. One more quote from the poetological
love scene in Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 1

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet
And I am proof against their enmity.

The play symbolized by Juliet could give him away.
His hope also was his fear, motivating him to maintain
his opaque writing style achieved by blending the levels
of meaning. We follow a love story and are lulled into
a poetological discourse on nature speaking in poetry,
nature writing poetry with a tender hand upon which
the author is but a glove

O, that I were a glove upon that hand
I, Vere, a glove upon that hand

One may say the conscious ego of the author is a glove
upon the unconscious id of poetry writing itself.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

de Vere and Romeo equation from 2010

Edward de Vere (12 letters)
bound by one letter E...e

O, where is Romeo?
O, Vere is Romeo (12 letters)
bound by one letter O...o

Earl of Oxford (12 letters)
Romeo -eo E.O.
above binding letters

In the spring of 2010 I identified Juliet as audience,
this time as poetry, nature speaking in poetry,
poetry quasi writing itself. Maybe Juliet is a complex
symbol, poetry mediating between nature and a lively
audience?

[Don]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2014 00:09:54 -0700 (PDT), fr...@bluemail.ch wrote:

>de Vere and Romeo equation from 2010
>
> Edward de Vere (12 letters)
> bound by one letter E...e
>
> O, where is Romeo?
> O, Vere is Romeo (12 letters)
> bound by one letter O...o
>
> Earl of Oxford (12 letters)
> Romeo -eo E.O.
> above binding letters
>
>In the spring of 2010 I identified Juliet as audience,
>this time as poetry, nature speaking in poetry,
>poetry quasi writing itself. Maybe Juliet is a complex
>symbol, poetry mediating between nature and a lively
>audience?

Then would that mean Shakespeare was consciously creating "complex
symbols" interpreting nature for us? Sounds acceptable to me.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

On Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:46:24 AM UTC+2, Don wrote:
>
> Then would that mean Shakespeare was consciously creating "complex
> symbols" interpreting nature for us? Sounds acceptable to me.
>

Yes, I think so, both nature around us and nature
inside ourselves. He bravely looked into the depths
of his own soul, where he found both a gentle being
and a devil

Edward de Vere 12 letters E..e

O, where is Romeo?
O, Vere is Romeo 12 letters O...o

Earl of Oxford 12 letters E.O.

O gentle Romeo 12 letters O...o

Why, where the devil should Romeo be?
Vere the devil 12 letters

The last exclamation, done by Mercutio, friend to Romeo,
may have the meaning of dare-devil, but may also point out
a darker side of Edward de Vere who killed another young
man, as does Romeo in the play.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

compiled interpretations from 2010
http://www.seshat.ch/home/vere.htm
addendum concerning Romeo and Juliet

Juliet may be a more complex symbol than the audience
of a play - poetry mediating between nature and
a lively audience.

In Act 2 Scene 1 Romeo compares Juliet in her window
to the sun rising in the east. Later on, in the same
monologue, Romeo looking up to her

See, how she leans her cheek on her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Sigh of a lover and poetological program in one.
Genuine poetry emerges from the unconscious and quasi
writes itself - her cheek held by her own hand -
while the conscious ego of the poet is but a glove
upon that metaphorical hand

O, that I were a glove upon that hand
I, Vere, a glove upon that hand

Here again the key equation from 2010

Edward de Vere (12 letters)
bound by one letter E...e

O, where is Romeo?

O, Vere is Romeo (12 letters)
bound by one letter O...o

Earl of Oxford (12 letters)
Romeo -eo E.O.
above binding letters

Expanding the key equation

O gentle Romeo (12 letters)
bound by one letter O...o

Why, where the devil should Romeo be?

Vere the devil (12 letters)

I am fortune's fool!
fortune's fool (12 letters)

Young Edward de Vere stabbed another young man in the leg,
so very unfortunately that this one died. Only a little
to the side and he would have survived. This incident,
on top of other minor ones, would have been the reason
why Queen Elizabeth obliged Edward de Vere to use
a pseudonym - banishing Romeo, as it were, taking him
away from his one true love Juliet. Having slain Tybalt,
Romeo calls himself a fool of fortune; later on he
confesses that he murdered Tybalt. We may assume that
also Edward de Vere had mixed emotions, feeling guilty
and being fortune's fool. But he held out. Bravely
looking into the depths of his own soul he would have
becomne the great poet and playwright.

Prince Escalus, ruler of Verona, would stand for
Queen Elizabeth fearing the escalation between young
Edward de Vere in her care and his opponents. Maybe
the charming dare-devil called her Lady Verona?
Allow me a pun

Vere, o no! Vere o no Verona

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

Edward de Vere's mother

Lady Montague, mother of Romeo, speaks up in the opening
scene of the play

Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

Her Mosaic line is followed and contrasted by an edict
in the language of the court, given by Prince Escalus,
alter ego of Queen Elizabeth. Also Edward de Vere whose
alter ego in the play is Romeo acquired court speak,
but he avoided empty formalism, his language remained
basically simple, its amazing richness and complexity
own to a lively mind, plenty interwoven thoughts,
feelings and images - the formula of all great works
being simple yet complex.

Lady Montague says two more lines, also in the opening
scene of the play

O where is Romeo?--saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

Here we have two puns

O, Vere is Romeo

- a mother knows her child

I am he

- referring to early pregnancy when he was part of her,
transformed into motherly care, while the short line,
semantically broken up, still held together, became
an archetypical sigh of a mother

I am he
Right glad I am he was not at this fray

Lady Montague speaks only the three above lines,
in the entire play. One line plus two lines. Prolong
the pattern by doubling and doubling the numbers
and soon you get more lines than in the complete works
of Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare. A similar
progression leads from zygote to foetus and child in
the womb of a pregnant woman and expectant mother.

Lady Montague, barely speaking, unobtrusive, makes me
think of the camouflage of a brood animal or dam
protecting her young.

From all this we may glean that John de Vere's wife
in the guise of Lady Montague was Edward's real mother
(not a foster mother), a pious woman, her language simple
and direct, however, she loved a good pun, and she cared
for her son Edward.

> O, I am fortune's fool!

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

Lady Montague and Prince Escalus

What I call the Mosaic line by Lady Montague

Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe

is followed by an edict of twenty-three lines

in the language of the court, given by Prince Escalus,

wordy equivalent of the single line by Lady Montague,
mother of Romeo

Lady Montague 1 line (1.1.76)
Prince Escalus 23 lines (1.1.77-99)
together 24 lines

The 24 lines of Lady Mantague and Prince Escalus have
a parallel in the 24 letters of Edward's name and title
combined

Edward de Vere 12 letters

Earl of Oxford 12 letters

together 24 letters

The 24 letters correspond to the 24 hours in a day
and the 24 letters of the classical Greek alphabet
- 'alpha and omega' (from alpha to omega) being
a formula of completeness.

The language of Lady Montague, alter ego of his mother,
and the one of Prince Escalus, alter ego of Queen Elizabeth,
are combined in the powerful language of the great poet
and playwright who packed the whole world into the nutshell
of his work and became, as Ben Jonson said, the soul of his age.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

structure of the play

Word language can be seen as a triangle of the corners

life with needs and wishes

mathematics as logic of building and maintaining
based on the formula a = a

art as human measure in a technical world
based on Goethe's world formula and ever turning key

all is equal, all unequal ...

The roles of life and art in the language of Edward de Vere
alias William Shakespeare are obvious. What about mathematics?
We found the number 12 in word plays, doubled in the number 24
of completeness, and the implicit numerical progression
1 2 (4 8 16 32 64 ...). What about a mathematical structure
of the entire play?

The first half of the play is rising action, the second half
is falling action, suggesting an equilateral triangle as
underlying geometrical model.

The play has 5 acts and 5 5 5 5 3 sum 23 scenes. In the middle
we find Act 3 Scene 2, and the 3 middle lines of that scene
(3.2.71-73) are spoken by Juliet (J) and her nurse (N)

(J) O God, did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?
(N) It did, it did, alas the day, it did.
(J) O serpent heart, hid within a flowering face!

Middle word of middle line of middle scene: alas. The play
itself is a big alas, "an exclamation to express sorrow,
grief, pity, concern, or apprehension of evil" (Webster's).

The corners of the equilateral triangle are then the prologue
mentioning an ancient grudge that breaks into new mutiny;
the three lines in the middle of the middle scene, middle
word alas; and the last lines ending the woeful story with
a ray of hope, the ancient grudge is gone, the feud overcome
by the love of "Juliet and her Romeo."

The 23 scenes of the play correspond to the edict of 23 lines
given by Prince Escalus in the opening scene while the basis
of the equilateral triangle would correspond to what I call
the Mosaic line by Lady Montague, mother of Romeo - in all
24 lines, number of completeness, alpha and omega.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

a stepped bridge

Remember the equilateral triangle. You may lay it out
with pebbles or coins, 3 for the corners, 10 and 10 and 10
in between, sum 33 pebbles or coins, 23 for the 23 scenes
of the play, also for the 23 lines of the edict given by
Prince Escalus, 10 for the 10 commandements in the Bible,
alluded to by the Mosaic line given by Lady Montague.
Replace the 10 pebbles of the basis by a stick and you have
in all 24 elements forming the equilateral triangle,
the ascending side and descending side counting 12 pebbles
each, the pebble at the top counted twice, marking both
the end of the ascending and beginning of the descending side.

Another representation is a double stairway, the basis
representing the Mosaic line by Lady Montague, mother of
Romeo, 12 steps leading upward, 12 steps downward, the top
counted twice again, height of the stairway 12, numerical
signature of the poet and playwright

Edward de Vere 12 letters
Earl of Oxford 12 letters

as Romeo in the play the son of

Lady Montague 12 letters

The woeful story of Romeo and Juliet ended the feud
between the Montagues and Capulets. Imagine their love
as a stepped bridge from the bank of one family to the bank
of the other family.

Verona is near Venice where the beautiful stepped bridge
Ponte Rialto was constructed of marble in 1590. I date
'Romeo and Juliet' in the version of Quarto 1 to 1581.
If the Ponte Rialto should have inspired the underlying
geometry of the more elaborate version of the play in
Quarto 2, the second version would have been written
some ten years later, when the playwright reached
the height of his art.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

the more I give the more I have

6 1 6 marble arches of the Ponte Rialto frame the view on
the Canale Grande and Venice (on either side of the bridge).
11 1 11 scenes frame the love story of Romeo and Juliet
in a firm and shiny language.

My bounty is boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Venice owed her riches or boundless bounty to seafaring,
to sailing across the wide and deep sea, while the Ponte
Rialto has a counterpart in a verbal bridge connecting
a pair of lines

the more I give to thee the more I have

Many people go over the bridge, many people come over
the bridge, ever more go and come, come and go, so many
that one can hardly count them. Venice and the Ponte Rialto
may well have inspired the beautiful love metaphor given by
Juliet in the version of Quarto 2, Act 2 Scene 1 lines 176-8.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

to hide, alas, I am laid ??

Another partition of the 23 scenes

5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5

yields a small triangle

2.1 and 3.2 and 4.3 or 6 12 18

with a couple of correspondences along the principle
of equal unequal

2.1 Romeo separating himself,
Juliet compared to the rising sun,
night toward morning

3.2 day, sun traveling across the sky

4.3 Juliet separating herself,
setting sun, sleeping potion,
evening toward night

Now I need help, not being a native speaker of English.
Looking out for the middle words in 2.1 and 3.2 and 4.3
I found a possibly meaningful message, but is it proper
English?

2.1 has 235 lines, ergo the one in the middle is line 118

I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes

from which I take the middle words

... to hide ...

3.2 has 143 lines, ergo the one in the middle is line 72

It did, it did, alas the day, it did

from which I take the middle word (middle word of middle
line of middle scene)

... alas ...

4.3 has 57 lines, ergo the one in the middle is line 29

How if, when I am laid into the tomb

from which I take again the middle words

... I am laid ...

and combine them with the previous ones

to hide, alas, I am laid

My Webster's Unabridged gives the second meaning of lay laid
as follows: "to knock or beat down, as from an erect position;
strike or beat down to the ground: One punch laid him low."
A further meaning is to impose as a penalty. So we'd have

to hide (behind a pseudonym)
alas (I am obliged, being
punched punished banished,
knocked down, laid low)
I am laid (for all my dear life)

Can the line of the combined middle words convey this message?
And how was the word laid pronounced by then? did it possibly
rhyme on hide?

to hide
alas
I am laid

If so we'd have a tiny poem as hidden declaration by Edward
de Vere who was obliged to conceal his authorship in the play
Romeo and Juliet and in his entire work sailing under the name
of William Shakespeare.

However, he didn't really lay low, as we can glean from his
pseudonym

William
will I am
a strong will personified
Shakespeare
shaking my spear
wielding my sword
which is my word
my elegant and powerful word

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

(since nobody objected I can make it more concise)

to hide, alas, I am laid

Another partition of the 23 scenes

5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5

yields a small triangle

2.1 and 3.2 and 4.3 or 6 12 18

with a couple of correspondences along the principle
of equal unequal

2.1 Romeo separating himself,
Juliet compared to the rising sun,
night toward morning

3.2 day, sun traveling across the sky

4.3 Juliet separating herself,
setting sun, sleeping potion,
evening toward night

Looking out for the middle words in 2.1 and 3.2 and 4.3

I found a meaningful message.

2.1 has 235 lines, ergo the one in the middle is line 118

I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes

from which I take the middle words

... to hide ...

3.2 has 143 lines, ergo the one in the middle is line 72

It did, it did, alas the day, it did

from which I take the middle word (middle word of middle
line of middle scene)

... alas ...

4.3 has 57 lines, ergo the one in the middle is line 29

How if, when I am laid into the tomb

from which I take again the middle words

... I am laid ...

and combine them with the previous ones

to hide, alas, I am laid

My Webster's Unabridged gives the second meaning of lay laid
as follows: "to knock or beat down, as from an erect position;
strike or beat down to the ground: One punch laid him low."
A further meaning is to impose as a penalty. So we'd have

to hide (behind a pseudonym)
alas (I am obliged, being
punched punished banished,
knocked down, laid low)
I am laid (for all my dear life)

Edward de Vere, laid low, humbled (a further meaning of layd
laid), hid his authorship in the play Romeo and Juliet, and in
the entire work sailing under the name of William Shakespeare

to hide
alas
I am laid

However, he didn't really lie low, as we can glean from his

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

owing the queen

The word of the playwright can be sharp as the blade
of a sword or point of a spear (Shakespeare), shine like
polished marble (Ponte Rialto inspiring the second version
of the play), or chime like bells rich in overtones

Romeo O Rome Omero

The names Romeo and Juliet evoke Rome and Julius Caesar

whose family traced themselves back to the Roman love

goddess Venus, born from the sea, her name akin to
Veneti, dwellers of the Veneto, Verona in its western
tip, and to Venetia Venezia Venice, marvel of a town
that rose from the sea, Rosalie, gossip Venus (2.1),
the Ponte Rialto having been a market place where,
me may imagine, also gossip was exchanged, perhaps
near a pair of marble statues of Mars and Venus
adorning the bridge?

Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare may have
seen himself as literary version of Julius Caesar who
conquered Rome then the world, and as heir of Homer,
Italian Omero, Juliet being loved by both Romeo and
Paris, the latter in Homer a prince of Troy, husband
of the abducted beauty Helen.

Edward de Vere in the guise of William Shakespeare
is no less wily than Odysseus hiding in a wooden horse.

Athene, wise Athene, in Homer the symbol of history,
guided and protected Odysseus. Edward de Vere found
his mentor in Queen Elizabeth. She handled him well,
considering the rough time and the many dangers
awaiting a free spirit like his. We owe her.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

Whetstone of witte

Romeo and Juliet have an echo in Touchstone and Audrey
in the play As You Like It - he the playwright and she
his audience (Audrey audire audience).

Robert Recorde, in his algebra book Whetstone of witte,
London 1557, chapter The Arte, introduces the equality
sign as a pair of long parallel lines ====== "because
noe.2.thynges, can be moare equalle." Edward de Vere
may have read it as a teenager (in the later 1560s)
and may have told himself: Nothing is really equal,
not even twins are. One line is above, the other below.
I can find something unequal in everything that is equal,
and something equal in everything unequal. And nothing
remains unchanged forever - panta rhei. With my writing
talent I might become a poet and playwright. If so,
my work shall be an alternative Whetstone of witte:
full of symbols and personifications, metaphors,
analogies and similes, many layers of meaning woven
together, overtones and undertones, word playing,
ambiguities and contradictions, metamorphoses,
transformations and changing identities, in short
an algebra of life based on the equation of my life.

Queen Elizabeth compelled him to use a pseudonym
for his and her own safety. He loathed being restricted
in his ambition (to hide, alas), feeling knocked down,
laid low, humbled (I am laid). However, he obliged
- and took revenge by making a colossal joke. First
he chose a telling nom de plume

William
will I am
a strong will personified
Shakespeare
shaking my spear
wielding my sword
which is my word
my elegant and powerful word

Then he looked out for a young analphabet of a similar
name and appointed him the official author of his work!

Touchstone and Audrey meet William in the forest of Arden
(5.1)

Then learn from me:--to have, is to have (poetic talent);
for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured
out of a cup into a glass (plays ascribed to someone else)
by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your writers
consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse (the author),
for I am he.

And then in sonnet 76

almost every word does tell my name

Only he can write in such a way.

---

Correction of the previous message: Rosaline is the name
of Venice personified, Venice that rose from the saline
(I make the correction in the copy)

> owing the queen
>
> The word of the playwright can be sharp as the blade
> of a sword or point of a spear (Shakespeare), shine like
> polished marble (Ponte Rialto inspiring the second version
> of the play), or chime like bells rich in overtones
>
> Romeo O Rome Omero
>
> The names Romeo and Juliet evoke Rome and Julius Caesar
> whose family traced themselves back to the Roman love
> goddess Venus, born from the sea, her name akin to
> Veneti, dwellers of the Veneto, Verona in its western
> tip, and to Venetia Venezia Venice, marvel of a town

> that rose from the saline, Rosaline, gossip Venus (2.1),

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

business and literature

The Merchant of Venice 1.3

... he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis,
another to the Indies; I understand, moreover,
on the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico,
a fourth for England,--and other ventures he hath,
spander'd abroad.

What news on the Rialto?

Back to Romeo and Juliet. 'Gossip' has then the meaning of
business rumors, while Rosaline of the red lips may refer
to courtesans accompanying wealthy merchants, 'gossip Venus'
hinting at their possible involvement in spreading rumours
and weaving intrigues.

The play has many levels of meaning. On one of them Rosaline
quickly abandoned for Juliet may symbolize an early business
vocation soon abandoned for literature.

I didn't read the historical plays. However, the associative
link to Rome and Julius Caesar made me look up the first
pages of that play (Julius Caesar). The opening scene struck
me as a possible satire on the literary circle of contemporary
England transfered to Ancient Rome, Edward de Vere alias
William Shakespeare flying (writing) on

Caesar's wing

the cobbler another playwright, and the feathers plucked from
the wing imitations of Shakespeare

These growing feather pluckt from Caesar's wing

No biographical traces of the 'bard' whereas Edward de Vere
is omnipresent once we open the doors. I won't go on reading
the play, nor will I read the other historical plays (fearing
to find more and be occupied for the rest of my life). Now it's
your turn. I gave you the keys.

> Whetstone of witte
>
> Romeo and Juliet have an echo in Touchstone and Audrey
> in the play As You Like It - he the playwright and she
> his audience (Audrey audire audience).
>
> Robert Recorde, in his algebra book Whetstone of witte,
> London 1557, chapter The Arte, introduces the equality

> sign as a pair of long parallel lines ====== "bicause

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

The Oxford Shakespeare

Remember the partition 5 5 5 5 3 transformed into
5 1 5 1 5 1 5 and the concealed message composed from
the middle words of 2.1 and 3.2 and 4.3

to hide, alas, I am laid

The interwoven sigh would confirm the enlarged version
of the play as presented in The Oxford Shakespeare
(edited by Jill L. Levenson 2000 reissued 2008) on which
my interpretation relies. 'Romeo and Juliet' would have
been a key play, at least on the autobiographical level,
copied with such care and diligence that the secret
'watermark' was preserved.

August Wilhelm Schlegel used a different partition in
his German translation, 5 6 5 5 3, splitting 2.1 into
a short scene (Mercutio speaking about Rosaline) and a long
one (so-called balcony scene) while omitting several vulgar
passages. He is wrong in splitting up 2.1. Rosaline and
Juliet belong in the same scene, as a deliberate contrast,
Rosaline personifying Venice that rose from the saline
(lagoon), business and rumors on the Rialto, gossip Venus,
with her scarlet lips a courtesan (harlot) accompanying
wealthy merchants, furthermore an early business vocation
of young Edward de Vere, soon abandoned for his true love
Juliet personifying poetry. Moreover, 2.1 is mirrored in
4.3 insofar as Romeo spearates himself from his friends
and Juliet separates herself from her mother and her nurse
at the beginning of the respective scene.

I trust the play in the version of The Oxford Shakespeare
and thank generations of scholars for their excellent work.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

divine love

Is there a parallel of a numerical 'watermark' ?
Yes, possibly in the cycle of 154 sonnets.

Wilhelm Pötters made a conection between the medieval formula

Deus est sphaera
God is present in the perfect shape of the divine sphere

and the fixed form of the Italian sonetto invented by Giacomo
da Lentini. Picture a circle of diameter 14 as projection of
the divine sphere. The rectangle 14 by 11 has practically
the same area (22/7 for pi) and provides the metric pattern
for the sonetto, 14 lines of 11 pronounced syllables each,
in all 154 pronounced syllables (also the ideal of the English
sonnet, only that lines of 11 pronounced syllables are easily
found in the melodic Italian, less easy in English).

Now let us visualize the cycle of 154 sonnets by Edward de Vere
alias William Shakespeare as a circle of the circumference 154
(number of pronounced syllables in the sonetto). How long is
the circumference? 49, partition 24 1 24, middle number 25.

Sonnet 25, here in my interpretation, can be seen as core
message of the entire cycle (both in the center and on
the circumference of the imaginary circle). Edward de Vere
mourns his fate, still Fortune's fool, obliged to hide
behind a pseudonym, deprived from enjoying fame, however,
he finds joy in the divine miracle of love, in loving
and being loved, and where he can't remove and be removed
from his juvenile guilt, which is the reason why he must
hide, the reason why he had to adopt a pseudonym he can't
remove nor be removed from, he can neither be removed from
his place, being the actual author of his beloved work

Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove and be removed.

The poet seeks and finds redemption by the divine gift of love,
pagan version of God's love prevailing over the original sin.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

love thrives in freedom

Out of curiosity I looked for a numerical 'watermark' in the
love poem Venus and Adonis. It has 199 verses of 6 lines each,
in all 1194 lines. Picture them as a circle of the circumference
1194. How long is the diameter? 380. Line 380 is verse 63 line 2

'Give me your heart', saith she, 'and thou shalt have it(')

A big surprise, for it reminds of the love formula in Romeo and
Juliet, also pronounced by the woman

... the more I give to thee, The more I have

Love is a beautiful paradox. The more you give the more you have.
I didn't read the long poem but can imagine the situation. Adonis
stole the hear of Venus. Now she wants it back. And if he gives it
back to her he shall have it. Love thrives in freedom.

(Don't try to cage it, as Othello did.)

Postscript
Wilhelm Pötters found the number pi not only in the forma fissa
of the Italian sonetto (Nascita del sonetto, Metrica e matematica
nel tempo di Federico II, Longo Editore Ravenna 1998) but also
in the works of Petrarca and Dante where it has theological,
philosophical and cosmological implications. He contacted me
(via a colleague who found me online) and asked for advice
regarding early calculating methods. I told him about additive
number patterns and sequences - universal tool of pre-Greek
mathematics, still used in the Renaissance - including a pair of
pi sequences that now also apply in our case

4/1 (plus 3/1) 7/2 10/3 13/4 16/5 19/6 22/7 25/8

3/1 (plus 22/7) 25/8 47/15 ... 311/99 ... 377/120

... 597/190 doubled 1194/380 used in Venus and Adonis

Edward de Vere may have learned about Renaissance art and poetology
including the numerical aspects on an Italian journey. Remember
that also mathematics belongs to the triangle of word language:
life with needs and wishes, mathematics as logic of building and
maintaining, art as human measure in a technical word.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

love thrives in freedom (second version)

Out of curiosity I looked for a numerical 'watermark'

in the love poem Venus and Adonis, 199 verses of 6 lines each,
in all 1194 lines. Consider them the circumference of a circle.
How long is the diameter? 380. Line 380 or verse 63 line 2

'Give me my heart,' saith she, 'and thou shalt have it(')

Venus lost her heart to young Adonis, but he, having other things
on his mind, is not ready for love. She wishes that she were
the man and he the woman, so that he would understand her desire,
and takes his hand. He, unwilling, wants it back. She replies
that he can have back his hand if she gets back her heart ...

Now picture that we had only that one line, as tiny fragment
of a lost poem. In this case the final 'it' would refer to
'my heart' and we'd have a psychological puzzle

Give me my heart, and you shall have it

What can this mean? A woman speaking, so apparently her heart
had been stolen. She wants it back, and if she can decide in
freedom, she will give her heart gladly - don't force me to
love you, don't cage me, don't steal my heart, set me free,
give back my heart, and you shall have it really ...

Line 380 in the alternative reading, in many ways contrary
to the actual meaning, evokes the love formula in Romeo
and Juliet

... the more I give to thee, The more I have

Love is a beautiful paradox. The more we give the more we have.
Let freedom be the bond.

Maybe I go too far? Line 380 in the alternative reading might be
a poetic misunderstanding (often invited by real poesy) and the
numbers a mere coincidence. Yet if the alternative and contrary
meaning was intended as a psychological pun and a humanistic
message (with more impact in the negative version of Othello)
the number game supporting the word play can be justified.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

flower springing from Adonis' blood

In the poem A Lover's Complaint a woman aged from sorrow
accuses her false lover, easily recognizeable as the author
praising and mocking himself, while she may personify a play
- each time he writes a play he cares for it as his one and
only great love, and once in a lifetime romance, yet when
the play is finished he leaves it for to write another play,
having another affair ... She would fall for him again,
and really, this happened when he wrote the second version
of Romeo and Juliet, inspired by Renaissance art, Italian
poetology, and the audacious Ponte Rialto at Venice.

The poem A Lover's Complaint has 47 verses (of seven lines
each), the one of Venus and Adonis 199 verses (of six lines
each), numbers from a golden sequence

1 3 4 7 11 18 29 47 76 123 199 ...

Consider a circle of the circumference 47. How long is the
diameter? 15, according to an early value of the pi sequence
a later value of which led to the hidden paradox of love
in Venus and Adonis

3/1 (plus 22/7) 25/8 47/15 ... 597/190 or 1194/380

Verse 15 reveals a double aspect of the author. He can be
like a sweet maiden, writing mellifluous love lyrics, or
he can be a storm, writing sharp satires and harsh polemic,
sometimes veiled as comedy. However, he doesn't spare himself,
bravely looking into the depths of his own soul. In himself
he finds the human measure to shape the world with, genuine
task of an artist.

Maybe the two aspects are mirrored in the two relations of
Adonis, one to Venus, the poet writing love lyrics, and one
to the boar, the playwright coping with the world? Love is
ambivalent, as we read close to the end of the long poem.
However, there are moments of freedom in love worth living for.
Line 380 in the alternative reading may then be the flower
springing from Adonis' blood, cherished by Venus, kept in her
bosom, near her heart - freedom in love and in art being the
legacy of this poet and playwright. Give me my heart and you
shall have it. Set me free and you shall have my very best.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

achieving the best in freedom

The poem A Lover's Complaint uses the pi value 47/15 in marking
verse 15, and the long poem Venus and Adonis the value 597/190
in singling out line 380. Both values are provided by the same
pi sequence

3/1 (plus 22/7) 25/8 ... 355/113 ... 597/190

Moreover, the numbers 47 and 199 of verses belong to the so-called
Lucas sequence 1 3 4 7 11 18 29 47 76 123 199 252 ..., counterpart of
the so-called Fibonacci sequence 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 ...,
both part of a very ancient number column approximating the square
root of 5, the first lines being 1 1 5, 2 6 10, 1 3 5, 4 8 20, 2 4 10,
1 2 5, 3 7 15, 10 22 50, 5 11 25, 16 36 80, 8 18 40, 4 9 20 ...,
based on on the model of the number column approximating the square root
of 2, first lines 1 1 2, 2 3 4, 5 7 10, 12 17 24, 29 41 58, 70 99 140 ...

Now let us combine the above pi values 47/15 and 597/190 by adding
the nominators and denominators. We obtain the better value 644/205,
and if we add the value 22/7 of the sonetto and cycle of sonnets
in the form of 66/21 analogously we obtain the still better value
355/113 that belongs as the best value to the above sequence.

Building the Ponte di Rialto of white marble on a single arch
across the wide Canale Grande was a daring enterprise requiring
a lot of careful calculations. Why shouldn't also one or another
complex and many-layered poetic work rely on a numerical structure?

Pi, the number we call pi (from Greek peri-) held symbolic meaning
for the Italian school of poetry, most notably Francesco Petrarca
(Petrarch) and Dante Alighieri. We can approximate the mysterious
little number, getting close and closer, with more and ever more
effort, never coming to an end. We will never know the complete truth,
all of nature's laws, God's mind. Yet we came far, achieving the best
in freedom.

[fr...@bluemail.ch]

Rialto Bridge

The former bridge across the most narrow passage of the Canale
Grande was made of wood and nicknamed Ponte di Moneta, Money
Bridge. Michelangelo proposed a stone bridge. Palladio, Sansovino
and others took part in a later competition for a stone bridge
that may replace the old wooden structure. The competition
was won by the Swiss engineer Antonio da Ponte who surprised
with an audacious plan, a single span bridge of white marble.
The work was begun in 1588 and proceeded slowly because of
the soft underground. The new Ponte di Rialto was opened in 1591.
Most people found the marble arch and superposed triangle of
small arches ugly. And it will crumble ... But no, it stood
the test of time and became a romantic icon, a must for a visitor
of Venice.

Along the Canale Grande one can see beautiful façades of prestigious
houses and palazzi rise from the water, among them rose-colored ones,
a further facet in the name of Rosaline who personifies the rich town
that rose from the sea, from the lagoon, from the saline, rose (color)
rose (verb) saline (lagoon) Rosaline, also personifying a hypothetical
early business vocation of Edward de Vere (that would explain his
ample knowledge in matters of the law), soon abandoned for his
true love, poesy and plays, a world of words, or rather a verbal
bridge between human nature and the world we live in.

[marco]

Art not a poet? Timon of Athens: I, i

The lunatic, the lover and the poet A Midsummer Night's Dream: V, i
Yonder comes a poet and a painter: the plague of Timon of Athens: IV, iii
Never durst poet touch a pen to write Love's Labour's Lost: IV, iii

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent Sonnets: LXXIX
The poet makes a most excellent description of it: King Henry V: III, vi
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, A Midsummer Night's Dream: V, i

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen A Midsummer Night's Dream: V, i
Honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some As You Like It: III, iii
The barren tender of a poet's debt; Sonnets: LXXXIII

The age to come would say 'this poet lies: Sonnets: XVII
Not worth my thinking. how now, poet! Timon of Athens: I, i
I am cinna the poet, I am cinna the poet. Julius Caesar: III, iii

For argument, unless the poet and the player went to Hamlet: II, ii
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet Merchant of Venice: V, i
As cerberus at the thracian poet's feet. Titus Andronicus: II, iv

And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage Sonnets: XVII
Pattern'd by that the poet here describes, Titus Andronicus: IV, i
Capricious poet, honest ovid, was among the goths. As You Like It: III, iii

Art N