The Marlovian Syllogisms: Categorial or Fallacious BS?
Tom Reedy
about what you're trying to do!
I know you're going to say you've forgotten more about logic than I ever
knew, and in this case I would agree with you.
TR
<snip>
john_baker
We've been talking about some popular Stratfordian syllogisms that are
fallacious.
What's the root of the Marlovian case and is it fallacious also?
Or is it on more reasonable grounds?
I've pointed out that all the authorship cases are inductive and only
possible, as opposed to being proved.
Here's what I think are the basic points of the Marlovian claim:
Some men fake their deaths to avoid capital charges.
Marlowe jumped bail on capital charges and was allegedly found dead
ten days later, under suspicious circumstances.
-------
Therefore Marlowe may have faked his death.
What's wrong with this one Strats? Oxfordians. Take your best shot.
How 礎out these hummers:
Marlowe was an international traveler.
Marlowe could have been in France inside twenty four hours, as
evidenced by Wotton's flight in the aftermath of the Essex Rebellion,
but a body said his was found inside the verge ten days later, freshly
slain.
-----
The fact Marlowe did not escape to France, but remained inside the
Queen's verge, suggests he stayed in order to fake his death.
Next we have:
Men who fake their deaths often leave a trail.
Marlowe's works continue under the name of William Shakespeare
----
He may have thus faked his death and been Willy.
Men who fake their deaths often want to explain why and how they did
it.
An explanation is dramatized in *Measure for Measure* where the author
makes it clear the did it to avoid false and unfair capital charges
and that they only used a body which had died of natural causes.
-----
This may be his note to us, since it has little to do with the play
itself.
Men who fake their deaths often resurface as themselves later.
Marlowe reappears in the historic record alive and well after 1593 and
in one case on the anniversary of his death and/or disappearance.,
20/30 May 1599.
----------
This may be the same Marlowe.
This conclusion is supported by this syllogism:
Men who live in certain places often write about them.
Marlowe surfaced in Valladolid with Cervantes.
-----------------
Shakespeare writes about Cervantes works before they are translated
into English, thus Sk may have been Marlowe.
Men who knew each other as boys, who are from the same communities and
who attended the same schools, particularly the same colleges, are
often life long friends.
Marlowe's play Jew of Malta was published in 1633 and there the
"author" proclaims a lifelong friendship with Thomas Hammon. Thomas
Hammon and Marlowe were from Canterbury, were classmates at the KS and
CC, Cambridge.
---------
Therefore Marlowe may be alive in 1633 at age 69, as was Hammon.
Marlowe seems to have lived in Italy after his escape.
16 of Sk's plays are set there in whole or in part.
----
Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
Marlowe had an insider's knowledge of Scotland and King James. (Sk
had no insider's knowledge of these affairs.)
This knowledge is clear in Edward II and in four plays said
Shakespeare's.
-----
Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
Marlowe wrote diplomatic docudrama based on his work inside what was
then the diplomatic corp of England.
Sk's works are in the main diplomatic docudrama from an English
perspective..
....
Therefore Sk may have been Marlowe.
Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
anniversaries.
The plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare memorialize, in the dates of
their registrations, events in either the life of the characters or of
Marlowe.
-------
Therefore Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
Three works said Sk's were registered on 20 May in consecutive years.
Marlowe was released on his final appearance bond on the 20 May.
----
These three consecutive registrations may mark this event.
Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
anniversaries.
The first work said Shakespeare's, the last work said Shakespeare's
and the last work said Marlowe's all appear on 8/18 April over a
period of 60 years.
--------------
Therefore the writers may be the same person.
Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
anniversaries.
8/18 of April 1580 was the birthday of William Herbert.
He may thus be the boy mentioned in the poem by Venus who will
patronize the poet
William Herbert turned 13 on the date of the registration of *Venus
and Adonis,* while Marlowe was officially alive.
The 13th birthday marks a boy's transition into puberty or manhood.
---------
The poem's registration may have been intended to mark his birthday.
-----
William Herbert's initials are on the Sonnets where he is proclaimed
their only begetter and suggested as the poet's illicit son.
William Herbert supported Marlowe and published the FF.
-----
William Herbert may be the poet's illicit son.
Marlowe and William Herberts mother were in Kent in 1579 when Herbert
was conceived.
Marlowe knew Mary Sidney Herbert and dedicated love poems to her.
....
Marlowe may have had an affair with Mary and been the father of
William Herbert.
Men are embarrassed when learning they are bastards and can be
blackmailed over it.
The poems which suggest all this are not in the FF, which William
Herbert published.
-----
Herbert may have published the FF under duress, with the proviso the
poems be excluded.
Siblings are known to live lives of average lengths.
Marlowe's sisters lived into their 80s.
...
Marlowe may have lived as long.
The last known work of Marlowe appeared in 1654, the year he turned
90.
Based on the lives of Marlowe's sisters, he carried longevity genes.
---------
Marlowe could easily have lived that long.
A man's education, interests, travels and family may appear in his
works.
Marlowe's education, interests, travels and family appear in Sk's
works.
-------------
Marlowe may have been Shakespeare.
A man's home of record, particularly when it is of long standing, may
appear in his works.
Marlowe's county of birth appears in his works and is featured in
Shakespeare's in the extreme.
----
Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
Sk was from Stratford.
Stratford isn't in the plays or poems.
...
Sk may not be the author.
Oops, that's the case against Sk, not the case for Marlowe.
How bout this one?
Marlowe knew Cecil, Southampton and Essex.
All three are featured either in the plays or were known supporters of
the Author and the Plays.
----
Marlowe may have been Sk.
Marlowe is know to have written a counter nationhood that opposed
royal rule which was based on an Ovidian cursus that offered liberatas
in the place of subservience.
Sk's works follow the same cursus.
----
Therefore Marlowe may be Sk.
Men are creature of habit.
Marlowe's early plays are well established and Sk's repeat the
pattern.
-----
Therefore Marlowe may have become Sk.
And these two:
The Queen often knew the skinny.
The Queen thought Marlowe the author of Richard II.
----
Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
The Queen could kill writers or chop off their right hand at will.
The Queen never attacked the actor.
......
Therefore the actor may not have been Sk.
Oops another case against Sk and not for Marlowe...must be getting
tired. Blame it on the whale of a good climb yesterday! Right up
through the clouds. Right up through summer into Winter.
Nothing like it.
john_baker
wrote:
Tom,
Is this an ironical post from you?
Categorical Syllogisms can be faulted, according to my logic 201 text,
if they violate one of six rules.
Tom should point out which one of these rules these syllogisms
violate.
Its quite possible they do violate one or more of the rules, I just
rattled them off the top of my head.
We're not working hot here, Tom. We can sound the system before we
turn on the breakers on, Tom.
I thought of another one after I posted. It runs like this:
Some women whose husbands are infertile become pregnant by using donor
sperm.
Mary Sidney Herbert's husband was infertile through several marriages
and many affairs.
-----
Their children, including William Herbert, may have been conceived
with donor sperm.
>
>
Ronald Johnsen
> *The Marlovian Syllogisms: Categorial or Fallacious BS?*
>
> We've been talking about some popular Stratfordian syllogisms that are
> fallacious.
>
> What's the root of the Marlovian case and is it fallacious also?
>
> Or is it on more reasonable grounds?
>
> I've pointed out that all the authorship cases are inductive and only
> possible, as opposed to being proved.
>
> Here's what I think are the basic points of the Marlovian claim:
>
> Some men fake their deaths to avoid capital charges.
>
> Marlowe jumped bail on capital charges and was allegedly found dead
> ten days later, under suspicious circumstances.
> -------
>
> Therefore Marlowe may have faked his death.
>
> What's wrong with this one Strats?
As Mike Royko, the late columnist liked to say, there's only one thing
wrong with this theory: it's stupid. All you have proven is that Marlowe
had a motive for faking his own death. Lots of men have motivation for
faking their own death but how many ever do it? Saying that Marlowe had a
motive for faking his own death (a point I will concede for argument sake)
in no way helps prove your case that Marlowe in fact faked his death.
In other words, instead of saying "A is B. B is C. Therefore, A is C,"
you say "A might be B. B might be C. Therefore, A might be C." Do you see
why this argument is too weak to be of any value in proving Marlowe lived
past 1593?
Moreover, he died in a bar room brawl. Anything suspicious about it is
the product of your imagination.
>
> How 礎out these hummers:
>
> Marlowe was an international traveler.
>
> Marlowe could have been in France inside twenty four hours, as
> evidenced by Wotton's flight in the aftermath of the Essex Rebellion,
> but a body said his was found inside the verge ten days later, freshly
> slain.
> -----
> The fact Marlowe did not escape to France, but remained inside the
> Queen's verge, suggests he stayed in order to fake his death.
Unless of course, the body really was Marlowe's, in which case he was
no longer able to write plays. Do you have any evidence to back up your
premise that the body said to be Marlowe's was not Marlowe's? No I didn't
think so.
>
>
> Next we have:
>
> Men who fake their deaths often leave a trail.
> Marlowe's works continue under the name of William Shakespeare
> ----
> He may have thus faked his death and been Willy.
Here you make the logical fallacy of using your conclusion as a
premise. Your second premise is not proven and certainly not accepted by
most people. Since I don't agree with your second premise (and you have
failed to offer any proof of its truth) this syllogism is faulty as well.
>
>
> Men who fake their deaths often want to explain why and how they did
> it.
> An explanation is dramatized in *Measure for Measure* where the author
> makes it clear the did it to avoid false and unfair capital charges
> and that they only used a body which had died of natural causes.
> -----
> This may be his note to us, since it has little to do with the play
> itself.
Except that Shakespeare was writing plays before Marlowe had any need
to fake his own death. Unless you date plays like LLL after 1593 (which
bumps into Oxfordians who are trying to date the plays earlier than
Stratfordians do) then this syllogism is proven faulty for lack of
evidence. Moreover, you still haven't proven Marlowe was alive after 1593.
If he wasn't alive, he couldn't have written this little note, could he?
>
>
> Men who fake their deaths often resurface as themselves later.
> Marlowe reappears in the historic record alive and well after 1593 and
> in one case on the anniversary of his death and/or disappearance.,
> 20/30 May 1599.
> ----------
> This may be the same Marlowe.
May have been the same Marlowe? If the best evidence that you have
only proves to you that it MAY have been Marlowe, how do you expect more
skeptical people to believe that it was Marlowe? The fact that even you
realize the weakness of your evidence makes it hard for me to believe any
of it. I will concede it is possible but you need more evidence before you
will convince me. Whatever happened to those great records you claimed (in
another thread) we had of Elizabeth's time?
>
>
> This conclusion is supported by this syllogism:
>
> Men who live in certain places often write about them.
> Marlowe surfaced in Valladolid with Cervantes.
> -----------------
> Shakespeare writes about Cervantes works before they are translated
> into English, thus Sk may have been Marlowe.
>
> Men who knew each other as boys, who are from the same communities and
> who attended the same schools, particularly the same colleges, are
> often life long friends.
> Marlowe's play Jew of Malta was published in 1633 and there the
> "author" proclaims a lifelong friendship with Thomas Hammon. Thomas
> Hammon and Marlowe were from Canterbury, were classmates at the KS and
> CC, Cambridge.
> ---------
> Therefore Marlowe may be alive in 1633 at age 69, as was Hammon.
>
> Marlowe seems to have lived in Italy after his escape.
> 16 of Sk's plays are set there in whole or in part.
> ----
>
> Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
Except all of Shakespeare's Italian plays were borrowed from another
source, so there is no need for the author of these plays to have even
seen Italy.
>
>
> Marlowe had an insider's knowledge of Scotland and King James. (Sk
> had no insider's knowledge of these affairs.)
As Kennedy likes to say so often, channeling again are we?
>
> This knowledge is clear in Edward II and in four plays said
> Shakespeare's.
> -----
> Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
>
> Marlowe wrote diplomatic docudrama based on his work inside what was
> then the diplomatic corp of England.
> Sk's works are in the main diplomatic docudrama from an English
> perspective..
How is As You Like It a diplomatic docudrama? Or Much Ado About
Nothing? Or any of his comedies for that matter?
>
> ....
>
> Therefore Sk may have been Marlowe.
>
> Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
> anniversaries.
> The plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare memorialize, in the dates of
> their registrations, events in either the life of the characters or of
> Marlowe.
> -------
> Therefore Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
>
> Three works said Sk's were registered on 20 May in consecutive years.
> Marlowe was released on his final appearance bond on the 20 May.
> ----
> These three consecutive registrations may mark this event.
>
> Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
> anniversaries.
> The first work said Shakespeare's, the last work said Shakespeare's
> and the last work said Marlowe's all appear on 8/18 April over a
> period of 60 years.
> --------------
> Therefore the writers may be the same person.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day, July 4,
1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence. So what? This is circumstantial evidence at best.
Unless of course he was stabbed with a knife in the eye.
>
>
> The last known work of Marlowe appeared in 1654, the year he turned
> 90.
> Based on the lives of Marlowe's sisters, he carried longevity genes.
> ---------
> Marlowe could easily have lived that long.
Unless of course he was stabbed in the eye with a knife.
>
>
> A man's education, interests, travels and family may appear in his
> works.
> Marlowe's education, interests, travels and family appear in Sk's
> works.
> -------------
> Marlowe may have been Shakespeare.
So could anyone else who had an education, including Shakespeare who,
as Strats have been saying (you just haven't been listening) would have
obtained all the education he needed to write these plays at the Stratford
grammar school.
>
>
> A man's home of record, particularly when it is of long standing, may
> appear in his works.
> Marlowe's county of birth appears in his works and is featured in
> Shakespeare's in the extreme.
> ----
> Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
>
> Sk was from Stratford.
> Stratford isn't in the plays or poems.
> ...
> Sk may not be the author.
Are there any plays written of Stratford? If not, it would be kind of
hard for Shakespeare to have borrowed them, don't you think?
Baker, the problem with all these syllogisms is that you're getting
lost in your own logic. You're trying so hard to create some syllogisms
(apaprently to prove Nele Abels-Ludwig wrong) that you're making logical
mistakes left and right.
Forget the syllogisms baker they're only messing you up. Your theory
is that Marlowe is Shakespeare. All you have to do now to create a logical
argument is show your evidence that Marlowe was alive and writing after
1593. This of course, you can't do. You have some circumstantial evidence
that Marlowe is the author but it certainly would never be enough to
convince a jury. You need more proof baker. Instead of hauling out the
same worn out statements trying to prove something that your evidence
can't prove, why not go searching for some more evidence?
Parentheticus
>the product of your imagination.
"the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both
the confirmer of false reckonings."
David More
http://members.aol.com/marlovian
(a rash enterprise in progress)
Remove the anti-spam suffix "ment" to reply
John W. Kennedy
> Some men fake their deaths to avoid capital charges.
>
> Marlowe jumped bail on capital charges and was allegedly found dead
> ten days later, under suspicious circumstances.
> -------
>
> Therefore Marlowe may have faked his death.
Are you being altogether serious? Because this is no more a "syllogism"
than the "syllogisms" in Lewis Carroll's "The New Belfry".
The same, I'm afraid, for the rest. (Some are even worse, including
outright begging of the question.)
--
-John W. Kennedy
-jwk...@attglobal.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
john_baker
wrote:
>> Moreover, he died in a bar room brawl. Anything suspicious about it is
>>the product of your imagination.
>
>"the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both
>the confirmer of false reckonings."
>
>
>
>David More
Dave,
That's a great quote, as good as "death's a great disguisher" MM,
we'll have to put it on the next Marlowe shrits.
baker
john_baker
wrote:
We must not be on the same page. Can you read? I don't claim any of
these prove anything. The conclusion is tennative and limited but it
seems correct given the premises.
Here's how the Venn Diagrams work in a case like this.
Imagine a cricle around each proposition. The three cricles over lap
in the middle.
However half of each cricle does not overlap.
We can't draw them on this program, but I'll put three Os out here to
help imagine:
O O
O
In you mind move the cricles so they overlap in three rings, so the
circumference of each passes through the center of the other two.
Cricle one includes All the men who have faked their deaths to avoid
capital charges. Cricle two states that Marlowe qualifies for
membership in that class because of two factors. But half of the
circle is outside the first circle, so we don't know if he is or isn't
a member of that category. Then the third circle has two qualities,
the Marlowe who really died in 1593 and the one who faked his death.
The one who really died lies outside the other two circels while the
one who faked his death lies inside the other two cricels.
Thus the tenative conclusion "Marlowe may have faked his death " is
sound.
It is clearly possible that Marlowe may have faked his death. He
cause, oppertunity and means.
>>
>> How 礎out these hummers:
>>
>> Marlowe was an international traveler.
>>
>> Marlowe could have been in France inside twenty four hours, as
>> evidenced by Wotton's flight in the aftermath of the Essex Rebellion,
>> but a body said his was found inside the verge ten days later, freshly
>> slain.
>> -----
>> The fact Marlowe did not escape to France, but remained inside the
>> Queen's verge, suggests he stayed in order to fake his death.
>
> Unless of course, the body really was Marlowe's, in which case he was
>no longer able to write plays. Do you have any evidence to back up your
>premise that the body said to be Marlowe's was not Marlowe's? No I didn't
>think so.
Don't answer your own questions. You look like a jerk when you do
that.
Here's what we've got. Number one the Queen invoked the Elizabethian
equiv. of the Secrets Act...when she pardoned Marlowe's
killer...the Pardon clearly stating that there is to be no further
inqury into this subject, except through her. That's a LID, an
offical LID at the highest level.
Its very suggestive that something went on that shouldn't have gone
on. We don't know what, but its out there.
We know Marlowe was in line to go to Scotland and if he'd died
couldn't have gone, but intellegence from Scotland ends up in Sk's
plays as if the Author had gone to Scotland. Very suggestive stuff.
The best new of all is I took a blood sample from the knife that
killed him, and it was chicken blood, not human blood.
How do you like them apples. I found the knife in an evidence bag in
the BM, still in the ziplock....
>
>>
>>
>> Next we have:
>>
>> Men who fake their deaths often leave a trail.
>> Marlowe's works continue under the name of William Shakespeare
>> ----
>> He may have thus faked his death and been Willy.
>
> Here you make the logical fallacy of using your conclusion as a
>premise.
oops...right you are it should read:
Marlowe's works seem to continue under the name of William
Shakespeare, see the Marlowe tree:
Venus and Adonis ---- Hero and Leander (which clearly proclaims
itself a sequel to V&A)
Jew of Malta ----- Jew of Venice
Romeo and Juliet ---- Anth. & Cleo.
Dr Faustus ---- Dr Prospero
>> ----
>Your second premise is not proven and certainly not accepted by
>most people. Since I don't agree with your second premise (and you have
>failed to offer any proof of its truth) this syllogism is faulty as well.
>
>>
>>
>> Men who fake their deaths often want to explain why and how they did
>> it.
>> An explanation is dramatized in *Measure for Measure* where the author
>> makes it clear the did it to avoid false and unfair capital charges
>> and that they only used a body which had died of natural causes.
>> -----
>> This may be his note to us, since it has little to do with the play
>> itself.
>
> Except that Shakespeare was writing plays before Marlowe had any need
>to fake his own death.
talk about jumping tracks! what that line got to do with my point?
MM wasn't written before Marlowe died....
>Unless you date plays like LLL after 1593 (which
>bumps into Oxfordians who are trying to date the plays earlier than
>Stratfordians do) then this syllogism is proven faulty for lack of
>evidence.
we have no proof of when Sk began to write anything, except title page
dates they being after Marlowe's death with V & A. its a fact.
Stick to the facts.
>Moreover, you still haven't proven Marlowe was alive after 1593.
>If he wasn't alive, he couldn't have written this little note, could he?
All I said was "may be his note to us"
can you read or is your blood boiling over?
>
>>
>>
>> Men who fake their deaths often resurface as themselves later.
>> Marlowe reappears in the historic record alive and well after 1593 and
>> in one case on the anniversary of his death and/or disappearance.,
>> 20/30 May 1599.
>> ----------
>> This may be the same Marlowe.
>
> May have been the same Marlowe? If the best evidence that you have
>only proves to you that it MAY have been Marlowe, how do you expect more
>skeptical people to believe that it was Marlowe?
Now we are getting somewhere. We are not looking for more True
Believers. We don't want people to believe in the Marlowe case. We
want thinkers who understand the case is provisional, but strong.
That's all we are after here. We'll let you and Peter Rabbit remain
Stratfordians.
>The fact that even you
>realize the weakness of your evidence makes it hard for me to believe any
>of it. I will concede it is possible
well we seem to be making progress.
>but you need more evidence before you
>will convince me.
its coming.
>Whatever happened to those great records you claimed (in
>another thread) we had of Elizabeth's time?
33rpms or 45s? or were those 78s? We do have many wonderful records.
Boxes of them. I saw them for the Essex Rebellion arrrests. Sir J.
Ceasar's own hand...
Its Willy's records we don't seem to have.
>
>>
>>
>> This conclusion is supported by this syllogism:
>>
>> Men who live in certain places often write about them.
>> Marlowe surfaced in Valladolid with Cervantes.
>> -----------------
>> Shakespeare writes about Cervantes works before they are translated
>> into English, thus Sk may have been Marlowe.
>>
>> Men who knew each other as boys, who are from the same communities and
>> who attended the same schools, particularly the same colleges, are
>> often life long friends.
>> Marlowe's play Jew of Malta was published in 1633 and there the
>> "author" proclaims a lifelong friendship with Thomas Hammon. Thomas
>> Hammon and Marlowe were from Canterbury, were classmates at the KS and
>> CC, Cambridge.
>> ---------
>> Therefore Marlowe may be alive in 1633 at age 69, as was Hammon.
these two looked ok to you?
>>
>> Marlowe seems to have lived in Italy after his escape.
>> 16 of Sk's plays are set there in whole or in part.
>> ----
>>
>> Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
>
> Except all of Shakespeare's Italian plays were borrowed from another
>source, so there is no need for the author of these plays to have even
>seen Italy.
Wrong you are. Scholars have been over this in detail. Strats
believe he didn't travel, those who live there believe he did.
The fact is the plays set in Italy. If you think they set elsewhere,
prove it.
Othello bases on a detailed knowledge of italian and alludes to
italian locales in passing...
>
>>
>>
>> Marlowe had an insider's knowledge of Scotland and King James. (Sk
>> had no insider's knowledge of these affairs.)
>
> As Kennedy likes to say so often, channeling again?
No. Its a fact. If you think he had insiders knowledge you prove it.
>
>>
>> This knowledge is clear in Edward II and in four plays said
>> Shakespeare's.
>> -----
>> Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
you like this one too?
>>
>> Marlowe wrote diplomatic docudrama based on his work inside what was
>> then the diplomatic corp of England.
>> Sk's works are in the main diplomatic docudrama from an English
>> perspective..
>
> How is As You Like It a diplomatic docudrama? Or Much Ado About
>Nothing? Or any of his comedies for that matter?
what does this have to do with the facts?
Surely AYLI is, if I am not mistaken, the play about Duke Senior and
Duke Fredericks, Lord Amiens and Jaques, Le Beau, a courtier attending
Duke Frederick....two Princesses and takes place in France...what kind
of drama would you call this? A London based soap like East Enders?
>
>>
>> ....
>>
>> Therefore Sk may have been Marlowe.
>>
>> Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
>> anniversaries.
>> The plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare memorialize, in the dates of
>> their registrations, events in either the life of the characters or of
>> Marlowe.
>> -------
>> Therefore Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
>>
>> Three works said Sk's were registered on 20 May in consecutive years.
>> Marlowe was released on his final appearance bond on the 20 May.
>> ----
>> These three consecutive registrations may mark this event.
>>
>> Men of a certain type often memorialize their lives with
>> anniversaries.
>> The first work said Shakespeare's, the last work said Shakespeare's
>> and the last work said Marlowe's all appear on 8/18 April over a
>> period of 60 years.
>> --------------
>> Therefore the writers may be the same person.
>
> John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day, July 4,
>1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of
>Independence. So what? This is circumstantial evidence at best.
Another example as to you not sticking with the subject. Certainly
there are coincidental over laps of dates, there are after all only
365 days in the year, but we are not talking about coincidenence here.
We are talking about two date trails in two canons that indicate the
author is the same person...its strong evidence.
Of course, but not the point.
>
>>
>>
>> A man's education, interests, travels and family may appear in his
>> works.
>> Marlowe's education, interests, travels and family appear in Sk's
>> works.
>> -------------
>> Marlowe may have been Shakespeare.
>
> So could anyone else who had an education, including Shakespeare who,
>as Strats have been saying (you just haven't been listening) would have
>obtained all the education he needed to write these plays at the Stratford
>grammar school.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! The plays reflect a deep and personal level
knowledge of Kent and of subjects no ordinary persons had access to,
including the letters of the King and Queen of England. So its not
any educated person, but one who grew up in Kent, worked in the
diplomatic corp, had access to Scotland and james, etc.
>
>>
>>
>> A man's home of record, particularly when it is of long standing, may
>> appear in his works.
>> Marlowe's county of birth appears in his works and is featured in
>> Shakespeare's in the extreme.
>> ----
>> Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
>>
>> Sk was from Stratford.
>> Stratford isn't in the plays or poems.
>> ...
>> Sk may not be the author.
>
> Are there any plays written of Stratford?
Sure lots and lots of them. The Stratford School turned out ten or
twenty a year. Why didn't he work on them? Why use Marlowe's ms of
Timon?
>If not, it would be kind of
>hard for Shakespeare to have borrowed them, don't you think?
another stupid line.
>
>>
>>
>> Oops, that's the case against Sk, not the case for Marlowe.
>>
>> How bout this one?
>>
>> Marlowe knew Cecil, Southampton and Essex.
>> All three are featured either in the plays or were known supporters of
>> the Author and the Plays.
>> ----
>> Marlowe may have been Sk.
you like that one?
>>
>> Marlowe is know to have written a counter nationhood that opposed
>> royal rule which was based on an Ovidian cursus that offered liberatas
>> in the place of subservience.
>> Sk's works follow the same cursus.
>> ----
>> Therefore Marlowe may be Sk.
and that one is ok too?
>>
>> Men are creature of habit.
>> Marlowe's early plays are well established and Sk's repeat the
>> pattern.
>> -----
>> Therefore Marlowe may have become Sk.
>>
>> And these two:
>>
>> The Queen often knew the skinny.
>> The Queen thought Marlowe the author of Richard II.
>> ----
>> Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
>>
>> The Queen could kill writers or chop off their right hand at will.
>> The Queen never attacked the actor.
>> ......
>> Therefore the actor may not have been Sk.
>>
>> Oops another case against Sk and not for Marlowe...must be getting
>> tired. Blame it on the whale of a good climb yesterday! Right up
>> through the clouds. Right up through summer into Winter.
>> Nothing like it.
>
> Baker, the problem with all these syllogisms is that you're getting
>lost in your own logic.
The problem is you are inside the Strat paradigm. If you weren't they
pass...
>You're trying so hard to create some syllogisms
>(apaprently to prove Nele Abels-Ludwig wrong) that you're making logical
>mistakes left and right.
Not so. Nothin to do with Nele. Nele and I are looking forward to a
grudge match in the BM's reading rooms this summer...and meanwhile
have run up a truce....
> Forget the syllogisms baker they're only messing you up. Your theory
>is that Marlowe is Shakespeare.
yes
>All you have to do now to create a logical
>argument is show your evidence that Marlowe was alive and writing after
>1593.
we just did that.
>This of course, you can't do.
any more than you can prove the actor was the author.
>You have some circumstantial evidence
>that Marlowe is the author but it certainly would never be enough to
>convince a jury.
more proof than the Strats have. How much do you need?
>You need more proof baker. Instead of hauling out the
>same worn out statements trying to prove something that your evidence
>can't prove, why not go searching for some more evidence?
I do seach. And I have been more than lucky in finding my share.
I've proven him Arbella's tutor.
I've placed his friend Faunt in Dover at 9 pm 30 May 1593.
I've proven his friend sent a man to France on 1 June 1593.
I've proven his vocabulary contains Shakespeare's.
I've proven H&L a sequel to a poem published after he died.
I've proven V&A a Kentish poem about Marlowe's patrons.
I've proven Timon, ms., his.
I've proven the Dering, ms., predates the printed texts.
I've proven it surfaced in the village of Marlowe's major professor
(Harris).
I've proven Marlowe and Harris in Virginia in the 1600s.
I've proven Marlowe at Val when Cervantes was there.
I've helped discover Cardenio.
I've proven Thomas Hammon his classmate from the KS and CC.
I've found six lost or misattributed translations that were likely
his.
I've dug up the proof that the Perkins Folio was authentic.
I've shown the Marlowe/Shakespeare tree.
I've established the date trails.
I've found Marlowe's domesticity in H4
I've found the anagrams.
So I'm doing ok for a gravedigger.
and many thanks for taking the time to look at these for me.
baker
>
>
Parentheticus
>That's a great quote, as good as "death's a great disguisher" MM,
>we'll have to put it on the next Marlowe shrits.
Or on the beer mugs that we'll be selling on our forthcoming *Shakespeare
Authorshop Page*, along with Kit brand (tm) fags (slogan: Consum'd by that
which they were nourish'd by), and pillows embroidered with the Arian heresy:
in Latin on one side and English on the other.
Dave
*****
Originally it was written:
>
>>> Moreover, he died in a bar room brawl. Anything suspicious about it is
>>>the product of your imagination.
>>
>>"the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are
>both
>>the confirmer of false reckonings."
David More
http://members.aol.com/marlovian
Peter Zenner
>Moreover, he died in a bar room brawl. Anything suspicious about it is
>the product of your imagination.
I am surprised that nobody has picked you up on this one
already, Ron. Sounds like a typical Strat sounding off
about something that they have no knowledge of...
Do they have beds in American bar rooms? No, I thought
not.
Try reading a biography of Marlowe rather than believing oft
repeated myths ala the Stratpack. It was not a bar-room nor
even a tavern. It was a house belonging to a relation of Lord
Burghley. The three men in the PRIVATE room were all known
to Marlowe through his associations with Walsingham and spies.
If you count the stooge, Danby, it took six people to fool an
audience of sixteen on June 1st, 1593. The stage was their's
to set as they pleased. If six people can't fool sixteen people
when they have had two days to arrange the trick then it is a
poor look out. Magicians fool more people with no previous
access to the room -- and don't tell me that Marlowe wasn't
a magician. He even called himself Christopher Merlin when
he was at university.
Do your homework before you make judgement, Ron. That
trick was so good that it is still baffling the world.
Peter Zenner
+44 (0) 1246 271726
Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
KQKnave
Jim
Ronald Johnsen
>
> We must not be on the same page.
Nope
> Can you read?
Yup
> I don't claim any of
> these prove anything.
I apologize baker, I was sort of under the impression that was the purpose of a
syllogism.
> The conclusion is tennative and limited but it
> seems correct given the premises.
>
> Thus the tenative conclusion "Marlowe may have faked his death " is
> sound.
>
> It is clearly possible that Marlowe may have faked his death. He
> cause, oppertunity and means.
I concede this point entirely baker. The problem is it still doesn't prove
that Marlowe in fact faked his death. The fact that someone had the chance to
do something does not mean that he did in fact do it. Saying Marlowe could have
faked his death doesn't tell us anything we don't already know.
Is this the same ziplock bag that the knife was place in in 1593?
Seriously, the issue here is what is called "chain of custody" in the law.
The point of proving chain of custody is to prove that the article of evidence
has not been tampered with or otherwise contaminated. And I hate to say it but
if they let you take a blood sample of it it sounds like the chain of custody
is pretty poor. Unless they gave you special access to it (especially to open
the bag) the BM didn't follow proper procedure for preserving the evidence. I
don't doubt for a minute that you found chicken blood on the knife but you also
have to show that the knife wasn't contaminated.
This is clearly a point in your favor, if true, but more inquiry is
necessary into how the BM kept the knife and the source of the chicken blood.
Btw, who did the analysis?
<snip>
> >>
> >> Men who fake their deaths often want to explain why and how they did
> >> it.
> >> An explanation is dramatized in *Measure for Measure* where the author
> >> makes it clear the did it to avoid false and unfair capital charges
> >> and that they only used a body which had died of natural causes.
> >> -----
> >> This may be his note to us, since it has little to do with the play
> >> itself.
> >
> > Except that Shakespeare was writing plays before Marlowe had any need
> >to fake his own death.
>
> talk about jumping tracks! what that line got to do with my point?
> MM wasn't written before Marlowe died....
>
> >Unless you date plays like LLL after 1593 (which
> >bumps into Oxfordians who are trying to date the plays earlier than
> >Stratfordians do) then this syllogism is proven faulty for lack of
> >evidence.
>
> we have no proof of when Sk began to write anything, except title page
> dates they being after Marlowe's death with V & A. its a fact.
> Stick to the facts.
It's a fact that academics date many of the history plays to the early
1590s, before Marlowe was dead. It's a fact that the first performances of the
Henry IV trilogy were done before 1592. So the point still stands, if
"Shakespeare" was writing before Marlowe's alleged death it kind of destroys
your whole theory, doesn't it?
Btw I apologize about LLL, it was written after Marlowe's alleged death.
>
>
> >Moreover, you still haven't proven Marlowe was alive after 1593.
> >If he wasn't alive, he couldn't have written this little note, could he?
>
> All I said was "may be his note to us"
>
> can you read or is your blood boiling over?
My blood can boil, but not for an issue like this. I enjoy the authorship
issue from an academic standpoint but I fail to see its real importance. I
prefer to reserve my anger for more important issues, like seeing senior
citizens property taxed out of their homes because of rising housing prices. Or
the continued failings of a judicial system I believed to be deeply flawed (and
the human tragedy it causes, like innocent people being executed or sentenced
to prison).
> >>
> >> Men who fake their deaths often resurface as themselves later.
> >> Marlowe reappears in the historic record alive and well after 1593 and
> >> in one case on the anniversary of his death and/or disappearance.,
> >> 20/30 May 1599.
> >> ----------
> >> This may be the same Marlowe.
> >
> > May have been the same Marlowe? If the best evidence that you have
> >only proves to you that it MAY have been Marlowe, how do you expect more
> >skeptical people to believe that it was Marlowe?
>
> Now we are getting somewhere. We are not looking for more True
> Believers. We don't want people to believe in the Marlowe case. We
> want thinkers who understand the case is provisional, but strong.
> That's all we are after here. We'll let you and Peter Rabbit remain
> Stratfordians.
I'm not a true believer. I simply feel that the "Stratfordian" version is
the most likely explanation that fits all the known facts. The fact that it has
been accepted for the last 400 years and continues to be widely accepted today
is strong evidence for it. As far as Marlovianism goes, I have a hard time
getting past the fact that official records say that Marlowe dies in 1593 and
no one, not even you, can demonstrate conclusive evidence that he lived past
then. Got any other sightings of Marlowe?
>
>
> 33rpms or 45s? or were those 78s? We do have many wonderful records.
> Boxes of them. I saw them for the Essex Rebellion arrrests. Sir J.
> Ceasar's own hand...
>
> Its Willy's records we don't seem to have.
That's the difference between official records and personal records. I
doubt that we have the personal records of 99% of the other people who lived in
Shakespeare's time.
> >> Marlowe seems to have lived in Italy after his escape.
> >> 16 of Sk's plays are set there in whole or in part.
> >> ----
> >>
> >> Therefore Marlowe may have been Sk.
> >
>
> > Except all of Shakespeare's Italian plays were borrowed from another
> >source, so there is no need for the author of these plays to have even
> >seen Italy.
>
> Wrong you are. Scholars have been over this in detail. Strats
> believe he didn't travel, those who live there believe he did.
>
> The fact is the plays set in Italy. If you think they set elsewhere,
> prove it.
>
> Othello bases on a detailed knowledge of italian and alludes to
> italian locales in passing...
Hmmm, I have to ask, can you read? Notice that I said "Shakespeare's
Italian plays." I explicitly said his plays were set in Italy. How did you miss
this?
What I said was all of Shakespeare's Italian plays were borrowed from other
sources. Othello, for example, is based on a play from 1565 called
Hecatommithi. Hecatommithi was written by an Italian playwrite named Giovanni
Battista Giraldi. He lived in Ferrara, Italy. I haven't read the play but will
you concede it is possible Shakespeare got his geographical referrences
necessary to write Othello from this play?
> >>
> >> Marlowe had an insider's knowledge of Scotland and King James. (Sk
> >> had no insider's knowledge of these affairs.)
> >
> > As Kennedy likes to say so often, channeling again?
>
> No. Its a fact. If you think he had insiders knowledge you prove it.
How do you know he had no knowledge of Scotland and King James? Have you
completely discounted the rumor mill? You haven't proven that he didn't know.
Absent channeling, there is no way for anyone to know this "fact" of yours.
> >> Marlowe wrote diplomatic docudrama based on his work inside what was
> >> then the diplomatic corp of England.
> >> Sk's works are in the main diplomatic docudrama from an English
> >> perspective..
> >
> > How is As You Like It a diplomatic docudrama? Or Much Ado About
> >Nothing? Or any of his comedies for that matter?
>
> what does this have to do with the facts?
>
> Surely AYLI is, if I am not mistaken, the play about Duke Senior and
> Duke Fredericks, Lord Amiens and Jaques, Le Beau, a courtier attending
> Duke Frederick....two Princesses and takes place in France...what kind
> of drama would you call this? A London based soap like East Enders?
Amazing how you remember some of the minor characters in the play but
forget about the love story between Orlando and Rosalind or Oliver and Celia.
Moreover, if you remember, the bulk of the play takes place in the forest of
Arden and not at court.
I would call AYLI a love story, not a diplomatic docudrama. I guess though
this turns on how you read the play.
The point is that coincidence cannot be discounted completely which means
your evidence is circumstantial at best.
> >>
> >> A man's home of record, particularly when it is of long standing, may
> >> appear in his works.
> >> Marlowe's county of birth appears in his works and is featured in
> >> Shakespeare's in the extreme.
> >> ----
> >> Marlowe may be Shakespeare.
> >>
> >> Sk was from Stratford.
> >> Stratford isn't in the plays or poems.
> >> ...
> >> Sk may not be the author.
> >
> > Are there any plays written of Stratford?
> Sure lots and lots of them. The Stratford School turned out ten or
> twenty a year. Why didn't he work on them? Why use Marlowe's ms of
> Timon?
I thought you refused to admit the existence of a Stratford School in other
posts. Now that you have conceded a Stratford School existed though, why should
Shakespeare have used plays from Stratford when he had a wealth of plays to
choose from?
>
> > Baker, the problem with all these syllogisms is that you're getting
> >lost in your own logic.
>
> The problem is you are inside the Strat paradigm. If you weren't they
> pass...
No, they don't pass muster regardless of which theory you think is the most
correct.
>
> >You're trying so hard to create some syllogisms
> >(apaprently to prove Nele Abels-Ludwig wrong) that you're making logical
> >mistakes left and right.
>
> Not so. Nothin to do with Nele. Nele and I are looking forward to a
> grudge match in the BM's reading rooms this summer...and meanwhile
> have run up a truce....
I believe some of Nele's last words to you is that you weren't amusing
enough to spend any more energy on. That hardly sounds like a grudge match at
the BM. You may have offered of course but if the acceptance was posted on this
newsgroup then I missed it.
>
> >All you have to do now to create a logical
> >argument is show your evidence that Marlowe was alive and writing after
> >1593.
>
> we just did that.
You brought out some circumstantial evidence of it. It makes a good case
but it is far from conclusive.
>
>
> >This of course, you can't do.
>
> any more than you can prove the actor was the author.
No, but the Strats can certainly make a better case than you can. And at
any rate, what you keep missing is that if you're going to overturn
conventional wisdow it will take much more evidence than you have now. The
average American has probably never heard of Marlowe and has certainly never
heard of Oxford. But most have heard of Shakespeare. Overturning 400 years of
conventional wisdom can and has been done but it will take pretty strong
evidence. Much stronger than what you have.
>
>
> >You have some circumstantial evidence
> >that Marlowe is the author but it certainly would never be enough to
> >convince a jury.
>
> more proof than the Strats have. How much do you need?
Something other than a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence would
be nice for a start. For one thing, it would be nice if you could demonstrate
some conclusive proof that Marlowe was alive after 1593. Most of what you have
is sheer hypothesis.
No I have to admit, not bad at all.
> and many thanks for taking the time to look at these for me.
>
> baker
>
> >
> >
Ron
Ronald Johnsen
> Ronald Johnsen wrote:-
> >Moreover, he died in a bar room brawl. Anything suspicious about it is
> >the product of your imagination.
>
> I am surprised that nobody has picked you up on this one
> already, Ron. Sounds like a typical Strat sounding off
> about something that they have no knowledge of...
>
> Do they have beds in American bar rooms? No, I thought
> not.
Hey Baker, does Zenner sound like a jerk because he answered his own
question? Or is it only Strats that sound like jerks when they do that?
>
>
> Try reading a biography of Marlowe rather than believing oft
> repeated myths ala the Stratpack. It was not a bar-room nor
> even a tavern. It was a house belonging to a relation of Lord
> Burghley. The three men in the PRIVATE room were all known
> to Marlowe through his associations with Walsingham and spies.
Ok now this is funny as hell. I had it as a recollection that he died
in a tavern so I did a quick alta vista search and the first two web sites
I came across with information about Marlowe's death (one of which was a
Marlovian site) said Marlowe died in a tavern. Then along you come Peter
and tell me I should do my homework. Even Baker didn't say anything about
it, so is this the official Marlovian line or just yours Peter?
Parentheticus
<much snipped>
> I concede this point entirely baker. The problem is it still doesn't
>prove
>that Marlowe in fact faked his death. The fact that someone had the chance to
>do something does not mean that he did in fact do it....
>> >... Shakespeare was writing plays before Marlowe had any need
>> >to fake his own death.
There's no evidence for that. As a published playwright, the author was not
born until 1598. Prior to that, plays were anonymous. The only clear evidence
is of an ACTOR is in late 1594.
> No, but the Strats can certainly make a better case than you can. And at
>any rate, what you keep missing is that if you're going to overturn
>conventional wisdow it will take much more evidence than you have now. The
>average American has probably never heard of Marlowe and has certainly never
>heard of Oxford. But most have heard of Shakespeare. Overturning 400 years of
>conventional wisdom can and has been done but it will take pretty strong
>evidence. Much stronger than what you have.
>
He's right, John. We must try harder. Let's whip your material into shape and
publish a book: *The Shakespeare Convention.*
>> >You have some circumstantial evidence
>> >that Marlowe is the author but it certainly would never be enough to
>> >convince a jury.
A jury of his peers? Of poets and playwrights? Or a jury of lawyers? Which
would be the proper jury?
Peter Zenner
>Even Baker didn't say anything about
>it, so is this the official Marlovian line or just yours Peter?
Come off it Ronald -- just because Baker hasn't mentioned
it doesn't mean to say that he doesn't know it. Ask him. Of
course it isn't my line -- it has been general knowledge ever
since Leslie Hotson discovered the reports in the Public
Records Office, back in 1925.
John W. Kennedy
> Do they have beds in American bar rooms?
_In_ the bar room, no, but in some states it is not uncommon to see a
bar running a side business as a _very_ small hotel. Makes it easier to
get a license.
And I gather the same is true in present-day Eire, to judge from
"Ballykissangel".
john_baker
<pe...@pzenner.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Ron asked:-
>>Even Baker didn't say anything about
>>it, so is this the official Marlovian line or just yours Peter?
>
>Come off it Ronald -- just because Baker hasn't mentioned
>it doesn't mean to say that he doesn't know it. Ask him. Of
>course it isn't my line -- it has been general knowledge ever
>since Leslie Hotson discovered the reports in the Public
>Records Office, back in 1925.
>
>Peter Zenner
Peter,
Where is this question from Ron? I don't see it on my Free Agent
board...am I missing some postings....and one above to which you
mentioned from Jim I seem to be missing....but you are quite right the
inquest is bs and there are lots of loose ends there...
baker
Peter Farey
>
> John Baker wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> > Ronald Johnsen wrote:
> > >
> > > Unless of course, the body really was Marlowe's, in which case he was
> > > no longer able to write plays. Do you have any evidence to back up your
> > > premise that the body said to be Marlowe's was not Marlowe's?
> > > No I didn't think so.
Ron, if you really are interested in this (and not just
happy to ridicule the idea out of sheer ignorance) you may
find my essay *'The Reckoning' Revisited* to be informative.
It's at the URL given below my signature.
<snip>
> > The best new of all is I took a blood sample from the knife that
> > killed him, and it was chicken blood, not human blood.
> >
> > How do you like them apples. I found the knife in an evidence bag in
> > the BM, still in the ziplock....
John, this is all news to me. Please give me some more details.
Is it still there? Is there a reference number of any kind
that you noted?
<snip>
> It's a fact that academics date many of the history plays to the early
> 1590s, before Marlowe was dead. It's a fact that the first performances of the
> Henry IV trilogy were done before 1592. So the point still stands, if
> "Shakespeare" was writing before Marlowe's alleged death it kind of destroys
> your whole theory, doesn't it?
'Scuse me. Those of his plays known to have been written before
May 1593 were not attributed to 'Shakespeare' until at least a
quarter of a century later I think you will find.
<snip>
> I'm not a true believer. I simply feel that the "Stratfordian" version is
> the most likely explanation that fits all the known facts. The fact that it has
> been accepted for the last 400 years and continues to be widely accepted today
> is strong evidence for it. As far as Marlovianism goes, I have a hard time
> getting past the fact that official records say that Marlowe dies in 1593 and
> no one, not even you, can demonstrate conclusive evidence that he lived past
> then. Got any other sightings of Marlowe?
May I invite you also to have a look at my 'A Deception in
Deptford' at the URL below? Not 'conclusive' of course (other-
wise I would be either very rich or very dead) but it does
indicate how the probability might actually be rather higher
than most people would probably put it.
<snip>
> What I said was all of Shakespeare's Italian plays were borrowed from other
> sources. Othello, for example, is based on a play from 1565 called
> Hecatommithi. Hecatommithi was written by an Italian playwrite named Giovanni
> Battista Giraldi. He lived in Ferrara, Italy. I haven't read the play but will
> you concede it is possible Shakespeare got his geographical referrences
> necessary to write Othello from this play?
Oh dear me no. *Hecatommithi* is a collection of short stories,
and *Disdemona and the Moor* is the one of which you are
thinking. In the latest Arden edition, Honigmann makes a very
convincing case for Shakespeare's having read this in the
original Italian. It also contains the story of *Epitia*, which
Giraldi (or, as he was better known, Cinthio) turned into a
drama. This story was used by Shakespeare as a source for
*Measure for Measure*, so perhaps it is this one that you had
in mind?
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Peter Farey
>
> > Moreover, he died in a bar room brawl. Anything suspicious about it is
> >the product of your imagination.
>
> the confirmer of false reckonings."
"A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is you
shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern
bills, which are often the sadness of parting..."
Ronald Johnsen
> Peter,
>
> Where is this question from Ron? I don't see it on my Free Agent
> board...am I missing some postings....and one above to which you
> mentioned from Jim I seem to be missing....but you are quite right the
> inquest is bs and there are lots of loose ends there...
>
> baker
> >
> >+44 (0) 1246 271726
> >Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
> >http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
> >
Well at least I'm not the only one having UseNet troubles. My @Home
server has about half of the posts in this thread. That's pretty bad for
cable. I'm also surprised John that Supernews is doing so bad. I've heard
of them missing posts before but usually binary posts that are not posted
correctly (too many lines per part). I had to switch over to a
professional UseNet server to follow what was going on in here, and @Home
doesn't seem to be getting better anytime soon.
Bob Grumman
>> > evidence bag in the BM, still in the ziplock....
>John, this is all news to me. Please give me some more details.
>Is it still there? Is there a reference number of any kind
>that you noted?
Good grief, Peter, can't you tell by now when ol' Baker is
kidding? In his high-IQ multiple-Ph.D way, he's telling us
that the use of chicken blood would be one obvious method the
fakers of Marlowe's death could have used to do it.
>May I invite you also to have a look at my 'A Deception in
>Deptford' at the URL below? Not 'conclusive' of course (other-
>wise I would be either very rich or very dead) . . .
Come on, Peter--we at the Trust have never killed anyone!
Feeding enemies of the state the kind of drugs we've gotten
into Baker and Zenner has been our m.o. since Delia and Georgi
Cantor.
--Bob G.
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
Greg Reynolds
john, baker wrote:
> Remember we're the guys who are in company with Henry James, S. Freud,
> Charles Dickins, Mark Twain, Valadimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand...to
> mention just a few.
>
> So don't worry about us. We're ok. Its you we're worried about.
Good idea.
Gary Kosinsky
>And now for Gary...
>
> you didn't ask me about Peter Z. I find that Peter knows more
>about the primary materials than either I or Ule. So I deeply
>respect that.
Curiously enough, so do I. Peter Z. does seem to have
a fairly extensive knowledge of the personalities and the
literature of the time. (Who's Ule?)
>I think both Peter Z and Louis Ule (and several other Marlovians I've
>known) read too much into the primary fictional materials...once you
>begin to think you can switch names and get Marlowe's life line out of
>Rape of Lucrece or EdII or whatever, you have gone further than is
>wise.
I agree.
>But seeing that something strange happend in Deptford, knowing that
>Marlowe's voice continued on in the plays of Sk and in many other
>works of the period...this is sound thinking.
>As is seeing through the Stratford hoax.
Dang! I thought we were on a roll!
>Remember we're the guys who are in company with Henry James, S. Freud,
>Charles Dickins, Mark Twain, Valadimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand...to
>mention just a few.
Noted historians, all.
>So don't worry about us. We're ok. Its you we're worried about.
Thanks for your concern, John.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Kosinsky gk...@vcn.bc.ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
john_baker
wrote:
john baker wrote:
>> > The best news of all is I took a blood sample from the knife that
>> > killed him, and it was chicken blood, not human blood.
>> >
>> > How do you like them apples. I found the knife in an evidence bag in
>> > the BM, still in the ziplock bag
>
>John, this is all news to me. Please give me some more details.
>Is it still there? Is there a reference number of any kind
>that you noted?
Sadly I was joking. Yank hummor. I thought the ziplock bag would
give it away...but I seem not to have typed 'bag..."
Maybe next time.
Meanwhile do did well on Gary. He's a typical True Believer.
And now for Gary...
you didn't ask me about Peter Z. I find that Peter knows more
about the primary materials than either I or Ule. So I deeply
respect that.
I think both Peter Z and Louis Ule (and several other Marlovians I've
known) read too much into the primary fictional materials...once you
begin to think you can switch names and get Marlowe's life line out of
Rape of Lucrece or EdII or whatever, you have gone further than is
wise.
But seeing that something strange happend in Deptford, knowing that
Marlowe's voice continued on in the plays of Sk and in many other
works of the period...this is sound thinking.
As is seeing through the Stratford hoax.
Remember we're the guys who are in company with Henry James, S. Freud,
Charles Dickins, Mark Twain, Valadimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand...to
mention just a few.
So don't worry about us. We're ok. Its you we're worried about.
baker
john_baker
wrote:
>john, baker wrote:
Ron,
Free AGent had them this afternoon. If you don't have Free Agent
you'll love it. And its free.
This is the only time in years I've had any trouble with it.
baker
john_baker
<bobgrumma...@nut-n-but.net.invalid> wrote:
>>> > How do you like them apples. I found the knife in an
>>> > evidence bag in the BM, still in the ziplock....
>
>>John, this is all news to me. Please give me some more details.
>>Is it still there? Is there a reference number of any kind
>>that you noted?
>
>Good grief, Peter, can't you tell by now when ol' Baker is
>kidding? In his high-IQ multiple-Ph.D way, he's telling us
>that the use of chicken blood would be one obvious method the
>fakers of Marlowe's death could have used to do it.
right you r.
baker
check out my post to peter and gray above. 2 in 1.
Bob Grumman
anti-Stratfordian, Baker, but I sure never heard she was. I
do know that she did not have a high opinion of Shakespeare's
insufficiently morally-uplifting writings.
john_baker
>In article <395176e8...@News.localaccess.com>, john baker wrote:
>
>>And now for Gary...
>>
>> you didn't ask me about Peter Z. I find that Peter knows more
>>about the primary materials than either I or Ule. So I deeply
>>respect that.
>
> Curiously enough, so do I. Peter Z. does seem to have
>a fairly extensive knowledge of the personalities and the
>literature of the time. (Who's Ule?)
Louis Ule, d. 1998, my mentor. the famous concordance compiler. did
marlowe, the apocrypha of shak and the works of Nahse...big stuff, we
were close friends for 15 years or more.
he was a founder of the Authorship Roundtable and the Marlowe Society
of America and its first marlovian.
his biography of marlowe is worth reading, but he based too much of it
on his interpertation of the fictional works...
knew Hoffman well...
I stayed at his home dozens of times, knew his family and he stayed
here...we worked together...
>
>>I think both Peter Z and Louis Ule (and several other Marlovians I've
>>known) read too much into the primary fictional materials...once you
>>begin to think you can switch names and get Marlowe's life line out of
>>Rape of Lucrece or EdII or whatever, you have gone further than is
>>wise.
>
> I agree.
>
>>But seeing that something strange happend in Deptford, knowing that
>>Marlowe's voice continued on in the plays of Sk and in many other
>>works of the period...this is sound thinking.
>>As is seeing through the Stratford hoax.
>
> Dang! I thought we were on a roll!
not yet...but maybe later...
>
>>Remember we're the guys who are in company with Henry James, S. Freud,
>>Charles Dickins, Mark Twain, Valadimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand...to
>>mention just a few.
>
> Noted historians, all.
no but geniiuses who know what its like to be able to write like Willy
and thus what Willy would have to have been. Dickins lived in London
and understood its literary circles and knew Willy the Author would
have left his mark...when no mark surfaced he knew it was bs.
VN was a historian and Rand too, both lived under governments as
repressive as London's was then and knew on accessable author could
have escaped alive....Twain knew fools and knew that Strats were
fools, Henry James knew more about this subject that Kathman ever
will and Freud about human pyschology...so we're in good company,
Gary, not to worry.
baker
>
>>So don't worry about us. We're ok. Its you we're worried about.
>
john_baker
On Thu, 22 Jun 2000 04:44:19 -0700, Bob Grumman
<bobgrumma...@nut-n-but.net.invalid> wrote:
>I would be DELIGHTED if you could prove that Ayn Rand was an
>anti-Stratfordian, Baker, but I sure never heard she was. I
>do know that she did not have a high opinion of Shakespeare's
>insufficiently morally-uplifting writings.
>
> --Bob G.
>
Why would you be delighted? Would it mean anything to you? It's
meaningless to me.
I first met AR in NYC in the offices of the old NBI suite in the
summer of ‘64. Very, very hot.
I was one of the faithful.
I knew Nat Branden, Leonard Peikoff, Barbara and most of the others,
as well.
I even made it to the conference on Objectivism at the University of
Va. in, wasn't it ‘68/9?
Greenspan was there...I think...maybe he was scheduled and didn't make
it.
Rand *wasn't* there.
She later tried to sue me when I was running an Ayn Rand discussion
club at FSU (claimed I was misusing her good name) and again when I
gave a lecture entitled *Ayn Rand versus Jesus Christ* or rather when
I appeared for Rand and some hick preacher appeared for Jesus,
sponsored by the Campus Crusade for Christ...so I had to explain to an
audience of about a thousand souls, that I wasn't Ayn Rand and he
wasn't J.C....it made for a great opening....I think the guy"s name
was Karl Pinniock...they flew him in from some seminary.
He thought I was going to be a cynic. Not a clown. I laughed him off
the podium. I think I got about a hundred votes that
night...considering they were all right winged Christians to start
with...it wasn't a bad showing...
I fell out with Brandon about the same time, about a year before the
split. When I pointed out to him that his psychology seemed very much
like Maslov's and Addler's....he trashed my NBI rep status. Swore I'd
never be able to turn on another tape player with his voice it again!
But at any rate, Rand and I and Micky Spillane, who she adored, were
sitting around one night in her kitchen (while her husband Frank
Herbert was ogling a couple of bimbos Spallane and I had brought over)
this must have been summer of 70, when we got into a discussion about
this subject.
Spillane was just the nicest guy, Rand said in print he was the
greatest living American writer. He later visited FSU, because I
told him to, when he was looking for a college for his son. Short guy
with BIG shoulders. As talkative as me. Warm and friendly. We had
supper and I took him out to Walculla Springs, where I took The
Rolling Thunder...Bobby Dillon and Joan B. I wasn't after Bobby.
Rand wasn't like that at all. Stuck up, most of the time, in public
at least. Smoked like a chimney. She was short too...I had imagined
her about seven, seven....but looked to me more like a Jewish
grandmother. I don't know how Branden manged it as long as he did.
I had just read Hoffman's book, so I brought it up. We argued for
five hours, Rand, Spillane and I...they both switched over...but I'm
not sure it wasn't just to get me to shut up. I'd forgotten about
Spillane...I'm adding him to my list....
But this is the best I can do. Nothing in writing. My first wife was
from Jersey, a beautiful model, named Barbara Hack, divorced me and
married my best friend, so I'd go up now and then and hang out at the
NBI and drive over to Jersey to let the air out of his tires.
Spillane went with me once or twice. He was a live wire. Still is
last I heard.
This is how Rand and I met.
I'd read the Founthead in the winter of 1958, after I saw the
mid-night movie version. That made me about 16. I remembered seeing
the book in Dad's library and snuck down stairs to get it. Read it
straight through. Got a licking when my mother caught me bleary eyed
the next morning, still reading it.
Thought I was Howard until I read Atlas Shrugged.
After that I thought I was ..... Isabell Patterson...you thought I'd
say I was JG, but Isabell gave Rand the idea for Shrugged...remember
Patterson? NYTribune book review editor, born out here in
Idaho...wrote that great book The God of the Machine. I once read her
entire library...it was listed in the book, so I had my library get me
the volumes one or two at a time...took a couple of years...they were
pretty good reading.
baker
Bob Grumman
Anyway, I'd be delighted if Ayn Rand was an anti-Stratfordian
because she was a great example of rigidnikry, and a main goal
of my book is to show the relationship between anti-Stratfordians
and rigidniks.
john_baker
<bobgrumma...@nut-n-but.net.invalid> wrote:
>I dunno, John, you seem to to have known just about everybody.
>Anyway, I'd be delighted if Ayn Rand was an anti-Stratfordian
>because she was a great example of rigidnikry, and a main goal
>of my book is to show the relationship between anti-Stratfordians
>and rigidniks.
>
> --Bob G.
I'll tell you she never understood irony. Or Plato. That's for sure.
The was a genius. Her books will still be selling more copies than
yours will this year....any one of them.
But I did dream of NYC last nite. And Mickey Spillane, I have five or
six wonderful stories Spillane shared with me that should be told.
Maybe next week?
But lets consider Spillane for a moment. Another genius. Use to
write those books right out of his head in twenty four hours at the
old Royal Typewriter...wokred on P51s and 2 in WWII.
Knew NYC like the back of his hand. Use to go on raids with the
NYCPD, once after a gun battle, it looked as if he'd been hit, but it
was a can or jar of tomatto pase that exploded with a slug hit it next
to his head....
Anyhow, he put all that knowledge into the books.
But no classical education or knowledge at all. Never went in for
that kind of thing.
Now I'd buy that Willy could have written plays as good as I the Jury,
but they would have been about London.
And they aren't. Willy's plays are about English diplomatic subjects.
You know it.
baker
Peter Zenner
>Where is this question from Ron?
I have deleted it, John. Ron stated that Marlowe
was killed in a bar-room brawl. I said that he wasn't;
it was a private house and since when did bar-rooms
have a bed in them? JWK pointed out that taverns
had bed-rooms -- but bar-room brawls are bar-room
brawls, not bed-room brawls. Don't you know the
difference, John (Kennedy)? And besides, it wasn't
a tavern.
Anyway, John (Baker), Ron thought that I was making it
up that Marlowe was NOT killed in a bar-room brawl
because you had not mentioned it. So I said that you
know the details so why not ask you.
I also suggested that Ron should do a bit of homework
before getting involved in arguments about a subject that
he knows nothing of....
Peter Zenner
Peter Zenner
>I think both Peter Z and Louis Ule (and several other Marlovians I've
>known) read too much into the primary fictional materials...once you
>begin to think you can switch names and get Marlowe's life line out of
>Rape of Lucrece or EdII or whatever, you have gone further than is
>wise.
If you would care to look back at my posting, John, I was
actually asking for your opinion! A reading of The Countess
of Pembroke's Arcadia indicated that the activities of Sidney
and Marlowe are in there. A note said that a character, who I
believe to be Marlowe, raped a girl in the original version of
Arcadia but that Mary Herbert cut the scene from her edition.
Certain lines in 'Lucrece' seemed to indicate that Collatine
was highly regarded for the same reasons as Sidney and I
suggested that the two references may be to the same incident.
So I have not gone further than is wise -- all I have done is point
out a similarity and ask you what you think. Now would you like
to comment?
john_baker
Sure. You didn't quote that part of my missive that credited you with
knowing the primary fictional materials better than anyone I know or
have known.
I did that first because its true and second to take some of the sting
out of what I said above.
Its not wise to good to far with these parallels, they are too
flakely.
I doubt very much Marlowe raped anyone. Let alone wrote about it.
Doesn't seem the type. Rape is ugly stuff. I don't see why he'd be
into it. Too much control elsewhere. Not that he didn't give his
heart freely, too freely and suffered as a result. But rape? Nah I
don't buy it.
I'll share with you that Andrew Butcher might buy, because Butcher
turned up evidence that Marlowe wittnessed a rape in Canterbury as a
boy...only the names and the ages don't mesh up too well....he essay
is in this book CM and the Eng Rens. Culture i've urged you to read.
I am a good friend of Doris Wilbert, *Silent Shakespeare and Marlowe
Revivified,* she too has worked her way through all the plays from c.
1575 to 1655, the upper limit. She was the first to call my
attention to the likelyhood that he lived that long and wrote perhaps
hundreds of works. The voice and the "immage clusters" continue to
then.
She believes he was really stabbed in the eye and recovered, based on
the sonnet about the eye that seems to see but doesn't.
I think it an affectation, like me when I call myself an errant
turant. I've never been a turant. If anything I've been to school
too often!
So I'm not too keen on going down that road, i.e., the fictional
parallel road.
I think the factual trail is more exciting. There are good things out
there to find. And you, I think will soon be finding them. You are
in the right place and know what to look for.
Louis Ule and I were good pals. He too believed the FF alluded to the
River of Avon and to Wilton House...but Ule also believed that Hugh
Sanford, Herbert's old tutor, was Marlowe. He actually lived on the
river.
He's a known writer, wrote plays that were never found, etc.
Guess what? he supposedly died 20/21 May 1607,,,, same fucking day
Marlowe vanished on in 1593...right...same day the Sonnets appear on
and A&C and Pericles and the Woman Hater, etc. Same day Marlowe
turned up at Valladolid.
So maybe he was Sanford and didn't die but checked out....who
knows...its enough to drive you nuts when you go too far down that
road.
We know he was out there. We suspect he could be anyone he wanted to
be. He was better at aping people than anyone we can name today. So
he could move freely at any level. But he had to have a fixed base, a
place to write, to collect papers, to read, etc. its just so
difficult to bring him into focus. I know how hard you have tried.
All of us have. I know you have a place for him and a life, but so do
the others.
Consider this. Sir Edward Dering ended up the with the ms of henry
iv. in one part, not two.
He also had over 250 playbooks. someone kept his records for him and
went to see plays with him nearly daily "by water." ca. 1620-4.
they were involved in the publication of the FF, seem to have
furnished the literary copy used for h4, which dering presented on 26
Feb 1622/3 to someone or precisely on the 25 anav. of its
registration....a secret date and not public info in those days.
then after the ff is published whoever is keeping his ledger writes
excitedly, "two copies of I Shakespeare's plays..." no blot, no cross
out, just "two copies of I shakespere's plays..."
The kathman gang claims he ment to write "two copies of Johnson's
plays" Stopped himself after he'd written the "J" then shaped as an
I...." they always have an answer right? But no cross out, no blot.
It gets even better. Pluckley, Kent where Dering lived is a very
small fork in the road where Thomas Harris, Marlowe Major Professor
from Cambridge also lived.
Marlowe wittnessed the will of K. Ben. which gives Harris's wife money
in 1585...hotly contested. But a connection. And an illicit one.
By the way, marlowe is thus in Canterbury when Bruno is in
Canterbury, i.e., Nov 1585...I'm the first to notice this.
Thomas Harris and a man calling himself Thomas Morley are in Va on the
college lands in the 1615 perriod....Morley gives verbatim testimony
as an aural eidetic....Urry suggested this Morely the poet's brother,
knew nothing of the testimony or harris or the college lands...but I
followed the passanger lists and came up with this stuff...
On Marlowe's birthday in 1619 an anonymous gift of 300 crowns in
"newly minted gold coin" was left for the college, called Henricus,
with a note signed "Dust and Ashes..." No shit, its fact.
Then there's Dering. Someone forged his family crest on to the Magna
Charta when it came through Puckley in 1603 for the cornation of James
I. They also modified headstones in the graveyards so he could claim
titles that were illicit. Trouble is Dering was only five and
couldn't have done this for himself. It had to be the guy who was
keeping the library and seeing plays and signing himself "I
Shakespeare..."
I saw the forgery to the face of the Charta when it was in the old MS
rooms in the B.M. they've got another one out now that doesn't have
it and give me blank looks when I asked about this one. Makes me
think I was druged up...but I wasn't my notes are clear and I saw it
with my own eyes. There are several old copies, This one was one
made in 1603 just for the coronation...
Young Dering fits the pattern of the Author's interest in his illicit
children. Must have had several no BC back then. No rubbers. Dering
is said to have been born in the Tower of London, but the Tower
records didn't show it when I checked them. You've read Two Noble
Kinsmen, right? The jailer's daughter gets preg. Dering's father was
big in the tower when Dering was born...so anyone in it would have had
access to his wife, who lived there as well.
I can prove every word of this, but it doesn't seem to impress anyone.
I still can't prove 'I Shakespeare" was Marlowe....many of the
scholars think he was Dering...but not the archivists at Maidstone
where the originals are...we don't see that as Dering's hand....
But when the argument comes down to hands, then its all bluff and
bluster. Its not forensics. Hands are too flakely.
We need more evidence.
The Arbella trail is new and good, I think.
The Bruno trail is good and new, it suggests Marlowe went to Paris
with Burno...he's missing from CAmbridge and the letters of Faggot
look like Marlowe's italic hand in the EdII sheet and in the Timon's
ms.
It helps build his rep in these affairs and explains why Burno is big
in Marlowe and Shakespeare...
But we'll never know for sure.
This new book on Marlowe and the English Rens. Culture, has a map of
Cor. Christ. Camb. dated ca. 1576 showsing Faunts room next to the
room Marlowe would have lived in.
But I was more taken with the hand of the writer of the map. Its a
lovely Italic and I will be looking at the original sooner or later.
We must look at it together...
If it dates to 1576 it will be proof positive CC was teaching this
hand that early and good proof that the similar Italic hand of the
Timon, ms., could have been c. 1580 and thus Marlowe's italic hand.
Paleographic authorities date it to the 1600s, but Oxford wrote in a
lovely Italic hand and he dates well before Marlowe....did he learn it
in Italy? If so Marlowe could have learned it there and Faunt too.
But Fuant writes in the old hand in the letters I've seen.
Faunt will prove an important man in futures lives of Marlowe.
Very important. The letters we have of Faunt are not the kinds of
letters he would have written to Marlowe...i.e., Faunt's letters to
Marlowe went with Marlowe and Marlowe's letters (if there be any) went
with Faunt....those Faunt sent to Bacon stayed at the LPL....so we are
not likely to run up on one.
Peter Farey might get lucky. What a break it would be.
Don't let me stop you from speculating. its fun and develops the
mind.
baker
Peter Zenner
> I doubt very much Marlowe raped anyone. Let alone wrote about it.
> Doesn't seem the type. Rape is ugly stuff. I don't see why he'd be
> into it. Too much control elsewhere. Not that he didn't give his
> heart freely, too freely and suffered as a result. But rape? Nah I
> don't buy it.
You and I both know what the sexual climate was like at Penshurst
Place, John. Marlowe was 14 and (if he was there, as we both believe)
he wouldn't have thought it was wrong. The indications are there that
he was highly sexually charged and if it moved he would bonk it.
Dolly would have a dicky-fit -- she insists that he was purely hetero-
sexual and that the sodomy charges were cooked up to frame him!
Her dream lover could have done no wrong -- but there was a very
dark side to Chris...
> I'll share with you that Andrew Butcher might buy, because Butcher
> turned up evidence that Marlowe wittnessed a rape in Canterbury as a
> boy...only the names and the ages don't mesh up too well....he essay
> is in this book CM and the Eng Rens. Culture i've urged you to read.
Another one to add to the want list!
> I am a good friend of Doris Wilbert, *Silent Shakespeare and Marlowe
> Revivified,* she too has worked her way through all the plays from c.
> 1575 to 1655, the upper limit. She was the first to call my
> attention to the likelyhood that he lived that long and wrote perhaps
> hundreds of works. The voice and the "immage clusters" continue to
> then.
I still maintain that he died in "early 1622". When I read that Charlton
Hinman claimed that work started on the First Folio in "early 1622", I
was elated; it confirmed my calculations! It is obvious that the FF was
started on when MARLOWE died -- not when the Stratman died.
May, 1622 -- give or take a couple of weeks.
> She believes he was really stabbed in the eye and recovered, based on
> the sonnet about the eye that seems to see but doesn't.
And, as you know, so do I. I spotted that sonnet (as you know) but
was shot down with cries of "metaphor" when I mentioned it on here.
Realising that the Chandos is a self portrait of a man who is blind in
his right eye has confirmed that he WAS stabbed -- and survived!
When you get to London, take your glasses with you to the NPG and
check it out. You need to be able to see the pupils....
> I think it an affectation, like me when I call myself an errant
> turant. I've never been a turant. If anything I've been to school
> too often!
I have never been a turant either, John! But Marlowe was blind in
one eye...
> So I'm not too keen on going down that road, i.e., the fictional
> parallel road.
As I have said, I started with evidence from outside and then
checked back to see if anything was confirmed in the works. It
was -- in spades. Now I am reading the works of others who came
into the story and it is amazing how many people based poems
and plays upon his exploits. When you know the story, the parallels
leap at you.
> I think the factual trail is more exciting.
It was -- I have been there and done that. (It's in the book :-) )
Odd new things are coming to light -- but I am also having fun
with the lightly veiled "fiction". 'The Unfortunate Traveller" is only
one. Nashe has been credited with writing the first novel -- when
the credit should go to Marlowe!!!!
>There are good things out
> there to find. And you, I think will soon be finding them.
I have been finding them for FOUR YEARS, Jonners. And still
they come. The trouble is that not only does the story contradict
the Strats, it contradicts everybody else as well. Even other
Marlovians. I tread a lonely path -- but then I have been doing a
solo act for over thirty years!
>You are
> in the right place and know what to look for.
I've been everywhere, man. (Well, almost...)
> Louis Ule and I were good pals. He too believed the FF alluded to the
> River of Avon and to Wilton House...but Ule also believed that Hugh
> Sanford, Herbert's old tutor, was Marlowe. He actually lived on the
> river.
Damn -- and I thought that I was the first to link Sejanus with Cygnus
with Swan with Avon. It all revolves around Phil & Mary Sydney. Phil
adopted him! He was Swan of Avon like he was Jack of Wilton.
I came across Sanford in Frances Yates' book, 'John Florio'.
Whoever he was, he wasn't Florio's 'H.S.' -- that was Henry
Southampton. Henry took the piss out of Chris's verses and
that was the climax of all the problems at Titchfield. Chris
left on his horse in Sonnet 48, guarding his 'trifles' so that to
his use they might unused stay. Bye bye Henry -- and no, he
did NOT go back :-) Florio left over the same incident. 1598
> He's a known writer, wrote plays that were never found, etc.
So -- have I got to add Sanford to my ever-growing list of Marlowe's
pseudonyms?
> Guess what? he supposedly died 20/21 May 1607,,,, same fucking day
> Marlowe vanished on in 1593...right...same day the Sonnets appear on
> and A&C and Pericles and the Woman Hater, etc. Same day Marlowe
> turned up at Valladolid.
May 20th was the day that Marlowe was FOUND -- at Scadbury --
and escorted to the court at Nonsuch. It is odd about the Sonnets,
A&C and Pericles being registered on the same date (I know Dr.D;
with a year between the Sonnets and the two plays). Have you got
a theory or is it just another of those damned coincidences?
> So maybe he was Sanford and didn't die but checked out....who
> knows...its enough to drive you nuts when you go too far down that
> road.
I go down every road, John. Always have. I look round every
corner; you never know what might be there and sometimes
you can't go back. It drives my wife nuts!
> We know he was out there. We suspect he could be anyone he wanted to
> be. He was better at aping people than anyone we can name today.
He was a mimic (Carlo Buffone) and he did conjuring tricks.
And yet you don't believe that he could have played dead
for a few seconds?
>So
> he could move freely at any level. But he had to have a fixed base, a
> place to write, to collect papers, to read, etc. its just so
> difficult to bring him into focus. I know how hard you have tried.
> All of us have. I know you have a place for him and a life, but so do
> the others.
Have they? Dolly said Italy because of Sonnets 33 & 34 :-)
Where does anybody else say he was? Whatever they say,
they are wrong -- he was at Titchfield until 1598, then Tong
until 1609 and Eynsham until his death in 1622. Betcha!
<snip> of stuff I either know nothing of or don't understand -- but
I have filed the posting for future reference, Thanks John!
john_baker
<pe...@pzenner.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>John Baker wrote:-
>> I doubt very much Marlowe raped anyone. Let alone wrote about it.
>> Doesn't seem the type. Rape is ugly stuff. I don't see why he'd be
>> into it. Too much control elsewhere. Not that he didn't give his
>> heart freely, too freely and suffered as a result. But rape? Nah I
>> don't buy it.
>
>You and I both know what the sexual climate was like at Penshurst
>Place, John. Marlowe was 14 and (if he was there, as we both believe)
>he wouldn't have thought it was wrong. The indications are there that
>he was highly sexually charged and if it moved he would bonk it.
but that's not rape, Peter.
>
>Dolly would have a dicky-fit -- she insists that he was purely hetero-
>sexual and that the sodomy charges were cooked up to frame him!
>Her dream lover could have done no wrong -- but there was a very
>dark side to Chris...
yes, and it began in those early childhood years in John Marlowe's
home. Insest and wife abuse juding from the record and the plays.
>
>> I'll share with you that Andrew Butcher might buy, because Butcher
>> turned up evidence that Marlowe wittnessed a rape in Canterbury as a
>> boy...only the names and the ages don't mesh up too well....he essay
>> is in this book CM and the Eng Rens. Culture i've urged you to read.
>
>Another one to add to the want list!
yes, you'll love it.
>
>> I am a good friend of Doris Wilbert, *Silent Shakespeare and Marlowe
>> Revivified,* she too has worked her way through all the plays from c.
>> 1575 to 1655, the upper limit. She was the first to call my
>> attention to the likelyhood that he lived that long and wrote perhaps
>> hundreds of works. The voice and the "immage clusters" continue to
>> then.
>
>I still maintain that he died in "early 1622". When I read that Charlton
>Hinman claimed that work started on the First Folio in "early 1622", I
>was elated; it confirmed my calculations! It is obvious that the FF was
>started on when MARLOWE died -- not when the Stratman died.
too early. many changes were made to Richard II and Othello to name
just two in 1623.
>
>May, 1622 -- give or take a couple of weeks.
>
>> She believes he was really stabbed in the eye and recovered, based on
>> the sonnet about the eye that seems to see but doesn't.
>
>And, as you know, so do I. I spotted that sonnet (as you know) but
>was shot down with cries of "metaphor" when I mentioned it on here.
>Realising that the Chandos is a self portrait of a man who is blind in
>his right eye has confirmed that he WAS stabbed -- and survived!
>When you get to London, take your glasses with you to the NPG and
>check it out. You need to be able to see the pupils....
>
>> I think it an affectation, like me when I call myself an errant
>> turant. I've never been a turant. If anything I've been to school
>> too often!
>
>I have never been a turant either, John! But Marlowe was blind in
>one eye...
I doubt it.
>
>> So I'm not too keen on going down that road, i.e., the fictional
>> parallel road.
>
>As I have said, I started with evidence from outside and then
>checked back to see if anything was confirmed in the works. It
>was -- in spades. Now I am reading the works of others who came
>into the story and it is amazing how many people based poems
>and plays upon his exploits. When you know the story, the parallels
>leap at you.
>
>> I think the factual trail is more exciting.
>
>It was -- I have been there and done that. (It's in the book :-) )
>Odd new things are coming to light -- but I am also having fun
>with the lightly veiled "fiction". 'The Unfortunate Traveller" is only
>one. Nashe has been credited with writing the first novel -- when
>the credit should go to Marlowe!!!!
actually it would go to Plato. The last three dialogues about
Socrates are a novel.
>
>>There are good things out
>> there to find. And you, I think will soon be finding them.
>
>I have been finding them for FOUR YEARS, Jonners. And still
>they come. The trouble is that not only does the story contradict
>the Strats, it contradicts everybody else as well. Even other
>Marlovians. I tread a lonely path -- but then I have been doing a
>solo act for over thirty years!
>
>>You are
>> in the right place and know what to look for.
>
>I've been everywhere, man. (Well, almost...)
>
>> Louis Ule and I were good pals. He too believed the FF alluded to the
>> River of Avon and to Wilton House...but Ule also believed that Hugh
>> Sanford, Herbert's old tutor, was Marlowe. He actually lived on the
>> river.
>
>Damn -- and I thought that I was the first to link Sejanus with Cygnus
>with Swan with Avon. It all revolves around Phil & Mary Sydney. Phil
>adopted him! He was Swan of Avon like he was Jack of Wilton.
yes likely so
>
>I came across Sanford in Frances Yates' book, 'John Florio'.
>Whoever he was, he wasn't Florio's 'H.S.' -- that was Henry
>Southampton. Henry took the piss out of Chris's verses and
>that was the climax of all the problems at Titchfield. Chris
>left on his horse in Sonnet 48, guarding his 'trifles' so that to
>his use they might unused stay. Bye bye Henry -- and no, he
>did NOT go back :-) Florio left over the same incident. 1598
>
>> He's a known writer, wrote plays that were never found, etc.
>
>So -- have I got to add Sanford to my ever-growing list of Marlowe's
>pseudonyms?
in a literary sense yes
>
>> Guess what? he supposedly died 20/21 May 1607,,,, same fucking day
>> Marlowe vanished on in 1593...right...same day the Sonnets appear on
>> and A&C and Pericles and the Woman Hater, etc. Same day Marlowe
>> turned up at Valladolid.
>
>May 20th was the day that Marlowe was FOUND -- at Scadbury --
>and escorted to the court at Nonsuch. It is odd about the Sonnets,
>A&C and Pericles being registered on the same date (I know Dr.D;
>with a year between the Sonnets and the two plays). Have you got
>a theory or is it just another of those damned coincidences?
its a registration cycle. it meorializes dates in Marlowe's life. JM
went down on 17 May 1594...one year to the day from the date of his
arrest orders...H&L went down 18/28 Sept 1593, five years from the
date of the Bradley duel. Rape of Lucrec...went down 9 May 1594 one
year fromt he date of the London pogrom; Ed2 went down on the day it
opens on, i.e., same day in history, etc. all registrations were
intentional. othello went on Southampton's 47th bday; Spanish Tragedy
on his 19th and alludes to it in line, etc, etc. All intentional.
>
>> So maybe he was Sanford and didn't die but checked out....who
>> knows...its enough to drive you nuts when you go too far down that
>> road.
>
>I go down every road, John. Always have. I look round every
>corner; you never know what might be there and sometimes
>you can't go back. It drives my wife nuts!
>
>> We know he was out there. We suspect he could be anyone he wanted to
>> be. He was better at aping people than anyone we can name today.
>
>He was a mimic (Carlo Buffone) and he did conjuring tricks.
>And yet you don't believe that he could have played dead
>for a few seconds?
or longer...
>
>>So
>> he could move freely at any level. But he had to have a fixed base, a
>> place to write, to collect papers, to read, etc. its just so
>> difficult to bring him into focus. I know how hard you have tried.
>> All of us have. I know you have a place for him and a life, but so do
>> the others.
>
>Have they? Dolly said Italy because of Sonnets 33 & 34 :-)
>Where does anybody else say he was? Whatever they say,
>they are wrong -- he was at Titchfield until 1598, then Tong
>until 1609 and Eynsham until his death in 1622. Betcha!
>
><snip> of stuff I either know nothing of or don't understand -- but
>I have filed the posting for future reference, Thanks John!
you to Peter, keep up the good work. baker
john_baker
wrote:
>Ron states to Baker:
>
><much snipped>
>
>> I concede this point entirely baker. The problem is it still doesn't
>>prove
>>that Marlowe in fact faked his death. The fact that someone had the chance to
>>do something does not mean that he did in fact do it....
I missed this post. Sorry. I was up in the sky, on foot, about
15,000 feet. Nice up there.
No Rob it doesn't mean he did it. But I've established motive,
oppertunity and means. That's all that's needed for these kinds of
cases. Think about it and you'll understand.
>
>>> >... Shakespeare was writing plays before Marlowe had any need
>>> >to fake his own death.
>
>There's no evidence for that. As a published playwright, the author was not
>born until 1598. Prior to that, plays were anonymous. The only clear evidence
>is of an ACTOR is in late 1594.
>
>> No, but the Strats can certainly make a better case than you can. And at
>>any rate, what you keep missing is that if you're going to overturn
>>conventional wisdow it will take much more evidence than you have now. The
>>average American has probably never heard of Marlowe and has certainly never
>>heard of Oxford. But most have heard of Shakespeare. Overturning 400 years of
>>conventional wisdom can and has been done but it will take pretty strong
>>evidence. Much stronger than what you have.
"conventional wisdom" thought the earth was flat, may still think that
for all I know, or that the god made Adam and then Eve from his
missing rib...opinions do change Rob and they change on the basis of
the kind of argument and evidence we have for Marlowe. It takes time,
but it works.
>>
>
>He's right, John. We must try harder. Let's whip your material into shape and
>publish a book: *The Shakespeare Convention.*
What we should begin doing is publishing all the works with Marlowe's
name on them and a statement as to why. They are in the public domain
we can put Rob's name on them if we wanted to...
baker
>
>>> >You have some circumstantial evidence
>>> >that Marlowe is the author but it certainly would never be enough to
>>> >convince a jury.
>
Crows Dog
>oppertunity and means. That's all that's needed for these kinds of
>cases. Think about it and you'll understand.
What the hell kind of case is resolved by only motive, opportunity and
means?????
I've been thinking about it, and the only thing I understand is that Baker is
nuts!
Ronald Johnsen
> On 21 Jun 2000 11:50:13 GMT, dave...@aol.comment (Parentheticus)
> wrote:
>
> >Ron states to Baker:
> >
> ><much snipped>
> >
> >> I concede this point entirely baker. The problem is it still doesn't
> >>prove
> >>that Marlowe in fact faked his death. The fact that someone had the chance to
> >>do something does not mean that he did in fact do it....
>
> I missed this post. Sorry. I was up in the sky, on foot, about
> 15,000 feet. Nice up there.
How was Alaska baker? I only ask because there are no mountains in the
continental United States higher than 14,500 feet (and most of the mountains above
14,000 feet are here in Colorado. If you were in Colorado you should've stopped by,
we could've had a beer and laughed about all the things we've said to one another)
so I presume to get to 15,000 feet you must have gone to either Alaska or Canada.
>
>
> No Rob it doesn't mean he did it. But I've established motive,
> oppertunity and means. That's all that's needed for these kinds of
> cases. Think about it and you'll understand.
Baker, if a prosecutor put a defendant on trial with no better evidence than
that the defendant had a motive, opportunity and means to do it, not only would the
case be dismissed but the prosecutor could be subject to professional misconduct
charges. That was the whole reason I brought up the jury metaphor, to force you to
think about the extent of your evidence. You keep insisting that you've reached the
finish line when I keep telling you you've only reached the starting point.
>
> >
> >>> >... Shakespeare was writing plays before Marlowe had any need
> >>> >to fake his own death.
> >
> >There's no evidence for that. As a published playwright, the author was not
> >born until 1598. Prior to that, plays were anonymous. The only clear evidence
> >is of an ACTOR is in late 1594.
> >
> >> No, but the Strats can certainly make a better case than you can. And at
> >>any rate, what you keep missing is that if you're going to overturn
> >>conventional wisdow it will take much more evidence than you have now. The
> >>average American has probably never heard of Marlowe and has certainly never
> >>heard of Oxford. But most have heard of Shakespeare. Overturning 400 years of
> >>conventional wisdom can and has been done but it will take pretty strong
> >>evidence. Much stronger than what you have.
>
> "conventional wisdom" thought the earth was flat, may still think that
> for all I know,
If you've studied history as you claim you have baker, then you will know that
it was only Medieval Europe that thought the world was flat. The Chinese have
always known it to be round, as did the ancient Greeks and the Romans. I believe
the Mayans did as well but I would have to check that. Every seafaring people that
I know of that took a position except for Europe during the Dark Ages knew the
world to be round (it doesn't take much scientific knowledge to discover this
fact). The idea that the world was flat is less conventional wisdom from that
standpoint than it was a burp in the path of scientific progress.
> or that the god made Adam and then Eve from his
> missing rib...
This is not conventional wisdom baker, this is faith,which is not subject to
rational arguments either way. You either believe it or you don't. And btw, survey
after survey taken in America shows that a healthy majority of Americans still
believe in the Theory of Creation (in some polls, as much as 60%). Even if this is
conventional wisdom therefore, it is hard to argue that it has been overturned.
A better example of overturning conventional wisdom would be the reevaluation
that historians are giving Richard II (more positive) or Richard the Lion-Hearted
(more negative).
> opinions do change Rob and they change on the basis of
> the kind of argument and evidence we have for Marlowe. It takes time,
> but it works.
The problem baker is that you leave a lot of doubt in the minds of your
readers. If you are going to overturn conventional wisdom, these doubts must be
erased.
>
> >>
> >
> >He's right, John. We must try harder. Let's whip your material into shape and
> >publish a book: *The Shakespeare Convention.*
>
> What we should begin doing is publishing all the works with Marlowe's
> name on them and a statement as to why. They are in the public domain
> we can put Rob's name on them if we wanted to...
I think you missed David's joke baker (Shakespeare Convention vs. Shakespeare
Invention... get it?). Anyway professional responsibility forces me to discourage
you from taking this action.
Ron (or Rob, whichever baker prefers to call me)
Parentheticus
>What we should begin doing is publishing all the works with Marlowe's
>name on them and a statement as to why. They are in the public domain,
>we can put Rob's name on them if we wanted to...
You should try to come to more ML!A meetings, John, when you're not attempting
to scale Mt. Olympus.
Check out
<http://members.aol.com/marlovian/newworks>
I'm sure other pairings could be suggested (and have been! by a most unlikely
source). You'd be a good person to write the *Richard II* intro.
As to putting Rob's name on them, I think he could file a legal objection.
Dave
*****
Originally I wrote:
>>He's right, John. We must try harder. Let's whip your material into shape
>and
>>publish a book: *The Shakespeare Convention.*
David More
Parentheticus
>>I still maintain that he died in "early 1622". When I read that Charlton
>>Hinman claimed that work started on the First Folio in "early 1622", I
>>was elated; it confirmed my calculations! It is obvious that the FF was
>>started on when MARLOWE died -- not when the Stratman died.
I agree with you PZ.
But Baker doesn't, he writes:
>too early. many changes were made to Richard II and Othello to name
>just two in 1623.
Let's focus on those two, can we John?
Othello came out in 1622 in quarto, then again in the Folio, with many
revisions. What's the story with R2?
Do you deny the possibility of editors (such as Ben Jonson and/or John Florio
and/or Fra.Bacon) tinkering with text? (Jonson told Drummand that Shakespeare
could be improved.). Then again, there's the possibility that the true and
original copies of these plays were found. We'd really have to look at the
changes. But to say that the Folio improvements alone are proof that Marlowe
was alive when it was published seems specious, since the Folio itself leaves
no doubt that the author was DEAD.
PZ asserts
>>May, 1622 -- give or take a couple of weeks.
Can you offer evidence for this, Peter?
I was thinking he died on April 30, at 7:35 p.m. give or take a couple of
minutes. No, wait....That's my birthday. A little joke for you, and a bundle of
joy for Dave Kathman, as the following question will show:
Correct me if I'm wrong, DJK, but as I recall, the Basse elegy to WS didn't
appear in print until 1621, and there are several different versions of it (one
of which has the phrase "he died in 1616" at the top.) Coupled with the title
page info on the 1622 Othello quarto that the author was dead, suggests 1621 as
the probable YOD.
Maybe PF will hazard an opinion on this matter, as well.
Peter Zenner
>>May, 1622 -- give or take a couple of weeks.
So DM queried:-
>Can you offer evidence for this, Peter?
Just a calculated guess Dave. Early 1622 would mean
April or May; that's when I estimated that Marlowe
disappeared for good. May seemed to have been a
bad month for him in 1612, when Venetia was taken
away from him and we got all the moanings in 'The
Passionate Pilgrim'. Just a hunch based on "early 1622"
by their year -- I have found nothing (so far!) that would
help me be more precise.
volker multhopp
> Correct me if I'm wrong, DJK, but as I recall, the Basse elegy to WS didn't
> appear in print until 1621, and there are several different versions of it (one
> of which has the phrase "he died in 1616" at the top.) Coupled with the title
> page info on the 1622 Othello quarto that the author was dead, suggests 1621 as
> the probable YOD.
No, no, no. Basse's poem didn't appear in print (or otherwise, afawk)
until around 1630 (working from memory); the "he died in 1616" forenote
not until about 1640.
--Volker
Bob Grumman
manuscript many times before it was first published in 1633.
The date of Shakespeare's death was on some of the copies. It
was written before 1623. This everyone knows but Bullkretin
because Jonson's First Folio eulogy is obviously a reply to
Basse's poem. We know that because Basse's poem suggests we
bury Shakespeare next to Spenser, Beaumont and Chaucer without
saying why whereas Jonson's poem says no, let's not bury him
there, he doesn't need that kind of recognition. It's like one
poem saying London is the best city in Europe and another saying
London is not the best city in Europe, Paris is, because it has
the Eiffel Tower. Only a Bullkretin (who can't be bothered to
refute the applicability to his beliefs of analogies like this
one) could believe the first poem came before the second.
I commend Mr. Multhopp for the new (to me, at least) idea that
none of the manuscript copies of Basse's poem that we have need
have preceded publication of the poem.
--Bob G.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Parentheticus
> Basse's poem didn't appear in print (or otherwise, afawk)
>until around 1630 (working from memory); the "he died in 1616" forenote
>not until about 1640.
?
Your antagonist disagrees. It makes sense that Jonson echoed Basse in his Folio
poem. Why not? Do you have evidence to support later dating of the manuscript?
Thanks for the info.
Bob Grumman
Jonson poem preceded the Basse poem is that a superior poet
like Jonson would never have echoed an inferior one like Basse.
volker multhopp
> > Basse's poem didn't appear in print (or otherwise, afawk)
> >until around 1630 (working from memory); the "he died in 1616" forenote
> >not until about 1640.
> poem. Why not? Do you have evidence to support later dating of the manuscript?
> Thanks for the info.
It makes exactly as much sense that Basse was reponding to Jonson as
vice versa. This has been argued repeatedly here without conclusion--
except there isn't a smidgen of evidence pointing to an earlier date for
Basse.
--Volker
Parentheticus
>It makes exactly as much sense that Basse was reponding to Jonson as
>vice versa.
>This has been argued repeatedly here without conclusion--
>except there isn't a smidgen of evidence pointing to an earlier date for
>Basse.
Does it matter? (i.e. to the case for Edw.?)
I read somewhere that Basse's poem that there were several manuscript copies of
this poem, and it has been dated to around 1621. How has it been dated to 1630?
Can Volker (or another knowledgable reader) recommend a good scholarly
treatment of its provenience at his convenience?
Dave
p.s. Here's hoping that your antagonist pipes down with the insults and chimes
in with the consults and more harmonious results. :)
*****
In article <3961D878...@erols.com>, volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
writes:
>> > Basse's poem didn't appear in print (or otherwise, afawk)
>> >until around 1630 (working from memory); the "he died in 1616" forenote
>> >not until about 1640.
>
>> Your antagonist disagrees. It makes sense that Jonson echoed Basse in his
>Folio
>> poem. Why not? Do you have evidence to support later dating of the
>manuscript?
>> Thanks for the info.
David More
Bob Grumman
reasons for their position. The moron ignored them.
Dave Kathman has more than once given the dope on the manuscripts
and printed versions of Basse's poems.
Boyce says the Basse poem was first printed in 1633 as by John
Donne. In 1640 it was reprinted (as by "W. B."). That, I
believe, is the first printed version to which Shakespeare's date
of death was attached. Several of the manuscript copies have
Shakespeare's death indicated.
Scholars reasonably conclude that Basse's poem preceded Jonson's,
which was printed in 1623, because Jonson's was a reply to
Basse's poem, so they guess Basse's poem to have been written
around 1621.
(Here's a simple exercise only Volker could fail. Put the
following two statements in order: "One plus one is three."
"One plus One is not three, it is two."
All this is important to Oxfordians because they believe that
by 1640 (or even 1623) people would have forgotten that
Shakespeare did not write The Oeuvre so it would not have caused
a stir to refer to him as the Stratford man--although at that
time, 36 years after Oxford died, it would still not be safe to
reveal that HE was Shakespeare. If Basse's poem, with the date
of death attached, appeared less than seven years after
Shakespeare died, though, enough people might still remember that
the Stratford man was an illiterate, and said something about his
being referred to as Shakespeare. The big danger is that it was
written, with the death date attached, as early as 1616, which is
possible if we accept that it was written before Jonson's poem.
It's pretty idiotic. You could claim Basse simply didn't know
that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare--but he was an educated
fellow, and the Oxfordian line is that all literate people knew
Shakespeare didn't write anything, but were too polite to say so,
and/or too intimidated by the Secret Police. Or you could
claim Basse was disseminating misinformation--but then why
wouldn't more agents of the time have done the same? And that
would also have contradicted the Oxfordian supposition that
everyone knew Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare and would have
questioned Basse's poem.
Bullkretin's Antagonist
volker multhopp
> Is Volker's claim valid? That
> >It makes exactly as much sense that Basse was reponding to Jonson as
> >vice versa.
> >This has been argued repeatedly here without conclusion--
> >except there isn't a smidgen of evidence pointing to an earlier date for
> >Basse.
Of course, it is.
> Does it matter? (i.e. to the case for Edw.?)
It does, because the Basse poem orders Shakespeare's death after the
other 3 poets, most importantly after Beaumont, who died 1616. Basse
was wrong, either deliberately or ignorantly (imo). It can be argued
that Jonson's poem discretely orders Shakespeare's death between
Spenser's and Beaumont's. The three poets were laid in Westminster in
the order of their deaths. Jonson:
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome
Notice he seems to move Beaumont over, so he can wedge Shakespeare
between him and the other two poets.
> I read somewhere that Basse's poem that there were several manuscript copies of
> this poem, and it has been dated to around 1621.
If you've read this, it was pure bullshit. Let them offer any evidence
in support of their case.
>How has it been dated to 1630?
1633 (1630 was my error of faulty memory) is the date it was first
published.
--Volker
john_baker
wrote:
Dave,
I missed this post. Too much climbing and other work back in
Minnesota. (BSE). Sorry.
Yes its obvious the writer lived to see these great plays published.
Think of it this way. If he had died prior to publication the plays
could have then been attributed to him. Clear? There would be no
reason not to. They could just say they had found the mss among his
papers or that he had escaped to Italy and friends sent them back.
But the FF is living proof that the Author, whoever he or she was, was
still alive and well in 1623, because the Author's name isn't on these
great works. Ergo the Author was still in hiding.
I've focused on the last minute changes to Othello and Richard II
because these are the most important and quickly grasped.
There is no doubt that Othello first appeared in 1622 or that it was
significantly modified for the FF on the *face* of that edition.
Modification was extensive.
Some of the modifications were "fixes" to printer or compositor
muddles which cannot have had an authorial source. Said clearer, now
and then the printer fucked up the text and the correction in the FF
is to the printer's mistake with no reference to the original
manuscript. The writer has just given us a new line in the style of
the Author. Gregs confesses that in several cases the style is so
close he doesn't know which line to use, i.e., the restored one he's
figured out or the new one furnished by the person I believe was the
author.
Richard II gets it deposition scene. At long last. Now Greg believes
they had the scene all along, even though it never appeared in print,
i.e., not in this full version.
But its clear to me that it was written for the FF on the face of the
Q used by the printers...rather on a sheet of paper attached to the
face.
There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
which can best be explained by the author's survival.
But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta. I've published on
this, the world's leading paleographic authority at the BL, HK, thinks
I'm right. What I noted is that the JM is dedicated to Marlowe's
classmate TH from the KS, they were in class together there in 1579
and both boys went on to CC at Cambridge. TH became an attorney
at Greys Inn and the writer acknowledges a lifelong friendship with
him, claiming them both to be old men at the time. They were both
turning 69 that year.
As I've pointed out the last known work of Marlowe appears on the same
day that V&A and TNK appeared on, i.e., 8/18 April, William Herbert's
birthday, in 1654 the year Marlowe turned 90. Doris Wibert has traced
him that far in period works attributed to others.
We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
>To Baker and PZ, who says
>
>>>I still maintain that he died in "early 1622". When I read that Charlton
>>>Hinman claimed that work started on the First Folio in "early 1622", I
>>>was elated; it confirmed my calculations! It is obvious that the FF was
>>>started on when MARLOWE died -- not when the Stratman died.
>
>I agree with you PZ.
>
>But Baker doesn't, he writes:
>
>>too early. many changes were made to Richard II and Othello to name
>>just two in 1623.
>
>Let's focus on those two, can we John?
>
>Othello came out in 1622 in quarto, then again in the Folio, with many
>revisions. What's the story with R2?
>
>Do you deny the possibility of editors (such as Ben Jonson and/or John Florio
>and/or Fra.Bacon) tinkering with text? (Jonson told Drummand that Shakespeare
>could be improved.). Then again, there's the possibility that the true and
>original copies of these plays were found. We'd really have to look at the
>changes. But to say that the Folio improvements alone are proof that Marlowe
>was alive when it was published seems specious, since the Folio itself leaves
>no doubt that the author was DEAD.
no it doesn't. again see above. there is no evidence that Jonson or
anyone else other than the author was at work in the FF.
remember too the FF's changes aren't always improvements.
then too there is the Perkins Folio and the 20,000 Authorial changes
in an Elizabethian hand that dates to 1634/5.
>
>PZ asserts
>
>>>May, 1622 -- give or take a couple of weeks.
>
>Can you offer evidence for this, Peter?
>
>I was thinking he died on April 30, at 7:35 p.m. give or take a couple of
>minutes. No, wait....That's my birthday. A little joke for you, and a bundle of
>joy for Dave Kathman, as the following question will show:
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, DJK, but as I recall, the Basse elegy to WS didn't
>appear in print until 1621, and there are several different versions of it (one
>of which has the phrase "he died in 1616" at the top.) Coupled with the title
>page info on the 1622 Othello quarto that the author was dead, suggests 1621 as
>the probable YOD.
>
>Maybe PF will hazard an opinion on this matter, as well.
>
Parentheticus
> its obvious the writer lived to see these great plays published.
>
>Think of it this way. If he had died prior to publication the plays
>could have then been attributed to him. Clear?
No. NOT clear. The Folio wasn't about attributing the plays to Christopher
Marlowe. The announcement would "destabilize" the society (just like it would
today, I suppose). How'd King James have taken it?
>There would be no
>reason not to.
I think the framers of the FF hoax thought it would be wiser to defer
disclosure. Remember, CM's name had been dragged through the mud in his
lifetime.
>They could just say they had found the mss among his
>papers or that he had escaped to Italy and friends sent them back.
They COULD, but they didn't. Instead, they pinned the tales on William. Why?
>But the FF is living proof that the Author, whoever he or she was, was
>still alive and well in 1623, because the Author's name isn't on these
>great works. Ergo the Author was still in hiding.
Ergo, you lost me. The FF claims that the Herbert brothers favored "the author
living" which strongly suggests that he was dead at the time Ben Jonson wrote
those words. (And didn't you once tell me that the 1622 Othello title page
claimed the author was dead?) Why would MARLOWE want to publish the plays at
that time, in that manner? Pray tell.
>I've focused on the last minute changes to Othello and Richard II
>because these are the most important and quickly grasped.
>
>There is no doubt that Othello first appeared in 1622 or that it was
>significantly modified for the FF on the *face* of that edition.
>Modification was extensive.
>
>Some of the modifications were "fixes" to printer or compositor
>muddles which cannot have had an authorial source. Said clearer, now
>and then the printer fucked up the text and the correction in the FF
>is to the printer's mistake with no reference to the original
>manuscript. The writer has just given us a new line in the style of
>the Author. Gregs confesses that in several cases the style is so
>close he doesn't know which line to use, i.e., the restored one he's
>figured out or the new one furnished by the person I believe was the
>author.
>
>Richard II gets it deposition scene. At long last.
Have you forgotten? The deposition scene was included in the 1608 edition of
the play.
Now Greg believes
>they had the scene all along, even though it never appeared in print,
>i.e., not in this full version.
>
>But its clear to me that it was written for the FF on the face of the
>Q used by the printers...rather on a sheet of paper attached to the
>face.
Not everything that is clear to you is clear to others. This, for example.
>
>There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
>which can best be explained by the author's survival.
Not at all!
Let's get specific.
Othello? The changes could have been made by Marlowe before he died, or (gasp,
by an editor, such as the arrogant Jonson.)
Of course changes were made, but no has ever suggested that Stratford William
was alive as well? Why is that? Because the changes can be explained many other
ways, and the Folio makes it very clear that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare is
d-e-a-d.
>But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
>1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta.
If this is your best proof, then give it up, John. ;)
>I've published on
>this, the world's leading paleographic authority at the BL, HK, thinks
>I'm right. What I noted is that the JM is dedicated to Marlowe's
>classmate TH from the KS, they were in class together there in 1579
>and both boys went on to CC at Cambridge.
Doesn't another TH (Tom Heywood) make the attribution/dedication? Why couldn't
HE have dedicated JM to Marlowe's friend? Marlowe himself wrote a dedication to
Mary Herbert, for (allegedly dead) Tom Watson in 1592. Does that mean that
Watson was alive as well?
>TH became an attorney
>at Greys Inn and the writer acknowledges a lifelong friendship with
>him, claiming them both to be old men at the time. They were both
>turning 69 that year.
This is all very interesting, but it's HEYWOOD who is speaking, no?
>As I've pointed out the last known work of Marlowe appears on the same
>day that V&A and TNK appeared on, i.e., 8/18 April, William Herbert's
>birthday, in 1654 the year Marlowe turned 90. Doris Wibert has traced
>him that far in period works attributed to others.
John, this proves nothing. Someone could dedicate a book of mine to an old
friend of mine after I died. That wouldn't make me still be alive.
>We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
>for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
Again, this proves nothing.
The evidence of the First Folio is strong evidence that the AUTHOR was dead.
There isn't the slightest HINT that he isn't. The dedicatory poems and prose
are unanimous: d-e-a-d. The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
irrelevant, imo.
dave,
Peter Zenner
>The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
>irrelevant, imo.
It doesn't matter how long-lived your family is,
suicide cuts your life shorter than it would have
been.
Marlowe was blind in one eye and he had a limp.
Apart from that and stomach ulcers, he was doing
fine until he lost Venetia after 10 years of being a
passionate pilgrim. RIP Marlowe -- the lonliness
finally got him. Venetia appears to have blamed
herself for his death and followed him at the age of
33.
Ask who lies here, but do not weep;
He is not dead, he doth but sleep.
This stoney register is for his bones,
His fame is more perpetual than these stones;
And his own goodness, with himself being gone,
Shall live when earthly monument is none
john_baker
wrote:
>john baker writes:
>
>> its obvious the writer lived to see these great plays published.
>>
>>Think of it this way. If he had died prior to publication the plays
>>could have then been attributed to him. Clear?
>
>No. NOT clear. The Folio wasn't about attributing the plays to Christopher
>Marlowe. The announcement would "destabilize" the society (just like it would
>today, I suppose). How'd King James have taken it?
I see your point, but it could easily have been handled. It could
have claimed that the plays turned up in some old trunk. Remember
that Marlowe's works continued to appear during this time without any
noticable effect. So I don't think it would have destablized
society. I go back to my point, if Marlowe had died, they could have
used his name. I think the folio ads prove the author still alive.
>
>>There would be no
>>reason not to.
>
>I think the framers of the FF hoax thought it would be wiser to defer
>disclosure. Remember, CM's name had been dragged through the mud in his
>lifetime.
yes this is certainly true, but remember also that the history of his
publications runs counter to this trend. Blount clearly regarded him
as a genius and Hero and Leander proved it. The dedication to
Walsingham would not have been attempted if Marlowe was in 1599 a
persona non grata.
>
>>They could just say they had found the mss among his
>>papers or that he had escaped to Italy and friends sent them back.
>
>They COULD, but they didn't. Instead, they pinned the tales on William. Why?
Because Christopher was till alive and Willy was dead.
>
>>But the FF is living proof that the Author, whoever he or she was, was
>>still alive and well in 1623, because the Author's name isn't on these
>>great works. Ergo the Author was still in hiding.
>
>Ergo, you lost me. The FF claims that the Herbert brothers favored "the author
>living" which strongly suggests that he was dead at the time Ben Jonson wrote
>those words. (And didn't you once tell me that the 1622 Othello title page
>claimed the author was dead?) Why would MARLOWE want to publish the plays at
>that time, in that manner? Pray tell.
Yes the Folio does mention the Herberts favored the author
living...and why wouldn't it...it was true, they did favor Marlowe, as
we can see from the title page of Edward II.
Yes Othello's reader's epistle is the first to mention the author's
death, but there is no evidence to think Walkley ment anyone other
than Willy who was dead in 1616, its a four word eulogy, "the author
being dead..." which makes me marvel what he was being when it wasn't
dead...
I think the epistle written by marlowe, as I think of the ads in the
FF, I don't buy that Jonson wrote the one with his name on it. I know
for a fact the ads to the Elizabethian Concordance Series which are
signed Jean Joffan were written by Louis Ule, I saw do it.
>
>>I've focused on the last minute changes to Othello and Richard II
>>because these are the most important and quickly grasped.
>>
>>There is no doubt that Othello first appeared in 1622 or that it was
>>significantly modified for the FF on the *face* of that edition.
>>Modification was extensive.
>>
>>Some of the modifications were "fixes" to printer or compositor
>>muddles which cannot have had an authorial source. Said clearer, now
>>and then the printer fucked up the text and the correction in the FF
>>is to the printer's mistake with no reference to the original
>>manuscript. The writer has just given us a new line in the style of
>>the Author. Gregs confesses that in several cases the style is so
>>close he doesn't know which line to use, i.e., the restored one he's
>>figured out or the new one furnished by the person I believe was the
>>author.
>>
>>Richard II gets it deposition scene. At long last.
>
>Have you forgotten? The deposition scene was included in the 1608 edition of
>the play.
NO!!!! This is a major point! So please get it right this time.
Kathman went down on this point. Check out Greg. The 1608 edition
does not contain the same deposition scene as the FF's. It contains a
garbled version. That's all. The real scene, the one we know today
didn't appear in print until 1622. A Major Point.
>
>
>
>Now Greg believes
>>they had the scene all along, even though it never appeared in print,
>>i.e., not in this full version.
>>
>>But its clear to me that it was written for the FF on the face of the
>>Q used by the printers...rather on a sheet of paper attached to the
>>face.
>
>Not everything that is clear to you is clear to others. This, for example.
true. but at least get the facts clear. the final deposition scene
isn't in the 1608 quarto and does not appear in its final form until
1623.
>
>>
>>There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
>>which can best be explained by the author's survival.
>
>Not at all!
>
>Let's get specific.
>
>Othello? The changes could have been made by Marlowe before he died, or (gasp,
>by an editor, such as the arrogant Jonson.)
no. not likely.
>
>Of course changes were made, but no has ever suggested that Stratford William
>was alive as well? Why is that? Because the changes can be explained many other
>ways, and the Folio makes it very clear that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare is
>d-e-a-d.
they were also very clear he was William Shakespeare...so get real
Dave.
>
>
>>But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
>>1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta.
>
>If this is your best proof, then give it up, John. ;)
never
>
>>I've published on
>>this, the world's leading paleographic authority at the BL, HK, thinks
>>I'm right. What I noted is that the JM is dedicated to Marlowe's
>>classmate TH from the KS, they were in class together there in 1579
>>and both boys went on to CC at Cambridge.
>
>Doesn't another TH (Tom Heywood) make the attribution/dedication? Why couldn't
>HE have dedicated JM to Marlowe's friend? Marlowe himself wrote a dedication to
>Mary Herbert, for (allegedly dead) Tom Watson in 1592. Does that mean that
>Watson was alive as well?
this doesn't make sense. "Hayward" claims to have known Hammon
through the long compass of his years. Look it up! The real Hayward
wasn't that old and never knew Hammon as a child. Only Marlowe knew
him.
>
>
>>TH became an attorney
>>at Greys Inn and the writer acknowledges a lifelong friendship with
>>him, claiming them both to be old men at the time. They were both
>>turning 69 that year.
>
>This is all very interesting, but it's HEYWOOD who is speaking, no?
no, its Marlowe, the man who went to school with Hammon. The
salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its English form,
"tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of the
first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
use of the second person in avoidance of the first. its marlowe.
>
>>As I've pointed out the last known work of Marlowe appears on the same
>>day that V&A and TNK appeared on, i.e., 8/18 April, William Herbert's
>>birthday, in 1654 the year Marlowe turned 90. Doris Wibert has traced
>>him that far in period works attributed to others.
>
>John, this proves nothing. Someone could dedicate a book of mine to an old
>friend of mine after I died. That wouldn't make me still be alive.
I've never claimed any of this proves anything. but its all very
suggestive that Marlowe live on until c. 1655. if you think he died,
earlier you prove it.
>
>>We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
>>for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
>
>Again, this proves nothing.
It establishes the likelyhood that Marlowe could have survived until
the trail in the works ends. that good to know. if his sisters had
all died early it would be far less likely.
>
>The evidence of the First Folio is strong evidence that the AUTHOR was dead.
>There isn't the slightest HINT that he isn't. The dedicatory poems and prose
>are unanimous: d-e-a-d. The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
>irrelevant, imo.
bs. the ff cannot be trusted. its the device that claims William
Shakespeare was the author and eveyone knew Willy was dead. Please
don't loose track of this. These "ads" were talking about William
Shakespeare not about the Author of these great works. And they were
very likely to have been written by the Author himself. Who was still
living, as proven (or strongly suggested) by the 20,000 changes to the
1633 SECOND Folio, which Stratfordians have been lying about for a
century.
baker
john_baker
<pe...@pzenner.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
Peter,
I've tried to shy away from having our views clash.
Lets just agree to disagree, ok?
I am happy to say that I have no fixed opinions about Marlowe, that my
view of him has changed often through time as more and more facts came
our way.
It is clearly the most simple way to see this entire matter to suppose
that Marlowe lived a long life and wrote these works during it.
I could be wrong. Others could be involved. But its very difficult
to get this kind of involvement from friends.
Dave and I are friends and I doubt that he would take off the next
five years to get my biography of Marlowe ready for press, if I die
this weekend on the mountian....
baker
Greg Reynolds
john, baker wrote:
> Dave and I are friends and I doubt that he would take off the next
> five years to get my biography of Marlowe ready for press, if I die
> this weekend on the mountian....
Why would dying stop a Marlunatic? Get with the program, john.
Parentheticus
destabilized the society, john baker writes:
>I see your point, but it could easily have been handled. It could
>have claimed that the plays turned up in some old trunk.
And that would have made it okay? James would've said "Oh, you found the
manuscripts in a trunk, that's alright then." Perhaps someone else will venture
an opinion on what James' reaction might have been.
>Remember
>that Marlowe's works continued to appear during this time without any
>noticable effect.
There was an effort (it appears) to "rehabilitate" CM's name after 1598. But to
claim that he also was "Shakespeare"? That he wasn't really killed? That the
manuscripts were found "in a trunk"? You're telling ME to get real?!
>So I don't think it would have destablized
>society.
Wiser heads than yours may have thought otherwise.
> I go back to my point, if Marlowe had died, they could have
>used his name. I think the folio ads prove the author still alive.
You can go back to it all you want, but it won't make it any more convincing.
;)
>>>There would be no
>>>reason not to.
You didn't answer my earlier objection. King James would have frowned on it to
say the least. (Maybe someone who knows more about KJ than I can support this).
>>I think the framers of the FF hoax thought it would be wiser to defer
>>disclosure. Remember, CM's name had been dragged through the mud in his
>>lifetime.
>
>yes this is certainly true, but remember also that the history of his
>publications runs counter to this trend.
Yes. There was an apparent attempt to rehabilitate his name, beginning with
Blount clearly regarded him
>as a genius and Hero and Leander proved it. The dedication to
>Walsingham would not have been attempted if Marlowe was in 1599 a
>persona non grata.
He wasn't *persona non grata* to Thomas Walsingham or to Blount, quite the
opposite. (btw, the dedication was 1598 -- a pivotal year in the story.)
>>>They could just say they had found the mss among his
>>>papers or that he had escaped to Italy and friends sent them back.
But John, that would be a lie. Are you suggesting that Blount and company would
(or should) lie? These were honorable men. The publishing arrangements were
handled honorably (while at the same time duplicitously-- a paradox).
You haven't answered another objection. Why isn't there one single veiled
suggestion that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare was still alive? Why do they
make it clear that he was dead? Who were Digges, etc. writing about if not
Marlowe? (We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth ... etc. (attention
"Stratfordians": we know, we know))
You say the "ads" (nice term, btw) make no claim that the AUTHOR was dead. In
fact, they do. Read the FIRST PRINTED PAGE of the FF:
But since your L.L. have been pleas'd to thinke these trifles some-thing,
heretofore; and have prosecuted both them, and THEIR AUTHOR LIVING, with so
much favor: we [i.e. Ben Jonson, ghosting for Heminge & Condell] hope that
(they OUT-LIVING HIM, and he not having the fate common with some, to be
executor to his own writings) ....
>>
>>They COULD, but they didn't. Instead, they pinned the tales on William. Why?
>
>Because Christopher was till alive and Willy was dead.
Why would Christopher want to make it SEEM like he was dead in the prose and
poems accompanying the FF, which makes it UNEQUIVOCAL that he is dead.
If he was not, there would be evidence from the text (even of the veiled or
'between the lines' variety) that he was not dead. If you see some, what is it?
(If not, maybe you should back down on your absolute certainty on the
subject.)
>>>But the FF is living proof that the Author, whoever he or she was, was
>>>still alive and well in 1623, because the Author's name isn't on these
>>>great works. Ergo the Author was still in hiding.
>>Ergo, you lost me. The FF claims that the Herbert brothers favored "the
>author
>>living" which strongly suggests that he was dead at the time Ben Jonson
>wrote
>>those words. (And didn't you once tell me that the 1622 Othello title page
>>claimed the author was dead?) Why would MARLOWE want to publish the plays at
>>that time, in that manner? Pray tell.
>
>Yes the Folio does mention the Herberts favored the author
>living...and why wouldn't it...it was true, they did favor Marlowe, as
>we can see from the title page of Edward II.
The phrase "the AUTHOR LIVING" tells us that the author is now DEAD.
>Yes Othello's reader's epistle is the first to mention the author's
>death, but there is no evidence to think Walkley ment anyone other
>than Willy who was dead in 1616, its a four word eulogy, "the author
>being dead..." which makes me marvel what he was being when it wasn't
>dead...
And why do you think Marlowe allowed his poem to be printed with announcement
that he was dead?
Can someone in the sound of my voice please tell me more about Walkey's
dedication? Who was he? Who was it written to? What did it say?
>I think the epistle written by marlowe, as I think of the ads in the
>FF, I don't buy that Jonson wrote the one with his name on it.
If Marlowe was DEAD by 1623, as all the evidence suggests, he couldn't have
written it. (You have yet to offer any EVIDENCE to the contrary.) But for the
sake of argument, if he did -- WHY DID HE MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HE WAS DEAD?
> I know
>for a fact the ads to the Elizabethian Concordance Series which are
>signed Jean Joffan were written by Louis Ule, I saw do it.
So what? Was either one of them dead at the time?
>>>I've focused on the last minute changes to Othello and Richard II
>>>because these are the most important and quickly grasped.
>>>
>>>There is no doubt that Othello first appeared in 1622 or that it was
>>>significantly modified for the FF on the *face* of that edition.
>>>Modification was extensive.
>>>
>>>Some of the modifications were "fixes" to printer or compositor
>>>muddles which cannot have had an authorial source. Said clearer, now
>>>and then the printer fucked up the text and the correction in the FF
>>>is to the printer's mistake with no reference to the original
>>>manuscript. The writer has just given us a new line in the style of
>>>the Author. Gregs confesses that in several cases the style is so
>>>close he doesn't know which line to use, i.e., the restored one he's
>>>figured out or the new one furnished by the person I believe was the
>>>author.
>>>
>>>Richard II gets it deposition scene. At long last.
>>
>>Have you forgotten? The deposition scene was included in the 1608 edition of
>>the play.
>
>NO!!!! This is a major point! So please get it right this time.
>Kathman went down on this point. Check out Greg. The 1608 edition
>does not contain the same deposition scene as the FF's. It contains a
>garbled version.
ATTN: Dr. Kathman (if you're following this) Is this "garbled version" of the
1608 version of hte deposition scene available online?
>That's all. The real scene, the one we know today
>didn't appear in print until 1622. A Major Point.
It's not a major point to proving that the Marlowe was alive in 1623.
>>Now Greg believes
>>>they had the scene all along, even though it never appeared in print,
>>>i.e., not in this full version.
>>>
>>>But its clear to me that it was written for the FF on the face of the
>>>Q used by the printers...rather on a sheet of paper attached to the
>>>face.
>>
>>Not everything that is clear to you is clear to others. This, for example.
>
>true. but at least get the facts clear. the final deposition scene
>isn't in the 1608 quarto and does not appear in its final form until
>1623.
While I'm getting the facts straight, tell me...have you read the "garbled
version"? Do you have it? What was garbled about it?
>>>There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
>>>which can best be explained by the author's survival.
>>
>>Not at all!
>>
>>Let's get specific.
>>
>>Othello? The changes could have been made by Marlowe before he died, or
>(gasp,
>>by an editor, such as the arrogant Jonson.)
>
>no. not likely.
It would be VERY likely if (as the evidence suggests) the author was dead.
>>Of course changes were made, but no has ever suggested that Stratford
>William
>>was alive as well? Why is that? Because the changes can be explained many
>other
>>ways, and the Folio makes it very clear that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare
>is
>>d-e-a-d.
>
>they were also very clear he was William Shakespeare...so get real
>Dave.
Why would Marlowe have gone to this trouble? Why did he make it appear that HE
was dead. (ANOTHER faked death! Why?)
>>>But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
>>>1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta.
>>
>>If this is your best proof, then give it up, John. ;)
>
>never
Sorry to hear this, John. The word "Never" is so...oh I don't know...
Rigidnikity? Between you and Zenner (who's also 100% certain about everything),
I'm beginning to doubt that there will ever be consensus on the Marlowe story.
More's the pity. I'm about ready to throw in the towel and become a
"Shakespearean" (or 'Floriovian').
>>>I've published on
>>>this, the world's leading paleographic authority at the BL, HK, thinks
>>>I'm right. What I noted is that the JM is dedicated to Marlowe's
>>>classmate TH from the KS, they were in class together there in 1579
>>>and both boys went on to CC at Cambridge.
Nice connection. Where was it published?
>>Doesn't another TH (Tom Heywood) make the attribution/dedication? Why
>couldn't
>>HE have dedicated JM to Marlowe's friend? Marlowe himself wrote a dedication
>to
>>Mary Herbert, for (allegedly dead) Tom Watson in 1592. Does that mean that
>>Watson was alive as well?
>
>this doesn't make sense. "Hayward" claims to have known Hammon
>through the long compass of his years. Look it up!
Easier said than done. I don't have it handy. Can't find it in Bakeless or my
other sources. Perhaps (as your committed committee Chair, Dr. Kathman would
do) you can type it up for us.
>The real Hayward
>wasn't that old and never knew Hammon as a child. Only Marlowe knew
>him.
You can know someone a long compass of years without knowing him as a child.
Heywood was born in 1574 (if I'm not mistaken). In 1633 he would have been
FIFTY-NINE YEARS OLD. Certainly old enough to know someone a long compass of
years.
>>>TH became an attorney
>>>at Greys Inn and the writer acknowledges a lifelong friendship with
>>>him, claiming them both to be old men at the time. They were both
>>>turning 69 that year.
Heywood was 59. An old man by Elizabethan standards.
>>This is all very interesting, but it's HEYWOOD who is speaking, no?
>
>no, its Marlowe, the man who went to school with Hammon.
But it's signed HEYWOOD! And Heywood was a prominent writer, playwright, who
was a member of the Lord Admiral's company in 1598. This isn't sufficient
evidence to overturn the FOLIO evidence which states that the author (i.e. the
REAL author) was dead. They make no bones about it.
> The
>salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its English form,
>"tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of the
>first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
>use of the second person in avoidance of the first. its marlowe.
Perhaps someone whose Latin is better than mine can clarify. But if the
SALUTATION is Tuissimus, the writer is greeting the Hammon as "YOU" which would
be a natural thing to do.
I'd like to see the text.
>>>As I've pointed out the last known work of Marlowe appears on the same
>>>day that V&A and TNK appeared on, i.e., 8/18 April, William Herbert's
>>>birthday,
This proves nothing. Others knew when WH's birthday was.
>>> in 1654 the year Marlowe turned 90.
>>>Doris Wibert has traced
>>>him that far in period works attributed to others.
Doris is a sweet woman, but she also believes that Marlowe was actually killed
and came back to life (from a coma).
>>
>>John, this proves nothing. Someone could dedicate a book of mine to an old
>>friend of mine after I died. That wouldn't make me still be alive.
>
>I've never claimed any of this proves anything. but its all very
>suggestive that Marlowe live on until c. 1655. if you think he died,
>earlier you prove it.
I think I HAVE proved it. (see above). If you disagree, offer some EVIDENCE
from the First Folio.
>
>>
>>>We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
>>>for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
>>
>>Again, this proves nothing.
>
>It establishes the likelyhood that Marlowe could have survived until
>the trail in the works ends. that good to know. if his sisters had
>all died early it would be far less likely.
Not LIKELIHOOD. Possibility. Unfortunately for your theory isn't supported by
ANY evidence. (Hammon alone won't cut it.)
>>The evidence of the First Folio is strong evidence that the AUTHOR was dead.
>>There isn't the slightest HINT that he isn't. The dedicatory poems and prose
>>are unanimous: d-e-a-d. The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
>>irrelevant, imo.
>
>bs. the ff cannot be trusted.
No. YOU can't be trusted. ;)
> its the device that claims William
>Shakespeare was the author and eveyone knew Willy was dead. Please
>don't loose track of this.
Don't lose track of THIS, John: The FF communicates on two levels. Every word
in it is TRUE!
>These "ads" were talking about William
>Shakespeare not about the Author of these great works.
At times, yes. At other times, no. You gotta take each mention in context. Read
the words. Despite the claims, this wasn't a slapdash production. Ben Jonson
(and the others) chose their words VERy carefully. (We study to be thankful...)
> And they were
>very likely to have been written by the Author himself.
No, John. NOT very likely. Not likely at all. In fact, given the words of the
TEXT, impossible.
>Who was still
>living, as proven (or strongly suggested) by the 20,000 changes to the
>1633 SECOND Folio, which Stratfordians have been lying about for a
>century.
Ohhh. You think MARLOWE made all those changes. And called himself John Benson?
Can't you a offer a single piece of evidence from the FIRST Folio?
*********
ORIGINALLY,
Parentheticus
>Peter,
>
>I've tried to shy away from having our views clash.
>
>Lets just agree to disagree, ok?
>
>I am happy to say that I have no fixed opinions about Marlowe, that my
>view of him has changed often through time as more and more facts came
>our way.
John, you old so-and-so. I just got through reading a statement of yours that
you will "never" give up your belief that Marlowe was alive in 1623.
>It is clearly the most simple way to see this entire matter to suppose
>that Marlowe lived a long life and wrote these works during it.
>I could be wrong. Others could be involved.
Now you're making sense.
>But its very difficult
>to get this kind of involvement from friends.
>Dave and I are friends and I doubt that he would take off the next
>five years to get my biography of Marlowe ready for press, if I die
>this weekend on the mountian....
Are you kidding, John? I'd spend the next five years with you beginning NOW! No
need to kick the bucket. Where shall we begin? With a domestic scene in
Canterbury? I've already suggested a great title to you: The Shakespeare
Convention (okay maybe that can be a title for an appendix).
But it isn't fair to compare yourself with Shakespeare, Bakespeare. Marlowe's
friends were men of genius, boldness and foresight. Greater far than me and
tuissimus.
Parentheticus
>Why would dying stop a Marlunatic? Get with the program, john.
Again with the gratuitous insults.
It makes no sense. If John really WERE a Mar-LUNATIC, his death would be
putative, not actual. Get with the program, Greg. (We're still looking for our
first "convert.")
Terry Ross
> > john baker writes:
> > The
> >salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its English form,
> >"tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of the
> >first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
> >use of the second person in avoidance of the first. its marlowe.
>
> [Dave More asks]
> Perhaps someone whose Latin is better than mine can clarify. But if
> the SALUTATION is Tuissimus, the writer is greeting the Hammon as
> "YOU" which would be a natural thing to do.
>
> I'd like to see the text.
"Tuissimus" is the superlative of "tuus" (yours), and is not the
salutation but the closing. It is the equivalent of such closings as
"very truly yours" or "sincerely yours." Here's Heywood's dedicatory
epistle to Hammon from *The Jew of Malta*:
===
TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MASTER THOMAS HAMMON, of GRAY'S INN, ETC.
This play, composed by so worthy an author as Master Marlowe, and the part
of the Jew presented by so unimitable an actor as Master Alleyn, being in
this later age commended to the stage; as I ushered it unto the court, and
presented it to the Cock-pit, with these Prologues and Epilogues here
inserted, so now being newly brought to the press, I was loath it should
be published without the ornament of an Epistle; making choice of you unto
whom to devote it; than whom (of all those gentlemen and acquaintance
within the compass of my long knowledge) there is none more able to tax
ignorance, or attribute right to merit. Sir, you have been pleased to
grace some of mine own works with your courteous patronage: I hope
this will not be the worse accepted, because commended by me; over whom
none can claim more power or privilege than yourself. I had no better a
new-year's gift to present you with; receive it therefore as a continuance
of that inviolable obligement, by which he rests still engaged, who, as he
ever hath, shall always remain,
Tuissimus,
Tho. Heywood.
====
Dave More is correct that the dedication is in the second person (as
dedications commonly are). Heywood is the "I" and Hammon is the "you."
Heywood tells Hammon that he is and shall ever remain (in the superlative
degree) "yours."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Reynolds
Parentheticus wrote:
> Greg Reynolds <eve...@megsinet.net> writes:
>
> >Why would dying stop a Marlunatic? Get with the program, john.
>
> Again with the gratuitous insults.
>
> It makes no sense. If John really WERE a Mar-LUNATIC, his death would be
> putative, not actual. Get with the program, Greg. (We're still looking for our
> first "convert.")
>
> David More
I'm gonna flirt with Julia til you guys get your STORY straight.
Funny thing though, Marleculars, that I seem to like and respect Kit more than
you do! I think his works are beautiful, and I am satisfied with his output and
contribution to the Eliz theatrical scene. You need to believe he didn't do
enough somehow, and so you seek other accomplishments for him, too. Sorry you
find him so unsatisfactory! A rare talent indeed, as evidenced by his fine works.
Give him a break some time.
Poor guy is Kit that his supposed aficionados are so disappointed with his
record.
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp
> Parentheticus wrote:
> > I read somewhere that Basse's poem that there were several manuscript copies of
> > this poem, and it has been dated to around 1621.
> If you've read this, it was pure bullshit. Let them offer any evidence
> in support of their case.
Let's note for the record that this passage has stood for a week, and
not single person has offered an iota of evidence dating the Basse to
1621, or indeed any date before 1633.
(And let's have no more go-rounds on which poem was textually
responding to which, unless there's anything definitive can establish
which came first.)
--Volker
Bob Grumman
>
>> > I read somewhere that Basse's poem that there were several
manuscript copies of
>> > this poem, and it has been dated to around 1621.
>
>> If you've read this, it was pure bullshit. Let them
offer any evidence
>> in support of their case.
>
>Let's note for the record that this passage has stood for
>a week, and not single person has offered an iota of evidence
THAT YOU WILL ACCEPT, YOU STUPID MORON.
>dating the Basse to 1621, or indeed any date before 1633.
>(And let's have no more go-rounds on which poem was
>textually responding to which, unless there's anything
>definitive can establish which came first.)
NO, BECAUSE THE FACT THAT A POEM WRITTEN IN OR BEFORE 1623
THAT IS CLEARLY AN ANSWER TO A SECOND POEM IS !!EVIDENCE!!
THAT THE SECOND POEM WAS WRITTEN IN OR BEFORE 1623, YOU
INCREDIBLY FATUOUS RIGIDNIK, AND YOU SURE AS HELL DON'T WANT
TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH EVIDENCE.
Now, one of you gentle Emily Posters, explain why I should not
have called the noble Volker such uncivil names. He has refused
repeatedly to tell me why a poem, to reason analogically, that
says that London is the best city in Europe should not be taken
to have been written before a poem that says London, is not the
best city in Europe, Paris is, because of the Eiffel Tower. All
he does is repeat this idiocy of his that there is no way of
telling which poem, Jonson's or Basse's, came first. Right, and
we don't know which shepherd poem came first, Marlowe's or
Raleigh's.
--Bob G.
> --Volker
David Kathman
>
> volker multhopp wrote:
>
> > Parentheticus wrote:
>
> > > I read somewhere that Basse's poem that there were several manuscript copies of
> > > this poem, and it has been dated to around 1621.
>
> > If you've read this, it was pure bullshit. Let them offer any evidence
> > in support of their case.
>
> Let's note for the record that this passage has stood for a week, and
> 1621, or indeed any date before 1633.
>
> (And let's have no more go-rounds on which poem was textually
> responding to which, unless there's anything definitive can establish
> which came first.)
Well, that's why nobody has responded, because we've been through
this before ad nauseam. You insist that there's no way to establish
which came first, while everybody else in the world thinks that
Jonson was replying to Basse. What would be the point of rehashing
all that for the umpteenth time? You're going to keep on believing
you're right no matter what, and it would be a waste of everybody's
time to argue about it any more.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Parentheticus
>not single person has offered an iota of evidence dating the Basse to
>1621, or indeed any date before 1633.
Some summary questions spring to mind:
The poem is said to exist in multiple manuscripts, which I suppose means hand
written copies by different hands. Is this the case? How many copies appear in
1633? What dates it to 1633?
(I suppose if Jonson was echoing Basse, it'd have to been written before this,
though I won't press the point. What about those manuscripts?)
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > Let's note for the record that this passage has stood for a week, and
> > 1621, or indeed any date before 1633.
> > responding to which, unless there's anything definitive can establish
> > which came first.)
> Well, that's why nobody has responded, because we've been through
> this before ad nauseam.
Right.
>You insist that there's no way to establish
> which came first, while everybody else in the world thinks that
> Jonson was replying to Basse.
What "everybody thinks" may be interesting, but it's not evidence.
>What would be the point of rehashing
> all that for the umpteenth time? You're going to keep on believing
> you're right no matter what, and it would be a waste of everybody's
> time to argue about it any more.
The point was only to make absolutely clear there is not a scintilla of
evidence predating Basse to Jonson. Thank you for the strong
confirmation of this.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> Some summary questions spring to mind:
> The poem is said to exist in multiple manuscripts, which I suppose means hand
> written copies by different hands. Is this the case?
Yes. That only shows it had a certain popularity.
>How many copies appear in
> 1633?
Dunno.
>What dates it to 1633?
It was published in a book of poetry.
> (I suppose if Jonson was echoing Basse, it'd have to been written before this,
> though I won't press the point.
Yes, of course, and vice versa.
What about those manuscripts?)
Well, what about them?
--Volker
Parentheticus
David Kathman <dj...@popd.ix.netcom.com> writes:
> we've been through
>this before
did you cover the number of extant manuscript copies of the poem? I read
somewhere that it exists in several versions. Have any studies been published?
Where are these manuscript copies now?
David Kathman
>
> Of the dating of William Basse's elegaic poem about WS
> David Kathman <dj...@popd.ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
> > we've been through
> >this before
>
> did you cover the number of extant manuscript copies of the poem?
Yes.
> I read
> somewhere that it exists in several versions. Have any studies been published?
> Where are these manuscript copies now?
See Wells and Taylor's *Textual Companion*, recently reissued in
paperback in conjunction with the Norton edition. It has
a complete collation of all the known copies.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
john_baker
>But John, that would be a lie. Are you suggesting that Blount and company would
>(or should) lie? These were honorable men. The publishing arrangements were
>handled honorably (while at the same time duplicitously-- a paradox).
>
BS these men weren't living in honorable times David. You know this.
I know this. So BS. They were doing what they had to do to stay
alive in a society that chopped off writer's hands and took out their
bowels while they were still alive...
.
>You haven't answered another objection. Why isn't there one single veiled
>suggestion that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare was still alive?
Why should they do this Dave...they were selling a lie to the public.
You want them to make it clear its a lie? get real.
>
>>>
>>>T
>Why would Christopher want to make it SEEM like he was dead in the prose and
>poems accompanying the FF, which makes it UNEQUIVOCAL that he is dead.
>
>If he was not, there would be evidence from the text (even of the veiled or
>'between the lines' variety) that he was not dead.
this is my whole point, Dave!!!!!! Marlowe was alive. They couldn't
say it. They wanted to make certain the heat stayed off him.
If he'd been dead they could have said it.
>If you see some, what is it?
> (If not, maybe you should back down on your absolute certainty on the
>subject.)
no way.
>
>>>>But the FF is living proof that the Author, whoever he or she was, was
>>>>still alive and well in 1623, because the Author's name isn't on these
>>>>great works. Ergo the Author was still in hiding.
>
more bs dave. have you read Doris' book? What have you been doing.
The publication stream goes straight on thorough until the 1650s.
Look it up. He didn't die.
He live a long and natural life into his 90s, he kept on writing.
the evdience is in those works.
>If Marlowe was DEAD by 1623, as all the evidence suggests, he couldn't have
>written it. (You have yet to offer any EVIDENCE to the contrary.) But for the
>sake of argument, if he did -- WHY DID HE MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HE WAS DEAD?
>
>
I've explained this above. Because he didn't want anyone checking
into it. And then of course the deal with WH...WH would publish the
FF, leave out the poems that make him out the poet's son and all would
be even. he did it. it was done.
>
>> I know
>>for a fact the ads to the Elizabethian Concordance Series which are
>>signed Jean Joffan were written by Louis Ule, I saw do it.
>
>So what? Was either one of them dead at the time?
both of them were...
sure it is ...
>
>
>>>Now Greg believes
>>>>they had the scene all along, even though it never appeared in print,
>>>>i.e., not in this full version.
>>>>
>>>>But its clear to me that it was written for the FF on the face of the
>>>>Q used by the printers...rather on a sheet of paper attached to the
>>>>face.
>>>
>>>Not everything that is clear to you is clear to others. This, for example.
>>
>>true. but at least get the facts clear. the final deposition scene
>>isn't in the 1608 quarto and does not appear in its final form until
>>1623.
>
>While I'm getting the facts straight, tell me...have you read the "garbled
>version"? Do you have it? What was garbled about it?
everything
>
>
>>>>There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
>>>>which can best be explained by the author's survival.
>>>
>>>Not at all!
>>>
>>>Let's get specific.
>>>
>>>Othello? The changes could have been made by Marlowe before he died, or
>>(gasp,
>>>by an editor, such as the arrogant Jonson.)
>>
>>no. not likely.
impossible they were made on the face of the 1622 quaro...
>
>It would be VERY likely if (as the evidence suggests) the author was dead.
>
>
>>>Of course changes were made, but no has ever suggested that Stratford
>>William
>>>was alive as well? Why is that? Because the changes can be explained many
>>other
>>>ways, and the Folio makes it very clear that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare
sure they can be rationalized away but the most certain reason would
be a surviving author...
>>is
>>>d-e-a-d.
>>
>>they were also very clear he was William Shakespeare...so get real
>>Dave.
>
>Why would Marlowe have gone to this trouble? Why did he make it appear that HE
>was dead. (ANOTHER faked death! Why?)
its called an m.o. but its not another faked death. Willy was dead.
really dead. and they were cashing in on it.
>
>
>>>>But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
>>>>1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta.
>>>
>>>If this is your best proof, then give it up, John. ;)
>>
>>never
>
>Sorry to hear this, John. The word "Never" is so...oh I don't know...
>Rigidnikity? Between you and Zenner (who's also 100% certain about everything),
>I'm beginning to doubt that there will ever be consensus on the Marlowe story.
>More's the pity. I'm about ready to throw in the towel and become a
>"Shakespearean" (or 'Floriovian').
do as you please. but keep the towel out of my face.
>
>>>>I've published on
>>>>this, the world's leading paleographic authority at the BL, HK, thinks
>>>>I'm right. What I noted is that the JM is dedicated to Marlowe's
>>>>classmate TH from the KS, they were in class together there in 1579
>>>>and both boys went on to CC at Cambridge.
>
>Nice connection. Where was it published?
in n&q September 1996.
>
>
>>>Doesn't another TH (Tom Heywood) make the attribution/dedication? Why
>>couldn't
>>>HE have dedicated JM to Marlowe's friend? Marlowe himself wrote a dedication
>>to
>>>Mary Herbert, for (allegedly dead) Tom Watson in 1592. Does that mean that
>>>Watson was alive as well?
>>
>>this doesn't make sense. "Hayward" claims to have known Hammon
>>through the long compass of his years. Look it up!
>
>Easier said than done. I don't have it handy. Can't find it in Bakeless or my
>other sources. Perhaps (as your committed committee Chair, Dr. Kathman would
>do) you can type it up for us.
er that's Thomas Heywood, not Hayward...my fault.
>
>
>
>>The real Hayward
>>wasn't that old and never knew Hammon as a child. Only Marlowe knew
>>him.
>
>You can know someone a long compass of years without knowing him as a child.
>Heywood was born in 1574 (if I'm not mistaken). In 1633 he would have been
>FIFTY-NINE YEARS OLD. Certainly old enough to know someone a long compass of
>years.
>
>>>>TH became an attorney
>>>>at Greys Inn and the writer acknowledges a lifelong friendship with
>>>>him, claiming them both to be old men at the time. They were both
>>>>turning 69 that year.
>
>Heywood was 59. An old man by Elizabethan standards.
not true real Harrison, the Elizabethian...men weren't old until they
were in the 70s.
>
>
>>>This is all very interesting, but it's HEYWOOD who is speaking, no?
>>
>>no, its Marlowe, the man who went to school with Hammon.
>
>But it's signed HEYWOOD! And Heywood was a prominent writer, playwright, who
>was a member of the Lord Admiral's company in 1598. This isn't sufficient
>evidence to overturn the FOLIO evidence which states that the author (i.e. the
>REAL author) was dead. They make no bones about it.
sheilding a friend, that's all.
>
>
>> The
>>salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its English form,
>>"tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of the
>>first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
>>use of the second person in avoidance of the first. its marlowe.
>
>Perhaps someone whose Latin is better than mine can clarify. But if the
>SALUTATION is Tuissimus, the writer is greeting the Hammon as "YOU" which would
>be a natural thing to do.
>
>I'd like to see the text.
>
>>>>As I've pointed out the last known work of Marlowe appears on the same
>>>>day that V&A and TNK appeared on, i.e., 8/18 April, William Herbert's
>>>>birthday,
>
>This proves nothing. Others knew when WH's birthday was.
sure and remembered it. but Dave I know it proves nothing. if you
don't like the way the story hangs together don't buy into it.
we don't have dna evidence here. just a big picture seen from 4
centuries off.
>
>
>>>> in 1654 the year Marlowe turned 90.
>
>>>>Doris Wibert has traced
>>>>him that far in period works attributed to others.
>
>Doris is a sweet woman, but she also believes that Marlowe was actually killed
>and came back to life (from a coma).
so what, check out the books she's read
>
>
>>>
>>>John, this proves nothing. Someone could dedicate a book of mine to an old
>>>friend of mine after I died. That wouldn't make me still be alive.
>>
>>I've never claimed any of this proves anything. but its all very
>>suggestive that Marlowe live on until c. 1655. if you think he died,
>>earlier you prove it.
>
>I think I HAVE proved it. (see above). If you disagree, offer some EVIDENCE
>from the First Folio.
you haven't proven anything. citing a text that is known to be a lie
isn't proof of dick. get off the ff kick, its a waste of time.
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
>>>>for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
>>>
>>>Again, this proves nothing.
>>
>>It establishes the likelyhood that Marlowe could have survived until
>>the trail in the works ends. that good to know. if his sisters had
>>all died early it would be far less likely.
>
>Not LIKELIHOOD. Possibility. Unfortunately for your theory isn't supported by
>ANY evidence. (Hammon alone won't cut it.)
my theory is supported by evidence. the changes to the 1633 2nd
folio, the dedication to Hammon, the appearance of the lost Maiden's
Holiday, the court cases in his name, all sorts of evidence.
>
>>>The evidence of the First Folio is strong evidence that the AUTHOR was dead.
>>>There isn't the slightest HINT that he isn't. The dedicatory poems and prose
>>>are unanimous: d-e-a-d. The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
>>>irrelevant, imo.
bs.
>>
>>bs. the ff cannot be trusted.
>
>No. YOU can't be trusted.
sorry you think this dave, having a bad summer are we?
>
>
>> its the device that claims William
>>Shakespeare was the author and eveyone knew Willy was dead. Please
>>don't loose track of this.
>
>Don't lose track of THIS, John: The FF communicates on two levels. Every word
>in it is TRUE!
bs.
>
>
>>These "ads" were talking about William
>>Shakespeare not about the Author of these great works.
>
>At times, yes. At other times, no. You gotta take each mention in context. Read
>the words. Despite the claims, this wasn't a slapdash production. Ben Jonson
>(and the others) chose their words VERy carefully. (We study to be thankful...)
>
>> And they were
>>very likely to have been written by the Author himself.
>
>No, John. NOT very likely. Not likely at all. In fact, given the words of the
>TEXT, impossible.
no, not at all.
>
>
>>Who was still
>>living, as proven (or strongly suggested) by the 20,000 changes to the
>>1633 SECOND Folio, which Stratfordians have been lying about for a
>>century.
>
>Ohhh. You think MARLOWE made all those changes. And called himself John Benson?
>Can't you a offer a single piece of evidence from the FIRST Folio?
get off the ff kick, its a dead end.
baker
john_baker
Thanks for providing threaders the full text of this fascinating
dedication to Thomas Hammon.
Typing things out that others have written is something I could never
bend myself to. (My father was good at it, so maybe there is hope for
my son, Max.)
And thanks for reminding me of the difference between a "salutation"
and "a closing." In my twisted mind, "a salute" is used both as a
greeting and a parting. But you are entirely correct that I have used
it incorrectly and I will stand down on this point.
I will not, however, stand down on what I've said about "Tuissimus."
No one is disputing its Latin meaning. But I have noted it could
easily be a play on the rhetorical term "tuism". For it to be a
play, it must, of course have a real meaning and a secondary meaning.
Thus Marlowe writes, "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." and
then gives us two opposite translations or meanings: "Fear not to kill
the king tis good he die," and "Kill not the king tis good to fear the
worse."
I'm sure you understand irony...even in Latin.
All I'm saying is that the closing "Tuissimus" suggests the
extraordinary use of "tuism" to an English reader, and that "tuism"
means the "avoidance of the first person by the use of the second
person."
This meaning has nothing to do with addressing Thomas Hammon as "you"
or the writer as "I"----I mean how else can they be addressed except
as "I" and "you" in the phrase "I had no better a New-years gift to
present you with..." What could he have said? "Thomas Heywood had no
better a gift to present Thomas Hammon with..." Get real.
"Tuism" is a very special term meaning precisely what I have said it
means. "The avoidance of the first person by the use of the second
person." It obviously takes a an especial meaning in this context.
I will not stand down from this meaning. If you doubt it look it up.
By the way. Thomas Heywood (thanks for not chiding me for calling him
Hayward) has often been called a prose Shakespeare...thus a prose
Marlowe. His history books, of which he was most proud, cover the
same topics as Shakespeare's plays and he boasted he'd had a hand in
about 250 plays. So where are they?
He also boasted a Cambridge degree, which he never had and a birth
place that wasn't his. And if you check his debut appearance in London
(1594) you'll discover that his completion of the trilogy formed by
*Venus and Adonis,* * Hero and Leander* and *Oenone and Paris* turned
up on *17 May 1594.*
"His" part was *Oenone and Paris*.
You know what day that was?
That was the day *Jew of Malta* entered on. It was one year to the
day from the date of Marlowe's final arrest orders.
Go figure.
In my book that's a forty year relationship with Marlowe.
Baker
Tom Lay
>
> Reedy,
<snip the rest>
I wonder if Baker would be offended if I made a sarcastic remark about
the above being a perfect example of his abilities in determining
authorship.
Tom
john_baker
not at all tom, help yourself if it helps. we aren't dealing with dna
evidence here or finger prints. at least I don't think some country
hick wrote shakespeare without an education, an intellecual circle, or
travels. or that he wrote seditious plays insight of the tower of
london, without ever getting arrested.
i don't expect people foolish enough to believe Willy did it ever to
understand that Marlowe did it. so have at it.
hope your summer is going better than Dave's. I'm having a hoot
climbing again.
the stars are really bright at 14,400 feet...
I fell in step with the world's long distance running champ....he
confessed to covering 263 milies in 48 hours. that's TEN marathons
back to back. i'm dead after just one.
baker
Bob Grumman
stood for a week, and
>> > not single person has offered an iota of evidence dating the
Basse to
>> > 1621, or indeed any date before 1633.
>
>> > (And let's have no more go-rounds on which poem was
textually
>> > responding to which, unless there's anything definitive can
establish
>> > which came first.)
>
through
>> this before ad nauseam.
>
> Right.
>
>>You insist that there's no way to establish
>> which came first, while everybody else in the world thinks
that
>> Jonson was replying to Basse.
>
> What "everybody thinks" may be interesting, but it's not
evidence.
>
>>What would be the point of rehashing
>> all that for the umpteenth time? You're going to keep on
believing
>> you're right no matter what, and it would be a waste of
everybody's
>> time to argue about it any more.
>
> The point was only to make absolutely clear there is not
a scintilla of
>evidence predating Basse to Jonson. Thank you for the strong
>confirmation of this.
>
> --Volker
>
Nor is there a scintilla of evidence that your post above is in
answer to a post of Dave Kathman's, Moron. And don't give me any
crap about one post's having a log-in time before the other--that
doesn't mean it was WRITTEN before the other. And, of course,
the fact that one is an answer to the other is not evidence of
anything. Verily, you are thick to a Streitzian magnitude,
Multhopp.
--Bob G.
Ronald Johnsen
>
> On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 17:41:22 -0500, Tom Lay
> <tlay....@sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> >john, baker wrote (answering Terry):
> >
> >>
> >> Reedy,
> >
> ><snip the rest>
> >
> >I wonder if Baker would be offended if I made a sarcastic remark about
> >the above being a perfect example of his abilities in determining
> >authorship.
> >
> >Tom
>
> not at all tom, help yourself if it helps. we aren't dealing with dna
> evidence here or finger prints. at least I don't think some country
> hick wrote shakespeare without an education,
Stratfordians don't believe this. Stop misrepreseting the Strat
position Baker. YOU are the one who believes he is a country hick,
because you think it makes your belief in Marlowe more likely. Strats
believe (as I and others have explained to you before) that Shakespeare
would have received an education similar to what was offered to most
boys of that day: a basic grammar school education.
an intellecual circle,
How do you know he didn't have an intellectual circle. He was at least
an actor who lived in London. There is evidence he knew Ben Jonson and
probably knew lots of other actors and playwrites from his acting job
alone.
or
> travels. or that he wrote seditious plays insight of the tower of
> london, without ever getting arrested.
You refuse to give up on this seditious plays bs, huh? You have yet to
show why Richard II was a seditious play (actually it was, but not for
the reason you think it was) that would get the author in trouble. Why
would Shakespeare be in trouble when Hollingshed didn't get into trouble
for writing a history with the same seditious scene?
>
> i don't expect people foolish enough to believe Willy did it ever to
> understand that Marlowe did it. so have at it.
You might be right. However it makes it very hard for me to believe
anything you say when I can turn up numerous facts that you've made up
with only twenty minutes and one Alta Vista search. It makes me wonder
what other facts you're making up that I don't catch. To make up facts
as blatantly as you do you must assume that Stratfordians are so stupid
that we won't catch you.
>
> hope your summer is going better than Dave's. I'm having a hoot
> climbing again.
>
> the stars are really bright at 14,400 feet...
It's nice to see that you've taken my advice about not claiming to have
climbed 15,000 foot mountains in Minnesota anymore. However, this
comment is still funny.
You cannot see stars at 14,400 feet in the daytime any more than you
can see stars in the daytime at 2,000 feet. In order to see stars in the
daytime you would need to climb a mountain that touches the top of the
atmosphere which I believe is about 80,000 to 100,000 feet. Even Mount
Everest doesn't come close to that.
If you are climbing mountains at night, you really are insane. True
mountain climbing is far too dangerous to be done at night.
If by mountain climbing you mean walking up pre-cut trails (or better
yet, driving up a paved highway to the summit), then I agree with you,
the stars are quite amazing at 14,000 feet. However, this is not
mountain climbing, this is hiking.
I don't know why you insist on filling my hard drive with your
ridiculous off-topic boasts about mountain climbing but I do know this:
you don't know beans about mountain climbing. Although I am not a
mountain climber, I live in the Rocky Mountains (the city I live in is
surrounded on three sides by mountains). As such, I know a lot about
mountains and mountain climbing. I'm not sure which of your comments
makes me laugh harder: your hilarious comments about the Essex Rebellion
or your hilarious comments about mountain climbing.
Parentheticus
I'm having a fine summer, John, tyvm. I may even squeeze in some mountain
climbing in August. But how I spent my summer vacation is not all relevant to
the question of CM's YOD (year of death).
I must say, John, I'm flabbergasted by your concluding advice.
<<get off the [First Folio] kick, its a dead end.>>
The First Folio is a DEAD END? If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were
joking. Far from being a DE, the FF is a lovely tree-lined path with copious
clues to the Shakespeare authorship mystery.
At issue:
1. The Honorableness of the FF framers. I wrote:
>>But John, that would be a lie. Are you suggesting that Blount and company
>would
>>(or should) lie? These were honorable men. The publishing arrangements were
>>handled honorably (while at the same time duplicitously-- a paradox).
>>
>
>BS these men weren't living in honorable times David. You know this.
>I know this. So BS.
BS back to ya, BBJ. William and Philip Herbert (to whom the FF was dedicated)
WERE honorable men. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
>They were doing what they had to do to stay
>alive in a society that chopped off writer's hands and took out their
>bowels while they were still alive...
The published the FF was published in order for WHOM to stay alive? Have you
read Peter Dickson's essays on the Herberts and the political circumstances
surrounding the FF?
>>You haven't answered another objection. Why isn't there one single veiled
>>suggestion that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare was still alive?
>
>Why should they do this Dave...they were selling a lie to the public.
>You want them to make it clear its a lie? get real.
Do want to talk about "getting real", John? You are arguing that although
Marlowe was alive they (and he) made every effort to make it appear as if he
was DEAD! And left NO EVIDENCE to the contrary. (Not until, according to you,
TEN YEARS LATER, when, again according to you, Marlowe wrote a dedication to
one of his plays that he signed THOMAS HEYWOOD (a well-known author who WAS
still alive). I dispute this for reasons given below.
>>Why would Christopher want to make it SEEM like he was dead in the prose and
>>poems accompanying the FF, which makes it UNEQUIVOCAL that he is dead.
>>
>>If he was not, there would be evidence from the text (even of the veiled or
>>'between the lines' variety) that he was not dead.
>
>this is my whole point, Dave!!!!!! Marlowe was alive. They couldn't
>say it. They wanted to make certain the heat stayed off him.
WHAT HEAT??????? Do you really think King James was not aware of Marlowe's
afterlife? Who, pray tell, was after him?
.
>If he'd been dead they could have said it.
NO!!!!!!!!! In the court of public opinion he was a convicted ATHEIST,
BLASPHEMER, SODOMIST. Do you really believe that King James wouldn't have had a
MAJOR problem with that? (or that today's monarch still wouldn't still) You've
got some real-getting to do yourself. (He was dead by the time the FF came out.
That's what the BASSE POEM, the OTHELLO title page ref, and the FF itself, say.
There's not a scrap of internal or external evidence to suggest otherwise. I
know you've had this Methusaleh-Marlowe idea for quite some time, and it's hard
to give up cherished beliefs, but without any evidence, it falls dead in the
water.)
>>If you see some, what is it?
>> (If not, maybe you should back down on your absolute certainty on the
>>subject.)
>
>no way.
Sorry to hear that. I'd taken you for a truth-seeker, not as someone who needed
to be "right." Or someone who was married to a "pet theory."
<snip>
>>If Marlowe was DEAD by 1623, as all the evidence suggests, he couldn't have
>>written it. (You have yet to offer any EVIDENCE to the contrary.) But for
>the
>>sake of argument, if he did -- WHY DID HE MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HE WAS DEAD?
>>
>>
>I've explained this above. Because he didn't want anyone checking
>into it.
Explain WHO would be "checking into it".
<snip>
>
>>
>>> I know
>>>for a fact the ads to the Elizabethian Concordance Series which are
>>>signed Jean Joffan were written by Louis Ule, I saw do it.
>>
>>So what? Was either one of them dead at the time?
>
>both of them were...
Louis Ule was DEAD when he wrote the ads that were signed by Jean Jofen who was
also dead? This makes no sense--even if they were both ALIVE at the time, which
they were. As far as I know Dr. J. still is. I spoke to her about a year ago.
You overestimate the importance of the FF *RII*
>>>That's all. The real scene, the one we know today
>>>didn't appear in print until 1622. A Major Point.
>>
>>It's not a major point to proving that the Marlowe was alive in 1623.
>
>sure it is ...
NO IT ISN'T. It is only evidence (if it is true) that RII was revised sometime
between 1608 and 1623.
>>
>>
>>>>>There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
>>>>>which can best be explained by the author's survival.
>>>>
>>>>Not at all!
>>>>
>>>>Let's get specific.
>>>>
>>>>Othello? The changes could have been made by Marlowe before he died, or
>>>(gasp,
>>>>by an editor, such as the arrogant Jonson.)
>>>
>>>no. not likely.
>
>impossible they were made on the face of the 1622 quaro...
>>
>>It would be VERY likely if (as the evidence suggests) the author was dead.
>>
>>
>>>>Of course changes were made, but no has ever suggested that Stratford
>>>William
>>>>was alive as well? Why is that? Because the changes can be explained many
>>>other
>>>>ways, and the Folio makes it very clear that the AUTHOR William
>Shakespeare
>
>sure they can be rationalized away but the most certain reason would
>be a surviving author...
>>>is
>>>>d-e-a-d.
>>>
>>>they were also very clear he was William Shakespeare...so get real
>>>Dave.
NO THEY WEREN'T, JOHN. There was definite ambiguity in the FF. For instance Ben
Jonson's claim regarding the plays: "they out-living him, and he not having the
fate, common with some, to be exequutor to his own writings." This statement
may arguably apply to William (who lived long enough to have published them if
they were his), but better to CM. Another example: he writes that the Herbert
brothers "prosecuted the author living with so much favor." Did THIS apply to
Stratford William too do you think? Indeed, let's "get real."
>>
>>Why would Marlowe have gone to this trouble? Why did he make it appear that
>HE
>>was dead. (ANOTHER faked death! Why?)
>
>its called an m.o. but its not another faked death. Willy was dead.
>really dead. and they were cashing in on it.
Why THEN????? Be sure to take a look at PWDBards essays on the FF.
>>>>>But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
>>>>>1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta.
>>>>
>>>>If this is your best proof, then give it up, John. ;)
>>>
>>>never
>>
>>Sorry to hear this, John. The word "Never" is so...oh I don't know...
>>Rigidnikity? Between you and Zenner (who's also 100% certain about
>everything),
>>I'm beginning to doubt that there will ever be consensus on the Marlowe
>story.
>>More's the pity. I'm about ready to throw in the towel and become a
>>"Shakespearean" (or 'Floriovian').
>
>do as you please. but keep the towel out of my face.
I'll try. But you're all wet on this one, my friend. You need some dry wit.
<snip>
On Heywood's age:
>>>>Doesn't another TH (Tom Heywood) make the attribution/dedication? Why
>>>couldn't
>>>>HE have dedicated JM to Marlowe's friend? Marlowe himself wrote a
>dedication
>>>to
>>>>Mary Herbert, for (allegedly dead) Tom Watson in 1592. Does that mean that
>>>>Watson was alive as well?
>>>
>>>this doesn't make sense. "Hayward" claims to have known Hammon
>>>through the long compass of his years. Look it up!
>>
<snip>
>>>The real Hayward
>>>wasn't that old and never knew Hammon as a child. Only Marlowe knew
>>>him.
>>
>>You can know someone a long compass of years without knowing him as a child.
>>Heywood was born in 1574 (if I'm not mistaken). In 1633 he would have been
>>FIFTY-NINE YEARS OLD. Certainly old enough to know someone a long compass
>of
>>years.
>>
>>>>>TH became an attorney
>>>>>at Greys Inn and the writer acknowledges a lifelong friendship with
>>>>>him, claiming them both to be old men at the time. They were both
>>>>>turning 69 that year.
>>
>>Heywood was 59. An old man by Elizabethan standards.
>
>not true real Harrison, the Elizabethian...men weren't old until they
>were in the 70s.
Heywood was 59. Old enough to have known Hammon "through the long compass of
years." Period.
>>>>This is all very interesting, but it's HEYWOOD who is speaking, no?
>>>
>>>no, its Marlowe, the man who went to school with Hammon.
>>
>>But it's signed HEYWOOD! And Heywood was a prominent writer, playwright, who
>>was a member of the Lord Admiral's company in 1598. This isn't sufficient
>>evidence to overturn the FOLIO evidence which states that the author (i.e.
>the
>>REAL author) was dead. They make no bones about it.
>
>sheilding a friend, that's all.
Giving honor to dead friend, more likely.
>>> The
>>>salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its English form,
>>>"tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of the
>>>first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
>>>use of the second person in avoidance of the first. its marlowe.
>>
>>Perhaps someone whose Latin is better than mine can clarify. But if the
>>SALUTATION is Tuissimus, the writer is greeting the Hammon as "YOU" which
>would
>>be a natural thing to do.
>>
>>I'd like to see the text.
Thanks to Terry Ross for providing it along with a helpful clarification of the
meaning of TUISSIMUS - "YOURS" (in the superlative degree.)
<snip>
>>>>John, this proves nothing. Someone could dedicate a book of mine to an old
>>>>friend of mine after I died. That wouldn't make me still be alive.
>>>
>>>I've never claimed any of this proves anything.
But you say that you will NEVER back down on your claim.
>>>but its all very
>>>suggestive that Marlowe live on until c. 1655. if you think he died,
>>>earlier you prove it.
>>
>>I think I HAVE proved it. (see above). If you disagree, offer some EVIDENCE
>>from the First Folio.
>
>you haven't proven anything. citing a text that is known to be a lie
>isn't proof of dick. get off the ff kick, its a waste of time.
On the other hand, the 1633 Thomas Heywood dedication you cite IS proof of
dick? You've got your dick in your hand, alright. ;)
>>>>>We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
>>>>>for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
>>>>
>>>>Again, this proves nothing.
>>>
>>>It establishes the likelyhood that Marlowe could have survived until
>>>the trail in the works ends. that good to know. if his sisters had
>>>all died early it would be far less likely.
>>
>>Not LIKELIHOOD. Possibility. Unfortunately for your theory isn't supported
>by
>>ANY evidence. (Hammon alone won't cut it.)
>
>my theory is supported by evidence. the changes to the 1633 2nd
>folio, the dedication to Hammon, the appearance of the lost Maiden's
>Holiday, the court cases in his name, all sorts of evidence.
The first piece of "evidence" is Heywood's dedication of *JM* to TH?
>>>>The evidence of the First Folio is strong evidence that the AUTHOR was
>dead.
>>>>There isn't the slightest HINT that he isn't. The dedicatory poems and
>prose
>>>>are unanimous: d-e-a-d. The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
>>>>irrelevant, imo.
>
>bs.
BS back at ya.
>>>
>>>bs. the ff cannot be trusted.
>>
>>No. YOU can't be trusted.
>
>sorry you think this dave, having a bad summer are we?
I'm having a great summer. See above. But it seems as if you've let your
mountain climbing deprive your brain of the oxygen needed to think clearly
about this matter.
>>> its the device that claims William
>>>Shakespeare was the author and eveyone knew Willy was dead. Please
>>>don't loose track of this.
>>
>>Don't lose track of THIS, John: The FF communicates on two levels. Every
>word
>>in it is TRUE!
>
>bs.
NOT BS. The FF communicates on TWO LEVELS, since there were TWO SHAKESPEARES.
William the actor, and (the concealed author by that name, aka) Marlowe.
>>>These "ads" were talking about William
>>>Shakespeare not about the Author of these great works.
You're wrong, John. Maybe you should read the prefatory matter again. There's
nothing in it that could not point to Marlowe.
>>At times, yes. At other times, no. You gotta take each mention in context.
>Read
>>the words. Despite the claims, this wasn't a slapdash production. Ben Jonson
>>(and the others) chose their words VERy carefully. (We study to be
>thankful...)
>>
>>> And they were
>>>very likely to have been written by the Author himself.
>>
>>No, John. NOT very likely. Not likely at all. In fact, given the words of
>the
>>TEXT, impossible.
>
>no, not at all.
Yes. At all.
>>>Who was still
>>>living, as proven (or strongly suggested) by the 20,000 changes to the
>>>1633 SECOND Folio, which Stratfordians have been lying about for a
>>>century.
>>
>>You think MARLOWE made all those changes. And called himself John
>Benson?
>>Can't you a offer a single piece of evidence from the FIRST Folio?
>
>get off the ff kick, its a dead end.
It's not REALLY dead, John. You're just supposed to think it is. ;)
David L. Webb
<tlay....@sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> john, baker wrote (answering Terry):
>
> >
> > Reedy,
>
> <snip the rest>
>
> I wonder if Baker would be offended if I made a sarcastic remark about
> the above being a perfect example of his abilities in determining
> authorship.
>
> Tom
Dr. Stritmatter made almost the same mistake, unleashing a furious
and wholly unjustfied attack on Terry Ross, to whose post he evidently
thought that he was responding, when in fact the post's author was Tom
Reedy.
This incident calls to mind a curious phenomenon: the most blatant
errors and the most improbable suggestions have an odd way of
resurfacing periodically, perhaps slightly altered. As an example, Mr.
Zenner's exegesis of Sonnet 153 (that it is about Edward Stanley's
penis) was anticipated by Art Neuendorffer's prior discovery that
Sonnet 20 was written by the Earl of Oxford, addressing his own penis.
Or, Art's suggestion that in reference to the Shakespeare monument, the
word "moniment" means "laughingstock" (a sense the word did not acquire
until near the beginning of the 19th century, and in Scottish dialect
at that) was anticipated by the equally tenuous scholarship of Richard
Kennedy, who had made the same suggestion earlier. I suspect that in
both cases, the parallel discoveries were made independently, as I've
never seen these gems in the standard anti-Stratfordian sources,
although it is possible that there is a reservoir of canards that
circulate by word of mouth without ever being committed to print.
I am reminded of a caustic review by Clifford Truesdell of a
scientific paper. The review begins:
"This paper, whose intent is stated in its title, gives wrong solutions
to trivial problems. The basic error, however, is not new...."
David Webb
john_baker
wrote:
>To Baker and all the chips at sea--
>
>I'm having a fine summer, John, tyvm. I may even squeeze in some mountain
>climbing in August. But how I spent my summer vacation is not all relevant to
>the question of CM's YOD (year of death).
>
>I must say, John, I'm flabbergasted by your concluding advice.
>
><<get off the [First Folio] kick, its a dead end.>>
>
>The First Folio is a DEAD END? If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were
>joking. Far from being a DE, the FF is a lovely tree-lined path with copious
>clues to the Shakespeare authorship mystery.
>
>At issue:
>
>1. The Honorableness of the FF framers. I wrote:
>
>>>But John, that would be a lie. Are you suggesting that Blount and company
>>would
>>>(or should) lie? These were honorable men. The publishing arrangements were
>>>handled honorably (while at the same time duplicitously-- a paradox).
>>>
>>
>>BS these men weren't living in honorable times David. You know this.
>>I know this. So BS.
>
>BS back to ya, BBJ. William and Philip Herbert (to whom the FF was dedicated)
>WERE honorable men. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
Have you read a biography of Herbert? I have. And I stick by my guns
on this point. Your major thesis David is that a FF that lies about
the authorship of these great plays, that lies about the content of
the FF itself, that lies about the source of the copy, i.e., from new
mss. or simply reprinting old quartos, is to be believed about the
author's death. What have you been smoking? If the author had died
and this was Truth, it would be the only thing in the ads that is
True. So find another tailsman.
>
>
>>They were doing what they had to do to stay
>>alive in a society that chopped off writer's hands and took out their
>>bowels while they were still alive...
>
>The published the FF was published in order for WHOM to stay alive? Have you
>read Peter Dickson's essays on the Herberts and the political circumstances
>surrounding the FF?
no I have not. but I'd love to. where is it?
>
>
>>>You haven't answered another objection. Why isn't there one single veiled
>>>suggestion that the AUTHOR William Shakespeare was still alive?
>>
>>Why should they do this Dave...they were selling a lie to the public.
>>You want them to make it clear its a lie? get real.
>
>Do want to talk about "getting real", John? You are arguing that although
>Marlowe was alive they (and he) made every effort to make it appear as if he
>was DEAD! And left NO EVIDENCE to the contrary. (Not until, according to you,
>TEN YEARS LATER, when, again according to you, Marlowe wrote a dedication to
>one of his plays that he signed THOMAS HEYWOOD (a well-known author who WAS
>still alive). I dispute this for reasons given below.
he was working through a friendship, no more, no less.
>
>
>>>Why would Christopher want to make it SEEM like he was dead in the prose and
>>>poems accompanying the FF, which makes it UNEQUIVOCAL that he is dead.
its part of the pitch, dave, the proof is in the continuation of the
works
>>>
>>>If he was not, there would be evidence from the text (even of the veiled or
>>>'between the lines' variety) that he was not dead.
>>
>>this is my whole point, Dave!!!!!! Marlowe was alive. They couldn't
>>say it. They wanted to make certain the heat stayed off him.
>
>WHAT HEAT??????? Do you really think King James was not aware of Marlowe's
>afterlife? Who, pray tell, was after him?
the judical apprtus. of England
>.
>
>>If he'd been dead they could have said it.
>
>NO!!!!!!!!! In the court of public opinion he was a convicted ATHEIST,
>BLASPHEMER, SODOMIST. Do you really believe that King James wouldn't have had a
>MAJOR problem with that? (or that today's monarch still wouldn't still) You've
>got some real-getting to do yourself. (He was dead by the time the FF came out.
>That's what the BASSE POEM, the OTHELLO title page ref, and the FF itself, say.
>There's not a scrap of internal or external evidence to suggest otherwise. I
>know you've had this Methusaleh-Marlowe idea for quite some time, and it's hard
>to give up cherished beliefs, but without any evidence, it falls dead in the
>water.)
bs. the proof is in the contiuation of the works. no one is disputing
that the actor died and that people must have known about it dave.
the basse poem is evidence enough of that, but it doesn't mean
shakespeare was the author or that the author was dead. what's your
problem here. i don't have a belief about this material. i've stated
why i think Marlowe survived until 1654, the registration trail and
the works continue until then, he carried the genes for a long life,
and there is no evidence he actually died prior to this, unless you
have found something...
>
>
>>>If you see some, what is it?
>>> (If not, maybe you should back down on your absolute certainty on the
>>>subject.)
>>
>>no way.
>
>Sorry to hear that. I'd taken you for a truth-seeker, not as someone who needed
>to be "right." Or someone who was married to a "pet theory."
get off that kick, see above. I don't know if Marlowe was
Shakespeare, I only think he was based on the cited evidence. I don't
know when he died, I only think he died when the works ended and his
natural life came to a natural end. You, dear friend, are clinging to
a belief. You believe he died prior to the FF's publication and for no
good reason I can see.
>
><snip>
>
>>>If Marlowe was DEAD by 1623, as all the evidence suggests, he couldn't have
>>>written it. (You have yet to offer any EVIDENCE to the contrary.) But for
>>the
>>>sake of argument, if he did -- WHY DID HE MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HE WAS DEAD?
>>>
>>>
>>I've explained this above. Because he didn't want anyone checking
>>into it.
>
>Explain WHO would be "checking into it".
the judical appratus. of England, the Chruch, all those witch hunters.
>
>
><snip>
>
>>
>>>
>>>> I know
>>>>for a fact the ads to the Elizabethian Concordance Series which are
>>>>signed Jean Joffan were written by Louis Ule, I saw do it.
>>>
>>>So what? Was either one of them dead at the time?
>>
>>both of them were...
>
>Louis Ule was DEAD when he wrote the ads that were signed by Jean Jofen who was
>also dead? This makes no sense--even if they were both ALIVE at the time, which
>they were. As far as I know Dr. J. still is. I spoke to her about a year ago.
Dave, can't you tell when I'm joking?
>
>You overestimate the importance of the FF *RII*
>
>>>>That's all. The real scene, the one we know today
>>>>didn't appear in print until 1622. A Major Point.
>>>
>>>It's not a major point to proving that the Marlowe was alive in 1623.
>>
>>sure it is ...
>
>NO IT ISN'T. It is only evidence (if it is true) that RII was revised sometime
>between 1608 and 1623.
>
by the author
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>There are many other similar changes that date to the 1622/23 period
>>>>>>which can best be explained by the author's survival.
>>>>>
>>>>>Not at all!
>>>>>
>>>>>Let's get specific.
>>>>>
>>>>>Othello? The changes could have been made by Marlowe before he died, or
>>>>(gasp,
>>>>>by an editor, such as the arrogant Jonson.)
>>>>
>>>>no. not likely.
>>
>>impossible they were made on the face of the 1622 quaro...
>>>
>>>It would be VERY likely if (as the evidence suggests) the author was dead.
bs. no evidence suggests this
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Of course changes were made, but no has ever suggested that Stratford
>>>>William
>>>>>was alive as well? Why is that? Because the changes can be explained many
>>>>other
>>>>>ways, and the Folio makes it very clear that the AUTHOR William
>>Shakespeare
>>
>>sure they can be rationalized away but the most certain reason would
>>be a surviving author...
>>>>is
>>>>>d-e-a-d.
more of your opinions here dave, roll over, wake up, marlowe continued
to write until 1654 its in the record books
>>>>
>>>>they were also very clear he was William Shakespeare...so get real
>>>>Dave.
>
>NO THEY WEREN'T, JOHN. There was definite ambiguity in the FF. For instance Ben
>Jonson's claim regarding the plays: "they out-living him, and he not having the
>fate, common with some, to be exequutor to his own writings." This statement
>may arguably apply to William (who lived long enough to have published them if
>they were his), but better to CM.
more pipe dreams these words were drafted to sell editions of the FF,
no more, no less and they aren't any different than millions of other
ads.
>Another example: he writes that the Herbert
>brothers "prosecuted the author living with so much favor." Did THIS apply to
>Stratford William too do you think? Indeed, let's "get real."
>
>
>>>
>>>Why would Marlowe have gone to this trouble? Why did he make it appear that
>>HE
>>>was dead. (ANOTHER faked death! Why?)
>>
>>its called an m.o. but its not another faked death. Willy was dead.
>>really dead. and they were cashing in on it.
>
>Why THEN????? Be sure to take a look at PWDBards essays on the FF.
>
>>>>>>But clearly the best proof of Marlowe's survival all the way until
>>>>>>1633 is the appearance of his The Jew of Malta.
>>>>>
>>>>>If this is your best proof, then give it up, John. ;)
>>>>
>>>>never
>>>
>>>Sorry to hear this, John. The word "Never" is so...oh I don't know...
>>>Rigidnikity? Between you and Zenner (who's also 100% certain about
>>everything),
>>>I'm beginning to doubt that there will ever be consensus on the Marlowe
>>story.
>>>More's the pity. I'm about ready to throw in the towel and become a
>>>"Shakespearean" (or 'Floriovian').
>>
>>do as you please. but keep the towel out of my face.
>
>I'll try. But you're all wet on this one, my friend. You need some dry wit.
bs.
>
>
><snip>
>
>On Heywood's age:
>
>>>>>Doesn't another TH (Tom Heywood) make the attribution/dedication? Why
>>>>couldn't
>>>>>HE have dedicated JM to Marlowe's friend? Marlowe himself wrote a
>>dedication
>>>>to
>>>>>Mary Herbert, for (allegedly dead) Tom Watson in 1592. Does that mean that
>>>>>Watson was alive as well?
more bs. if marlowe was alive in 1633 and working through Heywood the
dedication makes good sesne. its not very likely that Heywood would
be good friends with marlowe's classmate from the KS and CC...dave it
was a big, big world. these two men were from different generations
and different walks of life, but it is sensible that Marlowe would be
his friend.
more bs
>
>
>
>>>> The
>>>>salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its English form,
>>>>"tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of the
>>>>first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
>>>>use of the second person in avoidance of the first. its marlowe.
>>>
>>>Perhaps someone whose Latin is better than mine can clarify. But if the
>>>SALUTATION is Tuissimus, the writer is greeting the Hammon as "YOU" which
>>would
>>>be a natural thing to do.
>>>
>>>I'd like to see the text.
>
>Thanks to Terry Ross for providing it along with a helpful clarification of the
>meaning of TUISSIMUS - "YOURS" (in the superlative degree.)
>
><snip>
>
>
>>>>>John, this proves nothing. Someone could dedicate a book of mine to an old
>>>>>friend of mine after I died. That wouldn't make me still be alive.
>>>>
>>>>I've never claimed any of this proves anything.
>
>
>But you say that you will NEVER back down on your claim.
not unless you have something in the way of evidence that marlowe died
prior to the end of his publication stream
>
>
>>>>but its all very
>>>>suggestive that Marlowe live on until c. 1655. if you think he died,
>>>>earlier you prove it.
>>>
>>>I think I HAVE proved it. (see above). If you disagree, offer some EVIDENCE
>>>from the First Folio.
>>
>>you haven't proven anything. citing a text that is known to be a lie
>>isn't proof of dick. get off the ff kick, its a waste of time.
>
>On the other hand, the 1633 Thomas Heywood dedication you cite IS proof of
>dick? You've got your dick in your hand, alright. ;)
always
>
>
>>>>>>We know his sisters lived nearly as long, so we know he had the genes
>>>>>>for this kind of long life. He died c. 1654.
>>>>>
>>>>>Again, this proves nothing.
>>>>
>>>>It establishes the likelyhood that Marlowe could have survived until
>>>>the trail in the works ends. that good to know. if his sisters had
>>>>all died early it would be far less likely.
>>>
>>>Not LIKELIHOOD. Possibility. Unfortunately for your theory isn't supported
>>by
>>>ANY evidence. (Hammon alone won't cut it.)
the publication stream continues on time
>>
>>my theory is supported by evidence. the changes to the 1633 2nd
>>folio, the dedication to Hammon, the appearance of the lost Maiden's
>>Holiday, the court cases in his name, all sorts of evidence.
>
>The first piece of "evidence" is Heywood's dedication of *JM* to TH?
no.
>
>
>>>>>The evidence of the First Folio is strong evidence that the AUTHOR was
>>dead.
>>>>>There isn't the slightest HINT that he isn't. The dedicatory poems and
>>prose
>>>>>are unanimous: d-e-a-d. The fact that Marlowe's sisters lived long is
>>>>>irrelevant, imo.
>>
>>bs.
>
>BS back at ya.
>
>
>>>>
>>>>bs. the ff cannot be trusted.
>>>
>>>No. YOU can't be trusted.
>>
>>sorry you think this dave, having a bad summer are we?
>
>I'm having a great summer. See above. But it seems as if you've let your
>mountain climbing deprive your brain of the oxygen needed to think clearly
>about this matter.
not hardly
good I do.
baker
Terry Ross
TR curse, whose victims are unable to distinguish the posts of Tom Reedy
from those of Terry Ross. I have tried in the past to offer hints on how
to tell the difference: my posts are always signed "Terry Ross" while
Tom's posts are NEVER signed "Terry Ross." My posts almost always include
a link to the Shakespeare Authorship page.
The injustice here is that Tom sometimes gets credit for contributions of
mine that other readers have found useful but never gets any abuse that
was meant for me, while I never get credit for Tom's excellent posts but
have sometimes been strongly chastised for something Tom said that upset
one of our members. The choicest example was Roger Stritmatter's losing
it completely last year. Roger got so ticked off at me (at something Tom
said) that he created a thread on this newsgroup whose title is too rude
for me to quote. I don't recall there being anything wrong with Tom's
post, but Roger is not a particularly stable person on his good days.
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, John Baker said:
> Reedy,
>
> Thanks for providing threaders the full text of this fascinating
> dedication to Thomas Hammon.
That was me, Harvey, not Tom.
> Typing things out that others have written is something I could never
> bend myself to. (My father was good at it, so maybe there is hope for
> my son, Max.)
My best to you and little Tex.
> And thanks for reminding me of the difference between a "salutation"
> and "a closing." In my twisted mind, "a salute" is used both as a
> greeting and a parting. But you are entirely correct that I have used
> it incorrectly and I will stand down on this point.
OK; I'm canceling Def-Con 4.
>
> I will not, however, stand down on what I've said about "Tuissimus."
Then sit down. You were, whatever the posture, wrong.
> No one is disputing its Latin meaning.
You said nothing about the word's having a Latin meaning. Here is what you
have said:
June 17, 1999: The printed salutation "Tuissimus" seems (in its double
meaning) a play on the rhetorical word "Tuism" which would thus mean the
"extraordinary use of the second person in avoidance of the first."
July 12, 2000: The salutation is "Tuissimus" this is a word that in its
English form, "tuism" means "the use of the second person in avoidance of
the first." Look it up. With that ending it would mean the extraordinary
use of the second person in avoidance of the first.
July 26, 2000: Notice the salutation "Tuissimus" looks a lot like a play
on the word "tusim" which means the avoidance of the first person by the
use of the second person.... That's good proof right of a "front man."
Here is what I said on July 13, 2000: "Tuissimus" is the superlative of
"tuus" (yours), and is not the salutation but the closing. It is the
equivalent of such closings as "very truly yours" or "sincerely yours."
If you would rather translate the word as "wholly yours," or "entirely
yours" or "yours to the utmost," that would be fine, but I was translating
into an idiom we still use for closings today.
> But I have noted it could easily be a play on the rhetorical term
> "tuism".
No it could not be; that word would not exist until the end of the 18th
Century.
> For it to be a play, it must, of course have a real meaning and a
> secondary meaning.
>
> Thus Marlowe writes, "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." and
> then gives us two opposite translations or meanings: "Fear not to kill
> the king tis good he die," and "Kill not the king tis good to fear the
> worse."
>
> I'm sure you understand irony...even in Latin.
The point of that sentence is that it is "unpointed" (i.e., unpunctuated).
Put a comma after "timere" and you order Edward's death; put the comma
after "nolite" instead and you forbid his murder.
>
> All I'm saying is that the closing "Tuissimus" suggests the
> extraordinary use of "tuism" to an English reader, and that "tuism"
> means the "avoidance of the first person by the use of the second
> person."
It could not have suggested any such thing to a 17th-Century English
reader. The word was first used by Coleridge, the source of the first two
instances of the word in the OED:
"1796 COLERIDGE Watchman 9 Mar. 38 Omitting the long preambles..and the
whole parade of egotisms and tuisms: we shall select from each speech
[etc.].
"1809-10 Friend (1818) I. iv. 36 For one piece of egotism that presents
itself under its own honest bare face of I myself I, there are fifty that
steal out in the mask of tuisms and ille-isms."
Coleridge also gave us "ille-ism." Both words are formed on the model of
"egotism."
The OED defines the word differently from you:
"A form of expression involving the use of the pronoun thou, or implying
reference to a second person; also, in Ethics, primary regard to the
interests of another person or persons (opp. to EGOISM 2, EGOTISM 2); in
Philos., the doctrine that all thought is addressed to a second person, or
person (Cent. Dict. 1891; cf. EGOISM 1)."
> This meaning has nothing to do with addressing Thomas Hammon as "you"
> or the writer as "I"----I mean how else can they be addressed except
> as "I" and "you" in the phrase "I had no better a New-years gift to
> present you with..." What could he have said? "Thomas Heywood had no
> better a gift to present Thomas Hammon with..." Get real.
"Tuissimus" is the equivalent of "very truly yours." Here is the last
part of the letter:
"I had no better a new-year's gift to present you with; receive it
therefore as a continuance of that inviolable obligement, by which he
rests still engaged, who, as he ever hath, shall always remain,
Tuissimus,
Tho. Heywood."
Now let us replace "Tuissimus" with "Very truly yours" and see whether it
makes sense:
"I had no better a new-year's gift to present you with; receive it
therefore as a continuance of that inviolable obligement, by which he
rests still engaged, who, as he ever hath, shall always remain,
Very truly yours,
Tho. Heywood."
Now let us replace it with your "definition"
"I had no better a new-year's gift to present you with; receive it
therefore as a continuance of that inviolable obligement, by which he
rests still engaged, who, as he ever hath, shall always remain,
The extraordinary use of the second person in avoidance of the first,
Tho. Heywood."
Nope, that doesn't work at all. You are, once again, wrong.
> "Tuism" is a very special term meaning precisely what I have said it
> means. "The avoidance of the first person by the use of the second
> person." It obviously takes a an especial meaning in this context.
It obviously does not. The word would not exist for more than a century
and a half, and when we try to replace "Tuissimus" with your definition of
"tuism" the result is mildly amusing nonsense.
> I will not stand down from this meaning.
If I post corrections to your errors it is not because I expect you to
change your mistaken ideas but because other people might be led astray.
In this particular case, David More asked the newsgroup for information
about "tuissimus," which I was glad to offer. I really hadn't noticed
that you have been on this "tuissimus" kick for quite a while, because I
don't generally read your posts.
> If you doubt it look it up.
I have. Get thee to an OED and look up "tuism" yourself. When did the
word appear in the English language?
> By the way. Thomas Heywood (thanks for not chiding me for calling him
> Hayward) has often been called a prose Shakespeare...thus a prose
> Marlowe. His history books, of which he was most proud, cover the
> same topics as Shakespeare's plays and he boasted he'd had a hand in
> about 250 plays. So where are they?
In a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall's front porch.
Peter Farey
>
> John Baker wrote:
> >
> > Thus Marlowe writes, "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." and
> > then gives us two opposite translations or meanings: "Fear not to kill
> > the king tis good he die," and "Kill not the king tis good to fear the
> > worse."
> >
> > I'm sure you understand irony...even in Latin.
>
> The point of that sentence is that it is "unpointed" (i.e., unpunctuated).
> Put a comma after "timere" and you order Edward's death; put the comma
> after "nolite" instead and you forbid his murder.
Yes, John. It's like the unpointed phrase on the monument
"WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE".
Put a comma after "MONVMENT" and it's Shakspeare who is "placed"
there; put another after "WITH" and it's someone else.
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
> >
> > John Baker wrote:
> > >
> > > Thus Marlowe writes, "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." and
> > > then gives us two opposite translations or meanings: "Fear not to kill
> > > the king tis good he die," and "Kill not the king tis good to fear the
> > > worse."
> > >
> > > I'm sure you understand irony...even in Latin.
> >
> > The point of that sentence is that it is "unpointed" (i.e., unpunctuated).
> > Put a comma after "timere" and you order Edward's death; put the comma
> > after "nolite" instead and you forbid his murder.
>
> Yes, John. It's like the unpointed phrase on the monument
> "WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE".
> Put a comma after "MONVMENT" and it's Shakspeare who is "placed"
> there; put another after "WITH" and it's someone else.
No, in both cases Shakespeare is there; in the second case you might
imagine that he has company, but readers of the time would have taken
"WITH IN" to mean "WITHIN," so your second comma wouldn't occur to them.
In the absence of additional punctuation Shakespeare is still there. Of
course the Latin sentence from *Edward II* is a complete text; what you
are quoting is part of a poem. Here is how Dugdale gave the poem:
Stay, passenger why goest thou by soe fast,
Read, if thou canst whom envious death hath plact
w(th)in this monument Shakspeare with whome
Quick nature dyed, whose name doth deck the tombe
Far more than cost, sith all that he hath writ
Leaves living art but page to serue his witt.
My source is Spielman's image of the page from Dugdale, and it's possible
there is faint punctuation I have missed, but that does not matter.
Dugdale understands "WITH IN" as "within" (he actually abbreviates the
word, giving a "w," a superscript "th" and "in"). Dugdale understands
"SIEH" as "sith," which suggests that this man, who had a great deal more
experience looking at 17th Century inscriptions than you or I probably
have, was not fazed by the evident mistake (and you have agreed that such
mistakes are not uncommon). Moreover, Dugdale is in no doubt that the
monument is that of William Shakespeare and only William Shakespeare.
That also seems to be the opinion of every other visitor to the scene who
left a record over the rest of the 17th Century. Those who were closest
to the carving of the inscription do not seem to have suspected the puzzle
for whose brilliance you have been congratulating yourself, the sole
discoverer and sole believer. (Those who claim to have found
Shakespearean ciphers commonly praise themselves by commenting on the
"brilliance" of the alleged cipherer, but such encomiums are in essence
self-directed).
While we're on the subject, a few other points:
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Peter Farey wrote:
> Bob Grumman wrote:
> >
> > Shakespeare is not writing, he is displaying the tools of his
> > trade.
>
> But hiding the ink.
Hiding the ink? What makes you think the absence of ink would have been
regarded by a contemporary as suspicious in such a monument? I don't see
any ink in the 1605 John Stow monument, but he seems to be writing:
http://www.clark.net/tross/ws/stow.html
You neglected a more important absence in Shakespeare's monument: the
man's legs. The inkless Stow as least has legs under him. Were
Shakespeare's legs been lost in some horrid agricultural accident? Had an
enraged Marlowe sliced them off using the very knife with which he had
been killed? Who can say? There are references to lameness in the
sonnets, but they hardly prepare us for the shock of an legless bard.
On the use of colons, you might see Percy Simpson, *Shakespeare's
Punctuation*, or flip though books of the period to see how colons
actually were used rather than insisting that the colon before "SIEH" had
to be a full stop, as you tell us your puzzle requires. If the larger
capital letter beginning "SIEH" indicates the presence of a full stop
before it, what do the large capital letters beginning "FAR" and "LEAVES"
mean? They do not follow periods or even colons, but commas. They are
the first words of lines of verse, but so are "READ," "WITH," and "QUICK,"
which do not have larger capitals. If you are going to claim that your
puzzle "is the only interpretation ever to take such things as they stand"
then you should be able to offer a full and consistent account of every
feature of the inscription, since your puzzle requires that the
inscription could not have been different, that all of its accidentals are
deliberate.
One other point: "Read if thou canst" may have been more common than you
suppose. See http://home.clara.net/badeleia/slabs.htm
On a slab in the Badley Church in Suffolk are these lines for the dead
infant Henry Poley (d. 1630):
"Read if thou canst & mourne not his name & stogke being knowe
for they will tell what pitie twas, he has but borne & shavne"
I doubt these lines are meant to quote Shakespeare's monument.
Peter Farey
>
>Peter Farey wrote:
>>
>>Terry Ross wrote:
>>>
>>>John Baker wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Thus Marlowe writes, "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." and
>>>>then gives us two opposite translations or meanings: "Fear not to kill
>>>>the king tis good he die," and "Kill not the king tis good to fear the
>>>>worse."
>>>>
>>>>I'm sure you understand irony...even in Latin.
>>>
>>>The point of that sentence is that it is "unpointed" (i.e., unpunctuated).
>>>Put a comma after "timere" and you order Edward's death; put the comma
>>>after "nolite" instead and you forbid his murder.
>>
>>Yes, John. It's like the unpointed phrase on the monument
>>"WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE".
>>Put a comma after "MONVMENT" and it's Shakspeare who is "placed"
>>there; put another after "WITH" and it's someone else.
>
>No, in both cases Shakespeare is there; in the second case you might
>imagine that he has company, but readers of the time would have taken
>"WITH IN" to mean "WITHIN," so your second comma wouldn't occur to them.
Yes, it's clever isn't it? Yet what I said is quite true.
Look:
- whom envious Death hath placed within this monument, Shakespeare
- whom envious Death hath placed with, in this monument, Shakespeare
by leaving it unpointed (as with the Edward II quote), both
meanings are made available.
>In the absence of additional punctuation Shakespeare is still there. Of
>course the Latin sentence from *Edward II* is a complete text; what you
>are quoting is part of a poem.
Your missing premise being that punctuation is relevant only
in complete texts? That's news to me.
>Here is how Dugdale gave the poem:
DUGDALE? Oh, the delicious irony! Dugdale as a Stratfordian's
authority for what is said on the monument? I love it.
> Stay, passenger why goest thou by soe fast,
> Read, if thou canst whom envious death hath plact
> w(th)in this monument Shakspeare with whome
> Quick nature dyed, whose name doth deck the tombe
> Far more than cost, sith all that he hath writ
> Leaves living art but page to serue his witt.
>My source is Spielman's image of the page from Dugdale, and it's possible
>there is faint punctuation I have missed, but that does not matter.
That looks about right, although my notes have the words as:
can'st, plac't, then, leaues, and serue. I didn't note a comma
after 'dyed', otherwise OK. My source is Dugdale's actual book.
>Dugdale understands "WITH IN" as "within" (he actually abbreviates the
>word, giving a "w," a superscript "th" and "in"). Dugdale understands
>"SIEH" as "sith," which suggests that this man, who had a great deal more
>experience looking at 17th Century inscriptions than you or I probably
>have, was not fazed by the evident mistake (and you have agreed that such
>mistakes are not uncommon). Moreover, Dugdale is in no doubt that the
>monument is that of William Shakespeare and only William Shakespeare.
Of course he did, Terry. So did George Vertue, who did the
'correct' engraving in 1723. This is how he transcribed it.
Stay Passenger, why dost thou go so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious Death has plac'd
Within this Monument: Shakespear, with whom
Quick Nature dy'd, whose Name doth deck the Tomb
Far more than Cost, since all that he has writ
Leaves living Art, but Page to serve his Wit.
>That also seems to be the opinion of every other visitor to the scene who
>left a record over the rest of the 17th Century.
Yes, Terry. We are agreed that nobody until now has noticed
that it might be a riddle, or, if they did, that they decided
not to tell us about it.
>Those who were closest
>to the carving of the inscription do not seem to have suspected the puzzle
>for whose brilliance you have been congratulating yourself, the sole
>discoverer and sole believer. (Those who claim to have found
>Shakespearean ciphers commonly praise themselves by commenting on the
>"brilliance" of the alleged cipherer, but such encomiums are in essence
>self-directed).
Too bloody right! I had to take Bob to task a while back for not
saying how brilliant I was. I would also have liked to draw your
attention to how I pole-vaulted from Europe to Asia over the
Bosphorus, clued my old friend A.E. in on the e=mc^2 trick, and
once even went to a business meeting without my mobile phone!
Unfortunately, someone else has currently cornered the market in
that sort of stuff, and it is in any case as irrelevant to the
question of whether I am right or not as, for example, a snide
*ad hominem* comment would be.
>While we're on the subject, a few other points:
>
>On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Peter Farey wrote:
>
>>Bob Grumman wrote:
>>>
>>>Shakespeare is not writing, he is displaying the tools of his
>>>trade.
>>
>>But hiding the ink.
>
>Hiding the ink? What makes you think the absence of ink would have been
>regarded by a contemporary as suspicious in such a monument? I don't see
>any ink in the 1605 John Stow monument, but he seems to be writing:
>http://www.clark.net/tross/ws/stow.html
Pay attention, Terry. Bob said that "Shakespeare is not writing,
he is displaying the tools of his trade".
>You neglected a more important absence in Shakespeare's monument: the
>man's legs. The inkless Stow as least has legs under him. Were
>Shakespeare's legs been lost in some horrid agricultural accident? Had an
>enraged Marlowe sliced them off using the very knife with which he had
>been killed? Who can say? There are references to lameness in the
>sonnets, but they hardly prepare us for the shock of an legless bard.
An legless bard? No, you're getting me mixed up with Zenner.
He's the one who says the Stratford guy was legless most of
the time. But your idea that 'legs' might be tools of the
writer's trade is a novel one. Let's see how it looks:
Edward III Hast thou pen, legs and paper ready Lodwick?
Lucrece Go get me hither paper, legs, and pen;
Malvolio ... help me to a candle, and pen, legs, and paper.
Cleopatra ...Legs and paper, Charmian.
Titus Sirrah, come hither. ... Give me pen and legs.
Richard III ...Give me some legs and paper.
Edward III Now, Lodwick, hast thou turned thy legs to gold?
Hmm. No, to be honest, I think your on a loser with that one.
>On the use of colons, you might see Percy Simpson, *Shakespeare's
>Punctuation*, or flip though books of the period to see how colons
>actually were used rather than insisting that the colon before "SIEH" had
>to be a full stop, as you tell us your puzzle requires. If the larger
>capital letter beginning "SIEH" indicates the presence of a full stop
>before it, what do the large capital letters beginning "FAR" and "LEAVES"
>mean? They do not follow periods or even colons, but commas. They are
>the first words of lines of verse, but so are "READ," "WITH," and "QUICK,"
>which do not have larger capitals.
My argument is a simple one. A colon followed by a word having
an initial capital which would not usually be capitalized (like
'sith') was, at that time, usually taken to indicate the end of
one sentence and the beginning of a new one. I confess that my
experience is far more with handwritten rather than with printed
documents, however, so you may like to share with us what it is
that Simpson says which proves me wrong.
> If you are going to claim that your
> puzzle "is the only interpretation ever to take such things as they stand"
> then you should be able to offer a full and consistent account of every
> feature of the inscription, since your puzzle requires that the
> inscription could not have been different, that all of its accidentals are
> deliberate.
The words you have so carefully selected from my essay appear
in the following statement.
"It was, as I hope to make clear, a solution that flowed
logically from the words and the punctuation as they appear on
the monument. As far as I know, in fact, this is the only
interpretation ever to take such things as they stand, and not
to assume that there must be the monumental equivalent of
misprints or misspellings to make sense of the six lines of
doggerel inscribed there."
My point is, I think, fairly clear. I make use - where it is
relevant - of what actually IS there, rather than (as Dugdale,
Vertue and you do) what you think OUGHT to have been there.
I do not claim that *every* accidental is deliberate, only that
more of them are than you give the author credit for.
> One other point: "Read if thou canst" may have been more common than you
> suppose. See http://home.clara.net/badeleia/slabs.htm
>
> On a slab in the Badley Church in Suffolk are these lines for the dead
> infant Henry Poley (d. 1630):
>
> "Read if thou canst & mourne not his name & stogke being knowe
> for they will tell what pitie twas, he has but borne & shavne"
>
> I doubt these lines are meant to quote Shakespeare's monument.
Not unless it was written by a friend of his, as the La-Ware
one was. Poley, eh? I don't recall saying that the wording was
unique, however, only strange. And I still think that.
Rather stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall
is a 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come
across, it ain't.
Bob Grumman
Christofer Marley was in the tomb with Shakespeare--and it's not
just his name that's there.
john_baker
For what its worth you're view makes much more sense that TR or BG.
Isn't funny how when the irony is against them they don't seem to
understand anything?
I asked a while back what word you used that ment the "invitation to
a riddle or puzzle.
I came up with rubic, but got chidden for it by Kennedy...did you have
a work for it?
baker
Peter Farey
>
> I know we've done this one before, Peter, but tell me again how
> Christofer Marley was in the tomb with Shakespeare--and it's not
> just his name that's there.
>
> --Bob G.
If "not just his name" (although I can't see why not),
there in spirit? There as a 'Nestor, Socrates, Virgil'?
There as part of the 'author' William Shakespeare that
has just 'died'?
Peter Farey
No, sorry John. I have never used such a word as far as
I can remember.
Bob Grumman
>> how Christofer Marley was in the tomb with Shakespeare--and
>> it's not just his name that's there.
>>
>> --Bob G.
>
>If "not just his name" (although I can't see why not),
Because the inscription says to read WHOM is (in your
interpretation) buried with Shakespeare.
>there in spirit? There as a 'Nestor, Socrates, Virgil'?
>There as part of the 'author' William Shakespeare that
>has just 'died'?
>
>Peter F.
I'll think about it. It doesn't make much sense to me.
But thanks for, as usual, answering forthrightly.
Peter Farey
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
>
> > Bob Grumman wrote:
> > >
> > > how Christofer Marley was in the tomb with Shakespeare--and
> > > it's not just his name that's there.
>
>
> > > Because the inscription says to read WHOM is (in your
> > > interpretation) buried with Shakespeare.
>
> > there in spirit? There as a 'Nestor, Socrates, Virgil'?
> > There as part of the 'author' William Shakespeare that
> > has just 'died'?
>
> But thanks for, as usual, answering forthrightly.
You're welcome. I now think I can see where your problem is.
I do not say, as you allege, that the inscription tells us to
to read who is *buried in the tomb* with Shakespeare. I say that
it tells us to read who is *placed in the monument* with him.
The monument is on the wall, and the tomb is on the floor.
Shakespeare's body is (or, presumably, was) in the latter. He
is 'in' the the monument in the form of his bust, his name, 'in
spirit', etc.
His death has also meant the death of the author 'William
Shakespeare', however, which in fact consisted of the two of
them: the 'quick' Shakespeare and the 'dead' Marlowe. Marlowe
(although still living) would therefore have to be commemorated
in the monument too. Placed there in spirit; but most
emphatically NOT in the tomb!
Indeed, one might almost think that Ben Jonson had him rather
than Shakespeare in mind, when he wrote of the author being "a
monument without a tomb". Yet another of those careless
mistakes, I guess.
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co..uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Bob Grumman
Death could not have placed anyone IN a monument. The
inscription assumes that the monument was part of the tomb, so
the reasonable interpretation is that whoever wrote it assumed it
would go on a monument that was part of a tomb, as most monuments
of that sort are, and this one was in every way except literally,
being placed above the tomb rather than connected to it.
As for Jonson, he was a poet. He said Shakespeare (in his works)
was a monument displaying Greatness, not a tomb concealing it.
The idea that he was referring to Marlowe as a monument makes no
sense to me. In any case, you need him to have made a lot more
mistakes than I, such as his "mistakenly" calling the engraving
a likeness of Shakespeare, and saying he was of Avon, and wasn't
much in Latin and Greek--and wrote better than Marlowe.
Peter Zenner
>An legless bard? No, you're getting me mixed up with Zenner.
>He's the one who says the Stratford guy was legless most of
>the time.
Good one, Peter -- but I would have written "A legless bard".
"An legless bard" is an example of Ross 'scholarship'. I only
write in English :-)
Peter Zenner
P.S. Peter -- since your discovery of the hidden message, have
you come off the fence? May I now refer to you as a Marlovian?
P.P.S. Don't give the Strats an inch, Pete -- Shakspere never
wrote a word of it. He had enough on struggling with his name
(especially when he had imbibed a few!)
+44 (0) 1246 271726
Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
Peter Zenner
> >> I know we've done this one before, Peter, but tell me again
> >> how Christofer Marley was in the tomb with Shakespeare--and
> >> it's not just his name that's there.
> >>
> >
> >If "not just his name" (although I can't see why not),
>
> Because the inscription says to read WHOM is (in your
> interpretation) buried with Shakespeare.
>
> >there in spirit? There as a 'Nestor, Socrates, Virgil'?
> >There as part of the 'author' William Shakespeare that
> >has just 'died'?
> >
>
> I'll think about it. It doesn't make much sense to me.
> But thanks for, as usual, answering forthrightly.
>
When William Shakspere died, the 'Shakespeare Invention'
died with him. The 'Invention' had to retire when the actor,
Shakeshaft, was bumped off and then the 'Invention' died
when Shakspere died. The 'author' was officially dead in
1616. 'Quick wit' "died" when Shakspere died -- but the First
Folio wasn't started on until 'Quick wit' himself died in 1622.
When you come to accept that 'William Shakespeare' was
three people -- the author, the actor and the name -- all will
become easily explainable.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...."
Peter Zenner
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
> >
> >Peter Farey wrote:
> >>
> >>Terry Ross wrote:
> >>>
> >>>John Baker wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>Thus Marlowe writes, "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." and
> >>>>then gives us two opposite translations or meanings: "Fear not to kill
> >>>>the king tis good he die," and "Kill not the king tis good to fear the
> >>>>worse."
> >>>>
> >>>>I'm sure you understand irony...even in Latin.
> >>>
> >>>The point of that sentence is that it is "unpointed" (i.e., unpunctuated).
> >>>Put a comma after "timere" and you order Edward's death; put the comma
> >>>after "nolite" instead and you forbid his murder.
> >>
> >>Yes, John. It's like the unpointed phrase on the monument
> >>"WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE".
> >>Put a comma after "MONVMENT" and it's Shakspeare who is "placed"
> >>there; put another after "WITH" and it's someone else.
> >
> >No, in both cases Shakespeare is there; in the second case you might
> >imagine that he has company, but readers of the time would have taken
> >"WITH IN" to mean "WITHIN," so your second comma wouldn't occur to them.
>
> Yes, it's clever isn't it? Yet what I said is quite true.
Clever? Not in the least.
> Look:
>
> - whom envious Death hath placed within this monument, Shakespeare
>
> - whom envious Death hath placed with, in this monument, Shakespeare
>
> by leaving it unpointed (as with the Edward II quote), both
> meanings are made available.
No, even under your reading of the second version (which is not the only
one), Shakespeare is still there. You are saying that Shakespeare is NOT
there. In the case of the Latin line we know it could be read either way
because we are given both readings. In the case of the inscription, all
readers from the time (or long after) seem to have read it the same way,
and none seem to have thought the other reading was "available."
>
> >In the absence of additional punctuation Shakespeare is still there. Of
> >course the Latin sentence from *Edward II* is a complete text; what you
> >are quoting is part of a poem.
>
> Your missing premise being that punctuation is relevant only
> in complete texts? That's news to me.
Is it news to you that the inscription is a poem?
>
> >Here is how Dugdale gave the poem:
>
> DUGDALE? Oh, the delicious irony! Dugdale as a Stratfordian's
> authority for what is said on the monument? I love it.
You may love it or you may hate it, but why should you disregard it?
>
> > Stay, passenger why goest thou by soe fast,
> > Read, if thou canst whom envious death hath plact
> > w(th)in this monument Shakspeare with whome
> > Quick nature dyed, whose name doth deck the tombe
> > Far more than cost, sith all that he hath writ
> > Leaves living art but page to serue his witt.
>
> >My source is Spielman's image of the page from Dugdale, and it's possible
> >there is faint punctuation I have missed, but that does not matter.
>
> That looks about right, although my notes have the words as:
> can'st, plac't, then, leaues, and serue. I didn't note a comma
> after 'dyed', otherwise OK. My source is Dugdale's actual book.
OK; that is consistent with what I can see.
>
> >Dugdale understands "WITH IN" as "within" (he actually abbreviates the
> >word, giving a "w," a superscript "th" and "in"). Dugdale understands
> >"SIEH" as "sith," which suggests that this man, who had a great deal more
> >experience looking at 17th Century inscriptions than you or I probably
> >have, was not fazed by the evident mistake (and you have agreed that such
> >mistakes are not uncommon). Moreover, Dugdale is in no doubt that the
> >monument is that of William Shakespeare and only William Shakespeare.
>
> Of course he did, Terry.
Do you think the observations of those closest in time to the erection of
the monument are unimportant? Do you think you are a fitter judge of
whether 17th Century inscriptions contain *Times of London* puzzles? Of
course Dugdale could not have suspected the presence of such a puzzle,
because the type was not invented until long after his death, and even
your contemporaries who ARE familiar with such puzzles cannot find any such
thing in the inscription.
> So did George Vertue, who did the
> 'correct' engraving in 1723. This is how he transcribed it.
>
> Stay Passenger, why dost thou go so fast?
> Read, if thou canst, whom envious Death has plac'd
> Within this Monument: Shakespear, with whom
> Quick Nature dy'd, whose Name doth deck the Tomb
> Far more than Cost, since all that he has writ
> Leaves living Art, but Page to serve his Wit.
He doesn't seem to have had any trouble with the inscription either. It
seems that what you are offering is an unbelievable solution to a
nonexistent problem.
>
> >That also seems to be the opinion of every other visitor to the scene who
> >left a record over the rest of the 17th Century.
>
> Yes, Terry. We are agreed that nobody until now has noticed
> that it might be a riddle, or, if they did, that they decided
> not to tell us about it.
Or they were kidnaped by Martians and the knowledge was vacuumed out of
their brains. Most likely, they did not suspect a riddle. I have seen
your reelings and writhings on this, and I do not suspect a riddle either.
>
> >Those who were closest
> >to the carving of the inscription do not seem to have suspected the puzzle
> >for whose brilliance you have been congratulating yourself, the sole
> >discoverer and sole believer. (Those who claim to have found
> >Shakespearean ciphers commonly praise themselves by commenting on the
> >"brilliance" of the alleged cipherer, but such encomiums are in essence
> >self-directed).
>
> Too bloody right! I had to take Bob to task a while back for not
> saying how brilliant I was.
You forget your own auto-paean; here is Peter Farey on the deviser of the
"puzzle" (June 22, 1999): "he had to make sure that two separate but
logical meanings were provided. I think he was brilliant to manage it at
all!"
Since the only person who has attempted to inflict the alleged puzzle on
the inscription is you, it is your own "brilliance" that is so dazzles
you. You will not mind, I hope, if the rest of us are not so impressed.
Cipher-mongers are always telling us how "brilliant" Bacon or Oxford or
some unknown Renaissance cryptanalyst was to devise so clever a puzzle and
to design the thing so that it would never be solved until [YOUR NAME
HERE] was able to recreate the original cipher by paying close attention
to the "clues" that the original brilliant boy left behind. The
self-regard of such cipher-mongers is the true puzzle.
> I would also have liked to draw your attention to how I pole-vaulted
> from Europe to Asia over the Bosphorus, clued my old friend A.E. in on
> the e=mc^2 trick, and once even went to a business meeting without my
> mobile phone! Unfortunately, someone else has currently cornered the
> market in that sort of stuff, and it is in any case as irrelevant to
> the question of whether I am right or not as, for example, a snide *ad
> hominem* comment would be.
What "snide ad hominem"? If you have a case to make then you know what
you must do. William and Elizebeth Friedman in their classic exploration
of Shakespearean ciphers discussed in detail how any case for an alleged
cipher must be made if it is to be taken seriously. I know you are
familiar with their principles, and I have not heard from you any reason
to think that a demonstrably valid cipher could not meet their standards;
the onus therefore is on you to provide such a demonstration. What you
have given us instead is what we get from most cipher-mongers, bits of
autobiography ("then I noticed something peculiar in the text"). Your
entire argument is based not on what any reasonable and competent person
would find, given the same text and the same unambiguous keys, but rather
on your own "brilliance" in spotting what nobody else had ever seen except
you and your imaginary friend, the 17th Century anticipatory doppelganger
who devised that "puzzle" that you think you have "solved." It is not an
invalid "ad hominem" argument to spot in your cipher-mongering the same
symptoms of invalidity that one finds in countless other Shakespearean
cipher-mongers.
>
> >While we're on the subject, a few other points:
> >
> >On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Peter Farey wrote:
> >
> >>Bob Grumman wrote:
> >>>
> >>>Shakespeare is not writing, he is displaying the tools of his
> >>>trade.
> >>
> >>But hiding the ink.
> >
> >Hiding the ink? What makes you think the absence of ink would have been
> >regarded by a contemporary as suspicious in such a monument? I don't see
> >any ink in the 1605 John Stow monument, but he seems to be writing:
> >http://www.clark.net/tross/ws/stow.html
>
> Pay attention, Terry. Bob said that "Shakespeare is not writing,
> he is displaying the tools of his trade".
In which writers' monuments is the absence of ink important?
>
> >You neglected a more important absence in Shakespeare's monument: the
> >man's legs. The inkless Stow as least has legs under him. Were
> >Shakespeare's legs been lost in some horrid agricultural accident? Had an
> >enraged Marlowe sliced them off using the very knife with which he had
> >been killed? Who can say? There are references to lameness in the
> >sonnets, but they hardly prepare us for the shock of an legless bard.
>
> An legless bard? No, you're getting me mixed up with Zenner.
> He's the one who says the Stratford guy was legless most of
> the time. But your idea that 'legs' might be tools of the
> writer's trade is a novel one. Let's see how it looks:
>
You, Zenner, Baker and Dave More all believe that the works of Shakespeare
were written by a man who was dead and buried before most of the works
were written, so evidently you don't consider any part of a corporal body
to be required for writing.
> Edward III Hast thou pen, legs and paper ready Lodwick?
>
> Lucrece Go get me hither paper, legs, and pen;
>
> Malvolio ... help me to a candle, and pen, legs, and paper.
>
> Cleopatra ...Legs and paper, Charmian.
>
> Titus Sirrah, come hither. ... Give me pen and legs.
>
> Richard III ...Give me some legs and paper.
>
> Edward III Now, Lodwick, hast thou turned thy legs to gold?
>
> Hmm. No, to be honest, I think your on a loser with that one.
One who is not troubled by the absence of life in an author shouldn't be
troubled by the absence of legs. Then why does the absence of ink bother
you?
>
> >On the use of colons, you might see Percy Simpson, *Shakespeare's
> >Punctuation*, or flip though books of the period to see how colons
> >actually were used rather than insisting that the colon before "SIEH" had
> >to be a full stop, as you tell us your puzzle requires. If the larger
> >capital letter beginning "SIEH" indicates the presence of a full stop
> >before it, what do the large capital letters beginning "FAR" and "LEAVES"
> >mean? They do not follow periods or even colons, but commas. They are
> >the first words of lines of verse, but so are "READ," "WITH," and "QUICK,"
> >which do not have larger capitals.
>
> My argument is a simple one.
Actually it is neither simple nor an argument.
> A colon followed by a word having an initial capital which would not
> usually be capitalized (like 'sith') was, at that time, usually taken
> to indicate the end of one sentence and the beginning of a new one.
All of the letters in the inscription are capitals. Some capitals are
larger than others, such as those that begin "FAR" and "LEAVES." Why are
there large capitals for these words? What puzzle is pointed to?
> I confess that my experience is far more with handwritten rather than
> with printed documents, however, so you may like to share with us what
> it is that Simpson says which proves me wrong.
Peter, we don't have to "prove you wrong." You are the one offering the
cipher, and the burden of proof is on you to prove that a valid one
demonstrably exists. All the rest of us have to do is go along with
Dugdale, Vertue, and the rest of the consensus. I am surprised that you
have not looked at Simpson, since part of your story is based on
contemporary colon usage.
> > If you are going to claim that your
> > puzzle "is the only interpretation ever to take such things as they stand"
> > then you should be able to offer a full and consistent account of every
> > feature of the inscription, since your puzzle requires that the
> > inscription could not have been different, that all of its accidentals are
> > deliberate.
>
> The words you have so carefully selected from my essay appear
> in the following statement.
>
> "It was, as I hope to make clear, a solution that flowed
> logically from the words and the punctuation as they appear on
> the monument. As far as I know, in fact, this is the only
> interpretation ever to take such things as they stand, and not
> to assume that there must be the monumental equivalent of
> misprints or misspellings to make sense of the six lines of
> doggerel inscribed there."
Exactly: you claim to take things "as they stand." That means that for
your "puzzle" every ingredient of the inscription is deliberate. It is no
accident that "FAR" and "LEAVES" begin with larger capitals; your
imaginary friend the cryptanalyst was telling you something. I want to
know what he was telling you.
> My point is, I think, fairly clear. I make use - where it is
> relevant - of what actually IS there, rather than (as Dugdale,
> Vertue and you do) what you think OUGHT to have been there.
No you do not. You pick and choose ("where it is relevant"), as everyone
else does. You believe that some large capitals are significant while
others are not. You believe readers are invited to add commas in a way
that no reader that we know of before you ever did (cipher-mongers often
seem to be the recipients of invitations that somehow got lost in the mail
for centuries). You believe that your imaginary friend invented Times of
London puzzles in the 17th Century. On the other hand, you wish to reject
the notion that there could be mistakes on the inscription, yet such
mistakes are not at all uncommon even today, as you now know.
> I do not claim that *every* accidental is deliberate, only that
> more of them are than you give the author credit for.
Then you do NOT take the inscription as it stands. Of course we do not
know who the author was, and we do not know how faithful the inscription
was to the author's text. Since you cannot know this, your argument must
rely on your demonstrating that such inscriptions were generally flawless
renditions of an author's text, down to the least mark of
punctuation. I have not seen your offer of proof on this point.
Remember, your argument, such as it is, depends on your being the only
person in the history of the universe to spot the "puzzle" and the
presence of the puzzle relies on your demonstrating that the inscription
is perfect, that there are no mistakes, that every element is deliberate.
Once you confess that you do NOT believe every accidental must be
deliberate, then you have lost that part of your original justification,
such as it was. Since we are now faced with the choice either of
accepting the readings offered by Dugdale or Vertue or any of the
countless others who take the inscription as referring only to William
Shakespeare, or of accepting your set of readings, which requires a long
series of implausibilities and impossibilities, you will understand why
we do not prefer yours.
>
> > One other point: "Read if thou canst" may have been more common than you
> > suppose. See http://home.clara.net/badeleia/slabs.htm
> >
> > On a slab in the Badley Church in Suffolk are these lines for the dead
> > infant Henry Poley (d. 1630):
> >
> > "Read if thou canst & mourne not his name & stogke being knowe
> > for they will tell what pitie twas, he has but borne & shavne"
> >
> > I doubt these lines are meant to quote Shakespeare's monument.
>
> Not unless it was written by a friend of his, as the La-Ware
> one was. Poley, eh? I don't recall saying that the wording was
> unique, however, only strange. And I still think that.
You say,
Whether it means "read if you can" or "read if you began to", it still
seems a rather strange thing to say. Why would there be any doubt about
the reading ability of someone who is already reading the inscription? It
seems paradoxical . (2) Similarly, but slightly less strangely, if they
have begun to read and are still reading, why ask them to do something
that they are doing already?
If "read if thou canst" is formulaic, then it is not particularly
strange; rather it would be conventional, and would probably not have
seemed strange to contemporaries. Have you done much searching of
epitaphs from the period? I'm sure there are many things in them that
might strike one as strange but that might not have puzzled seasoned
observers at the time.
> Rather stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall is a
> 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come across, it
> ain't.
OED Tomb. 2. A monument erected to enclose or cover the body and preserve
the memory of the dead; a sepulchral structure raised above the earth.
Hence sometimes a cenotaph. Also formerly, a tombstone erected over a
grave.
It has been suggested that a more elaborate monument may have been
intended, and that Shakespeare's body would be placed within or directly
under that monument, which would then be a tomb in the sense you wish.
Can a monument to the dead be called a "tomb" if the dead person's remains
do not lie directly within or under that monument? Yes, according to the
OED. I wouldn't call the Stratford monument a cenotaph, because
Shakespeare is buried nearby, within the church where the monument is
found, but if "tomb" can mean a memorial monument to someone who is buried
in a different part of the world, I see no difficulty in taking it to
refer to a monument to a man who was buried a few feet away -- nor have
most visitors to the site over the centuries.
volker multhopp
> > Rather stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall is a
> > 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come across, it
> > ain't.
> OED Tomb. 2. A monument erected to enclose or cover the body and preserve
> the memory of the dead; a sepulchral structure raised above the earth.
> Hence sometimes a cenotaph. Also formerly, a tombstone erected over a
> grave.
> It has been suggested that a more elaborate monument may have been
> intended, and that Shakespeare's body would be placed within or directly
> under that monument, which would then be a tomb in the sense you wish.
> Can a monument to the dead be called a "tomb" if the dead person's remains
> do not lie directly within or under that monument? Yes, according to the
> OED. I wouldn't call the Stratford monument a cenotaph, because
> Shakespeare is buried nearby, within the church where the monument is
> found, but if "tomb" can mean a memorial monument to someone who is buried
> in a different part of the world, I see no difficulty in taking it to
> refer to a monument to a man who was buried a few feet away -- nor have
> most visitors to the site over the centuries.
This typical of Terry's habit of clutching at a straw, and calling it a
timber. I don't see any examples in the OED of tomb as cenotaph, hence
that was a very seldom "sometimes". Even Terry concedes he wouldn't
call the monument a cenotaph. A tomb is solidly the resting place of
the body, originally the mound of earth above the grave, later by
extension any elaboration of the burial location. Remotely one might
say the Stratford church is Shakspere's tomb, but if you're in the
church, it's not the monument, but the burial vault and the stone above
that is his tomb.
Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live.
--Volker
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
>
> > > Rather stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall is a
> > > 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come across, it
> > > ain't.
>
> > OED Tomb. 2. A monument erected to enclose or cover the body and preserve
> > the memory of the dead; a sepulchral structure raised above the earth.
> > Hence sometimes a cenotaph. Also formerly, a tombstone erected over a
> > grave.
>
> > It has been suggested that a more elaborate monument may have been
> > intended, and that Shakespeare's body would be placed within or directly
> > under that monument, which would then be a tomb in the sense you wish.
> > Can a monument to the dead be called a "tomb" if the dead person's remains
> > do not lie directly within or under that monument? Yes, according to the
> > OED. I wouldn't call the Stratford monument a cenotaph, because
> > Shakespeare is buried nearby, within the church where the monument is
> > found, but if "tomb" can mean a memorial monument to someone who is buried
> > in a different part of the world, I see no difficulty in taking it to
> > refer to a monument to a man who was buried a few feet away -- nor have
> > most visitors to the site over the centuries.
>
> This typical of Terry's habit of clutching at a straw, and calling it a
> timber.
Volker, are you forgetting Peter Farey's words? He said, "Rather
stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall is a 'tomb'. Not
according to any definition I have ever come across, it ain't."
I don't know what dictionaries he checked, but the very first one I looked
in, the OED, supports the idea that the thing on the wall is a "tomb."
Here is what the second dictionary I checked, the *Random House College
Dictionary*, says:
tomb. 1. an excavation in earth or rock for the burial of a corpse; a
grave or other burial place. 2. a mausoleum, burial chamber, or the
like. 3. a monument for housing a corpse. 4. a structure erected in
memory of a dead person; cenotaph. 5. any structure having an air of
sepulchral sadness.
Here is what the third dictionary I checked, the *American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language*, says:
tomb. 1. a vault or chamber serving as a repository for the dead. 2. Any
grave or burial place. 3. A monument commemorating the dead.
As I said, I don't know what dictionaries Peter Farey has checked, but the
first three I checked all note that "tomb" can mean a monument to a dead
person even if that person is not buried directly under or within that
monument. I suppose I could continue to check dictionaries until I find
whichever ones Peter checked, but I think three is a reasonable number,
and these are the three closest ones.
> I don't see any examples in the OED of tomb as cenotaph, hence
> that was a very seldom "sometimes".
I don't know how frequently or seldom the word is used that way; the OED
does not offer such frequencies. Peter Farey's point was that he could
find nothing in any definition he had ever come across that would allow
Shakespeare's monument to be called a tomb. I checked the OED (and now
two other dictionaries) and the word "tomb" has clearly been used to refer
to monuments for the dead even when the dead are not buried directly under
or within that monument.
> Even Terry concedes he wouldn't call the monument a cenotaph.
What do mean "even Terry"? Nobody else on this newsgroup has, to my
knowledge, even discussed this matter. The reason I wouldn't call it a
cenotaph is because the body is buried a few feet away. I generally think
of cenotaphs as monuments for those whose remains are not buried so close
to the monument.
> A tomb is solidly the resting place of the body, originally the mound
> of earth above the grave, later by extension any elaboration of the
> burial location. Remotely one might say the Stratford church is
> Shakspere's tomb, but if you're in the church, it's not the monument,
> but the burial vault and the stone above that is his tomb.
You can take your choice here, I think. If it matters to you that the
monument is a few feet away rather than directly above the grave, then by
all means consider it a cenotaph if you must. I have seen plenty of
monuments to the dead that were near but not directly over the actual
remains of the corpse. Families are often buried under small slabs a few
feet away from such a monument. You may, if you choose, insist that the
monument in such cases could not be called a tomb unless it was hoisted
up, moved a few feet, and then deposited over one of the slabs. You could
then say that before it had been moved those few feet it was nobody's
tomb; now it was the tomb of whichever person happened to lie under it but
of nobody else in the family. You could do that, but the dictionaries I
have checked all recognize that the monument could still be called a tomb
even if it was not moved.
> Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
> And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live.
Even though the actual William Shakespeare was dead, his works have made
him immortal. What don't you understand about that?
Nigel Davies
> Terry Ross wrote:
>
> > > 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come across, it
> > > ain't.
>
> > OED Tomb. 2. A monument erected to enclose or cover the body and preserve
> > the memory of the dead; a sepulchral structure raised above the earth.
> > Hence sometimes a cenotaph. Also formerly, a tombstone erected over a
> > grave.
>
> > It has been suggested that a more elaborate monument may have been
> > intended, and that Shakespeare's body would be placed within or directly
> > under that monument, which would then be a tomb in the sense you wish.
> > Can a monument to the dead be called a "tomb" if the dead person's remains
> > do not lie directly within or under that monument? Yes, according to the
> > OED. I wouldn't call the Stratford monument a cenotaph, because
> > Shakespeare is buried nearby, within the church where the monument is
> > found, but if "tomb" can mean a memorial monument to someone who is buried
> > in a different part of the world, I see no difficulty in taking it to
> > refer to a monument to a man who was buried a few feet away -- nor have
> > most visitors to the site over the centuries.
>
> that was a very seldom "sometimes". Even Terry concedes he wouldn't
> call the monument a cenotaph. A tomb is solidly the resting place of
> the body, originally the mound of earth above the grave, later by
> extension any elaboration of the burial location. Remotely one might
> say the Stratford church is Shakspere's tomb, but if you're in the
> that is his tomb.
>
> Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
> And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live.
Diana Price's analysis of this was the most astute:
>Reconsidering Shakespeare's monument
>The Review of English Studies
>Oxford
>May 1997
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
>Authors: Diana Price
>
>Volume: 48
>
>Issue: 190
>
>Pagination: 168-182
>
>ISSN: 00346551
>
>Subject Terms: Memorials & monuments
> History
> Dramatists
>
>Geographic Names: Stratford-on-Avon England
>
>Personal Names: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
>
>
>Abstract:
>
>Price supports the theory that Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon England
>monument was originally designed as part of a two-tiered sepulchre.
>Copyright Oxford University Press(England) May 1997
>
>Full Text:
>
>AT some time prior to 1623, the memorial monument commemorating William
>Shakespeare (Fig. 1) was erected in Stratford-upon-Avon's Holy Trinity
>Church. No documents concerning its commissioning or installation have
>survived, and doubts about the monument's integrity have persisted to the
>present day.
>
>The history of Shakespeare's monument has long been encumbered with the
>controversial engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar, published in the 1656 and
>1730 editions of Sir William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire.
Hollar's
>engraving (Fig. 2) spawned the anti-Stratfordian theory that in 1749 the
>present monument was substituted for the original. The engraving has stood
>as visual testimony to Shakespeare's vocation as a commodity dealer, and
>it has puzzled many experts, including E. K. Chambers and Samuel
Schoenbaum.
>
>
>However, few scholars since Mrs C. C. Stopes have consulted the sketch
>from which Hollar worked. Dugdale's 1634 drawing (Fig. 3a) is the first
>known image of Shakespeare's monument, and it remains today in the custody
>of the present Sir William Dugdale.' Contrary to Stopes's impressions as
>set forth in Shakespeare's Environment, the drawing provides convincing
>evidence that today's monument is the original.
>
>Dugdale's image generally corresponds to Shakespeare's monument, yet most
>of the details are either inaccurate or missing. The principal inaccuracies
>in the drawing, taken in the order in which they were probably set down
>by Dugdale, are as follows: the basic architecture is more square than
>rectangular; the arch is omega-shaped and its curvature too shallow; the
>head is too small, forcing an unnatural lengthening of the torso and arms;
>the arms stick out at an angle; and the cushion is drawn on end. Most of
>the errors in the bust probably stem from Dugdale's initial strokes; as
>soon as he had drawn the head, which is much too small, he came to grief
>with the torso. The additional inaccuracies in the monument architecture
>are as follows: the scrollwork at the top of the column is inaccurate;
>the cherubs are too thin and too close to the edge; and the mantling is
>asymmetrical and incomplete. Finally, despite Dugdale's handwritten
testimony
>that he was drawing `William Shakespeare the famous poet', he omitted the
>literary accessories, the quill and paper.
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: 2057 Stratford on Avon Church Shakspeare's
>Monument
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: FIG. 2. Wenceslaus Hollar's engraving
>of Shakespeare's monument, published in Antiquities of Warwickshire by
>Sir William Dugdale in 1656, and reprinted in 1730. (By permission of the
>Folger Shakespeare Library.)
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: FiG. 3a. Sir William Dugdale's 1634 sketch
>of Shakespeare's monument, used as the model for Hollar's engraving. The
>sketch measures approximately 44 in. X 2 1/2 in. (By permission of Sir
>William Dugdale. Photograph by Gerald E. Downs.)
>
>The absence of the quill presents no particular mystery. The quill was
>a removable accessory and likely souvenir,2 and for many years, chancel
>security was non-existent. For example, in 1635 the chancel was used as
>a playground and barnyard. In 1748 the Revd Joseph Greene removed the bust
>from its moorings to make a plaster cast of the face. As late as 1973,
>trespassers were able to remove the bust from its niche during the night.
>Records show that, over the years, the quill was as likely to be missing
>as not. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps described 1748 correspondence that
referred
>to the missing pen. A new quill was 'refashioned' in 1790, but an engraving
>of 1827 shows the effigy, once again, without the pen. In 1908 Sidney Lee
>wrote that the `fingers of the right hand are disposed as if [emphasis
>added] holding a pen'. The pen was probably missing the day Dugdale brought
>his sketch-pad.3
>
>The absence of the sculpted paper is less easily explained, but if he saw
>no pen, Dugdale may have simply missed the paper. He was sketching in a
>badly lit chancel, and no one knows what the condition of the paint was
>in 1634; the paper may not have stood out. Alternatively, Dugdale may have
>left it out when modifying the position of the cushion.
>
>Dugdale's elongated cushion appears to be standing on end. Hollar
misinterpreted
>Dugdale's distorted cushion and engraved what Mrs Stopes later described
>as `suspiciously resembling a woolsack'. The bulges that Hollar added might
>suggest a sack of sorts, but it is also possible that he simply chose to
>create a lumpy pillow; the engraving of another monument, found on page
>552 of Antiquities of Warwickshire, shows two similarly lumpy sack-like
>pillows. However, since Dugdale distinctly drew tassels at each of the
>four corners (Fig. 3b), it is reasonable to infer that he was looking at
>a cushion. Faded markings underneath the darker ink indicate that Dugdale
>first made a pencil sketch, and later, probably off-site, inked in his
>final drawing. Sketch marks are visible, for example, below the two top
>tassels and between the two lower tassels, showing that Dugdale initially
>sketched a flatter cushion. When Dugdale inked in his rough outline, he
>apparently chose the lesser of two evils. Instead of further elongating
>Shakespeare's torso, Dugdale drew the cushion on end to fill up the space
>below the doublet.
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: FIG. 3b. Detail of the cushion and tassels
>drawn by Dugdale. (By permission of Sir William Dugdale. Photograph by
>Gerald E. Downs.)
>
>While Hollar conveyed the general impressions suggested by Dugdale's
sketch,
>few of the details were transmitted with accuracy. Indeed, Dugdale's sketch
>gave Hollar few details to work with. Hollar tidied up the mantling over
>the shield, completed the helmet, and transformed Dugdale's redundant
curlicues
>at the top of the columns into leopards' heads. Dugdale probably made a
>false start when he drew the top set of curlicues, sketching them before
>realizing the capitals were actually somewhat lower. Later, when he was
>completing the drawing with pen and ink, perhaps he didn't quite remember
>what he had seen, so he inked in both sets. As with other sketches in his
>collection, Dugdale made no attempt to draw a facial likeness, but appears
>to have sketched one of his standard faces to depict a man with facial
>hair. Consequently, Hollar invented the facial features for Shakespeare.
>
>
>The conclusion is obvious: in the absence of an accurate and detailed
model,
>Hollar freely improvised his image of Shakespeare's monument. That
improvisation
>is what disqualifies the engraving's value as authoritative evidence. The
>image, printed from the same block in the revised 1730 edition of
Antiquities
>of Warwickshire, similarly carries no authority.
>
>Just as an inaccurate translation is no justification for future versions
>based on the initial mistranslation, subsequent engravings derived from
>Hollar are no more valid than their flawed prototype. Consequently, the
>engraving that appeared in Nicholas Rowe's 1709 Life of Shakespeare carries
>no authority either, because it derives from Hollar. Hollar's entablature
>over the leopards' heads shows a shaded indentation on the right side (i.e.
>Shakespeare's right side), and a hair-line on the left side, directly under
>the cherub, delineating a corresponding edge, but not necessarily a
corresponding
>indentation. The hair-line edge therefore disturbs the symmetry of the
>entablature. The 1709 engraver reversed the indentation and the hair-line,
>and then shaded the area beside the left column to create the illusion
>of symmetry. His attempt to compensate for the minor defect proves his
>reliance on Hollar.
>
>Hollar's engraving prompted the theory that, during the 1748-9 monument
>beautification project, the bust of the sackholder was removed and replaced
>with the literary effigy. A principal proponent of this theory, Sir George
>Greenwood, examined Dugdale's sketch, and then observed that `nobody, so
>far as I know, has ever contended that the whole monument has been altered,
>or that another has been erected in the place of the original. The question
>at issue is practically confined to the bust.'4
>
>Greenwood's reasoning betrays a double standard. Greenwood concluded that
>the basic architecture of the monument had remained constant since its
>construction. He therefore overlooked or dismissed the inaccuracies evident
>in Hollar's depiction of the monument architecture, such as the leopards'
>heads and the omega-shaped arch. At the same time, Greenwood concluded
>that the original bust looked exactly like Hollar's engraving, thereby
>accepting Hollar's depiction of the effigy as free from any inaccuracies.
>In other words, Greenwood considered Hollar's inaccuracies in the monument
>architecture as irrelevant, but considered Hollar's inaccuracies in the
>bust as evidence of a different bust. Greenwood then proposed that the
>bust had been replaced, rather than beautified, in 1749.
>
>Some information about the beautification project has survived. Mrs Stopes
>cited a 1746 document that included the following information: the curious
>original monument and bust of that incomparable poet, erected above the
>tomb that enshrines his dust in the Church of Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire,
>is through length of years and other accidents become much impaired and
>decayed, an offer has been kindly made by the judicious and much esteemed
>Mr. John Ward and his company to act one of Shakespeare's plays . . . the
>receipts arising from which representation are to be solely appropriated
>to the repairing of the original monument aforesaid.5
>
>Restoration began in 1748 and was completed the following year. In The
>Shakespeare Documents, B. Roland Lewis traced the relevant `correspondence,
>notes of meetings, and a bill of announcement' between 1744 and 1748,
including
>the following excerpt written by the Revd Joseph Greene, then Master of
>the Stratford Grammar School: `the figure of the Bard, taken down from
>his niche to be more commodiously cleans'd from dust, &c; I can assure
>you that the Bust & cushion before it . . . is one entire lime-stone.'
>(Note that Greene makes an explicit reference to the 'cushion'.) Greene
>further assures his correspondent that
>
>care was taken, as nearly as could be, not to add to or diminish what the
>work consisted of, and appear'd to have been when first erected: And
really,
>except changing the substance of the Architraves from alabaster to Marble;
>nothing has been chang'd, nothing alter'd, except [the] supplying with
>[the] original material, (sav'd for that purpose,) whatsoever was by
accident
>broken off; reviving the Old Colouring, and renewing the Gilding that was
>lost.
>
>As Lewis commented, since `Greene's letters and notes, [were] written
honestly,
>soberly, and clearly, it is obvious that he consider[ed] the bust. . to
>be the actual original placed in the niche by 1623'.6 (This was the same
>Revd Joseph Greene who went to some lengths in 1748, prior to restoration,
>to make a plaster cast of the bust of `that incomparable poet'.)
>
>The records of the restoration are incomplete, but those that survive are
>not in themselves suspicious. Moreover, by comparing engraved images of
>the monument, both before and after its restoration, it is possible to
>show that nobody tampered with Shakespeare's bust.
>
>A survey of engravings of Shakespeare's monument reveals two distinct
families
>of images. The illegitimate line began in 1656 with Hollar's engraving
>and endured for well over a century. This line included, as we have seen,
>the image printed in Rowe's 1709 Life of Shakespeare. In 1786, years after
>the substitute monument was supposedly installed, the last engraving of
>the sackholder, by Reynold Grignion, appeared (Fig. 4) in Bell's edition
>of Shakespeare. Now, no one would seriously propose that two different
>busts were alternately displayed for thirty-odd years after the
refurbishment.
>Clearly the 1786 engraving also derived from Hollar. Several obvious and
>recurring errors, including the leopards' heads and the omega-shaped arch,
>demonstrate that Hollar's engraving gave birth to an illegitimate line
>of images, a line that did not die out until thirty-seven years after the
>beautification project. That misbegotten line runs concurrently with a
>second family, whose reliability is established both by its relatively
>accurate correspondence with today's monument, and by the absence of
substantive
>changes in the images that appeared up to and past the advent of
photography.
>
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: FIG. 4. Reynold Grignion's engraving,
>published in 1786. (By permission of the British Library, 11762.a.10.)
>
>
>The legitimate line of images was born twenty-four years before the
beautification
>project, when an engraving by George Vertue was published in Alexander
>Pope's 1725 edition of Shakespeare's works. Vertue's engraving (Fig. 5),
>obviously independent of Hollar's, depicts all essential elements in the
>bust and monument. One feature not found in Hollar's, but present in
Vertue's
>engraving, is the correct arch with sectional detail underneath, supporting
>the conclusion that Vertue's model was the monument itself. Although the
>original sketch for his engraving does not survive, Vertue's drawing of
>1737 does. That sketch (Fig. 6) accurately depicts the monument in situ,
>showing that Vertue observed the monument on site, and his personal
notebook
>corroborates that fact. Vertue's 1725 and 1737 images correspond.
>
>While Vertue's level of accuracy shows that he did not freely improvise,
>as had Hollar, his artistic credibility has been questioned, because he
>fashioned his likeness of Shakespeare, down to the earring, after the
Chandos
>portrait.7 Yet Vertue's level of accuracy is comparable to that of other
>pre-photography engravers. As M. H. Spielmann pointed out, engravers showed
>a `disloyal indifference to accuracy, until the advent of photography
brought
>truth along with it'. In later engravings, most of which are independent
>of Vertue, facial resemblances are virtually nonexistent, the effigy is
>not always full-front, the cherubs are in different positions, and so on.
>Yet no one would conclude after examining three or four engravings that
>the monument was altered every couple of years, or that the effigy lost
>or gained weight.
>
>A final litmus test of the monument's integrity is Dugdale's sketch. If
>Hollar's engraving had never seen the light of day, Dugdale's sketch would
>be compared directly with Vertue's engraving and others in the legitimate
>line. No one analysing that progression of images, before and after the
>restoration project, could conclude that in 1634 Dugdale had been looking
>at a different monument. One could only conclude that, while Dugdale was
>a remarkable antiquarian, his skills as an artist were inconsistent. His
>sketch of Shakespeare's monument did not provide the engraver with a
sufficiently
>detailed model, and the engraver had no opportunity to work on site.
Hollar's
>improvised engraving consequently carries no evidential authority, while
>Dugdale's sketch provides convincing evidence supporting the integrity
>of Shakespeare's Stratford monument.
>
>The epitaph on Shakespeare's monument is one of two in Stratford's Holy
>Trinity Church; the second is found on the gravestone carrying the verse
>with its famous admonition, `And curst be he that moves my bones.' The
>integrity of both epitaphs is supported by John Weever's transcriptions,
>c.1626,8 and Dugdale's of 1634. However, both epitaphs raise questions
>about the original plans to commemorate William Shakespeare.
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: Fig 5. George Vertue's engraving of the
>Stratford monument, made in 1723 and published in 1725. (By permission
>of the Folger Shakespeare Library.)
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: Fig. 6. George Vertue's 1737 sketch of
>the chancel in Holy Trinity Church. (By permission of the British Library,
>MS 70438.)
>
>It is well known that the present gravestone carrying the malediction is
>a replacement, installed in the middle of the eighteenth century.9 Stanley
>Wells of the Shakespeare Institute recently analysed the layout of graves
>in the chancel floor, and postulated that, at some point, the slabs had
>been rearranged, possibly resulting in the allocation of Shakespeare's
>slab to its prestigious position closest to the altar. Wells also noticed
>that Shakespeare's grave is unusually small, measuring only three feet
>seven inches in length; in contrast, Shakespeare's wife's gravestone
measures
>five feet in length. Since Shakespeare's gravestone shows no name, Wells
>speculated that a full-sized slab may have originally carried Shakespeare's
>name or an identifying plaque that has since been lost.lo While it is just
>a guess, such a plaque could account for the fact that both John Weever
>and William Dugdale annotated the two epitaphs in identical terms, as
belonging
>to `William Shakespeare the famous poet'.tl There is other evidence to
>suggest that Shakespeare's wall monument is incomplete, and not in its
>originally intended location either.
>
>The epitaph below Shakespeare's bust has never been satisfactorily
analysed,
>and those who have commented on it have overlooked internal evidence
suggesting
>that the monument was originally part of a grander design that was never
>carried out. The epitaph reads:
>
>JUDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM, TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MERET,
>OLYMPUS HABET. STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOU BY SO FAST, READ IF THOU
>CANST, WHOM ENVIOUS DEATH HATH PLAST WITH IN THIS MONUMENT SHAKSPEARE:
>WITH WHOME, QUICK NATURE DIDE: WHOSE NAME DOTH DECK Y TOMBE, FAR MORE,
>THEN COST: SIEH ALL, Y HE HATH WRITT, LEAVES LIVING ART, BUT PAGE, TO SERVE
>HIS WITT. OBIIT ANO DOI 1616 ETATIS 53 DIE 23 AP.
>
>Of particular interest here are the self-referential lines `Whom envious
>death hath plast with in this monument Shakspeare' and `Whose name doth
>deck [this] tombe'.
>
>The only name decking 'this' tomb is 'Shakspeare'. Because Shakespeare
>was a fairly common surname in Warwickshire, whoever erected the monument
>would certainly have been concerned about the Christian name. Shakespeare
>was the last of his dynasty. He had acquired a reputation, a coat of arms,
>and a real-estate empire, but he left no male heir. Shakespeare's will
>preserved his estate intact for a future male descendant, should there
>be one. Such meticulous arrangements indicate concern with his legacy.
>Yet the epitaph contains only his surname.
>
>The glaring absence of the first name on a monument commemorating the last
>existing male in the line suggests that another epitaph, with the full
>name, was contemplated. In addition, the absence of personal information,
>such as William, husband of . . .' is unusual, 12 and the last two lines
>showing the death date had to be carved in small, almost cramped letters
>in order to fit. Both peculiarities further suggest that such commemorative
>information was originally planned to appear somewhere else nearby.
>
>With respect to the lines about `envious death', many commentators have
>noted that 'death' could not literally have `plast I with in this monument
>Shakspeare', because the monument is too small to hold a body. However,
>the self-referential phrase describes itself, i.e. the monument and bust,
>as well as the monument in which the deceased was placed. The wording
therefore
>suggests that the monument was originally designed to sit directly over
>the grave, which was to be inscribed with more information, including the
>full name of the deceased.
>
>Most monuments built for wall mounting were designed with decorative
corbels,
>but Shakespeare's monument shows three plain and stubby corbels at the
>base. Aesthetically, the corbels look like afterthoughts. They suggest
>that Shakespeare's monument was originally designed, not for wall mounting,
>but to sit on top of a larger tomb.
>
>In Antiquities of Warwickshire, the monument most closely resembling
Shakespeare's
>sits on top of a tomb (Fig. 7) large enough to accommodate a second
inscription.
>Such a configuration would explain Shakespeare's incomplete and
self-referential
>epitaph. The introductory verse on the upper section must have been
intended
>to direct attention to a second inscription carrying the full name and
>family information. A mystery that remains is why the plan was never
carried
>out.
>
>The theory that Shakespeare's Stratford monument was originally designed
>as part of a two-tiered sepulchre finds support from the monument's
resemblance
>to that in Fig. 7 and from the under-designed corbels. It also explains
>why the existing epitaph does not fully identify the deceased. More
importantly,
>the theory permits a straightforward reading of the self-referential lines
>that are otherwise incorrect. Finally, the theory finds unexpected
corroboration
>in one of Ben Jonson's most famous lines, a line that now takes on a
typically
>Jonsonian double meaning: `thou art a Moniment, without a tombe'.
>
>[IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: FIG. 7. A two-tiered monument from
Antiquities
>of Warwickshire (vol. i, p. 383). Photograph by P. J. Dooley. (Courtesy
>of the Cleveland Public Library.)
>
>' Acknowledgement is made to Barbara Westerfield and Gerald E. Downs for
>photographing the drawing and providing an initial analysis.
>
>2 The quill is a removable accessory on the London memorial bust of
antiquary
>John Stow (d. 1605). An engraving of Stow's monument, published in 1815,
>shows the bust without the quill (see M. H. Speilmann, The Title-page of
>the First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays (London, 1924), pl. 1), and even
>today a new quill is placed each year into Stow's hand (see V. Pearl,
introd.
>to John Stow: The Sumey of London (London, 1987)).
>
>' C. C. Stopes, Shakespeare's Environment (London, 1914), 118; B. R. Lewis,
>The Shakespeare Documents. Facsimile ks, Transliteration., Translations,
>and Commentary (Stanford, Calif., 1940), ii. 545; S. Schoenbaum, William
>Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (Oxford, 1975), 256; J. O.
HalliwellPhillipps,
>Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (London, 1889), i. 283; A. Wixell,
>An Inquiry into the History, Authenticity, and Characteristics of the
Shakespeare
>Portraits (London, 1827), frontispiece; S. Lee, A Life of William
Shakespeare
>(London, 1908), 286.
>
>4 G. Greenwood, The Stratford Bust and the Droeshout Engraving (London,
>1925), 19-20. Greenwood was contradicting himself. He himself had
questioned
>the integrity of the bust and the monument architecture in The Shakespeare
>Problem Restated (London, 1908), 245.
>
>5 Stopes, Environment, 346.
>
>6 Lewis, Documents, ii. 545-6.
>
>7. See the illustraion in S. Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives (Oxford,
>1991), fig. 13, or in O. J. Campbell (ed.), The Reader's Encyclopedia of
>Shakespeare (New York, 1996), 654.
>
>8 E. A.J. Honigmann, John Weever (Manchester, 1987), 70.
>
>9 Halliwell-Phillipps, Life of Shakespeare, i. 269.
>
>10 Stanley Wells, `Flyleaf ', Daily Telegraph, 22 Apr. 1995.
>
>11 According to Honigmann, the marginalia appears in one of Weever's
notebooks
>for Ancient Funeral Monuments. Honigmann thought that Weever had probably
>written the marginalia himself. For some reason, Weever omitted both
epitaphs
>when he eventually published his book.
>
>12 In his section on Stratford-upon-Avon, Dugdale transcribed epitaphs
>for John Combe, Dr Thomas Balshall, Thomas Clopton and his wife Eglantine,
>`Anne, wife of William Shakespeare', Thomas Nash, John Hall, `Susanna,
>wife of John Hall', Thomas Stafford, and William Clopton, all memorialized
>with their Christian and last names.
______________________________________________________________________
Nigel....@BTInternet.com
Peter Farey
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
<snip>
> > Look:
> >
> > - whom envious Death hath placed within this monument, Shakespeare
> >
> > - whom envious Death hath placed with, in this monument, Shakespeare
> >
> > by leaving it unpointed (as with the Edward II quote), both
> > meanings are made available.
> No, even under your reading of the second version (which is not the only
> one), Shakespeare is still there. You are saying that Shakespeare is NOT
> there.
Where on earth do you get that idea? Shakespeare has to be 'in'
the monument if, as I say, Marlowe is to be found there WITH him.
> In the case of the Latin line we know it could be read either way
> because we are given both readings. In the case of the inscription, all
> readers from the time (or long after) seem to have read it the same way,
> and none seem to have thought the other reading was "available."
Yes, Terry. Your argument that it is only a puzzle if someone
notices it and solves it within x units of time is noted (yet
again). What is x, by the way?
<snip>
> Do you think the observations of those closest in time to the erection of
> the monument are unimportant?
I think Dugdale and Vertue wrote what they thought the words
meant. I believe that, had it occurred to them that it might be
a puzzle, they would have written what it actally said.
> Do you think you are a fitter judge of
> whether 17th Century inscriptions contain *Times of London* puzzles?
Well, yes, I do, as it happens. But this is not a *Times of
London* puzzle. It is a poem with two very different possible
meanings, one of which contains a puzzle combining several types
of clue, all of which were known at the time.
> Of
> course Dugdale could not have suspected the presence of such a puzzle,
> because the type was not invented until long after his death, and even
> your contemporaries who ARE familiar with such puzzles cannot find any such
> thing in the inscription.
And yet were able with complete precision to show how I arrived
at the answer, lacking only the definition of 'ley' (a bill,
score, reckoning) that I had used. Amazing.
> > So did George Vertue, who did the
> > 'correct' engraving in 1723. This is how he transcribed it.
<snip>
> He doesn't seem to have had any trouble with the inscription either. It
> seems that what you are offering is an unbelievable solution to a
> nonexistent problem.
No, it probably said 'INGENIO PYLIUM' at that time too, and
'dost thou go', and 'has plac'd', and 'the Tomb', and 'than
Cost', and 'since all', just as he transcribed it. He didn't
LOOK at it, Terry. He simply jotted down what he thought it
said. I'm sorry, but if you refuse to grasp the simple notion
that someone setting such a puzzle WANTS people not to notice
that there is anything unusual, I cannot help you.
Three related questions, though.
IF the inscription is as clear as you say it is,
(a) Why did Dugdale find it necessary to make 36 changes to it
to make it understandable?
(b) Why did Vertue find it necessary to make 40 (mostly different)
changes to it to make it understandable?
(c) Why can I find not a single 'official' interpretation of it, with
which the Shakespearean establishment generally agrees?
> > > That also seems to be the opinion of every other visitor to the scene who
> > > left a record over the rest of the 17th Century.
>
> > Yes, Terry. We are agreed that nobody until now has noticed
> > that it might be a riddle, or, if they did, that they decided
> > not to tell us about it.
>
> Or they were kidnaped by Martians and the knowledge was vacuumed out of
> their brains. Most likely, they did not suspect a riddle. I have seen
> your reelings and writhings on this, and I do not suspect a riddle either.
Nor do I think that anyone suspected a riddle but, as we all
know, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
> You forget your own auto-paean; here is Peter Farey on the deviser of the
> "puzzle" (June 22, 1999): "he had to make sure that two separate but
> logical meanings were provided. I think he was brilliant to manage it at
> all!"
I said that I think that he (I do not rule out 'she', however)
was brilliant, and I still do. Your inability to distinguish the
two pronouns 'he' and 'I' is weird.
> Since the only person who has attempted to inflict the alleged puzzle on
> the inscription is you, it is your own "brilliance" that is so dazzles
> you.
This is not only rather unpleasant, but patently untrue. Had you
been the slightest bit interested in following my argument, you
would know that a central part of it is that this does NOT
require any special cleverness to solve it, that *anyone* who
suspected that 'read' meant 'solve' would have been *led* to the
answer. Furthermore, the only reason *I* suspected this was by
accident, an accident which my views on the authorship meant I
was more likely to follow up than most people. Again, no need for
brilliance. Even if your attack were justified, however, I am
sure that those less obsessed than you can see how totally
irrelevant to the argument this is.
<snip>
> > and it is in any case as irrelevant to
> > the question of whether I am right or not as, for example, a snide *ad
> > hominem* comment would be.
> What "snide ad hominem"?
I really did 'laugh out loud' at that one.
> If you have a case to make then you know what
> you must do. William and Elizebeth Friedman in their classic exploration
> of Shakespearean ciphers discussed in detail how any case for an alleged
> cipher must be made if it is to be taken seriously. I know you are
> familiar with their principles, and I have not heard from you any reason
> to think that a demonstrably valid cipher could not meet their standards;
> the onus therefore is on you to provide such a demonstration.
This is a puzzle, Terry, not a cipher. You have reminded us of
the similarity of part of this one to the *Times of London*
crossword puzzle. So how do typical crossword puzzle clues, for
example, stack up against the Friedmans' principles?
> What you
> have given us instead is what we get from most cipher-mongers, bits of
> autobiography ("then I noticed something peculiar in the text"). Your
> entire argument is based not on what any reasonable and competent person
> would find, given the same text and the same unambiguous keys,
I have time and again taken people through the sequence of
questions I went through in reaching this solution, and have
begged people at each stage to come up with an answer that 'any
reasonable and competent person' would find, if different to
the one I did. Nobody, but nobody, has yet done so.
> but rather
> on your own "brilliance" in spotting what nobody else had ever seen except
> you and your imaginary friend, the 17th Century anticipatory doppelganger
> who devised that "puzzle" that you think you have "solved." It is not an
> invalid "ad hominem" argument to spot in your cipher-mongering the same
> symptoms of invalidity that one finds in countless other Shakespearean
> cipher-mongers.
It is an attack on me, which has nothing to do with the validity
or otherwise of what I have to say. That's 'ad hominem' in my
book, and is in my experience generally associated with an
inability to find a logical argument, which certainly seems to
be the case here with you.
<snip>
> > Pay attention, Terry. Bob said that "Shakespeare is not writing,
> > he is displaying the tools of his trade".
> In which writers' monuments is the absence of ink important?
Huh? In answer to Bob's statement (above), I pointed out that
the ink, which I would take to be a tool of his trade too, was
missing. That's all. What point are you trying to make?
<snip>
> You, Zenner, Baker and Dave More all believe that the works of Shakespeare
> were written by a man who was dead and buried before most of the works
> were written, so evidently you don't consider any part of a corporal body
> to be required for writing.
I think it highly probable that Marlowe was not 'dead and buried
before most of the works were written'. I explain why I think
this in my essay *The Reckoning Revisited* at the URL below.
Since you have never shown any sign of having read this, I do not
expect you to share my views on this.
<snip>
> > A colon followed by a word having an initial capital which would not
> > usually be capitalized (like 'sith') was, at that time, usually taken
> > to indicate the end of one sentence and the beginning of a new one.
>
> All of the letters in the inscription are capitals. Some capitals are
> larger than others, such as those that begin "FAR" and "LEAVES."
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or
equivocation will undo us.
> Why are
> there large capitals for these words? What puzzle is pointed to?
Nice try, Terry, but my statement was:
> > A colon followed by a word having an initial capital which would not
> > usually be capitalized (like 'sith') was, at that time, usually taken
> > to indicate the end of one sentence and the beginning of a new one.
Am I right, or am I wrong?
> > I confess that my experience is far more with handwritten rather than
> > with printed documents, however, so you may like to share with us what
> > it is that Simpson says which proves me wrong.
> Peter, we don't have to "prove you wrong."
You appeared to disbelieve my statement as given above, and
were citing Percy Simpson as an authority. I assumed that the
two things were linked. Apparently not, so may I take it that
you don't know whether I am right or not?
> You are the one offering the
> cipher,
I am pointing out the puzzle, and offering a solution.
> and the burden of proof is on you to prove that a valid one
> demonstrably exists. All the rest of us have to do is go along with
> Dugdale, Vertue, and the rest of the consensus.
I'll say you have to! Your personal Room 101 would have such
proof in it.
> I am surprised that you
> have not looked at Simpson, since part of your story is based on
> contemporary colon usage.
I have stated what I have observed to be the case in hundreds
of documents of the time. If you will not believe this, then I
guess that I'll have to get a quotation from Simpson to confirm
it.
> > > If you are going to claim that your
> > > puzzle "is the only interpretation ever to take such things as they stand"
> > > then you should be able to offer a full and consistent account of every
> > > feature of the inscription, since your puzzle requires that the
> > > inscription could not have been different, that all of its accidentals are
> > > deliberate.
> >
> > The words you have so carefully selected from my essay appear
> > in the following statement.
> >
> > "It was, as I hope to make clear, a solution that flowed
> > logically from the words and the punctuation as they appear on
> > the monument. As far as I know, in fact, this is the only
> > interpretation ever to take such things as they stand, and not
> > to assume that there must be the monumental equivalent of
> > misprints or misspellings to make sense of the six lines of
> > doggerel inscribed there."
>
> Exactly: you claim to take things "as they stand." That means that for
> your "puzzle" every ingredient of the inscription is deliberate.
This is a *non sequitur*. It means what I have said it means
(below). No more and no less.
> It is no
> accident that "FAR" and "LEAVES" begin with larger capitals; your
> imaginary friend the cryptanalyst was telling you something. I want to
> know what he was telling you.
What would, of course, be of more interest is why he did NOT
have capitals for READ, WITH and QVICK. That I am unable to see
a reason for this, if indeed there is one, has no bearing on
those things which I *can* see a reason for. I can hear two
noises outside at the moment. I know what one of them is, and
the fact that I cannot immediately identify the second makes no
difference to this fact whatsoever.
> > My point is, I think, fairly clear. I make use - where it is
> > relevant - of what actually IS there, rather than (as Dugdale,
> > Vertue and you do) what you think OUGHT to have been there.
> No you do not. You pick and choose ("where it is relevant"), as everyone
> else does.
But I do NOT pretend that words are there when they are not.
> You believe that some large capitals are significant while
> others are not.
I believe that a colon followed by an initial capital usually
means the beginning of a new sentence, other than in
abbreviations, such as in Sir Fra: Walsingham. Am I wrong?
> You believe readers are invited to add commas in a way
> that no reader that we know of before you ever did (cipher-mongers often
> seem to be the recipients of invitations that somehow got lost in the mail
> for centuries).
I believe that leaving something 'unpointed' so that more than
one meaning was possible was not unprecedented, having in fact
been used by the very person who, I say, is the subject of this
puzzle.
> You believe that your imaginary friend invented Times of
> London puzzles in the 17th Century. On the other hand, you wish to reject
> the notion that there could be mistakes on the inscription, yet such
> mistakes are not at all uncommon even today, as you now know.
I am happy to accept that such mistakes occur. What I am less
happy to accept is that, purely by chance, they should allow
such a totally different yet completely comprehensible message,
which even includes the name of one of the people most likely
to have collaborated with Shakespeare.
> > I do not claim that *every* accidental is deliberate, only that
> > more of them are than you give the author credit for.
> Then you do NOT take the inscription as it stands. Of course we do not
> know who the author was, and we do not know how faithful the inscription
> was to the author's text. Since you cannot know this, your argument must
> rely on your demonstrating that such inscriptions were generally flawless
> renditions of an author's text, down to the least mark of
> punctuation. I have not seen your offer of proof on this point.
>
> Remember, your argument, such as it is, depends on your being the only
> person in the history of the universe to spot the "puzzle" and the
> presence of the puzzle relies on your demonstrating that the inscription
> is perfect, that there are no mistakes, that every element is deliberate.
No, Terry. It depends upon my showing that, taking it as it
stands, it is possible to read a quite different message; one
that is perfectly coherent and internally consistent, and which
includes (of all possible names) the name of the only person
ever to have shown the potential to equal Shakespeare. It also
depends upon a realization of how impossibly low is the
probability of this happening just by chance.
> Once you confess that you do NOT believe every accidental must be
> deliberate, then you have lost that part of your original justification,
> such as it was. Since we are now faced with the choice either of
> accepting the readings offered by Dugdale or Vertue or any of the
> countless others who take the inscription as referring only to William
> Shakespeare, or of accepting your set of readings, which requires a long
> series of implausibilities and impossibilities, you will understand why
> we do not prefer yours.
Why you 'do not prefer' mine has little to do with my argument,
as is amply demonstrated by that statement. Which specific
"implausibilities and impossibilities" did you have in mind?
<snip>
> You say,
>
> Whether it means "read if you can" or "read if you began to", it still
> seems a rather strange thing to say. Why would there be any doubt about
> the reading ability of someone who is already reading the inscription? It
> seems paradoxical . (2) Similarly, but slightly less strangely, if they
> have begun to read and are still reading, why ask them to do something
> that they are doing already?
>
> If "read if thou canst" is formulaic, then it is not particularly
> strange; rather it would be conventional, and would probably not have
> seemed strange to contemporaries.
As neither you nor Clark have managed to find a precedent for
this, the word 'formulaic' is hardly justified.
> Have you done much searching of
> epitaphs from the period? I'm sure there are many things in them that
> might strike one as strange but that might not have puzzled seasoned
> observers at the time.
>
> > Rather stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall is a
> > 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come across, it
> > ain't.
>
> OED Tomb. 2. A monument erected to enclose or cover the body and preserve
> the memory of the dead; a sepulchral structure raised above the earth.
> Hence sometimes a cenotaph. Also formerly, a tombstone erected over a
> grave.
>
> It has been suggested that a more elaborate monument may have been
> intended, and that Shakespeare's body would be placed within or directly
> under that monument, which would then be a tomb in the sense you wish.
> Can a monument to the dead be called a "tomb" if the dead person's remains
> do not lie directly within or under that monument? Yes, according to the
> OED. I wouldn't call the Stratford monument a cenotaph, because
> Shakespeare is buried nearby, within the church where the monument is
> found, but if "tomb" can mean a memorial monument to someone who is buried
> in a different part of the world, I see no difficulty in taking it to
> refer to a monument to a man who was buried a few feet away -- nor have
> most visitors to the site over the centuries.
All of which Clark and I agonized over. But what you keep
trying to show is that it is not unreasonable to interpret
'read if thou canst' or 'tomb' in the way the normal visitor
would. It would be foolish of me to deny that, because
(a) that is what an effective puzzle would require and
(b) they have (as you keep pointing out) been interpreted that
way over the years.
All I am saying is that, if you look at them with more care
than the casual visitor would, the words 'read if thou canst'
are somewhat strange, and the word 'tomb' is far more
applicable to the grave than to the monument. In both cases,
in other words, the interpretation according to the 'puzzle'
theory makes rather more sense than the orthodox one.
Peter Zenner
>You, Zenner, Baker and Dave More all believe that the works of Shakespeare
>were written by a man who was dead and buried before most of the works
>were written, so evidently you don't consider any part of a corporal body
>to be required for writing.
No we don't. We believe that the works of 'Shakespeare' were
written by a man who was SUPPOSED to be dead and buried
in 1593. There were no works by anybody called 'Shakespeare'
until early June, 1593, within two weeks of this SUPPOSED death.
'William Shakespeare' was "invented" between May 30th and
June 12th, 1593 (the date of the entry in Stonley's diary) and you
can show no EVIDENCE that there was an author or an actor
of that name before then. You can guess, you can attribute, you
can waffle, you can obfuscate -- there is nothing. 'William Shakes-
peare' appeared out of nowhere in June, 1593, AND YOU KNOW IT!
All through the 'Shakespeare' works the author constantly refers
to his predicament. The man is in exile, he had been banished,
he had lost his name, he must have a "common grave" rather
than a monument, etc.
When are the Strats going to tell us how this all fits in with Shakspere*?
Peter Zenner
* I know, Bob. You are going to say those usual two words....
Peter Zenner
>Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
> And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live.
Shakspere had a tomb (of sorts) in Stratford and Oxford
had his in Hackney. The only one without an official resting
place was Marlowe.
"An unmarked grave" in St Nicholas Churchyard, Deptford.
For the leading playwright of his day? Nah....
Peter Zenner
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
> >
> > Peter Farey wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > > Look:
> > >
> > > - whom envious Death hath placed within this monument, Shakespeare
> > >
> > > - whom envious Death hath placed with, in this monument, Shakespeare
> > >
> > > by leaving it unpointed (as with the Edward II quote), both
> > > meanings are made available.
>
> > No, even under your reading of the second version (which is not the only
> > one), Shakespeare is still there. You are saying that Shakespeare is NOT
> > there.
>
> Where on earth do you get that idea? Shakespeare has to be 'in'
> the monument if, as I say, Marlowe is to be found there WITH him.
Peter, it's rather poor of you to snip your own words and then to ask
"where on earth I got that idea?" I got that idea from you. It was you
who said,
Yes, John. It's like the unpointed phrase on the monument "WHOM ENVIOVS
DEATH HATH PLAST WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE". Put a comma after
"MONVMENT" and it's Shakspeare who is "placed" there; put another after
"WITH" and it's someone else.
You said "put another after 'WITH' and it's someone else." You did not
say "someone additional," but "someone else." THAT'S where I got "that
idea," Peter; from you.
>
> > In the case of the Latin line we know it could be read either way
> > because we are given both readings. In the case of the inscription, all
> > readers from the time (or long after) seem to have read it the same way,
> > and none seem to have thought the other reading was "available."
>
> Yes, Terry. Your argument that it is only a puzzle if someone
> notices it and solves it within x units of time is noted (yet
> again). What is x, by the way?
No, that is not my argument; but since you have imperfect recall of your
own statements, it is probably too much to expect you to understand anyone
else's. If you could demonstrate the existence of a valid but hitherto
unsuspected cipher, such that anyone competent in such ciphers would (from
the application of the same unambiguous set of keys to the same text) get
the same unique and meaningful solution, I would congratulate you. But
you have not even attempted to do this. On the other hand, readers for
400 years have understood the inscription to refer to William Shakespeare
and not to Marlowe or Marie of Roumania, and until you give us a proper
demonstration, I will be inclined to think those readers were right.
>
> <snip>
>
> > Do you think the observations of those closest in time to the erection of
> > the monument are unimportant?
>
> I think Dugdale and Vertue wrote what they thought the words
> meant. I believe that, had it occurred to them that it might be
> a puzzle, they would have written what it actally said.
So you think they did not intend to write what the inscription "actually
said"?
>
> > Do you think you are a fitter judge of
> > whether 17th Century inscriptions contain *Times of London* puzzles?
>
> Well, yes, I do, as it happens. But this is not a *Times of
> London* puzzle. It is a poem with two very different possible
> meanings, one of which contains a puzzle combining several types
> of clue, all of which were known at the time.
This is something you have never even attempted to demonstrate. Will you
please give us a contemporary example from Shakespeare's England of Times
of London clues in an inscription?
>
> > Of
> > course Dugdale could not have suspected the presence of such a puzzle,
> > because the type was not invented until long after his death, and even
> > your contemporaries who ARE familiar with such puzzles cannot find any such
> > thing in the inscription.
>
> And yet were able with complete precision to show how I arrived
> at the answer, lacking only the definition of 'ley' (a bill,
> score, reckoning) that I had used. Amazing.
This is not true, Peter, and you know it is not true. Your original post
to the crosswords newsgroup failing to result in a "solution," you piled
clue upon clue and thoroughly tainted the process, and even then nobody
came up with your proposed "solution"; rather, you had to hand it to the
readers, who were not very impressed. Unfortunately, your posts to that
group are not in the dejanews archive, but this post of mine, which
includes our exchanges on the subject (and which I believe was the last
one in its thread) is available:
http://x53.deja.com/=dnc/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=586694782
>
> > > So did George Vertue, who did the
> > > 'correct' engraving in 1723. This is how he transcribed it.
>
> <snip>
>
> > He doesn't seem to have had any trouble with the inscription either. It
> > seems that what you are offering is an unbelievable solution to a
> > nonexistent problem.
>
> No, it probably said 'INGENIO PYLIUM' at that time too, and
> 'dost thou go', and 'has plac'd', and 'the Tomb', and 'than
> Cost', and 'since all', just as he transcribed it. He didn't
> LOOK at it, Terry. He simply jotted down what he thought it
> said. I'm sorry, but if you refuse to grasp the simple notion
> that someone setting such a puzzle WANTS people not to notice
> that there is anything unusual, I cannot help you.
Peter, I am always told by cipher-mongers that my reluctance to accept
their autobiographies as a demonstration of the existence of a valid
cipher reveals some fact about my own failings. Such accusations are, of
course, irrelevant. What may be relevant is that cipher-mongers such as
you typically make the following two claims about their "brilliant"
imaginary cryptographer:
1. He was so devilishly clever in concealing his cipher that nobody
suspected a thing until [YOUR NAME HERE] wised the world up.
2. He left blatant clues to the existence of the cipher/puzzle.
>
> Three related questions, though.
> IF the inscription is as clear as you say it is,
> (a) Why did Dugdale find it necessary to make 36 changes to it
> to make it understandable?
Who says that the he did? Is it your contention that every variation
between two versions of a text is a deliberate change that is "necessary"
to make that text "understandable"? In any event, there are far more than
36 variations between Dugdale's version and the original, but both are
understandable.
> (b) Why did Vertue find it necessary to make 40 (mostly different)
> changes to it to make it understandable?
Who says that he did?
> (c) Why can I find not a single 'official' interpretation of it, with
> which the Shakespearean establishment generally agrees?
I don't know what you mean by "official," but there is far more agreement
than disagreement among scholars. There is certainly unanimity on the
main point.
>
> > > > That also seems to be the opinion of every other visitor to the scene who
> > > > left a record over the rest of the 17th Century.
> >
> > > Yes, Terry. We are agreed that nobody until now has noticed
> > > that it might be a riddle, or, if they did, that they decided
> > > not to tell us about it.
> >
> > Or they were kidnaped by Martians and the knowledge was vacuumed out of
> > their brains. Most likely, they did not suspect a riddle. I have seen
> > your reelings and writhings on this, and I do not suspect a riddle either.
>
> Nor do I think that anyone suspected a riddle but, as we all
> know, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
So it WAS them Martians! No wonder there's no evidence!
>
> > You forget your own auto-paean; here is Peter Farey on the deviser of the
> > "puzzle" (June 22, 1999): "he had to make sure that two separate but
> > logical meanings were provided. I think he was brilliant to manage it at
> > all!"
>
> I said that I think that he (I do not rule out 'she', however)
> was brilliant, and I still do. Your inability to distinguish the
> two pronouns 'he' and 'I' is weird.
You are the deviser of the "puzzle." As I have said before, it is common
for cipher-mongers to praise themselves by displacing their own
"brilliance" or "genius" onto the imaginary Renaissance cryptographer.
You are no different in this respect.
>
> > Since the only person who has attempted to inflict the alleged puzzle on
> > the inscription is you, it is your own "brilliance" that is so dazzles
> > you.
>
> This is not only rather unpleasant, but patently untrue.
It may be unpleasant, but it is no less true. When Rollett praises the
brilliance of his imaginary cryptographer, he is really praising himself.
When Leary praises the brilliance of Bacon for devising such clever
ciphers, he is really praising himself. When you praise your imaginary
cryptographer, you are really praising yourself. It is touching, in a
way.
> Had you been the slightest bit interested in following my argument,
> you would know that a central part of it is that this does NOT require
> any special cleverness to solve it, that *anyone* who suspected that
> 'read' meant 'solve' would have been *led* to the answer.
You have never to my knowledge attempted to present a demonstration that
you have found a valid cipher according to the principles discussed by
William and Elizebeth Friedman. No person claiming to have found a
Shakespearean cipher need be taken seriously unless he or she meets that
challenge. Now, if you believe there are demonstrably valid ciphers that
cannot meet the Friedmans' standards, I'd be interested in your examples.
Otherwise your task, if you wish to be taken seriously, is to offer that
demonstration. This you have never done. Of course, one thing the
Friedmans do not consider part of the demonstration is the kind of "hints
in the text" upon which your whole "puzzle" relies. Furthermore, the fact
that even experienced puzzle-hounds could not get your puzzle despite your
handing them many many more "hints" than that "read" meant "solve"
demonstrates that your claim about what "anyone" would be led to is false.
> Furthermore, the only reason *I* suspected this was by accident, an
> accident which my views on the authorship meant I was more likely to
> follow up than most people. Again, no need for brilliance. Even if
> your attack were justified, however, I am sure that those less
> obsessed than you can see how totally irrelevant to the argument this
> is.
It is not an attack; I am merely placing your remarks in the proper
context. The flip side of your hyperpraise for the "brilliance" of the
imaginary 17th Century cryptographer is your own "aw shucks" modesty, but
since it is you and you alone who "sees" and "solves" the "puzzle," both
the "brilliance" and the modesty are yours to claim.
>
> <snip>
>
> > > and it is in any case as irrelevant to
> > > the question of whether I am right or not as, for example, a snide *ad
> > > hominem* comment would be.
>
> > What "snide ad hominem"?
>
> I really did 'laugh out loud' at that one.
Then my posts have not been entirely in vain.
>
> > If you have a case to make then you know what
> > you must do. William and Elizebeth Friedman in their classic exploration
> > of Shakespearean ciphers discussed in detail how any case for an alleged
> > cipher must be made if it is to be taken seriously. I know you are
> > familiar with their principles, and I have not heard from you any reason
> > to think that a demonstrably valid cipher could not meet their standards;
> > the onus therefore is on you to provide such a demonstration.
>
> This is a puzzle, Terry, not a cipher.
Not even you believe that dodge, Peter. Here is the first paragraph of
your puzzle page: "So many ludicrous cryptograms have been offered as an
alleged proof that someone other than William Shakespeare of
Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him, that anyone
attempting to suggest something even remotely along these lines is bound
to receive a fairly cool reception."
By your own admission, you are attempting to suggest something at least
"remotely along the lines" of a "ludicrous cryptogram." Your alleged
"puzzle" is based on anagrams, which are a kind of transposition cipher.
You believe that the text on the monument includes a "hidden meaning"; in
cryptological terms, you believe there is both a cipher-text (the
inscription) and a plain text (your bizarre "solution" to the "puzzle").
The only other example you give of a contemporary epitaph that contains a
"hidden meaning" is the acrostic for Sir Francis Walsingham. An acrostic
is a kind of cipher, and that very Walsingham example (which is a
demonstrably valid cipher) is discussed by the Friedmans in several
places. You claim,
"we have proceeded, inexorably and with complete logic, to Christopher
Marlowe's name, and the conclusion that, according to the monument, he was
involved in the writing of Shakespeare's works. The probability that such
a process would, of all possibilities, lead merely by chance to the
complete and precise name of one of the most likely candidates in the
'authorship question', together with an apparent confirmation of his
authorship, is as near to zero as makes no difference at all."
It is this claim that I am asking you to defend. There are standards for
the demonstration that you imagine you have given, and they are discussed
by the Friedmans. The Friedmans also discuss how to ascertain the odds
against a demonstrably valid cipher's appearing by chance. Once again you
assert to have shown what you are unwilling even to attempt to
demonstrate. You can hardly beg off now on the grounds that your alleged
cipher is not a cipher but a "puzzle" that merely happens to be based on
ciphers, that you compare to a valid cipher, and that you defend in the
terms (but without the grounds) one uses for a valid cipher.
> You have reminded us of the similarity of part of this one to the
> *Times of London* crossword puzzle.
No, this is simply not true Peter. I have reminded people of YOUR CLAIM
that there was such a similarity. You said this in your first post to the
crosswords group:
====
I recently noticed a crossword-type clue (hard, even for the
Times of London, I would say) in the middle of the Shakespeare
monument in Stratford. Whether it was intentional or not, I
thought some of you might find it fun to muse upon.
Whose name, doth deck this (i.e Shakespeare's)
tomb, far more, then cost! (10, 6)
And this is followed by a much easier, but related, one:
Sieh (2, 2, 4)
=====
In order to induce a "solution" to your "puzzle," you made far more
significant changes than Dugdale or Vertue. You deleted most of the
inscription, you inserted parentheses that were not part of the original,
you disrupted the verse layout, you changed the punctuation and
capitalization.
Where in the inscription did you find the word counts? Where in the
inscription does it say that SIEH is a clue, the solution to which is
three words long, the words being 2, 2, and 4 letters in length
respectively? Where in the inscription does it say that "Whose name, doth
deck this tomb, far more, then cost!" is a Times of London-style clue
whose solution is two words, of 10 and 6 letters respectively?
> So how do typical crossword puzzle clues, for example, stack up
> against the Friedmans' principles?
Since there are no crossword puzzle clues of any sort (typical or
otherwise) on the monument, I'm not sure why you ask, but good crossword
puzzle clues work by the application of particular keys, and their
solutions are both unique and meaningful. We know when a crossword puzzle
clue begins and when it ends. A Times of London puzzle clue can be solved
by thousands of people working independently of each other, and even
people who do not succeed in solving a clue can check the next day's or
week's answer, and ascertain for themselves that the clue was sufficient
to produce exactly one solution. Should a clue be shown to allow either
no solution, or more than one valid solution, apologies are called for.
>
> > What you
> > have given us instead is what we get from most cipher-mongers, bits of
> > autobiography ("then I noticed something peculiar in the text"). Your
> > entire argument is based not on what any reasonable and competent person
> > would find, given the same text and the same unambiguous keys,
>
> I have time and again taken people through the sequence of
> questions I went through in reaching this solution, and have
> begged people at each stage to come up with an answer that 'any
> reasonable and competent person' would find, if different to
> the one I did. Nobody, but nobody, has yet done so.
That is not the way such a demonstration works. You attempt to compel
belief by constantly nudging the reader to make the same arbitrary wild
leaps that you did. In the case of the Walsingham epitaph, all we have to
do is present the reader with the text and then supply the key (read the
first letters of each line). Every competent reader will invariably get
the same solution. The solution uses all of the first letters and only
the first letters. The reader starts at the beginning and proceeds in the
same fashion until the end. The solution is unique and meaningful.
There are no arbitrary shifts from one key to another, no appeals to what
any reasonable person might or might not wish to accept. The
demonstration, in fact, is rather mechanical, and in this case, one could
write a computer program to apply the key to the text.
I have written such a computer program that does something very similar
for *Paradise Lost*. It has been suggested that there are meaningful
acrostics in *PL*: for instance, there is a place in book 9 where the
first letters of consecutive lines form the name SATAN. On the other
hand, once can find OTTO in books 4, 5, and 7; HOWIE in book 1; FABIO in
books 4 and 12; NORMA in book 4, WALT in books 3, 11, and 12; and so on --
so perhaps the SATAN is not deliberate.
It isn't always possible to use computer assistance in solving ciphers or
other puzzles, but the solutions in any case depend upon the application
of strict rules that, if applied by competent persons, should yield a
unique solution.
>
> > but rather
> > on your own "brilliance" in spotting what nobody else had ever seen except
> > you and your imaginary friend, the 17th Century anticipatory doppelganger
> > who devised that "puzzle" that you think you have "solved." It is not an
> > invalid "ad hominem" argument to spot in your cipher-mongering the same
> > symptoms of invalidity that one finds in countless other Shakespearean
> > cipher-mongers.
>
> It is an attack on me, which has nothing to do with the validity
> or otherwise of what I have to say. That's 'ad hominem' in my
> book, and is in my experience generally associated with an
> inability to find a logical argument, which certainly seems to
> be the case here with you.
It is hardy an "attack" on you to point out one more way in which your
presentation is typical of Shakespearean cipher-mongers. Of course you
wish to dissociate yourself from those whose ciphers you do not accept.
Penn Leary, in fact, is quite astute about some of the problems with
Rollett's alleged ciphers, and Rollett has no trouble seeing the flaws in
Leary's. Neither one would care very much to be associated with the
other's cipher, or with yours. One finds on this newsgroup that the
accusation of "ad hominem" is not generally leveled by those whose own
arguments are the strongest.
>
[snip the "invisible ink" bit]
>
> <snip>
>
> > You, Zenner, Baker and Dave More all believe that the works of Shakespeare
> > were written by a man who was dead and buried before most of the works
> > were written, so evidently you don't consider any part of a corporal body
> > to be required for writing.
>
> I think it highly probable that Marlowe was not 'dead and buried
> before most of the works were written'. I explain why I think this in
> my essay *The Reckoning Revisited* at the URL below. Since you have
> never shown any sign of having read this, I do not expect you to share
> my views on this.
I have read your essay, and I do not share your views. The fact that I am
not persuaded is NOT a sign that I haven't read your words. Parts of your
argument are circular, of course. You have advanced your cipher/puzzle as
one of the big 5 reasons for accepting that Marlowe survived and wrote
Shakespeare's works, and you advance Marlowe's candidacy as a reason to
accept the cipher.
>
> <snip>
>
> > > A colon followed by a word having an initial capital which would not
> > > usually be capitalized (like 'sith') was, at that time, usually taken
> > > to indicate the end of one sentence and the beginning of a new one.
> >
> > All of the letters in the inscription are capitals. Some capitals are
> > larger than others, such as those that begin "FAR" and "LEAVES."
>
> How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or
> equivocation will undo us.
Forgive me, Peter; I thought YOU were the one and only person whose
reading accounted for everything in the inscription. So why is it that
FAR and LEAVES have large capitals?
>
> > Why are
> > there large capitals for these words? What puzzle is pointed to?
>
> Nice try, Terry, but my statement was:
> > > A colon followed by a word having an initial capital which would not
> > > usually be capitalized (like 'sith') was, at that time, usually taken
> > > to indicate the end of one sentence and the beginning of a new one.
> Am I right, or am I wrong?
As I have said before, you should look at Percy Simpson's old (1911) but
still very useful little book *Shakespearean Punctuation*. Here is an
interesting example of colon usage that Simpson gives:
As Caesar lou'd me, I weepe for him; as he was Fortunate, I rejoice at it;
as he was Valiant, I honor him: But, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
*Julius Caesar* 3.2.26-29
I see one sentence here. I see a colon within that sentence, and a
capital "B" at the start of the word "But," a word not usually capitalized
and that does not begin a new sentence. Here are more examples of a colon
that is not the end of a sentence being followed by a capitalized word
that is not generally capitalized:
Gentleman all: Alas, what shall I say,
My credit now stands on such slippery ground.
*Julius Caesar 3.1.190-91:
Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly wonne,
Ile frowne and be peruerse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt wooe: But else not for the world.
*Romeo and Juliet* 2.2.95-97
Crowne him, and say: Long live our Emperour.
*Titus Andronicus* 1.1.229:
Thy husband is thy Lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy soueraigne: One that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance.
*The Taming of the Shrew* 5.2.147-49
These are all taken from Percy Simpson. I can come up with many more, if
you need them, just by flipping through facsimiles of the *First Folio* or
quartos. What I do not understand is why you have not done any of this
for yourself. Where is your research?
Simpson also discusses capitalization. He notes that capital letters do
NOT always begin new sentences, and that sometimes they follow semicolons
or colons WITHIN sentences. Simpson says,
"Where a new sentence merely answers a previous question or closely
carries on the idea of the previous clause, the capital is dropped.
Mark'd ye his words? he would not take ye Crown,
Therefore 'tis certain, He was not Ambitious.
[*Julius Caesar* 3.2.118-19]
Out on thee, dotard! what starre rul'd his birth?
That brought him such a starre? blind Fortune still
Bestowes her gifts as such as cannot use them:
[*Every Man Out of his Humour* 2.4]
"And the usage is reversed after a colon or semicolon when a clause gives
a new turn to the thought, expresses deper feeling, or adds in any way a
touch of emphasis.
If good Chrestvs
Evthvs, or Phronimvs, had spoke the words,
They would have moou'ed me, and I should haue call'd
My thoughts, and actions, to a strict accompt
Vpon the hearing: But when I remember,
Tis Hedon and Anaides: alasse, then,
I thinke but what they are, and am not stirr'd
[*Cynthia's Revels*, 3.3]
If it were done, when 'tis done then 'twer well,
It were done quickly: If th'Assassination
Could trammel vp the Consequence, ...
[*Macbeth* 1.7.1-3]
O here
Will I set vp my euerlasting rest:
And shake the yoke of inauspicious starres
From this world-wearied flesh: Eyes looke your last:
Armes take your last embrace: And lips, O you
The doores of breath, seale with a righteous kisse
A dateless bargain to ingrossing death:
[*Romeo and Iuliet*, 5.3.109-15]
== Simpson, pages 106-07.
>
> > > I confess that my experience is far more with handwritten rather than
> > > with printed documents, however, so you may like to share with us what
> > > it is that Simpson says which proves me wrong.
>
> > Peter, we don't have to "prove you wrong."
>
> You appeared to disbelieve my statement as given above, and
> were citing Percy Simpson as an authority. I assumed that the
> two things were linked. Apparently not, so may I take it that
> you don't know whether I am right or not?
Not at all. It is up to you to demonstrate the validity of the proposed
cipher. Unless there is such a demonstration (and the standards to be met
are no secret), you have no call on our attention in this matter. One
factor that weakens every part of your non-demonstration is that you
continually express surprise at things that are not terribly uncommon,
such as mistakes in carved epitaphs, or capital letters following colons
that are not full stops in Renaissance texts. I told you where to look.
You will not look, so all right, I have supplied examples from Simpson and
I can also supply more from the quartos or First Folio. The point is, you
could have done this yourself. You could have checked some of your
assertions rather than expecting me to do your spadework.
>
> > You are the one offering the
> > cipher,
>
> I am pointing out the puzzle, and offering a solution.
Whatever. You don't have to call it a cipher; you can call is a
snarksporstp if you wish, but the onus on you to demonstrate its validity
is not affected by the name you choose to call it.
>
> > and the burden of proof is on you to prove that a valid one
> > demonstrably exists. All the rest of us have to do is go along with
> > Dugdale, Vertue, and the rest of the consensus.
>
> I'll say you have to! Your personal Room 101 would have such
> proof in it.
Peter, if you don't wish to assume the burden of proof then why do you
bother us with your notions? After all, you grant that it is "not
unreasonable" to take the inscription as being about William Shakespeare.
>
> > I am surprised that you
> > have not looked at Simpson, since part of your story is based on
> > contemporary colon usage.
>
> I have stated what I have observed to be the case in hundreds
> of documents of the time. If you will not believe this, then I
> guess that I'll have to get a quotation from Simpson to confirm
> it.
See the above; if those examples are not enough (and I have not even
quoted every one I found in Simpson), let me know, and I'll flip through
my FF facsimile for you. Of course, that is something I would have
expected you to have done for yourself. Why haven't you?
>
> > > > If you are going to claim that your
> > > > puzzle "is the only interpretation ever to take such things as they stand"
> > > > then you should be able to offer a full and consistent account of every
> > > > feature of the inscription, since your puzzle requires that the
> > > > inscription could not have been different, that all of its accidentals are
> > > > deliberate.
> > >
> > > The words you have so carefully selected from my essay appear
> > > in the following statement.
> > >
> > > "It was, as I hope to make clear, a solution that flowed
> > > logically from the words and the punctuation as they appear on
> > > the monument. As far as I know, in fact, this is the only
> > > interpretation ever to take such things as they stand, and not
> > > to assume that there must be the monumental equivalent of
> > > misprints or misspellings to make sense of the six lines of
> > > doggerel inscribed there."
> >
> > Exactly: you claim to take things "as they stand." That means that for
> > your "puzzle" every ingredient of the inscription is deliberate.
>
> This is a *non sequitur*. It means what I have said it means
> (below). No more and no less.
If the large capitals on FAR and LEAVES are not "misprints" or
"misspellings" then they are meaningful. What sense do you make of them?
>
> > It is no
> > accident that "FAR" and "LEAVES" begin with larger capitals; your
> > imaginary friend the cryptanalyst was telling you something. I want to
> > know what he was telling you.
>
> What would, of course, be of more interest is why he did NOT
> have capitals for READ, WITH and QVICK. That I am unable to see
> a reason for this, if indeed there is one, has no bearing on
> those things which I *can* see a reason for.
Again, you are offering us autobiography rather than demonstration. The
reasons that you claim to "see" are not convincing to the rest of us, and
the fact that you claim to have such visions is not an argument. If,
however, you scorn those who have repunctuated or respelled the
inscription, and if you claim that "anomalies" are what lead you to
your "puzzle," then we are right to expect a full account from you of
every "anomaly."
> I can hear two noises outside at the moment. I know what one of them
> is, and the fact that I cannot immediately identify the second makes
> no difference to this fact whatsoever.
Autobiography again. It may be interesting to you and those who know you
that you hear two noises and think you can identify only one, but we would
need something other than your say-so to accept that the identifiable
noise was that of Marlowe pushing out of his grave.
Peter, either the presence of large capitals is always significant or it
is not. If it is not, that's fine. Most of us would change the spelling,
capitalization, and punctuation of the epitaph in some ways if we were
presenting it to people who might be confused by such matters as the
character that looks like a big "Y," and your own recasting of the
inscription is the most bizarre I have seen, and the one that departs most
from "what is really there." You, however, have staked a claim to being
the only one to take the inscription as it stands. Since you find a
(mistaken) significance in the oversize capital of SIEH, it is only
reasonable to ask why you consider some oversize capitals matters of
indifference.
>
> > > My point is, I think, fairly clear. I make use - where it is
> > > relevant - of what actually IS there, rather than (as Dugdale,
> > > Vertue and you do) what you think OUGHT to have been there.
>
> > No you do not. You pick and choose ("where it is relevant"), as everyone
> > else does.
>
> But I do NOT pretend that words are there when they are not.
You pretend that commas are there when they are not. You pretend that
commonplace occurrences are rare. You pretend that Times of London clues
are there when they are not. You pretend that Shakespeare's name is not
on his "tomb" although you will acknowledge that for 400 years reasonable
people have justifiably understood that to be the case.
>
> > You believe that some large capitals are significant while
> > others are not.
>
> I believe that a colon followed by an initial capital usually
> means the beginning of a new sentence, other than in
> abbreviations, such as in Sir Fra: Walsingham. Am I wrong?
See above.
>
> > You believe readers are invited to add commas in a way
> > that no reader that we know of before you ever did (cipher-mongers often
> > seem to be the recipients of invitations that somehow got lost in the mail
> > for centuries).
>
> I believe that leaving something 'unpointed' so that more than
> one meaning was possible was not unprecedented, having in fact
> been used by the very person who, I say, is the subject of this
> puzzle.
In *Edward II* you find both the Latin line and the discussion of its
punctuation. Where in the inscription is the discussion of its
punctuation? Of course the inscription is not "unpointed"; you perhaps mean
imperfectly pointed. The repointing and rewriting required by your
"solution" is quite extensive, and contradicts your claim to take the
inscription as it stands.
>
> > You believe that your imaginary friend invented Times of
> > London puzzles in the 17th Century. On the other hand, you wish to reject
> > the notion that there could be mistakes on the inscription, yet such
> > mistakes are not at all uncommon even today, as you now know.
>
> I am happy to accept that such mistakes occur. What I am less happy to
> accept is that, purely by chance, they should allow such a totally
> different yet completely comprehensible message, which even includes
> the name of one of the people most likely to have collaborated with
> Shakespeare.
Marlowe's death in 1593 made any conceivable collaboration after that date
impossible. He would have been the least likely collaborator (to be fair,
he would have been in a kajillion-way tie with every other dead person).
Your attempt to show that there is a puzzle within the inscription is so
uncomprehensible that even experienced puzzle solvers were unable to find
the solution, despite your desperate addition of hint after hint.
>
> > > I do not claim that *every* accidental is deliberate, only that
> > > more of them are than you give the author credit for.
>
> > Then you do NOT take the inscription as it stands. Of course we do not
> > know who the author was, and we do not know how faithful the inscription
> > was to the author's text. Since you cannot know this, your argument must
> > rely on your demonstrating that such inscriptions were generally flawless
> > renditions of an author's text, down to the least mark of
> > punctuation. I have not seen your offer of proof on this point.
> >
> > Remember, your argument, such as it is, depends on your being the only
> > person in the history of the universe to spot the "puzzle" and the
> > presence of the puzzle relies on your demonstrating that the inscription
> > is perfect, that there are no mistakes, that every element is deliberate.
>
> No, Terry. It depends upon my showing that, taking it as it stands, it
> is possible to read a quite different message; one that is perfectly
> coherent and internally consistent, and which includes (of all
> possible names) the name of the only person ever to have shown the
> potential to equal Shakespeare. It also depends upon a realization of
> how impossibly low is the probability of this happening just by
> chance.
Again, as in your last paragraph, what we have here is assertion that you
have succeeded rather than any attempt at a demonstration. I have no
doubt that you have persuaded yourself, just as Rollett and Leary
persuaded themselves, but such self-persuasion is not part of the required
demonstration. Your proposed "solution" is neither coherent nor
consistent. You take parts of the text as they appear, but some parts of
it you wish to anagrammatize. There is no key for when anagrams are
supposed to begin and when they are supposed to end. You balk at a
meaning of "tombe" that is not first in the OED, but your cipher requires
the use of incomparably greater obscurities, such as "THEN COST" = "-ley."
As for the likelihood that some alternative reading could be proposed that
would point to some "candidate" other than Shakespeare, I would put the
probability vanishingly close to 1. All strains of anti-Stratfordianism
are susceptible to cipher-mongering, and such a choice text has yielded
many claims. To date, however, nobody that I am aware of has offered a
demonstration that a demonstrably valid cipher exists in the inscription.
>
> > Once you confess that you do NOT believe every accidental must be
> > deliberate, then you have lost that part of your original justification,
> > such as it was. Since we are now faced with the choice either of
> > accepting the readings offered by Dugdale or Vertue or any of the
> > countless others who take the inscription as referring only to William
> > Shakespeare, or of accepting your set of readings, which requires a long
> > series of implausibilities and impossibilities, you will understand why
> > we do not prefer yours.
>
> Why you 'do not prefer' mine has little to do with my argument,
> as is amply demonstrated by that statement. Which specific
> "implausibilities and impossibilities" did you have in mind?
I just listed a few. One more is that your argument requires that SIEH be
deliberately intended simultaneously as a mistake for SITH, and as a
Times-style clue that would give "he is back." The greatest impossibility
is that of Marlowe's contributing anything to the world after his death,
but there is also the impossibility of 17th century readers knowing about
Times of London puzzles and about the modern phenomenon of
anti-Stratfordian candidates such as the ghost of Marlowe. There is the
implausibility that an epitaph would be designed to be simultaneously
plain text and cipher text; you refer to epitaphs that are "riddles" and
then assume without justification that the nature of a riddle requires
concealment that it is a riddle. This requirement is new to me, and the
riddling epitaphs I am aware of are obviously riddles, even if the answer
is not always obvious. In the case of the Shakespeare inscription, as you
have noted, observers have not acted as if they thought there was a riddle
or puzzle or cipher.
>
> <snip>
>
> > You say,
> >
> > Whether it means "read if you can" or "read if you began to", it still
> > seems a rather strange thing to say. Why would there be any doubt about
> > the reading ability of someone who is already reading the inscription? It
> > seems paradoxical . (2) Similarly, but slightly less strangely, if they
> > have begun to read and are still reading, why ask them to do something
> > that they are doing already?
> >
> > If "read if thou canst" is formulaic, then it is not particularly
> > strange; rather it would be conventional, and would probably not have
> > seemed strange to contemporaries.
>
> As neither you nor Clark have managed to find a precedent for
> this, the word 'formulaic' is hardly justified.
Perhaps that is why I used the word "if." I am not able to check
Elizabethan inscriptions, but we know the exact wording "read if thou
canst" appears on a 1630 inscription, and neither of us should be
surprised if other examples turn up. Neither Clark nor I would claim to
have attempted a thorough search, but we have, without much trouble, come
up with examples that cast doubt on the alleged "strangeness" of the
phrase.
> > Have you done much searching of
> > epitaphs from the period? I'm sure there are many things in them that
> > might strike one as strange but that might not have puzzled seasoned
> > observers at the time.
> >
I am sorry you did not answer this question. I am sure that there is much
that a modern might find "strange" about epitaphs from 400 years
ago. Have you done much searching? It might be helpful to approach each
epitaph as if it might bear on Marlowe so that your strangeness detectors
will be fully alert.
> > > Rather stranger, however, is the idea that the thing on the wall is a
> > > 'tomb'. Not according to any definition I have ever come across, it
> > > ain't.
> >
> > OED Tomb. 2. A monument erected to enclose or cover the body and preserve
> > the memory of the dead; a sepulchral structure raised above the earth.
> > Hence sometimes a cenotaph. Also formerly, a tombstone erected over a
> > grave.
> >
> > It has been suggested that a more elaborate monument may have been
> > intended, and that Shakespeare's body would be placed within or directly
> > under that monument, which would then be a tomb in the sense you wish.
> > Can a monument to the dead be called a "tomb" if the dead person's remains
> > do not lie directly within or under that monument? Yes, according to the
> > OED. I wouldn't call the Stratford monument a cenotaph, because
> > Shakespeare is buried nearby, within the church where the monument is
> > found, but if "tomb" can mean a memorial monument to someone who is buried
> > in a different part of the world, I see no difficulty in taking it to
> > refer to a monument to a man who was buried a few feet away -- nor have
> > most visitors to the site over the centuries.
>
> All of which Clark and I agonized over.
Then why on earth would you say something so silly as "Not according to
any definition I have ever come across, it ain't"? The first three
dictionaries I checked had definitions that would cover this usage. Which
dictionaries did YOU check?
> But what you keep trying to show is that it is not unreasonable to
> interpret 'read if thou canst' or 'tomb' in the way the normal visitor
> would.
OK; then why should we not be not unreasonable?
> It would be foolish of me to deny that, because (a) that is
> what an effective puzzle would require and (b) they have (as you keep
> pointing out) been interpreted that way over the years.
Well, the (a) point is irrelevant. You could say of every text in which
no puzzle is suspected that it contains just what an effective puzzle
would require; the flip side of this line of reasoning is that every
puzzle that announces itself must be something else, because no effective
puzzle would be so obvious. This is obviously not true of, say Times of
London crosswords, which are unmistakably puzzles. It is also not true of
a great many other puzzles, nor is it generally true of riddles, whose
puzzling aspect is not their very existence (every contestant recognized
the Sphinx's riddle as a riddle), but their solution (to hold his pants
up). That leaves us with the (b) point: the phrases you find strange have
been understood as non-strange for 400 years. Where then is the problem?
> All I am saying is that, if you look at them with more care than the
> casual visitor would, the words 'read if thou canst' are somewhat
> strange,
I have been there, and I have looked at them with considerable care. I
found them challenging, but not "strange" in the sense that you mean. I
also find biblical echoes in some of what you find strange about the
epitaph, which might account for some of the familiarity in what you think
strange.
> and the word 'tomb' is far more applicable to the grave than to the
> monument.
Not within the inscription; there it refers to the monument, as visitors
have understood for centuries.
> In both cases, in other words, the interpretation according to the
> 'puzzle' theory makes rather more sense than the orthodox one.
I am sure you believe this; what you remain unable to do is to demonstrate
the validity of what you profess.
Tom Lay
> Shakspere had a tomb (of sorts) in Stratford and Oxford
> had his in Hackney. The only one without an official resting
> place was Marlowe.
>
> "An unmarked grave" in St Nicholas Churchyard, Deptford.
> For the leading playwright of his day? Nah....
Was Mozart also a hoax?
Tom Lay