Oxfordian explanation of "still vex'd Bermoothes"
Tom Reedy
> Tom Reedy wrote:
> > "Mouse" <lynnek...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> > news:1157057461.1...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
> > > I do remember "Bermoothes" or something
> > > of the sort coming up in Duchess of Malfi. And Richard Roe suggesting
> > > that at least by 1614 it referred to an area of London.
> >
> > Bermondsey, a suburb in Southwark supposedly "vexed by distilleries,"
> > according to Roe.
>
> Yes, it would certainly have been a good joke if so.
> >
> > > But I simply
> > > can't see why "Bermoothawes" in a poem in 1610 would mean that the
> > > Tempest reference to the Bermoothes would need to depend on it,
> >
> > But Bermoothes = Bermondsey, no problem!
>
> I understood that the area was actually known as the Bermudas or
> Bermoothes by 1614, but I don't have a copy of Roe's essay.
Here's the relevant part of the essay, which is in The Shakespeare
Newsletter, Fall-Winter 1989, pages 36-37:
BEGIN QUOTE
In the days of these plays the Bermoothes was a London district
privileged against arrest, consisting of certain alleys and passages
contiguous to Drury Lane, near Covent Garden, and north of the Strand.
(See Eric Partridge, *A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional
English*, \ 7th Ed., 1976 . . . .)
The Bermoothes were a refuge for debtors, miscreants and felons.
'Still-vex'd?' The hyphen has meaning: plainly, vexed by stills.
Pot stills. The stills that make 'dew.' Pertridge (ibid.) enters
but one word for 'dew:' Whiskey. . . . Prospero sent Ariel to
London, at midnight, to fetch whiskey.
[...]
How can such an error happen to our scholars?
Once the settlement of the Bermudas began in the seventeenth century,
they, too, were made a haven for debtors; another, newer, immunity
area. Thus, with the lingual similarity of Bermoothes and Bermudas and
the common function of immunity from arrest, the slang began.
Bermoothes in slang were, to the seventeenth century Londoners, the
local "Bermudas." An example is found in Jonson's *The Devil's
an Ass* (1616): Keeps he still your quarter in the Bermudas." Jonson
is writing about the Bermoothes.
END QUOTATION
I'll comment in a subsequent post.
TR
Tom Reedy
news:1157745195.4...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
> Here's the relevant part of the essay, which is in The Shakespeare
> Newsletter, Fall-Winter 1989, pages 36-37:
>
> BEGIN QUOTE
>
> In the days of these plays the Bermoothes was a London district
> privileged against arrest, consisting of certain alleys and passages
> contiguous to Drury Lane, near Covent Garden, and north of the Strand.
> (See Eric Partridge, *A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional
> English*, \ 7th Ed., 1976 . . . .)
>
> The Bermoothes were a refuge for debtors, miscreants and felons.
>
> 'Still-vex'd?' The hyphen has meaning: plainly, vexed by stills.
> Pot stills. The stills that make 'dew.' Pertridge (ibid.) enters
> but one word for 'dew:' Whiskey. . . . Prospero sent Ariel to
> London, at midnight, to fetch whiskey.
>
> [...]
>
> How can such an error happen to our scholars?
>
> Once the settlement of the Bermudas began in the seventeenth century,
> they, too, were made a haven for debtors; another, newer, immunity
> area. Thus, with the lingual similarity of Bermoothes and Bermudas and
> the common function of immunity from arrest, the slang began.
>
> Bermoothes in slang were, to the seventeenth century Londoners, the
> local "Bermudas." An example is found in Jonson's *The Devil's
> an Ass* (1616): Keeps he still your quarter in the Bermudas." Jonson
> is writing about the Bermoothes.
>
> END QUOTATION
The good news for Oxfordians: There really was a Bermudas in London in a
disreputable area.
But I suppose by now most everyone has spotted the fatal flaw in Roe's
explanation. It isn't that hard to find.
Roe contends that there was an area of London known as the Bermoothes BEFORE
the settlement of Bermuda began. There is no evidence for that at all, and
Roe produces none.
As is typical of Oxfordians, Roe does not give all of the information in the
reference, and fails to look further than what satisfies his need to find
support for his fantasy. Here's the rest of what Partridge has to say about
the word:
==========
BERMUDAS, BERMOOTHES. A London district (cf. Alsatia, q.v.) privileged
against arrest: certain alleys and passages contiguous to Drury Lane, near
Covent Garden, and north of the Strand: Jonson, *The Devil's an Ass* (1616):
'Keeps he still your quarter in the Bermudas.' Grose and Ainsworth are
almost certainly in error in referring the term to the Mint in Southwark. In
C. 17, certain notable debtors fled to the Bermuda Islands, says Nares.
==========
Roe conveniently left out the reference to Robert Nares, whose 1822 work is
entitled, "A Glossary; or, collection of words, phrases, names, and
allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require
illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare and
his contemporaries."
If Roe had researched a bit further, he might have learned something, but
then, of course, it would have added to the already huge amount of cognitive
dissonance he has to tolerate to be an Oxfordian.
Nares gives two separate entries:
==========
BERMOOTHES. The Bermudas: an old form of the name.
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still vext Bermoothes. Temp. i. 2.
The dev'l should think of purchasing that egg-shell
To victual out a witch for the Burmoothes.
B. & Fl. Women pleas'd, i, 2. [performed 1620]
BERMUDAS, in London. A cant term for certain obscure and intricate alleys,
in which persons lodged who had occasion to live cheap or concealed; called
also the Straights, q.v. They are supposed to have been the narrow passages
north of the Strand, near Covent-garden.
Meercraft. Engine, when did you see
My cousin Everhill? keeps he still your quarter
In the Bermudas? Eng. Yes sir, he was writing
This morning very hard. B. Jons. Devil an Ass, ii, 1. [1616]
Turn pyrates here at land,
Ha' their Bermudas and their Streights i' th' Strand.
ibid. Epist. to Sir Edw. Dorset, vol. vi, 861.
==========
John D. Farmer's *Slang and its Analogues,* privately published in London in
1890, refers to Nares:
==========
As regards the derivation of the name, Nares suggests it in the actual
practice, which contained of debtors fleeing to the Bermuda Islands, when
first discovered, to elude their creditors. this fact is alluded to in the
following. Cf., second quotation already given.
1616. Jonson, Devil's an Ass, III., 3.
There's an old debt of forty, I ga' my word. For one is run away to the
BERMUDAS.
==========
However, Bermuda didn't begin colonizing until 1612, when the Virginia
Company sent 60 settlers to Bermuda on the Plough, including Richard Moore,
the new Governor. In March of 1614, the Blessing and the Star brought new in
new colonists.
So the term for the London neighborhood didn't begin until after 1612, which
is consistent with the references we have, and after the first recorded
performance of Tempest in 1611.
I found other references to the London area:
From Vol 4 of the Works of Ben Jonson, published 1816, Bartholomew Fair,
page 430:
==========
Over. Look in any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where
the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with
bottle-ale and tobacco?
[Note at the bottom of the page:]
The Streights, or the Bermudas,] Cant-names then given to the places
frequented by bullies, knights of the post, and fencing masters: so our
poet, in his epistle to the earl of Dorset:
"--Turn pirates here at land,
"Have their Bermudas, and their Streights in the Strand."
These Streights consisted of a nest of obscure courts, alleys, and avenues,
running between the bottom of St. Martin's Lane, Half-moon, and
Chandos-street. In Justice Overdo's time, they were the receptacles of
fraudulent debtors, thieves, and prostitutes. their present frequenters, it
is to be presumed, are of a more reputable description. At a subsequent
period, this cluster of avenues exchanged the old name of the Bermudas for
that of the Caribbee Islands, which the learned professors of the district
corrupted, by a happy allusion to the arts cultivated there, into the
Cribbee Islands, their present appellation.
==========
In *Colonial Transformations: The Cultural Production of the New Atlantic
World, 1580-1640,* Rebecca Ann Bach says, "In the early seventeenth century
a disreputable section of London came to be called the Bermudas," and gives
Jonson's uses as references.
"Jonson uses the name 'Bermuda' to signify doubly," she writes. "That
section of London, like the islands off America, is morally and even
physically dangerous, a haven for pirates, where unsuspecting visitors might
well metaphorically be shipwrecked, robbed, or cheated out of their goods;
London's Bermuda is a den of iniquity. (136)"
The first use of the word with the "ooth" spelling, Bermoothawes, is from
Newes from Virginia. The lost Flocke Triumphant, a 16-page poem about the
wreck of the Sea Venture in the Bermudas, written by "R. Rich, Gent. One of
the Voyage," and published in the fall of 1610.
Rich uses the word twice. The rest of the Bermuda accounts use the spelling
"Bermudas" or "Barmudas" or some close variation, but never the "ooth"
spelling.
The next use is Shakespeare's, which clearly references the stormy islands.
The third is John Webster's 1614 *Duchess of Malfi,* where in 3.2 Bosola
says:
I would sooner swim to the Bermoothes on
Two politicians' rotten bladders, tied
Together with an intelligencer's heart-string,
Than depend on so changeable a prince's favour.
A clear reference to the islands, also. No references to the area in London
exist until 1616, after colonization had begun and Bermuda had got the
reputation as a debtor's haven.
TR
Tom Reedy
below.
"Tom Reedy" <tomr...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:FSoMg.195$OI1.173@trnddc05...
A practice of running away actually to the Bermuda Islands, when they were
first settled, to defraud creditors, probably gave rise to the expression,
which seems to be literally used here:
There's an old debt of forty, I ga' my word
For one is run away to the Bermudas.
B. Jons. Devil an Ass, iii, 3.
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Reedy wrote:
,
> A practice of running away actually to the Bermuda Islands, when they were
> first settled, to defraud creditors, probably gave rise to the expression,
> which seems to be literally used here:
>
> There's an old debt of forty, I ga' my word
> For one is run away to the Bermudas.
> B. Jons. Devil an Ass, iii, 3.
Tom Reedy
>> A clear reference to the islands, also. No references to the area in
>> London exist until 1616, after colonization had begun and Bermuda had got
>> the reputation as a debtor's haven.
That is an error. Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was acted at court Nov. 1, 1614,
and is dated Oct. 31, 1614 by a mock indenture between the author and the
spectators in the induction (ES iii 372). Jonson also alludes to
Shakespeare's Tempest in the indenture, saying there will be no
"Seruant-monster" because the author is "loth to make Nature afraid in his
Playes, like those that begat Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries."
The error makes no difference in my point, which is that no references to
the area in London exist until after colonization of Bermuda was well
underway. Jonson doesn't refer to it as a debtor's haven, however, until
1616, but as a disreputable area where its residents pass the time with
"Bottle Ale and Tabacco."
TR
>>
>> TR
>>
>>
>
>
Ms. Mouse
Jonson referred to it by 1614 as a disreputable area but the area
didn't exist until at least 1610? Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
I think that the Tempest island is a conflation of
the Mediterranean
the New World
London
and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
and drunken--as well as the farthest off island in the world (Eden).
Think what a hysterically sly joke it would have been to the audience.
And after all, if Shakespeare wasn't speaking of London, why match up
"still" and "dew" with Bermoothes? He was a pretty ingenious chap, that
Shakespeare. He knew the heft of words.
L.
>
> >>
> >> TR
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
Tom Reedy
news:1157813320.9...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Tom Reedy wrote:
>> "Tom Reedy" <tomr...@verizon.net> wrote in message
>> news:K%oMg.513$OI1.169@trnddc05...
>>
>> >> A clear reference to the islands, also. No references to the area in
>> >> London exist until 1616, after colonization had begun and Bermuda had
>> >> got
>> >> the reputation as a debtor's haven.
>>
>> That is an error. Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was acted at court Nov. 1,
>> 1614,
>> and is dated Oct. 31, 1614 by a mock indenture between the author and the
>> spectators in the induction (ES iii 372). Jonson also alludes to
>> Shakespeare's Tempest in the indenture, saying there will be no
>> "Seruant-monster" because the author is "loth to make Nature afraid in
>> his
>> Playes, like those that begat Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries."
>>
>> The error makes no difference in my point, which is that no references to
>> the area in London exist until after colonization of Bermuda was well
>> underway. Jonson doesn't refer to it as a debtor's haven, however, until
>> 1616, but as a disreputable area where its residents pass the time with
>> "Bottle Ale and Tabacco."
>>
>> TR
>
> Jonson referred to it by 1614 as a disreputable area but the area
> didn't exist until at least 1610?
What point of mine are you arguing against? I reread my post, but I see
nothing in it that relates to your post.
> Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
> same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
> to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
>
> I think that the Tempest island is a conflation of
>
> the Mediterranean
> the New World
> London
>
> and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
> as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
> and drunken
The only thing wrong with your scenario is there is no evidence whatsoever
for it, neither explicit nor circumstantial, like most Oxfordian fantasies.
> --as well as the farthest off island in the world (Eden).
> Think what a hysterically sly joke it would have been to the audience.
> And after all, if Shakespeare wasn't speaking of London, why match up
> "still" and "dew" with Bermoothes? He was a pretty ingenious chap, that
> Shakespeare. He knew the heft of words.
So I take it you are embracing Roe's half-source argument?
Incredible.
TR
>
> L.
>
>>
>> >>
>> >> TR
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>
Tom Reedy
news:1157813320.9...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> "Tom Reedy" <tomr...@verizon.net> wrote in message
>> news:K%oMg.513$OI1.169@trnddc05...
>>
>> >> A clear reference to the islands, also. No references to the area in
>> >> London exist until 1616, after colonization had begun and Bermuda had
>> >> got
>> >> the reputation as a debtor's haven.
>>
>> That is an error. Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was acted at court Nov. 1,
>> 1614,
>> and is dated Oct. 31, 1614 by a mock indenture between the author and the
>> spectators in the induction (ES iii 372). Jonson also alludes to
>> Shakespeare's Tempest in the indenture, saying there will be no
>> "Seruant-monster" because the author is "loth to make Nature afraid in
>> his
>> Playes, like those that begat Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries."
>>
>> The error makes no difference in my point, which is that no references to
>> the area in London exist until after colonization of Bermuda was well
>> underway. Jonson doesn't refer to it as a debtor's haven, however, until
>> 1616, but as a disreputable area where its residents pass the time with
>> "Bottle Ale and Tabacco."
>>
>> TR
>
> Jonson referred to it by 1614 as a disreputable area but the area
> didn't exist until at least 1610?
<snip>
One question, Lynne.
Are you saying that Jonson alludes to a 10- or 15-year-old play in the
induction to Batholomew's Fair?
TR
Ms. Mouse
You seemed to think in your various replies that because Jonson first
referred to the Bermudas in 1614 (or at least, that's our first record
of his doing so), the area couldn't have existed much earlier. Please
correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> > Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
> > same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
> > to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
> >
> > I think that the Tempest island is a conflation of
> >
> > the Mediterranean
> > the New World
> > London
> >
> > and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
> > as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
> > and drunken
>
> The only thing wrong with your scenario is there is no evidence whatsoever
> for it, neither explicit nor circumstantial, like most Oxfordian fantasies.
>
> > --as well as the farthest off island in the world (Eden).
> > Think what a hysterically sly joke it would have been to the audience.
> > And after all, if Shakespeare wasn't speaking of London, why match up
> > "still" and "dew" with Bermoothes? He was a pretty ingenious chap, that
> > Shakespeare. He knew the heft of words.
>
> So I take it you are embracing Roe's half-source argument?
I don't believe that still-vexed Bermoothes was only meant to apply to
London. But I do think it's a pretty good bet, taking into account the
wording and the fact that we know that a bit later there was a
disreputable area called by that name, that there was likely a kind of
double entendre going on, yes.
>
> Incredible.
No, not at all. It's the most reasonable deduction. It's a very clever
word play. I'm not sure why you would fight so hard against the
possibility of its being so. What difference does it make to anyone's
case?
L.
>
> TR
>
> >
> > L.
> >
> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> TR
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >
Tom Reedy
OK, then you're wrong. I think the area existed much earlier; I doubt the
expression "Bermudas" was applied to it before the colonization of the
Bermudas had begun. Can you produce any contrary evidence?
>>
>> > Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
>> > same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
>> > to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
>> >
>> > I think that the Tempest island is a conflation of
>> >
>> > the Mediterranean
>> > the New World
>> > London
>> >
>> > and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
>> > as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
>> > and drunken
>>
>> The only thing wrong with your scenario is there is no evidence
>> whatsoever
>> for it, neither explicit nor circumstantial, like most Oxfordian
>> fantasies.
>>
>> > --as well as the farthest off island in the world (Eden).
>> > Think what a hysterically sly joke it would have been to the audience.
>> > And after all, if Shakespeare wasn't speaking of London, why match up
>> > "still" and "dew" with Bermoothes? He was a pretty ingenious chap, that
>> > Shakespeare. He knew the heft of words.
>>
>> So I take it you are embracing Roe's half-source argument?
>
> I don't believe that still-vexed Bermoothes was only meant to apply to
> London. But I do think it's a pretty good bet,
There are two types of scholarship: rigorous and not. Betting doesn't
qualify as either scholarship nor evidence.
> taking into account the
> wording and the fact that we know that a bit later there was a
> disreputable area called by that name, that there was likely a kind of
> double entendre going on, yes.
Again, there is no evidence whatsoever the term was used to describe a
London area before the colonization of Bermuda had begun.
TR
Ms. Mouse
Is that a problem, knowing as we do that the play in question was
performed both in 1611 and 1613? I'm not sure of your point.
L.
Ms. Mouse
What date are you giving for the colonizing of the Bermudas? The first
date I have for it is 1612, when a party set out from England in April.
It was written about in a narrative of 1613 that was appended to a
second printing of Jourdain. There are also the articles of
colonization of Aug 2nd, 1612:
We who have here under subscribed our names, being by the great
goodnesse of God safely arrived at the Sommer Ilands, with purpose here
to inhabit, doe hereby promise and binde our selves to the performance
of the severall Articles hereafter following, and that in the presence
of the most glorious God, who hath in mercie brought us hither.
This document, also, had to be returned to England.
That doesn't give very much time for the area in London to become known
as the Bermudas, for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to you
that all that happened in one year?
Strachey does mention a couple of villains left behind in the Bermudas
in 1610 but his book wasn't published until 1625, and no other
contemporary account even whispers of anyone left behind on the island.
The Bermuda visit of 1609-1610 was precipitated by a shipwreck,
remember, not a wish to colonize.
However, if we want to look for when the word became familiar to the
English, Bermuda was discovered around 1505, and an early map appeared
in Martyr's writings in 1611. The Spaniards may not have settled there,
but they certainly left hogs on the island, that multiplied, so they
must have been there for a bit. In 1593 Henry May was wrecked there for
several months and built a pinnace to escape in. Have you read his
account? It is remarkably like that of Jourdain's from 1610. It was
published by Hakluyt in around 1600, so would have been familiar to the
English, even had Bermudez/Martyr/Eden not been.
>
> >>
> >> > Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
> >> > same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
> >> > to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
> >> >
> >> > I think that the Tempest island is a conflation of
> >> >
> >> > the Mediterranean
> >> > the New World
> >> > London
> >> >
> >> > and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
> >> > as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
> >> > and drunken
> >>
> >> The only thing wrong with your scenario is there is no evidence
> >> whatsoever
> >> for it, neither explicit nor circumstantial, like most Oxfordian
> >> fantasies.
> >>
> >> > --as well as the farthest off island in the world (Eden).
> >> > Think what a hysterically sly joke it would have been to the audience.
> >> > And after all, if Shakespeare wasn't speaking of London, why match up
> >> > "still" and "dew" with Bermoothes? He was a pretty ingenious chap, that
> >> > Shakespeare. He knew the heft of words.
> >>
> >> So I take it you are embracing Roe's half-source argument?
> >
> > I don't believe that still-vexed Bermoothes was only meant to apply to
> > London. But I do think it's a pretty good bet,
>
> There are two types of scholarship: rigorous and not. Betting doesn't
> qualify as either scholarship nor evidence.
I'm not saying it's evidence. I'm saying it's common sense. I can't say
for sure that it was the case. Of course, looking at the chain of
custody invented for how Strachey's "letter" got to Shakespeare, my
"bet" sounds even more commonsensical. It's light years better than the
Strachey daisy chain, anyhow, and you'll note at no point do I assert
it as evidence.
>
> > taking into account the
> > wording and the fact that we know that a bit later there was a
> > disreputable area called by that name, that there was likely a kind of
> > double entendre going on, yes.
>
> Again, there is no evidence whatsoever the term was used to describe a
> London area before the colonization of Bermuda had begun.
So perhaps, since you're so knowledgeable about the colonization of
Bermuda, you could give a chronology that makes sense.
L.
Elizabeth
Tom Reedy wrote:
[. . .]
> The good news for Oxfordians: There really was a Bermudas in London in a
> disreputable area.
>
> But I suppose by now most everyone has spotted the fatal flaw in Roe's
> explanation. It isn't that hard to find.
There's a fatal flaw (no, I don't mean the fact that quantitative
studies make it impossible for the Oxfordians to move the last
thirteen plays, that's the other fatal flaw) in this aspect of
Oxfordian theory due to the fact that the 'English discovery
of Bermuda' occurred in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture.
Oxford would not have known of the 'English discovery of
Bermuda' because it was made by Gates. It isn't that
Bermuda wasn't on Spanish maps from Oviedo forward,
it was that it wasn't in English consciousness until 'Gates
discovered it for England.'
Although Bermuda is a piece of the land mass that includes
the Carolinas, the English paid no attention to it until the
storm blew Gates et al into the Bay.
I don't understand any part of the Oxfordian argument but I
will say that there is no question that Gates et al were in
Bermuda, the only question is what was being covered up
by the Virginia Company as a result of Gates' decision to
change course (as Purchas notes).
One way or the other Gates named the Bay after Somers
and probably made a map. James I claimed Bermuda in
1611 and by 1612 there were English houses in Bermuda.
Had the English been aware of the climate and natural history
of Virginia before 1612 it would probably have been settled
before Jamestown because it has the advantage of three
currents that pass by it, the Westerlies, the Gulf Stream
and the Northwesterlies. It's easy for a ship to get on and off
of the island which raises the question why Gates stayed there
for nearly a year.
As far as I can determine, Strachey is supposed to have
fabricated the whole story according to the Oxfordians.
I checked several histories and they refer to the 'English discovery
of Bermuda' taking place in 1609 or 1610, probably because
Gates was still stranded there in 1610.
You have to be right that the Bermoothes in London
came from some Virginia Company pamphlet or even
The Tempest itself.
Bacon writes that the Spanish don't like their letters 'thin'
as in 'd' -- they liked their 'middle sounds,' which in Castelian
is made by putting the tongue behind the incisors to keep
the 'd' from sounding 'thin' which makes it come out like 'dth'
or satisfyingly 'thicker.'
> Roe contends that there was an area of London known as the Bermoothes BEFORE
> the settlement of Bermuda began. There is no evidence for that at all, and
> Roe produces none.
How could it? The English thought Bermuda was a sandbar until
Gates discovered it was the Garden of Eden. The weather of
Bermuda really is spring all year round. Oh that's right, Strachey
used the Book of Genesis to make it all up.
Ms. Mouse
Elizabeth wrote:
> Tom Reedy wrote:
> [. . .]
>
> > The good news for Oxfordians: There really was a Bermudas in London in a
> > disreputable area.
> >
> > But I suppose by now most everyone has spotted the fatal flaw in Roe's
> > explanation. It isn't that hard to find.
>
>
> There's a fatal flaw (no, I don't mean the fact that quantitative
> studies make it impossible for the Oxfordians to move the last
> thirteen plays, that's the other fatal flaw) in this aspect of
> Oxfordian theory due to the fact that the 'English discovery
> of Bermuda' occurred in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture.
This is not true, Elizabeth, as I'll show below.
>
>
> Oxford would not have known of the 'English discovery of
> Bermuda' because it was made by Gates. It isn't that
> Bermuda wasn't on Spanish maps from Oviedo forward,
> it was that it wasn't in English consciousness until 'Gates
> discovered it for England.'
This is not true, Elizabeth. And by the way, the map was in Martyr, not
Oviedo. Oviedo described Bermuda several years later.
>
>
> Although Bermuda is a piece of the land mass that includes
> the Carolinas, the English paid no attention to it until the
> storm blew Gates et al into the Bay.
This is not true, Elizabeth. The Bermudas are islands.
>
>
> I don't understand any part of the Oxfordian argument but I
> will say that there is no question that Gates et al were in
> Bermuda, the only question is what was being covered up
> by the Virginia Company as a result of Gates' decision to
> change course (as Purchas notes).
This is not true, Elizabeth. No one that I know of except Art has
suggested that the wreck of the Sea Venture didn't happen.
>
>
> One way or the other Gates named the Bay after Somers
> and probably made a map.
The island had been named over a hundred years before after Juan de
Bermudez. The Gates' expedition made an attempt to change the name to
Summer or Somer Islands. It didn't stick.
>James I claimed Bermuda in
> 1611 and by 1612 there were English houses in Bermuda.
Very primitive houses.
>
>
> Had the English been aware of the climate and natural history
> of Virginia before 1612 it would probably have been settled
> before Jamestown because it has the advantage of three
> currents that pass by it, the Westerlies, the Gulf Stream
> and the Northwesterlies. It's easy for a ship to get on and off
> of the island which raises the question why Gates stayed there
> for nearly a year.
He had nothing to get off the island with. And the Bermudas were
extremely rocky and known for shipwrecks, as Jourdain states.
>
>
> As far as I can determine, Strachey is supposed to have
> fabricated the whole story according to the Oxfordians.
No, you've clearly misread. Strachey appears to have copied bits of the
story from earlier sources. The other narratives don't confirm what's
said in his extra bits. But he didn't fabricate the entire story.
>
>
>
> I checked several histories and they refer to the 'English discovery
> of Bermuda' taking place in 1609 or 1610, probably because
> Gates was still stranded there in 1610.
Then they are as wrong as you are. Everyone knew of the Bermudas from
1555, when Eden published Martyr and Oviedo in English. The book was
reprinted in the 70s. May was wrecked there in around 1593, and his
account was published by Hakluyt in 1600. Hakluyt's works were
apparently very popular.
>
>
> You have to be right that the Bermoothes in London
> came from some Virginia Company pamphlet or even
> The Tempest itself.
He doesn't. And he likely isn't. And that's not what he said anyway.
>
>
> Bacon writes that the Spanish don't like their letters 'thin'
> as in 'd' -- they liked their 'middle sounds,' which in Castelian
> is made by putting the tongue behind the incisors to keep
> the 'd' from sounding 'thin' which makes it come out like 'dth'
> or satisfyingly 'thicker.'
Actually, I'm surprised, but that is precisely what I suggested. Do you
have a source for this?
>
>
>
> > Roe contends that there was an area of London known as the Bermoothes BEFORE
> > the settlement of Bermuda began. There is no evidence for that at all, and
> > Roe produces none.
>
>
>
> How could it? The English thought Bermuda was a sandbar until
> Gates discovered it was the Garden of Eden.
Sorry, Elizabeth, but if you're going to make these kinds of
assertions, at least do your homework. You wouldn't want to mislead
anyone, would you?
>The weather of
> Bermuda really is spring all year round. Oh that's right, Strachey
> used the Book of Genesis to make it all up.
Not all of it, no.
Lynne
Tom Reedy
Only two or three of the Sea Venture colonists remained on Bermuda when the
rest of them went to Jamestown.
March 12, 1612, Bermuda was given to the Virginia Company to colonize in its
third charter.
On April 28, 1612, the Plough sailed from England with 60 settlers,
including Sir Richard Moore, the governor. It reached Bermuda early July and
the colonists started building houses and a fort and founded the town of St.
George.
Richard Norwood was sent with the supply fleet to Bermuda by the Bermuda
company to help develop the pearl industry, except there weren't any. He
arrived Christmas, 1613.
Early March, 1614, more colonists reached Bermuda on two ships, the Blessing
and the Star. In 1615 six more ships brought 340 colonists.
This is just what's easily findable on the Net.
> It was written about in a narrative of 1613 that was appended to a
> second printing of Jourdain. There are also the articles of
> colonization of Aug 2nd, 1612:
>
> We who have here under subscribed our names, being by the great
> goodnesse of God safely arrived at the Sommer Ilands, with purpose here
> to inhabit, doe hereby promise and binde our selves to the performance
> of the severall Articles hereafter following, and that in the presence
> of the most glorious God, who hath in mercie brought us hither.
>
> This document, also, had to be returned to England.
>
> That doesn't give very much time for the area in London to become known
> as the Bermudas,
Ros claims that the area known as the Bermudas pre-dated the colonization of
Bermuda.
> for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
> produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to you
> that all that happened in one year?
Let's see, Bermuda is all the buzz of London in 1611. 60 colonists leave
England in June of 1612, two more boatloads leave around January 1614.
Jonson's play is performed in October 1614.
Seems like plenty of time for me.
I think we don't realize how quick popular topics were pickled up and
referenced in the London theatre. Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
events within weeks or months.
> Strachey does mention a couple of villains left behind in the Bermudas
> in 1610 but his book wasn't published until 1625, and no other
> contemporary account even whispers of anyone left behind on the island.
> The Bermuda visit of 1609-1610 was precipitated by a shipwreck,
> remember, not a wish to colonize.
But within six months of the report of Bermuda, the Virginia Company was
given the authority to colonize it.
Roe's explanation strains common sense.
> I can't say
> for sure that it was the case. Of course, looking at the chain of
> custody invented for how Strachey's "letter" got to Shakespeare, my
> "bet" sounds even more commonsensical. It's light years better than the
> Strachey daisy chain, anyhow, and you'll note at no point do I assert
> it as evidence.
>>
>> > taking into account the
>> > wording and the fact that we know that a bit later there was a
>> > disreputable area called by that name, that there was likely a kind of
>> > double entendre going on, yes.
>>
>> Again, there is no evidence whatsoever the term was used to describe a
>> London area before the colonization of Bermuda had begun.
>
> So perhaps, since you're so knowledgeable about the colonization of
> Bermuda, you could give a chronology that makes sense.
>
> L.
See above, but I'll give you something more:
Bermudas
Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat, that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
"What should we do but sing his praise
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs,
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage.
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowl to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pom'granates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet,
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars, chosen by his hand,
From Lebanon, he stores the land,
And makes the hollow seas, that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The gospel's pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple, where to sound his name.
Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven's vault:
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay."
Thus sung they, in the English boat,
An holy and a cheerful note,
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
Andrew Marvell
Tom Reedy
> 1616. Still don't understand how it would be done in that time frame.
I followed your mistake in the previous post. But no matter, this is the
Internet, not a refereed journal.
By 1616 there were about 1,000 colonists.
TR
>
> L.
Ms. Mouse
I removed it because I went and checked and Jonson's first referrence
to the Bermudas in London was actually in 1614, as I had thought.
>
> By 1616 there were about 1,000 colonists.
That's as maybe, but by then it was two years after the last possible
date of the first Jonson reference in Barthol(o)mew Fair:
Jus. Look into any Angle o' Town, (the Streights, or
the Bermuda's) where the Quarrelling Lesson is read,
and how do they entertain the time, but with Bottle
Ale and Tabacco?
So my question still stands.
L.
Tom Reedy
Jonson didn't allude to the London Bermudas as a haven for debtors until
1616.
I believe I adequately answered your question in my previous post. A year or
two is plenty of time for a place to be named after a far-off and stormy
area, and plenty of time to make it in a play, also. As I said, we really
don't appreciate how topical the theatre was back then.
Can we quit now?
TR
Ms. Mouse
I believe I said that. But it's not a sure thing, as the mention is
only in Strachey, 1625. Possibly also in Smith, 1624, but I don't have
a copy here.
>
> March 12, 1612, Bermuda was given to the Virginia Company to colonize in its
> third charter.
>
> On April 28, 1612, the Plough sailed from England with 60 settlers,
> including Sir Richard Moore, the governor. It reached Bermuda early July and
> the colonists started building houses and a fort and founded the town of St.
> George.
I believe I mentioned that too.
>
> Richard Norwood was sent with the supply fleet to Bermuda by the Bermuda
> company to help develop the pearl industry, except there weren't any. He
> arrived Christmas, 1613.
>
> Early March, 1614, more colonists reached Bermuda on two ships, the Blessing
> and the Star. In 1615 six more ships brought 340 colonists.
You're too late already. Jonson has already talked of the Bermudas as
being in London by at latest 1614.
>
> This is just what's easily findable on the Net.
It doesn't matter. I'd already made these points--up till 1613, anyhow,
from my own research, which I more or less know by heart. I wondered
how between 1613 and 1614 the area had suddenly become famous, and
Jonson had written and produced his play.
>
> > It was written about in a narrative of 1613 that was appended to a
> > second printing of Jourdain. There are also the articles of
> > colonization of Aug 2nd, 1612:
> >
> > We who have here under subscribed our names, being by the great
> > goodnesse of God safely arrived at the Sommer Ilands, with purpose here
> > to inhabit, doe hereby promise and binde our selves to the performance
> > of the severall Articles hereafter following, and that in the presence
> > of the most glorious God, who hath in mercie brought us hither.
> >
> > This document, also, had to be returned to England.
> >
> > That doesn't give very much time for the area in London to become known
> > as the Bermudas,
>
> Ros claims that the area known as the Bermudas pre-dated the colonization of
> Bermuda.
I believe I said that it had to predate the colonization. Are you now
agreeing with me? Who is Ros, by the way? ;)
>
> > for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
> > produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to you
> > that all that happened in one year?
>
> Let's see, Bermuda is all the buzz of London in 1611.
You know that for sure? And yet Bermuda wasn't the buzz of London after
May's shipwreck of the Edward Bonaventure in the early nineties? Or
when Hakluyt's book came out in 1600? How do you know? And by the way,
1611 is pre-colonization. The logic would be the same for May's wreck
as Gates' if you're letting go of colonization as a prerequisite.
>60 colonists leave
> England in June of 1612, two more boatloads leave around January 1614.
>
> Jonson's play is performed in October 1614.
>
> Seems like plenty of time for me.
You seem to have strange ideas about how long it takes for a nickname
to take hold, how long it takes to write a play, etc.. You are allowing
a year from when word was first published on the 1612 emigration, for
the district to become known to everyone as the Bermudas and a play to
be written and produced. Why, that's almost less time than Shakespeare
had to write and produce a play after Strachey supposedly sent his
"letter" back to London. Even you must realise that's unlikely.
>
> I think we don't realize how quick popular topics were pickled up and
> referenced in the London theatre.
No, we certainly don't. But "pickled" appears to be the correct term,
if you've been drinking, that is. Bermudas didn't only have to be
picked up and referenced, it had to become the accustomed and famous
name for a district of London or there was no point in Jonson
referencing it. Such things usually take time.
> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
> events within weeks or months.
That's quite possible. But you seem to have forgotten that people had
to become accustomed to calling the London district Bermuda or the
Bermudas.
I don't understand why. It makes perfect sense to me. We have
Bermoothes (Bermudas), still, dew. The Bermudas are referenced a little
later as being a disreputable area of London where drink is available.
So the line fits beautifully and is slyly funny besides. What is it, in
your opinion, that strains common sense? I agree it's not the only
meaning, but it is a good and funny meaning that might easily have
pertained at the time. Could you tell me why you fight it so hard? What
difference does it make? To me it's a probable, it just shows one more
instance of Shakespeare's brilliance, and it's the kind of thing we see
as an interpretation all the time in editions of the plays. And what is
more, we can make a much better case for the Bermudas in London being
pre-colonization than post-colonization. There simply wasn't time post-
for the nickname to take hold.
Yes, I know this poem. I particularly like the word maze.
L.
Tom Reedy
>
> Tom Reedy wrote:
<snip a bunch'a >s>
October 1614.
>>
>> This is just what's easily findable on the Net.
>
> It doesn't matter. I'd already made these points--up till 1613, anyhow,
> from my own research, which I more or less know by heart. I wondered
> how between 1613 and 1614 the area had suddenly become famous, and
> Jonson had written and produced his play.
Who said anything about between 1613 and 1614?
>> > It was written about in a narrative of 1613 that was appended to a
>> > second printing of Jourdain. There are also the articles of
>> > colonization of Aug 2nd, 1612:
>> >
>> > We who have here under subscribed our names, being by the great
>> > goodnesse of God safely arrived at the Sommer Ilands, with purpose here
>> > to inhabit, doe hereby promise and binde our selves to the performance
>> > of the severall Articles hereafter following, and that in the presence
>> > of the most glorious God, who hath in mercie brought us hither.
>> >
>> > This document, also, had to be returned to England.
>> >
>> > That doesn't give very much time for the area in London to become known
>> > as the Bermudas,
>>
>> Ros claims that the area known as the Bermudas pre-dated the colonization
>> of
>> Bermuda.
>
> I believe I said that it had to predate the colonization. Are you now
> agreeing with me? Who is Ros, by the way? ;)
Allow me to hone my statement (that's what we're here on hlas for, anyway).
Roe says the area was not known as the Bermudas until after colonization. He
says that before colonization, the area was known as the Bermoothes, an
assertion for which there is no evidence.
He says that later, after colonization had begun, "the lingual similarity of
Bermoothes and Bermudas and the common function of immunity from arrest
(another doubtful statement)," led Londoners to start referring to the area
as the Bermudas.
>> > for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
>> > produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to you
>> > that all that happened in one year?
>>
>> Let's see, Bermuda is all the buzz of London in 1611.
>
> You know that for sure?
Yes, we do know that for sure.
> And yet Bermuda wasn't the buzz of London after
> May's shipwreck of the Edward Bonaventure in the early nineties?
Why, was there a report that May was lost at sea and then a report almost a
year later that he wasn't lost, but had found an island paradise?
Or
> when Hakluyt's book came out in 1600? How do you know? And by the way,
> 1611 is pre-colonization. The logic would be the same for May's wreck
> as Gates' if you're letting go of colonization as a prerequisite.
>
>>60 colonists leave
>> England in June of 1612, two more boatloads leave around January 1614.
>>
>> Jonson's play is performed in October 1614.
>>
>> Seems like plenty of time for me.
>
> You seem to have strange ideas about how long it takes for a nickname
> to take hold, how long it takes to write a play, etc.. You are allowing
> a year from when word was first published on the 1612 emigration, for
> the district to become known to everyone as the Bermudas and a play to
> be written and produced.
No, Jonson did not refer to the London Bermudas as a haven for debtors until
1616.
After the Bermudas became the buzz of London in October 1612, it seems only
natural that a largely inaccessible and dangerous area of London would be
referred to as the "Bermudas." Webster's 1614 reference makes it clear the
Bermudas were another way of saying "way the hell away from here."
That's two years before Jonson's play was performed in Oct. 1614, plenty of
time for the nickname to take hold and plenty of time for Jonson to hear of
it (theatres were frequented by a few disreputable people, you know, and
some playwrights were known to be a bit disreputable themselves; murderers,
even).
It was only after colonization was well established that Jonson referred to
the area as a haven for debtors.
Not only that, but I daresay Jonson's uses are probably the only evidence
Nares has that the area was a haven for debtors -- I know of no other
references, do you?
> Why, that's almost less time than Shakespeare
> had to write and produce a play after Strachey supposedly sent his
> "letter" back to London. Even you must realise that's unlikely.
>>
>> I think we don't realize how quick popular topics were pickled up and
>> referenced in the London theatre.
>
> No, we certainly don't. But "pickled" appears to be the correct term,
> if you've been drinking, that is. Bermudas didn't only have to be
> picked up and referenced, it had to become the accustomed and famous
> name for a district of London or there was no point in Jonson
> referencing it. Such things usually take time.
You illustrate my point well.
>
>> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
>> events within weeks or months.
>
> That's quite possible.
Not just possible; it's quite demonstrable. Have you read Yorkshire Tragedy?
> But you seem to have forgotten that people had
> to become accustomed to calling the London district Bermuda or the
> Bermudas.
Find me a reference outside of the theatre, and you might have a point. As
it is, the only evidence we have for it is Jonson's use of the term.
I'm quitting.
TR
John W. Kennedy
> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157813320.9...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
>> and drunken
> The only thing wrong with your scenario is there is no evidence whatsoever
> for it, neither explicit nor circumstantial, like most Oxfordian fantasies.
Query: how much distilling was done in London ca. 1603? Gin hadn't even
been invented, Whisky does not seem to have been known yet to Southrons,
and I am under the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that brandy was
always imported.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
Tom Reedy
news:aSJMg.79$y95...@newsfe09.lga...
> Tom Reedy wrote:
>> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1157813320.9...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>>> and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
>>> as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
>>> and drunken
>
>> The only thing wrong with your scenario is there is no evidence
>> whatsoever for it, neither explicit nor circumstantial, like most
>> Oxfordian fantasies.
>
> Query: how much distilling was done in London ca. 1603? Gin hadn't even
> been invented, Whisky does not seem to have been known yet to Southrons,
> and I am under the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that brandy was always
> imported.
I thought of that, but Lynne's comment didn't mention what type of alcohol,
and I'm getting tired of arguing with her, and I don't know that much about
it, anyway.
I did read a history of gin once, and from what I remember it didn't hit
England until the 1700s, almost ruining the economy.
TR
Ms. Mouse
OK, that would be helpful. And let me hone my statement: Shakespeare's
reference to the Bermoothes, as well as a statement about the very
far-away Bermuda Islands, was likely a reference to the Bermudas, a
disreputable district in London. Do you agree or disagree?
>
> Roe says the area was not known as the Bermudas until after colonization. He
> says that before colonization, the area was known as the Bermoothes, an
> assertion for which there is no evidence.
If he is saying that, which honestly I'm not clear on as the language
is a little serpentine, I think him wrong. I believe Bermudas and
Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
the Bermuda Islands and a district in London. What do you think? I have
totally lost sight of what you're trying to say on your own behalf.
>
> He says that later, after colonization had begun, "the lingual similarity of
> Bermoothes and Bermudas and the common function of immunity from arrest
> (another doubtful statement)," led Londoners to start referring to the area
> as the Bermudas.
>
> >> > for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
> >> > produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to you
> >> > that all that happened in one year?
> >>
> >> Let's see, Bermuda is all the buzz of London in 1611.
> >
> > You know that for sure?
>
> Yes, we do know that for sure.
>
> > And yet Bermuda wasn't the buzz of London after
> > May's shipwreck of the Edward Bonaventure in the early nineties?
>
> Why, was there a report that May was lost at sea and then a report almost a
> year later that he wasn't lost, but had found an island paradise?
Not sure if a report got back to London in 1593 that one of the ships
was lost, would have to check, but there was a very exciting report
afterwards that the ship had been wrecked on the Bermudas but that the
shipwrecked sailors managed to escape to Newfoundland and thence to
England months later by fashioning a new boat from materials on the
island.
>
> Or
> > when Hakluyt's book came out in 1600? How do you know? And by the way,
> > 1611 is pre-colonization. The logic would be the same for May's wreck
> > as Gates' if you're letting go of colonization as a prerequisite.
No answer?
> >
> >>60 colonists leave
> >> England in June of 1612, two more boatloads leave around January 1614.
> >>
> >> Jonson's play is performed in October 1614.
> >>
> >> Seems like plenty of time for me.
> >
> > You seem to have strange ideas about how long it takes for a nickname
> > to take hold, how long it takes to write a play, etc.. You are allowing
> > a year from when word was first published on the 1612 emigration, for
> > the district to become known to everyone as the Bermudas and a play to
> > be written and produced.
>
> No, Jonson did not refer to the London Bermudas as a haven for debtors until
> 1616.
That is of no import where Shakespeare is concerned--which is what I
obviously mistakenly thought we were discussing--as Shakespeare never
referred to it as a haven for debtors; however, he may well have
referred to it as a "vex'd" place where stills made alcohol. And we see
that kind of reference in Jonson in 1614.
>
> After the Bermudas became the buzz of London in October 1612, it seems only
> natural that a largely inaccessible and dangerous area of London would be
> referred to as the "Bermudas."
The Bermudas were known to be inaccessible and dangerous long before
1612, or even 1610. Even Jourdain says:
For the Ilands of the Barmudas, as every man knoweth that hath HEARD or
READ of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or Heathen people,
but ever esteemed, and reputed, a most prodigious and inchanted place,
affoording nothing but gusts, stormes, and foule weather; which made
every Navigator and Mariner to avoide them, as Scylla and Charibdis; or
as they would shun the Divell himselfe; and no man was ever heard to
make for the place, but as against their willes, they have by stormes
and dangerousnesse of the rockes, lying seven leagues into the Sea,
suffered shipwracke...
Even Strachey is clear that the Bermudas "are feared and avoided of all
sea travelers alive above any other place in the world." That's if we
can believe him. But perhaps you'd rather not.
>Webster's 1614 reference makes it clear the
> Bermudas were another way of saying "way the hell away from here."
Yes, of course. In Shakespeare also as a primary reading, no doubt
gleaned from Oviedo's description of the very far-away Bermuda Island.
>
> That's two years before Jonson's play was performed in Oct. 1614, plenty of
> time for the nickname to take hold and plenty of time for Jonson to hear of
> it (theatres were frequented by a few disreputable people, you know, and
> some playwrights were known to be a bit disreputable themselves; murderers,
> even).
>
> It was only after colonization was well established that Jonson referred to
> the area as a haven for debtors.
You've now said that twice. I can't see how it matters. Either you keep
changing your position, or I have no idea what you're talking about or
trying to prove.
>
> Not only that, but I daresay Jonson's uses are probably the only evidence
> Nares has that the area was a haven for debtors -- I know of no other
> references, do you?
You've now asked me this at least three times. I've answered you at
least twice.
>
> > Why, that's almost less time than Shakespeare
> > had to write and produce a play after Strachey supposedly sent his
> > "letter" back to London. Even you must realise that's unlikely.
> >>
> >> I think we don't realize how quick popular topics were pickled up and
> >> referenced in the London theatre.
> >
> > No, we certainly don't. But "pickled" appears to be the correct term,
> > if you've been drinking, that is. Bermudas didn't only have to be
> > picked up and referenced, it had to become the accustomed and famous
> > name for a district of London or there was no point in Jonson
> > referencing it. Such things usually take time.
>
> You illustrate my point well.
Hardly. I'm not even sure any longer what your point is.
>
> >
> >> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
> >> events within weeks or months.
> >
> > That's quite possible.
>
> Not just possible; it's quite demonstrable. Have you read Yorkshire Tragedy?
Yes, a long time ago, but if I remember it correctly it's a different
matter entirely. It's based on a crime, not on an entire neighbourhood
having to become known by a new nickname. It's also a pretty short
play. What is the interval between the crime and the play being
performed?
And by the way--just an aside--wasn't it listed as being by someone who
wasn't its author? ;)
>
> > But you seem to have forgotten that people had
> > to become accustomed to calling the London district Bermuda or the
> > Bermudas.
>
> Find me a reference outside of the theatre, and you might have a point. As
> it is, the only evidence we have for it is Jonson's use of the term.
You're saying that only Jonson had to know that the district was called
the Bermudas? Ha ha.
>
> I'm quitting.
Thank God.
L.
Elizabeth
> Elizabeth wrote:
> > Tom Reedy wrote:
> > [. . .]
> >
> > > The good news for Oxfordians: There really was a Bermudas in London in a
> > > disreputable area.
> > >
> > > But I suppose by now most everyone has spotted the fatal flaw in Roe's
> > > explanation. It isn't that hard to find.
> >
> >
> > There's a fatal flaw (no, I don't mean the fact that quantitative
> > studies make it impossible for the Oxfordians to move the last
> > thirteen plays, that's the other fatal flaw) in this aspect of
> > Oxfordian theory due to the fact that the 'English discovery
> > of Bermuda' occurred in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture.
>
> This is not true, Elizabeth, as I'll show below.
What, that the quantitative studies don't eliminate
Oxford? That's scientifically indisputable.
As far as Henry May's account is concerned, it's
ridiculous. Could it have been late 16th century
satire?
Art is right about one thing and that is that ships
did not voluntarily go near Bermuda until the waters
were plumbed and charted.
The only way that May's ship would have been anywhere
near Bermuda would be if it were blown off the trades.
That's not May's story.
Purchas, who cuts May down to a page or so, prints
May out of sequence right after 'Strachey's letter' as
if to say, you've just read one fib about Bermuda,
here's another.
> > Oxford would not have known of the 'English discovery of
> > Bermuda' because it was made by Gates. It isn't that
> > Bermuda wasn't on Spanish maps from Oviedo forward,
> > it was that it wasn't in English consciousness until 'Gates
> > discovered it for England.'
>
> This is not true, Elizabeth. And by the way, the map was in Martyr, not
> Oviedo. Oviedo described Bermuda several years later.
Yes, it is true, Lynne. Gates was Commander of the
fleet and as such the Virginia Company addressed
its instructions to Gates but Somers, as the Admiral
of the Fleet is considered to be the English discoverer
of Bermuda. Note that I stated 'English' discoverer:
Dictionary of National Biography - Page 220
by Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee - 1901
SOMERS or SUMMERS, SIR GEORGE (1554-1610),
virtual discoverer of the Bermudas born at or near Lyme
Regis ...
English Colonies in America ... - Page 142
by John Andrew Doyle - 1907
Another reason for desiring a new patent was
found in the fact that the Bermudas, or, as they
were called, after the discoverer, the Somers
Islands, which, ...
> > Although Bermuda is a piece of the land mass that includes
> > the Carolinas, the English paid no attention to it until the
> > storm blew Gates et al into the Bay.
>
> This is not true, Elizabeth. The Bermudas are islands.
We call it Bermuda but if you prefer, The Bermudas
were geographically and politically more a part of English
America than they were of the West Indies, especially after
the signing of the Treaty of London.
> > I don't understand any part of the Oxfordian argument but I
> > will say that there is no question that Gates et al were in
> > Bermuda, the only question is what was being covered up
> > by the Virginia Company as a result of Gates' decision to
> > change course (as Purchas notes).
>
> This is not true, Elizabeth. No one that I know of except Art has
> suggested that the wreck of the Sea Venture didn't happen.
Show me where I said that that the wreck of the Sea Venture
never happened.
The wreck absolutely happened. More than five hundred
colonists knew that it happened; the survivors at Jamestown,
the Fourth Supply colonists and the survivors from Bermuda.
> > One way or the other Gates named the Bay after Somers
> > and probably made a map.
>
> The island had been named over a hundred years before after Juan de
> Bermudez.
I've never disputed that.
> The Gates' expedition made an attempt to change the name to
> Summer or Somer Islands. It didn't stick.
James I put 'Somer Isles' on the Royal Charter.
I think the Anglican English may have had a prejudice
against the Spanish Catholics.
> >James I claimed Bermuda in
> > 1611 and by 1612 there were English houses in Bermuda.
>
> Very primitive houses.
Are you sure? I thought they were building proper
English houses. They did at Jamestown.
It looked like an English village.
This was built in 1620 in Bermuda.
<http://bermuda4u.com/Attractions/bermuda_attractions_old_state_house.html>
> > Had the English been aware of the climate and natural history
> > of Virginia before 1612 it would probably have been settled
> > before Jamestown because it has the advantage of three
> > currents that pass by it, the Westerlies, the Gulf Stream
> > and the Northwesterlies. It's easy for a ship to get on and off
> > of the island which raises the question why Gates stayed there
> > for nearly a year.
>
> He had nothing to get off the island with. And the Bermudas were
> extremely rocky and known for shipwrecks, as Jourdain states.
The problem was Gates' lack of leadership.
> > I checked several histories and they refer to the 'English discovery
> > of Bermuda' taking place in 1609 or 1610, probably because
> > Gates was still stranded there in 1610.
>
> Then they are as wrong as you are.
I'm as wrong as the Dictionary of National Biography?
> Everyone knew of the Bermudas from
> 1555, when Eden published Martyr and Oviedo in English.
There could have been an illiterate broker in
Stratford who never heard of Bermuda. Oh,
I see where you're going here. Bermuda was
definitely Bermuda in 1604.
> The book was
> reprinted in the 70s. May was wrecked there in around 1593, and his
> account was published by Hakluyt in 1600. Hakluyt's works were
> apparently very popular.
I know. Bacon cites Eden.
> > You have to be right that the Bermoothes in London
> > came from some Virginia Company pamphlet or even
> > The Tempest itself.
>
> He doesn't. And he likely isn't. And that's not what he said anyway.
There had to be a compelling reason to name some
section of London 'the Bermoothes.'
> > Bacon writes that the Spanish don't like their letters 'thin'
> > as in 'd' -- they liked their 'middle sounds,' which in Castelian
> > is made by putting the tongue behind the incisors to keep
> > the 'd' from sounding 'thin' which makes it come out like 'dth'
> > or satisfyingly 'thicker.'
>
> Actually, I'm surprised, but that is precisely what I suggested. Do you
> have a source for this?
Yes, it's in Spedding's Works, Vol. IX page 114.
Works of Francis Bacon - Page 114
by Francis Bacon - 1860
The Spanish dislike thin letters, .and change them immediately
into those of a middle tone. Languages derived from the Goths
delight in aspirates. ...
The stuff not in quotes is my explanation. I can still
see my Spanish teacher putting her tounge behind
her incisors to thow uth how to thay 'Bermoothes' in
Castelian.
> > > Roe contends that there was an area of London known as the Bermoothes BEFORE
> > > the settlement of Bermuda began. There is no evidence for that at all, and
> > > Roe produces none.
> >
> >
> >
> > How could it? The English thought Bermuda was a sandbar until
> > Gates discovered it was the Garden of Eden.
>
> Sorry, Elizabeth, but if you're going to make these kinds of
> assertions, at least do your homework. You wouldn't want to mislead
> anyone, would you?
Let's have a list of the Englishmen who set foot on
The Bermudas before Somers and Gates arrived.
The only reason the English felt it was safe to found
colonies as far south as Virginia was because of the
Treaty of London.
Here's Oxford's Brother and Bacon's Cosen Cecil
negotiating the Treaty of London.
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/The_Somerset_House_Conference._19_August_1604..jpg>
Chess One
>> The error makes no difference in my point, which is that no references to
>> the area in London exist until after colonization of Bermuda was well
>> underway. Jonson doesn't refer to it as a debtor's haven, however, until
>> 1616, but as a disreputable area where its residents pass the time with
>> "Bottle Ale and Tabacco."
>>
>> TR
TR's etymology is correct, or thought so by Nares, since the Bermudas was a
cant term for certain obscure and intricate alleys, in which persons lodged
who had occassion to live cheap or concealed. They are supposed to have been
in the narrow passages north of the Strand, near Covent Garden. Bermudas
also denoted a species of tobacco.
BERMOOTHES a neolg. and used by Shak only. There are 2 similar A. Sax.
words, BERME, yeast [which is used by Chaucer] and BERMEN, or bar-men,
porters tot he kitchen, and used by Hevelok and Latamon.
though BERN is a man, a knight.
> Jonson referred to it by 1614 as a disreputable area but the area
> didn't exist until at least 1610? Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
> same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
> to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
>
> I think that the Tempest island is a conflation of
>
> the Mediterranean
> the New World
> London
>
> and that as early as 1603 Shakespeare probably mentioned the Bermoothes
> as meaning a place (the Bermudas) in London where alcohol was "stilled"
> and drunken--as well as the farthest off island in the world (Eden).
From Nares, the suggestion is of smoking dens, and 'tobacco' may be a polite
euphemism for opium.
> Think what a hysterically sly joke it would have been to the audience.
> And after all, if Shakespeare wasn't speaking of London, why match up
> "still" and "dew" with Bermoothes? He was a pretty ingenious chap, that
> Shakespeare. He knew the heft of words.
While these /reflets/ are of some interest, the 2 direct references of the
nature of that island to the Island are less diffident, since how can Oberon
not be Albion, and how can Titannia not be Britannia?
BRITTENE itself is used as an A. Sax verb and means; to cut up, to carve.
Wenez thow to brittene hym with thy brande ryche.
/Morte Arthure, MS Linc. f. 63
If Lynne wished to romanticise on an island off an island she might follow
Fowles 'suggestion' of St Michael's, where it is even thought 'he' may have
gone during those missing years. It is there still in the old bay of
Lyon-esse, of which the ~esse is more significant in Kernwaille.
Phil Innes
> L.
>
>>
>> >>
>> >> TR
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>
lyra
Chess One wrote:
>
> If Lynne wished to romanticise on an island off an island she might follow
> Fowles 'suggestion' of St Michael's, where it is even thought 'he' may have
> gone during those missing years. It is there still in the old bay of
> Lyon-esse, of which the ~esse is more significant in Kernwaille.
..................................................................................................................
or the Isle of Man, with its smaller accompanying isles,
the largest the Calf of Man,
an uninhabited place.
Known for storms, and a sorcerer or god with attendant spirits...
and suspected by some of harbouring the Earl of Oxford,
or, maybe, Christopher Marlowe.
The Isle, under the ownership of the Earls of Derby,
Ferdinando Strange known to Marlowe,
and Lord Strange's Men
acting Marlowe plays.
So, quite likely.
Ms. Mouse
Elizabeth wrote:
> Ms. Mouse wrote:
> > Elizabeth wrote:
> > > Tom Reedy wrote:
> > > [. . .]
> > >
> > > > The good news for Oxfordians: There really was a Bermudas in London in a
> > > > disreputable area.
> > > >
> > > > But I suppose by now most everyone has spotted the fatal flaw in Roe's
> > > > explanation. It isn't that hard to find.
> > >
> > >
> > > There's a fatal flaw (no, I don't mean the fact that quantitative
> > > studies make it impossible for the Oxfordians to move the last
> > > thirteen plays, that's the other fatal flaw) in this aspect of
> > > Oxfordian theory due to the fact that the 'English discovery
> > > of Bermuda' occurred in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture.
> >
> > This is not true, Elizabeth, as I'll show below.
>
>
> What, that the quantitative studies don't eliminate
> Oxford? That's scientifically indisputable.
Sigh. That the English discovery of Bermuda occurred in 1609.
>
>
> As far as Henry May's account is concerned, it's
> ridiculous. Could it have been late 16th century
> satire?
O dear.
>
>
> Art is right about one thing and that is that ships
> did not voluntarily go near Bermuda until the waters
> were plumbed and charted.
>
>
> The only way that May's ship would have been anywhere
> near Bermuda would be if it were blown off the trades.
> That's not May's story.
>
>
> Purchas, who cuts May down to a page or so, prints
> May out of sequence right after 'Strachey's letter' as
> if to say, you've just read one fib about Bermuda,
> here's another.
No, Argal's narrative back to Bermuda follows Strachey's. Page 1758.
May had already been published by Hakluyt in 1598-1600.
>
>
> > > Oxford would not have known of the 'English discovery of
> > > Bermuda' because it was made by Gates. It isn't that
> > > Bermuda wasn't on Spanish maps from Oviedo forward,
> > > it was that it wasn't in English consciousness until 'Gates
> > > discovered it for England.'
> >
> > This is not true, Elizabeth. And by the way, the map was in Martyr, not
> > Oviedo. Oviedo described Bermuda several years later.
>
>
> Yes, it is true, Lynne. Gates was Commander of the
> fleet and as such the Virginia Company addressed
> its instructions to Gates but Somers, as the Admiral
> of the Fleet is considered to be the English discoverer
> of Bermuda. Note that I stated 'English' discoverer:
It is not true that Oxford would not have known of the "English
discovery of Bermuda." You are merely inventing facts to suit yourself.
>
>
> Dictionary of National Biography - Page 220
> by Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee - 1901
> SOMERS or SUMMERS, SIR GEORGE (1554-1610),
> virtual discoverer of the Bermudas born at or near Lyme
> Regis ...
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/nneo7>
Virtual? You looked up "english discoverer of the bermudas" on google
and that was the best you could come up with?
>
>
>
> English Colonies in America ... - Page 142
> by John Andrew Doyle - 1907
> Another reason for desiring a new patent was
> found in the fact that the Bermudas, or, as they
> were called, after the discoverer, the Somers
> Islands, which, ...
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Although Bermuda is a piece of the land mass that includes
> > > the Carolinas, the English paid no attention to it until the
> > > storm blew Gates et al into the Bay.
> >
> > This is not true, Elizabeth. The Bermudas are islands.
>
>
> We call it Bermuda but if you prefer, The Bermudas
> were geographically and politically more a part of English
> America than they were of the West Indies, especially after
> the signing of the Treaty of London.
They were not a part of the land mass that includes the Carolinas. They
were in the sea.
>
>
> > > I don't understand any part of the Oxfordian argument but I
> > > will say that there is no question that Gates et al were in
> > > Bermuda, the only question is what was being covered up
> > > by the Virginia Company as a result of Gates' decision to
> > > change course (as Purchas notes).
> >
> > This is not true, Elizabeth. No one that I know of except Art has
> > suggested that the wreck of the Sea Venture didn't happen.
>
>
> Show me where I said that that the wreck of the Sea Venture
> never happened.
Right below the para that begins "I don't understand any part of the
Oxfordian argument", you had three other paragraphs that include the
following: "As far as I can determine, Strachey is supposed to have
fabricated the whole story according to the Oxfordians." You seem to
have removed
that part of the argument. Or is it here somewhere, and I've missed it?
If it is, I'll continue.
Regards,
L.
Chess One
"lyra" <mountai...@RockAthens.com> wrote in message
news:1157892513....@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
>
> Chess One wrote:
>>
>> If Lynne wished to romanticise on an island off an island she might
>> follow
>> Fowles 'suggestion' of St Michael's, where it is even thought 'he' may
>> have
>> gone during those missing years. It is there still in the old bay of
>> Lyon-esse, of which the ~esse is more significant in Kernwaille.
>
> ..................................................................................................................
>
> or the Isle of Man, with its smaller accompanying isles,
> the largest the Calf of Man,
> an uninhabited place.
>
> Known for storms, and a sorcerer or god with attendant spirits...
Surely, almost as much as Mona itself, which was an international center of
the mysteries for 500 years.
CALLE: a species of cap, or network worn on the head. It is the gloss of
/reticulum/, in MS Arund. 249 f. 88, which Elyot translates, "a coyfe or
call, which men or women used to weare on theyr heades."
Cf. Troilus and Credeide, iii 776; Wright's pol. Songs, p. 158; MS Harl
2257, f 154; Dent's Pathway, p 46; Reliq Antiq. i 41; Isaiah, iii 18.
Maydyns wer callis of silk and of thred,
And damsellis kerchevis pynnid uppon ther hed.
/MS Laud 416 f 44
Such a cap seems to have had originally a ceremonial and religious function.
It is an interesting word, not unlike CAMACA; a kind of silk or rich cloth
/The Squyr of Lowe Degré [Cov. Myst et. al.]
Following this I discovered CAFFA: some kind of rich stuff, perhaps taffata.
Both CAFF and CAVERSYNE are A. Norm. and mean 'hypocrite.' /R. de Brunne,
MS Bowes p. 91, et cit.
Phil
Tom Reedy
> Tom Reedy wrote:
A new day. Let's see, what are my resolutions?
Quit drinking.
Check.
Quit smoking.
Check.
Quit posting to this thread.
. . . . . . . .nahhh!!!!
<snip>
>> Allow me to hone my statement (that's what we're here on hlas for,
>> anyway).
>
> OK, that would be helpful. And let me hone my statement: Shakespeare's
> reference to the Bermoothes, as well as a statement about the very
> far-away Bermuda Islands, was likely a reference to the Bermudas, a
> disreputable district in London. Do you agree or disagree?
I disagree.
>> Roe says the area was not known as the Bermudas until after colonization.
>> He says that before colonization, the area was known as the Bermoothes,
>> an assertion for which there is no evidence.
>
> If he is saying that, which honestly I'm not clear on as the language
> is a little serpentine, I think him wrong.
Yes, he is saying that. And the language is quite clear. See below.
Roe is trying, like you and Roger, to separate the writing of the Tempest
from the 1610-11 Bermuda episode.
> I believe Bermudas and
> Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
> the Bermuda Islands and a district in London.
Source? Besides Jonson, I mean.
> What do you think? I have
> totally lost sight of what you're trying to say on your own behalf.
I've noticed our arguments often end up that way.
Let's review exactly what Roe said. His statement, after all, is what I am
arguing against. Here's the relevant part of the essay, which is in The
Shakespeare Newsletter, Fall-Winter 1989, pages 36-37. I'll restore some of
the cuts I made originally to address the point John Kennedy brought up.
BEGIN QUOTE
In the days of these plays the Bermoothes was a London district privileged
against arrest, consisting of certain alleys and passages contiguous to
Drury Lane, near Covent Garden, and north of the Strand. (See Eric
Partridge, *A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English*, \ 7th Ed.,
1976 . . . .)
The Bermoothes were a refuge for debtors, miscreants and felons.
'Still-vex'd?' The hyphen has meaning: plainly, vexed by stills. Pot stills.
The stills that make 'dew.' Pertridge (ibid.) enters but one word for 'dew:'
Whiskey. . . . Prospero sent Ariel to London, at midnight, to fetch whiskey.
Good for fun; a throwaway line.
Were such pot stills vexatious? Think of boiling stale beer.
How can such an error happen to our scholars?
Once the settlement of the Bermudas began in the seventeenth century, they,
too, were made a haven for debtors; another, newer, immunity area. Thus,
with the lingual similarity of Bermoothes and Bermudas and the common
function of immunity from arrest, the slang began.
Bermoothes in slang were, to the seventeenth century Londoners, the local
"Bermudas." An example is found in Jonson's *The Devil's an Ass* (1616):
Keeps he still your quarter in the Bermudas." Jonson is writing about the
Bermoothes.
END QUOTATION
>> He says that later, after colonization had begun, "the lingual similarity
>> of
>> Bermoothes and Bermudas and the common function of immunity from arrest
>> (another doubtful statement)," led Londoners to start referring to the
>> area as the Bermudas.
>>
>> >> > for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
>> >> > produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to
>> >> > you that all that happened in one year?
>> >>
>> >> Let's see, Bermuda is all the buzz of London in 1611.
>> >
>> > You know that for sure?
>>
>> Yes, we do know that for sure.
>>
>> > And yet Bermuda wasn't the buzz of London after
>> > May's shipwreck of the Edward Bonaventure in the early nineties?
>>
>> Why, was there a report that May was lost at sea and then a report almost
>> a year later that he wasn't lost, but had found an island paradise?
>
> Not sure if a report got back to London in 1593 that one of the ships
> was lost, would have to check, but there was a very exciting report
> afterwards that the ship had been wrecked on the Bermudas but that the
> shipwrecked sailors managed to escape to Newfoundland and thence to
> England months later by fashioning a new boat from materials on the
> island.
It may be exciting to you, but it doesn't seem that Haklvyt was all that
excited about it. On the title page of "The third and last volvme of the
Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoueries of the English Nation," he
doesn't even mention Bermuda, even though he lists some 30-odd place names.
May's report has hardly anything in common with the Tempest, the way
Strachey's does.
In both Tempest and Strachey, the wreck happened because of a hurricane. The
Bonadventura wreck didn't happen because of a hurricane.
In both Tempest and Strachey, one ship of a fleet got separated and wrecked.
Bonadventura was alone.
In both Tempest and Strachey, nobody dies in the shipwreck. Only 26 out of
55 survived the Bonadventura shipwreck.
In both Tempest and Strachey, a head of a government was on the ship that
wrecked.
In both Tempest and Strachey, the rest of the ships thought the wrecked ship
was lost with all hands.
In Strachey, it was reported in England that the Sea Venture was lost. There
was no report to England that the Bonadventura had been lost until May
returned to Cornwall in July 1594.
>> Or when Hakluyt's book came out in 1600?
How much of a sensation did May's account cause six years after the fact? I
don't know; do you?
>> >How do you know? And by the way,
>> > 1611 is pre-colonization. The logic would be the same for May's wreck
>> > as Gates' if you're letting go of colonization as a prerequisite.
> No answer?
What's the question?
>> >>60 colonists leave
>> >> England in June of 1612, two more boatloads leave around January 1614.
>> >>
>> >> Jonson's play is performed in October 1614.
>> >>
>> >> Seems like plenty of time for me.
>> >
>> > You seem to have strange ideas about how long it takes for a nickname
>> > to take hold, how long it takes to write a play, etc.. You are allowing
>> > a year from when word was first published on the 1612 emigration, for
>> > the district to become known to everyone as the Bermudas and a play to
>> > be written and produced.
>>
>> No, Jonson did not refer to the London Bermudas as a haven for debtors
>> until 1616.
>
> That is of no import where Shakespeare is concerned--which is what I
> obviously mistakenly thought we were discussing--as Shakespeare never
> referred to it as a haven for debtors; however, he may well have
> referred to it as a "vex'd" place where stills made alcohol. And we see
> that kind of reference in Jonson in 1614.
Here's the Jonson quote you are referring to:
Over. Look in any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where
the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with
bottle-ale and tobacco?
Jonson talks about drinking ale, not whiskey or any kind of alcohol that
would require a still. And bottle ale at that, which doesn't require it be
brewed on the premises.
>> After the Bermudas became the buzz of London in October 1612, it seems
>> only natural that a largely inaccessible and dangerous area of London
>> would be referred to as the "Bermudas."
>
> The Bermudas were known to be inaccessible and dangerous long before
> 1612, or even 1610. Even Jourdain says:
>
> For the Ilands of the Barmudas, as every man knoweth that hath HEARD or
> READ of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or Heathen people,
> but ever esteemed, and reputed, a most prodigious and inchanted place,
> affoording nothing but gusts, stormes, and foule weather; which made
> every Navigator and Mariner to avoide them, as Scylla and Charibdis; or
> as they would shun the Divell himselfe; and no man was ever heard to
> make for the place, but as against their willes, they have by stormes
> and dangerousnesse of the rockes, lying seven leagues into the Sea,
> suffered shipwracke...
>
> Even Strachey is clear that the Bermudas "are feared and avoided of all
> sea travelers alive above any other place in the world." That's if we
> can believe him. But perhaps you'd rather not.
No, I'm with you there.
>>Webster's 1614 reference makes it clear the
>> Bermudas were another way of saying "way the hell away from here."
>
> Yes, of course. In Shakespeare also as a primary reading, no doubt
> gleaned from Oviedo's description of the very far-away Bermuda Island.
You are arguing against yourself here. If "every man knoweth that hath HEARD
or READ of them," why would Shakespeare have had to "glean" it from Oviedo?
>> That's two years before Jonson's play was performed in Oct. 1614, plenty
>> of time for the nickname to take hold and plenty of time for Jonson to
>> hear
>> of it (theatres were frequented by a few disreputable people, you know,
>> and some playwrights were known to be a bit disreputable themselves;
>> murderers, even).
>>
>> It was only after colonization was well established that Jonson referred
>> to the area as a haven for debtors.
>
> You've now said that twice. I can't see how it matters. Either you keep
> changing your position, or I have no idea what you're talking about or
> trying to prove.
I'm arguing against Roe here, who says the Bermoothes was an area in London
that was a haven for debtors before 1610-11, and came to be called the
Bermudas after colonization because of "the lingual similarity of Bermoothes
and Bermudas and the common function of immunity from arrest." I'm saying he
has the order wrong, in the case that there was such a London area, which
I'm not convinced of.
In any case, Jonson's 1614 Bermuda reference only said it was a disreputable
place. His 1616 reference said it was a haven for debtors.
>> Not only that, but I daresay Jonson's uses are probably the only evidence
>> Nares has that the area was a haven for debtors -- I know of no other
>> references, do you?
>
> You've now asked me this at least three times. I've answered you at
> least twice.
Please refresh my memory. I don't recall asking the question before now.
>> > Why, that's almost less time than Shakespeare
>> > had to write and produce a play after Strachey supposedly sent his
>> > "letter" back to London. Even you must realise that's unlikely.
>> >>
>> >> I think we don't realize how quick popular topics were pickled up and
>> >> referenced in the London theatre.
>> >
>> > No, we certainly don't. But "pickled" appears to be the correct term,
>> > if you've been drinking, that is. Bermudas didn't only have to be
>> > picked up and referenced, it had to become the accustomed and famous
>> > name for a district of London or there was no point in Jonson
>> > referencing it. Such things usually take time.
>>
>> You illustrate my point well.
>
> Hardly. I'm not even sure any longer what your point is.
My point was that we don't realize how quickly popular topics were presented
on the stage, even though we think we do.
>> >> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
>> >> events within weeks or months.
>> >
>> > That's quite possible.
>>
>> Not just possible; it's quite demonstrable. Have you read Yorkshire
>> Tragedy?
>
> Yes, a long time ago, but if I remember it correctly it's a different
> matter entirely. It's based on a crime, not on an entire neighbourhood
> having to become known by a new nickname. It's also a pretty short
> play. What is the interval between the crime and the play being
> performed?
The crime occured April 23, 1605. The play is dated to the summer of that
year, after a pamphlet about the case appeared June 12 but before the
murderer was pressed to death August 5.
> And by the way--just an aside--wasn't it listed as being by someone who
> wasn't its author? ;)
>>
>> > But you seem to have forgotten that people had
>> > to become accustomed to calling the London district Bermuda or the
>> > Bermudas.
>>
>> Find me a reference outside of the theatre, and you might have a point.
>> As it is, the only evidence we have for it is Jonson's use of the term.
>
> You're saying that only Jonson had to know that the district was called
> the Bermudas? Ha ha.
No, I'm saying we have only Jonson's word that there *was* an area called
the Bermudas. It may be idiosyncratic with him, for all we know. His use of
it in the poem to Dorset certainly doesn't support the case that a London
area was called the Bermudas.
But these Men ever want: their very Trade
Is borrowing; that but stopt, they do invade
All as their Prize, turn Pyrates here at Land,
Ha' their Bermudas, and their Streights i' th' Strand:
Man out of their Boats to th' Temple, and not shift
Now, but command; make Tribute what was Gift;
He is saying that outlaws in London have their places to hide in the Strand,
like pirates have their Bermuda and Streights (of Magellan). He isn't
necessarily saying that there's area with that name, although I think the
chances are probably equal that there was, given the Bartholomew Fair
references.
(You can read the entire poem at Clark Holloway's site at
http://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692underwoods.htm. It's an interesting poem
that reminds me of his FF poem: very convoluted and backtracking, trying to
praise without seeming to be too subservient.)
TR
Elizabeth
[. . . ]
> > What, that the quantitative studies don't eliminate
> > Oxford? That's scientifically indisputable.
>
> Sigh. That the English discovery of Bermuda occurred in 1609.
We'll need to see an authoritative source that
names Henry May as the English discoverer of
Bermuda.
> > As far as Henry May's account is concerned, it's
> > ridiculous. Could it have been late 16th century
> > satire?
>
> O dear.
It has all the structural features of the fairytale, Lynne.
1. May does not name his ship, therefore no one can
check the facts.
2. M. de la Barbotiere, who does not seem to be the
Captaine, is about to row away from the ship leaving
his passengers to die when he extends his hand to
Henry May to join him on the skiff. Come with moi,
Cinderella.
3. Although the wreck is only a day's row away,
M. de la Barbotiere does not return to save the
passengers. The passengers must have had food
and water onboard to survive for weeks yet
M. de la Barbotiere does not bother to return for
them. If the scene at the Titanic is any indication,
there was a fight for seats on the skiff, not a
sad au revoir.
4. Henry May gives no details about Bermuda
that could not be gotten from any travel narrative.
Hogges, birds, fishe.
5. Months later May and Mon Capitaine return to
the ship to get sails and tackle to outfit the cedar
boats or rather 'eighteen tonne ships,' and find the
ship has not broken up.
6. Bermuda is subject to violent winter storms, the
ship's grounding was so superficial that no damage
was done to the ship or those onboard, yet it is not
unmoored by winter storms, it's just sitting there
like the day it was grounded in calm seas.
The Sea Venture, on the other hand, was grounded
in a sheltered cove. No ten foot waves. It crumbled
in place until marine archeologists found its keel a
few years ago. Right where Gates said it was.
> > Art is right about one thing and that is that ships
> > did not voluntarily go near Bermuda until the waters
> > were plumbed and charted.
> >
> >
> > The only way that May's ship would have been anywhere
> > near Bermuda would be if it were blown off the trades.
> > That's not May's story.
> >
> > > > Oxford would not have known of the 'English discovery of
> > > > Bermuda' because it was made by Gates. It isn't that
> > > > Bermuda wasn't on Spanish maps from Oviedo forward,
> > > > it was that it wasn't in English consciousness until 'Gates
> > > > discovered it for England.'
> > >
> > > This is not true, Elizabeth. And by the way, the map was in Martyr, not
> > > Oviedo. Oviedo described Bermuda several years later.
> >
> >
> > Yes, it is true, Lynne. Gates was Commander of the
> > fleet and as such the Virginia Company addressed
> > its instructions to Gates but Somers, as the Admiral
> > of the Fleet is considered to be the English discoverer
> > of Bermuda. Note that I stated 'English' discoverer:
>
> It is not true that Oxford would not have known of the "English
> discovery of Bermuda." You are merely inventing facts to suit yourself.
All right. You got me. I traveled back in time,
impersonated Sir Sidney Lee, and wrote the DNB.
If May were the first Englishman to set foot on Bermuda
Purchas would have foregrounded that fact because it would
bolster the English claim but Purchas refused to print May's
four-page pamphlet. Instead Purchas paraphrases May.
That's not like Purchas.
> > Dictionary of National Biography - Page 220
> > by Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee - 1901
> > SOMERS or SUMMERS, SIR GEORGE (1554-1610),
> > virtual discoverer of the Bermudas born at or near Lyme
> > Regis ...
> >
> > <http://tinyurl.com/nneo7>
>
> Virtual? You looked up "english discoverer of the bermudas" on google
> and that was the best you could come up with?
The DNB is an authoritative source. There's another
authoritative source below. So what have you got for
an authoritative source on May? Andrew Lang?
> > English Colonies in America ... - Page 142
> > by John Andrew Doyle - 1907
> > Another reason for desiring a new patent was
> > found in the fact that the Bermudas, or, as they
> > were called, after the discoverer, the Somers
> > Islands, which, ...
> >
> > > > Although Bermuda is a piece of the land mass that includes
> > > > the Carolinas, the English paid no attention to it until the
> > > > storm blew Gates et al into the Bay.
> > >
> > > This is not true, Elizabeth. The Bermudas are islands.
> >
> >
> > We call it Bermuda but if you prefer, The Bermudas
> > were geographically and politically more a part of English
> > America than they were of the West Indies, especially after
> > the signing of the Treaty of London.
>
> They were not a part of the land mass that includes the Carolinas. They
> were in the sea.
All right Lynne. Bermuda is part of the volcanic ridge
under the West Indies. Can we move on?
The question, in terms of the Spanish trade routes, is
why Gates left the Dominico and Nevis to go hundreds
of miles off course into open sea. The Council had
*instructed* Gates to stick to the tried and true Nevis and
Dominico. The English did not understand the trades
until the 18th century but the English, novices in the
Caribbean, at least knew that ships didn't come back
if they left the trades.
Gates is so close to Bermuda while the other ships
are so close to Jamestown it looks like Gates and
Somers decided to leave the fleet on a little inspection
of Bermuda (make maps, name things, pile up stone
markers, claim it for England) then sail on to Jamestown.
We know that Gates has bad judgment because Bacon
had to plead for Gates' life after the Essex affair.
Southampton, obviously Gates' patron at the Virginia
Company, was a magnet for men with bad judgment.
I've written about the crazy Danvers brothers, Charles
and Henry on whose behalf Southampton persuaded
the queen to pardon for a really grisly murder involving
two brothers, twenty of their men and one young victim,
only to have the ungrateful Sir Charles Danvers rush the
Gates of Whitehall with Southampton and Essex. Bacon
didn't plead for Danvers' life.
Also -- and this is telling -- the other accounts do not
describe a hurricane. Archer says it was the 'tail of
a hurricane' but the damage done to seven ships is not
that severe. It is 'hard for mariners to keep their feet on
deck' according to Archer or Jourdain -- I'll have to look it
up -- but on the Sea Venture they're going through hell.
Purchas, not Andrew Lang or Henry May, is the key
to understanding whether there was a coverup at
the Virginia Company and why A True Repertory was
written, who wrote it, when it was written and why it
then went unpublished.
Uh oh. I'm just beginning to see the outline of your
thesis.
Oxford used May's account to write The Tempest and
used Eden et al to fill in the parallelisms. That leaves the
'first American ethnologist' to be exposed as a plagiarist
thus disqualifying Kathman's thesis.
Strachey only looks like a plagiarist because Symonds
illegally printed something without a licence after dark
on the press at Oxford University. A criminal offense.
> > > > I don't understand any part of the Oxfordian argument but I
> > > > will say that there is no question that Gates et al were in
> > > > Bermuda, the only question is what was being covered up
> > > > by the Virginia Company as a result of Gates' decision to
> > > > change course (as Purchas notes).
> > >
> > > This is not true, Elizabeth. No one that I know of except Art has
> > > suggested that the wreck of the Sea Venture didn't happen.
> >
> >
> > Show me where I said that that the wreck of the Sea Venture
> > never happened.
>
> Right below the para that begins "I don't understand any part of the
> Oxfordian argument", you had three other paragraphs that include the
> following: "As far as I can determine, Strachey is supposed to have
> fabricated the whole story according to the Oxfordians." You seem to
> have removed
> that part of the argument. Or is it here somewhere, and I've missed it?
> If it is, I'll continue.
I had three other paragraphs? I'll try to figure it out.
Tom Reedy
>
> BEGIN QUOTE
>
> In the days of these plays the Bermoothes was a London district privileged
> against arrest, consisting of certain alleys and passages contiguous to
<snip>
> I'm arguing against Roe here, who says the Bermoothes was an area in
> London that was a haven for debtors before 1610-11,
Actually, as an Oxfordian, Roe is saying the area was known as the
Bermoothes before 1604 ("In the days of these plays"), and was a haven for
debtors even then.
His source? Apparently Jonson's plays of 1614 and 1616. Typical Oxfordian
scholarship.
TR
> and came to be called the Bermudas after colonization because of "the
> lingual similarity of Bermoothes and Bermudas and the common function of
> immunity from arrest." I'm saying he has the order wrong, in the case that
> there was such a London area, which I'm not convinced of.
>
> In any case, Jonson's 1614 Bermuda reference only said it was a
> disreputable place. His 1616 reference said it was a haven for debtors.
>
>>> Not only that, but I daresay Jonson's uses are probably the only
>>> evidence
>>> Nares has that the area was a haven for debtors -- I know of no other
>>> references, do you?
<snip>
Ms. Mouse
Tom Reedy wrote:
> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157855186....@d34g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> > Tom Reedy wrote:
>
> A new day. Let's see, what are my resolutions?
> Quit drinking.
> Check.
> Quit smoking.
> Check.
> Quit posting to this thread.
> . . . . . . . .nahhh!!!!
You should probably quit while you're only a little behind. I was going
to watch the tennis now, but they've held it back for stupid football.
But I may leave at any time.
>
> <snip>
>
> >> Allow me to hone my statement (that's what we're here on hlas for,
> >> anyway).
> >
> > OK, that would be helpful. And let me hone my statement: Shakespeare's
> > reference to the Bermoothes, as well as a statement about the very
> > far-away Bermuda Islands, was likely a reference to the Bermudas, a
> > disreputable district in London. Do you agree or disagree?
>
> I disagree.
Well, at least that's a clear statement.
>
> >> Roe says the area was not known as the Bermudas until after colonization.
> >> He says that before colonization, the area was known as the Bermoothes,
> >> an assertion for which there is no evidence.
> >
> > If he is saying that, which honestly I'm not clear on as the language
> > is a little serpentine, I think him wrong.
>
> Yes, he is saying that. And the language is quite clear. See below.
I've seen. I'm still a little confused, but think him wrong if he
believes the Bermoothes before colonization of Bermuda were not the
Bermudas.
>
> Roe is trying, like you and Roger, to separate the writing of the Tempest
> from the 1610-11 Bermuda episode.
He's trying to separate the writing of the Tempest from American
sources altogether. We certainly have not done that. They are extremely
important. We have already separated them, though, from the necessity
of relying on the 1609 Bermuda incident. That was not a problem, as all
the source material attributed to them occurs much earlier in Eden and
Erasmus. They are much better sources, also, especially Eden.
>
> > I believe Bermudas and
> > Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
> > the Bermuda Islands and a district in London.
>
> Source? Besides Jonson, I mean.
Kositsky and common sense. Bermoothes also clearly meant Bermuda as
it's in Duchess of Malfi.
>
> > What do you think? I have
> > totally lost sight of what you're trying to say on your own behalf.
>
> I've noticed our arguments often end up that way.
That's because you keep shifting your ground. Would you like me to
circle back and show you where you do that?
I think that if he's saying what I think he's saying, he's wrong. I
still believe those terms had to be interchangeable. They are too
close, possibly identical in pronunciation, and we see that Webster
says Bemoothes for Bermuda; however, I do think that Roe had a
brilliant germ of an idea--that Shakespeare could be talking in fun
about an area of London, as well as the furthest island in the world.
> >>
> >> >> > for Jonson to write about it, and for the play to be
> >> >> > produced by, at the latest, 1614. Does it sound common-sensical to
> >> >> > you that all that happened in one year?
> >> >>
> >> >> Let's see, Bermuda is all the buzz of London in 1611.
> >> >
> >> > You know that for sure?
> >>
> >> Yes, we do know that for sure.
> >>
> >> > And yet Bermuda wasn't the buzz of London after
> >> > May's shipwreck of the Edward Bonaventure in the early nineties?
> >>
> >> Why, was there a report that May was lost at sea and then a report almost
> >> a year later that he wasn't lost, but had found an island paradise?
> >
> > Not sure if a report got back to London in 1593 that one of the ships
> > was lost, would have to check, but there was a very exciting report
> > afterwards that the ship had been wrecked on the Bermudas but that the
> > shipwrecked sailors managed to escape to Newfoundland and thence to
> > England months later by fashioning a new boat from materials on the
> > island.
>
> It may be exciting to you, but it doesn't seem that Haklvyt was all that
> excited about it.
Talk about a value judgement.
>On the title page of "The third and last volvme of the
> Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoueries of the English Nation," he
> doesn't even mention Bermuda, even though he lists some 30-odd place names.
So what?
>
> May's report has hardly anything in common with the Tempest, the way
> Strachey's does.
Strachey's has far less in common with Tempest than Eden or Ariosto or
Erasmus, at least two of which he copied from. But you're setting up a
straw man argument, in any case. Tempest does not take place in
Bermuda. It takes place anywhere BUT Bermuda.I merely used May to show
that there was an earlier shipwreck there so that the English had been
there by 1591-3 and therefore the name would be known in England. The
rest of Strachey can be found in the earlier sources.
>
> In both Tempest and Strachey, the wreck happened because of a hurricane. The
> Bonadventura wreck didn't happen because of a hurricane.
> In both Tempest and Strachey, one ship of a fleet got separated and wrecked.
> Bonadventura was alone.
> In both Tempest and Strachey, nobody dies in the shipwreck. Only 26 out of
> 55 survived the Bonadventura shipwreck.
> In both Tempest and Strachey, a head of a government was on the ship that
> wrecked.
> In both Tempest and Strachey, the rest of the ships thought the wrecked ship
> was lost with all hands.
> In Strachey, it was reported in England that the Sea Venture was lost. There
> was no report to England that the Bonadventura had been lost until May
> returned to Cornwall in July 1594.
>
> >> Or when Hakluyt's book came out in 1600?
>
> How much of a sensation did May's account cause six years after the fact? I
> don't know; do you?
First, it may have caused a sensation when he returned. Second, it may
have caused a sensation when it was published. Who knows but that
Bermuda was considered a sensational place ever since it was first
written about, years and years before? Jourdain and others certainly
thought so. All I'm putting forward here is that when Shakespeare spoke
of the Bermudas, it was likely already a disreputable area of London.
The line fits beautifully. It doesn't make too much sense to stick it
in, otherwise.
>
> >> >How do you know? And by the way,
> >> > 1611 is pre-colonization. The logic would be the same for May's wreck
> >> > as Gates' if you're letting go of colonization as a prerequisite.
>
> > No answer?
>
> What's the question?
Never mind, it's too long ago. Where is the tennis?
>
> >> >>60 colonists leave
> >> >> England in June of 1612, two more boatloads leave around January 1614.
> >> >>
> >> >> Jonson's play is performed in October 1614.
> >> >>
> >> >> Seems like plenty of time for me.
> >> >
> >> > You seem to have strange ideas about how long it takes for a nickname
> >> > to take hold, how long it takes to write a play, etc.. You are allowing
> >> > a year from when word was first published on the 1612 emigration, for
> >> > the district to become known to everyone as the Bermudas and a play to
> >> > be written and produced.
> >>
> >> No, Jonson did not refer to the London Bermudas as a haven for debtors
> >> until 1616.
> >
> > That is of no import where Shakespeare is concerned--which is what I
> > obviously mistakenly thought we were discussing--as Shakespeare never
> > referred to it as a haven for debtors; however, he may well have
> > referred to it as a "vex'd" place where stills made alcohol. And we see
> > that kind of reference in Jonson in 1614.
>
> Here's the Jonson quote you are referring to:
>
> Over. Look in any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where
> the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with
> bottle-ale and tobacco?
>
> Jonson talks about drinking ale, not whiskey or any kind of alcohol that
> would require a still. And bottle ale at that, which doesn't require it be
> brewed on the premises.
My goodness, you are particular when it's not a Stratfordian theory,
but you don't seem half as careful when it is. We see that by 1614 it
was a disreputable district where bad habits such as drinking were
acquired. Lyra has shown us that there were stills in England from way
back. I questioned that the name arose only one year before the play
was produced. I still question that. Your Yorkshire Tragedy parallel
wasn't a parallel at all, as it happens.
>
> >> After the Bermudas became the buzz of London in October 1612, it seems
> >> only natural that a largely inaccessible and dangerous area of London
> >> would be referred to as the "Bermudas."
> >
> > The Bermudas were known to be inaccessible and dangerous long before
> > 1612, or even 1610. Even Jourdain says:
> >
> > For the Ilands of the Barmudas, as every man knoweth that hath HEARD or
> > READ of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or Heathen people,
> > but ever esteemed, and reputed, a most prodigious and inchanted place,
> > affoording nothing but gusts, stormes, and foule weather; which made
> > every Navigator and Mariner to avoide them, as Scylla and Charibdis; or
> > as they would shun the Divell himselfe; and no man was ever heard to
> > make for the place, but as against their willes, they have by stormes
> > and dangerousnesse of the rockes, lying seven leagues into the Sea,
> > suffered shipwracke...
> >
> > Even Strachey is clear that the Bermudas "are feared and avoided of all
> > sea travelers alive above any other place in the world." That's if we
> > can believe him. But perhaps you'd rather not.
>
> No, I'm with you there.
>
> >>Webster's 1614 reference makes it clear the
> >> Bermudas were another way of saying "way the hell away from here."
> >
> > Yes, of course. In Shakespeare also as a primary reading, no doubt
> > gleaned from Oviedo's description of the very far-away Bermuda Island.
>
> You are arguing against yourself here. If "every man knoweth that hath HEARD
> or READ of them," why would Shakespeare have had to "glean" it from Oviedo?
He wouldn't. But Oviedo in Eden 1555 talks of it as being "the
furtheste of all the Ilandes that are founde at thys daye in the
worlde" and Kermode, not an Oxfordian, believes his statement the
context of the Tempest "Bermoothes" quote.
>
> >> That's two years before Jonson's play was performed in Oct. 1614, plenty
> >> of time for the nickname to take hold and plenty of time for Jonson to
> >> hear
> >> of it (theatres were frequented by a few disreputable people, you know,
> >> and some playwrights were known to be a bit disreputable themselves;
> >> murderers, even).
> >>
> >> It was only after colonization was well established that Jonson referred
> >> to the area as a haven for debtors.
> >
> > You've now said that twice. I can't see how it matters. Either you keep
> > changing your position, or I have no idea what you're talking about or
> > trying to prove.
>
> I'm arguing against Roe here, who says the Bermoothes was an area in London
> that was a haven for debtors before 1610-11, and came to be called the
> Bermudas after colonization because of "the lingual similarity of Bermoothes
> and Bermudas and the common function of immunity from arrest." I'm saying he
> has the order wrong, in the case that there was such a London area, which
> I'm not convinced of.
I thought we were arguing about whether the area could have been called
the Bermoothes in time for Shakespeare to have referenced it. You said
before categorically that it could not, and that "the Bermudas" in
London didn't exist before colonization of Bermuda.
>
> In any case, Jonson's 1614 Bermuda reference only said it was a disreputable
> place. His 1616 reference said it was a haven for debtors.
>
> >> Not only that, but I daresay Jonson's uses are probably the only evidence
> >> Nares has that the area was a haven for debtors -- I know of no other
> >> references, do you?
> >
> > You've now asked me this at least three times. I've answered you at
> > least twice.
>
> Please refresh my memory. I don't recall asking the question before now.
My mistake. I believe the question you keep asking is whether there are
any other incidences of "Bermoothes."
>
> >> > Why, that's almost less time than Shakespeare
> >> > had to write and produce a play after Strachey supposedly sent his
> >> > "letter" back to London. Even you must realise that's unlikely.
> >> >>
> >> >> I think we don't realize how quick popular topics were pickled up and
> >> >> referenced in the London theatre.
> >> >
> >> > No, we certainly don't. But "pickled" appears to be the correct term,
> >> > if you've been drinking, that is. Bermudas didn't only have to be
> >> > picked up and referenced, it had to become the accustomed and famous
> >> > name for a district of London or there was no point in Jonson
> >> > referencing it. Such things usually take time.
> >>
> >> You illustrate my point well.
> >
> > Hardly. I'm not even sure any longer what your point is.
>
> My point was that we don't realize how quickly popular topics were presented
> on the stage, even though we think we do.
Right. The evidence you gave for this, Yorkshire Tragedy, in fact
didn't seem to help your case at all.
>
> >> >> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
> >> >> events within weeks or months.
> >> >
> >> > That's quite possible.
> >>
> >> Not just possible; it's quite demonstrable. Have you read Yorkshire
> >> Tragedy?
> >
> > Yes, a long time ago, but if I remember it correctly it's a different
> > matter entirely. It's based on a crime, not on an entire neighbourhood
> > having to become known by a new nickname. It's also a pretty short
> > play. What is the interval between the crime and the play being
> > performed?
>
> The crime occured April 23, 1605. The play is dated to the summer of that
> year, after a pamphlet about the case appeared June 12 but before the
> murderer was pressed to death August 5.
Could you please give a source for this? The earliest date I can find
is 1608 for Yorkshire Tragedy. But even if this is not so, it didn't
need a whole district to be renamed in a few months.
>
> > And by the way--just an aside--wasn't it listed as being by someone who
> > wasn't its author? ;)
> >>
> >> > But you seem to have forgotten that people had
> >> > to become accustomed to calling the London district Bermuda or the
> >> > Bermudas.
> >>
> >> Find me a reference outside of the theatre, and you might have a point.
> >> As it is, the only evidence we have for it is Jonson's use of the term.
> >
> > You're saying that only Jonson had to know that the district was called
> > the Bermudas? Ha ha.
>
> No, I'm saying we have only Jonson's word that there *was* an area called
> the Bermudas. It may be idiosyncratic with him, for all we know. His use of
> it in the poem to Dorset certainly doesn't support the case that a London
> area was called the Bermudas.
>
> But these Men ever want: their very Trade
> Is borrowing; that but stopt, they do invade
> All as their Prize, turn Pyrates here at Land,
> Ha' their Bermudas, and their Streights i' th' Strand:
> Man out of their Boats to th' Temple, and not shift
> Now, but command; make Tribute what was Gift;
I doubt it. He talked of the Bermudas in plays in both 1614 and 1616.
He describes the areas well--and they accord with Shakespeare's double
entendre about the Bermoothes. Jonson often referenced real areas of
London.
>
> He is saying that outlaws in London have their places to hide in the Strand,
> like pirates have their Bermuda and Streights (of Magellan). He isn't
> necessarily saying that there's area with that name, although I think the
> chances are probably equal that there was, given the Bartholomew Fair
> references.
Oh please, Tom. This is a new desperate low for you.
>
> (You can read the entire poem at Clark Holloway's site at
> http://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692underwoods.htm. It's an interesting poem
> that reminds me of his FF poem: very convoluted and backtracking, trying to
> praise without seeming to be too subservient.)
Thanks. The tennis is on at last.
>
> TR
Tom Reedy
>
> Tom Reedy wrote:
<snip>
>> > I believe Bermudas and
>> > Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
>> > the Bermuda Islands and a district in London.
>>
>> Source? Besides Jonson, I mean.
>
> Kositsky and common sense. Bermoothes also clearly meant Bermuda as
> it's in Duchess of Malfi.
No, I'm asking what is your source for there being an area in London known
as the Bermudas or Bermoothes.
TR
Ms. Mouse
I understood the first time. Jonson is my source. I haven't checked
myself for other sources so don't know if they exist. They may. But
Jonson seems pretty clear on it.
Roddick is fighting back, although a little strangely. He just
challenged his own serve.
L.
>
> TR
Tom Reedy
Yes, yes, we know. Any day now you're going to show us.
If he were all that excited about it, don't you think he's at least mention
it on the title page?
>> May's report has hardly anything in common with the Tempest, the way
>> Strachey's does.
>
> Strachey's has far less in common with Tempest than Eden or Ariosto or
> Erasmus, at least two of which he copied from. But you're setting up a
> straw man argument, in any case. Tempest does not take place in
> Bermuda.
Nobody has said it does.
> It takes place anywhere BUT Bermuda.I merely used May to show
> that there was an earlier shipwreck there so that the English had been
> there by 1591-3 and therefore the name would be known in England. The
> rest of Strachey can be found in the earlier sources.
Yes, we've been told that.
>> In both Tempest and Strachey, the wreck happened because of a hurricane.
>> The
>> Bonadventura wreck didn't happen because of a hurricane.
>> In both Tempest and Strachey, one ship of a fleet got separated and
>> wrecked.
>> Bonadventura was alone.
>> In both Tempest and Strachey, nobody dies in the shipwreck. Only 26 out
>> of
>> 55 survived the Bonadventura shipwreck.
>> In both Tempest and Strachey, a head of a government was on the ship that
>> wrecked.
>> In both Tempest and Strachey, the rest of the ships thought the wrecked
>> ship
>> was lost with all hands.
>> In Strachey, it was reported in England that the Sea Venture was lost.
>> There
>> was no report to England that the Bonadventura had been lost until May
>> returned to Cornwall in July 1594.
>>
>> >> Or when Hakluyt's book came out in 1600?
>>
>> How much of a sensation did May's account cause six years after the fact?
>> I
>> don't know; do you?
>
> First, it may have caused a sensation when he returned.
It may have; it may not have. I don't know why it would have caused a
sensation like the 1610-11 incident did.
> Second, it may
> have caused a sensation when it was published. Who knows but that
> Bermuda was considered a sensational place ever since it was first
> written about, years and years before?
Who knows, indeed? Apparently not you, and I've already admitted I don't.
But I do know the 1610-11 incident caused a huge sensation. Everybody else
knows it, too.
> Jourdain and others certainly
> thought so.
If dangerous = sensational, you're right. The rest of us would prefer to see
a little evidence.
> All I'm putting forward here is that when Shakespeare spoke
> of the Bermudas, it was likely already a disreputable area of London.
Source? Where do you get "most likely?" From Roe? You've already said he was
wrong on at least one point.
> The line fits beautifully. It doesn't make too much sense to stick it
> in, otherwise.
Yes, if there was no sensation about the Bermudas in 1610-11, and if there
was no reporting of a miraculous deliverance from a seemingly deadly
shipwreck, I suppose it doesn't make any sense at all except to allude to a
shady part of London.
Give me some examples.
> We see that by 1614 it
> was a disreputable district where bad habits such as drinking were
> acquired.
According to your and Roe's theory, by 1604.
> Lyra has shown us that there were stills in England from way
> back.
I have not yet taken Lyra out of my killfile, so I don't know. I'll have to
go to Google and check it oout.
Yes, I doubt that very seriously. Do you have any evidence there was an area
called the Bermudas? Besides Jonson, that is? (I know Oxfordians are most
impressed by fictional references, but the rest of us need a bit more than a
line in a play or two lines in a movie.)
Two to three months from an incident happening before it hits the stage?
Sounds to me that's pretty quick.
>> >> >> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
>> >> >> events within weeks or months.
>> >> >
>> >> > That's quite possible.
>> >>
>> >> Not just possible; it's quite demonstrable. Have you read Yorkshire
>> >> Tragedy?
>> >
>> > Yes, a long time ago, but if I remember it correctly it's a different
>> > matter entirely. It's based on a crime, not on an entire neighbourhood
>> > having to become known by a new nickname. It's also a pretty short
>> > play. What is the interval between the crime and the play being
>> > performed?
>>
>> The crime occured April 23, 1605. The play is dated to the summer of that
>> year, after a pamphlet about the case appeared June 12 but before the
>> murderer was pressed to death August 5.
>
> Could you please give a source for this?
No. Don't have time. I'll make you a deal, though: find me a source that
there was an area of London known as the Bermudas before 1611 or 1604, and
I'll find a cite for this.
> The earliest date I can find
> is 1608 for Yorkshire Tragedy.
That's the date it was published. It is dated by the incidents in the play,
which don't include the pressing of the murderer August 5.
> But even if this is not so, it didn't
> need a whole district to be renamed in a few months.
A whole district? Who said anything about a whole district? I thought it was
a few alleys. If it was an entire district, it should be easy for you to
find a reference that an entire district was known as the Bermudas.
So you've moved Roe's half-sourced, dishonest speculation to established
fact? I expect your Fellowship Virtual (apt word) Classroom will soon add it
as a lesson.
>>
>> He is saying that outlaws in London have their places to hide in the
>> Strand,
>> like pirates have their Bermuda and Streights (of Magellan). He isn't
>> necessarily saying that there's area with that name, although I think the
>> chances are probably equal that there was, given the Bartholomew Fair
>> references.
>
> Oh please, Tom. This is a new desperate low for you.
Read the passage and tell me what he's saying.
>>
>> (You can read the entire poem at Clark Holloway's site at
>> http://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692underwoods.htm. It's an interesting
>> poem
>> that reminds me of his FF poem: very convoluted and backtracking, trying
>> to
>> praise without seeming to be too subservient.)
>
> Thanks. The tennis is on at last.
Enjoy. At least watching tennis you can experience the vicarious feeling of
victory.
>>
>> TR
>
Tom Reedy
>
> Tom Reedy wrote:
>> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1157922350.2...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > Tom Reedy wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >> > I believe Bermudas and
>> >> > Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
>> >> > the Bermuda Islands and a district in London.
>> >>
>> >> Source? Besides Jonson, I mean.
>> >
>> > Kositsky and common sense. Bermoothes also clearly meant Bermuda as
>> > it's in Duchess of Malfi.
>>
>> No, I'm asking what is your source for there being an area in London
>> known
>> as the Bermudas or Bermoothes.
>
> I understood the first time. Jonson is my source. I haven't checked
> myself for other sources so don't know if they exist. They may. But
> Jonson seems pretty clear on it.
This is on a par with the "Howard was an Oxfordian" evidence. And it's
certainly no evidence for before 1604, or 1611, for that matter..
TR
Ms. Mouse
Tom Reedy wrote:
> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157924167.7...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Tom Reedy wrote:
> >> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:1157922350.2...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> >> >
> >> > Tom Reedy wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> >> > I believe Bermudas and
> >> >> > Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
> >> >> > the Bermuda Islands and a district in London.
> >> >>
> >> >> Source? Besides Jonson, I mean.
> >> >
> >> > Kositsky and common sense. Bermoothes also clearly meant Bermuda as
> >> > it's in Duchess of Malfi.
> >>
> >> No, I'm asking what is your source for there being an area in London
> >> known
> >> as the Bermudas or Bermoothes.
> >
> > I understood the first time. Jonson is my source. I haven't checked
> > myself for other sources so don't know if they exist. They may. But
> > Jonson seems pretty clear on it.
>
> This is on a par with the "Howard was an Oxfordian" evidence.
Thank you.
>And it's
> certainly no evidence for before 1604, or 1611, for that matter..
Tom, I have no idea what you're arguing about. I haven't at any point
said it's evidence. I just find it very interesting in an intellectual
kind of a way, and believe it a fascinating and very possibly correct
interpretation of the secondary meaning of the line. In no way am I
dating the play from it or saying it definitely was the case.
L.
Ms. Mouse
I have given you at least enough info to make a case. Tell me where it
falls down, and I'll argue it with you as far as I can.
It probably did, although I don't know for sure. But that's hardly the
point.
>
> > Jourdain and others certainly
> > thought so.
>
> If dangerous = sensational, you're right. The rest of us would prefer to see
> a little evidence.
Well, Tom, all it had to be was dangerous for it to be named a bad,
"dangerous" district of London.
>
> > All I'm putting forward here is that when Shakespeare spoke
> > of the Bermudas, it was likely already a disreputable area of London.
>
> Source? Where do you get "most likely?" From Roe? You've already said he was
> wrong on at least one point.
He was. But that doesn't mean he was wrong on everything. And I think
it was a brilliant germ of an idea, likely correct.
>
> > The line fits beautifully. It doesn't make too much sense to stick it
> > in, otherwise.
>
> Yes, if there was no sensation about the Bermudas in 1610-11, and if there
> was no reporting of a miraculous deliverance from a seemingly deadly
> shipwreck, I suppose it doesn't make any sense at all except to allude to a
> shady part of London.
Except for what Kermode has said, which I have to admit actually does
make sense. But it is a much more interesting line if it comes with a
sidebar.
Kathman et al about Strachey. They didn't even bother to check earlier
sources. And they invented a chain of custody with not an iota of
evidence to show that it existed, but at least some evidence that it
didn't. Most of them didn't even bother to read the material, just
passed the word from one to another. Appalling. And yet you're still
championing it. In the meantime, I've been much more careful about what
I've said here. Only that it seems likely to me. Not that it HAD to be
the case.
You're now calling Jonson a fictional reference, so suggesting it has
no value? That's really pathetic. You'd have to wipe out half the
literary notes in books if that's so. Why don't you instead do a survey
of his plays, to see which of his place names didn't exist, instead of
insulting me? I know I've been surprised several times that they did.
I checked them ages ago in Tale of a Tub. And in Sad Shepherd, of all
things. I actually recognised some of the place names because I lived
in the area for a while.
I think it was closer to three years.
>
> >> >> >> Plays hit the boards based on crimes and
> >> >> >> events within weeks or months.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > That's quite possible.
> >> >>
> >> >> Not just possible; it's quite demonstrable. Have you read Yorkshire
> >> >> Tragedy?
> >> >
> >> > Yes, a long time ago, but if I remember it correctly it's a different
> >> > matter entirely. It's based on a crime, not on an entire neighbourhood
> >> > having to become known by a new nickname. It's also a pretty short
> >> > play. What is the interval between the crime and the play being
> >> > performed?
> >>
> >> The crime occured April 23, 1605. The play is dated to the summer of that
> >> year, after a pamphlet about the case appeared June 12 but before the
> >> murderer was pressed to death August 5.
> >
> > Could you please give a source for this?
>
> No. Don't have time. I'll make you a deal, though: find me a source that
> there was an area of London known as the Bermudas before 1611 or 1604, and
> I'll find a cite for this.
I don't have to. You're the one who said that Yorkshire tragedy came to
stage in two to three months. I only said that I *believe* it likely
that Shakespeare was referencing an area in London. These are very
different kinds of statements.
>
> > The earliest date I can find
> > is 1608 for Yorkshire Tragedy.
>
> That's the date it was published. It is dated by the incidents in the play,
> which don't include the pressing of the murderer August 5.
Oh, God--she said, smacking her head--and yet you say Oxfordians don't
have evidence for anything? You're using as proof something that you're
trying to prove.
>
> > But even if this is not so, it didn't
> > need a whole district to be renamed in a few months.
>
> A whole district? Who said anything about a whole district? I thought it was
> a few alleys. If it was an entire district, it should be easy for you to
> find a reference that an entire district was known as the Bermudas.
A small district, but a district nevertheless. And there may well be a
reference other than Jonson's. I found lots of earlier material when I
checked Strachey, for example. Not that we need one here.
Dishonest? There you go.
>to established
> fact?
I did not say anything was established fact. I said that Jonson talked
of the Bermudas in two different plays, and that he often referenced
real areas of London.
> I expect your Fellowship Virtual (apt word) Classroom will soon add it
> as a lesson.
It would certainly trump your lesson on Yorkshire Tragedy.
>
> >>
> >> He is saying that outlaws in London have their places to hide in the
> >> Strand,
> >> like pirates have their Bermuda and Streights (of Magellan). He isn't
> >> necessarily saying that there's area with that name, although I think the
> >> chances are probably equal that there was, given the Bartholomew Fair
> >> references.
> >
> > Oh please, Tom. This is a new desperate low for you.
>
> Read the passage and tell me what he's saying.
It doesn't matter if it's ambiguous. We have two other clear
references.
>
> >>
> >> (You can read the entire poem at Clark Holloway's site at
> >> http://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692underwoods.htm. It's an interesting
> >> poem
> >> that reminds me of his FF poem: very convoluted and backtracking, trying
> >> to
> >> praise without seeming to be too subservient.)
> >
> > Thanks. The tennis is on at last.
>
> Enjoy. At least watching tennis you can experience the vicarious feeling of
> victory.
I'm victorious in many ways, as you very well know.
L.
>
> >>
> >> TR
> >
Ms. Mouse
> >> No, I'm saying we have only Jonson's word that there *was* an area called
> >> the Bermudas. It may be idiosyncratic with him, for all we know. His use
> >> of
> >> it in the poem to Dorset certainly doesn't support the case that a London
> >> area was called the Bermudas.
> >> But these Men ever want: their very Trade
> >> Is borrowing; that but stopt, they do invade
> >> All as their Prize, turn Pyrates here at Land,
> >> Ha' their Bermudas, and their Streights i' th' Strand:
> >> Man out of their Boats to th' Temple, and not shift
> >> Now, but command; make Tribute what was Gift;
Mouse:
> > I doubt it. He talked of the Bermudas in plays in both 1614 and 1616.
> > He describes the areas well--and they accord with Shakespeare's double
> > entendre about the Bermoothes. Jonson often referenced real areas of
> > London.
Tom:
> So you've moved Roe's half-sourced, dishonest speculation to established
> fact? I expect your Fellowship Virtual (apt word) Classroom will soon add it
> as a lesson.
Mouse:
Excuse me, but wasn't it you who said: "The good news for Oxfordians:
There really was a Bermudas in London in a disreputable area."
L.
Tom Reedy
>
> Tom Reedy wrote:
<snip>
>> So you've moved Roe's half-sourced, dishonest speculation to established
>> fact? I expect your Fellowship Virtual (apt word) Classroom will soon add
>> it
>> as a lesson.
>
> Excuse me, but wasn't it you who said: "The good news for Oxfordians:
> There really was a Bermudas in London in a disreputable area."
My first impressions are often wrong, and I correct them as soon as I learn
better.
And Roe is dishonest because he only gives part of the reference, the part
that doesn't potentially conflict with his theory.
>
>
> L.
Tom Reedy
Again, and to elaborate: posting on hlas is a learning process. My first
impessions are often wrong, like this example.
And I'm not saying there wasn't an area called the Bermudas. You cut this
part:
He isn't
> >> necessarily saying that there's area with that name, although I think
> >> the
> >> chances are probably equal that there was, given the Bartholomew Fair
> >> references.
TR
Ms. Mouse
Tom Reedy wrote:
> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157930855....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Tom Reedy wrote:
> <snip>
>
> >> So you've moved Roe's half-sourced, dishonest speculation to established
> >> fact? I expect your Fellowship Virtual (apt word) Classroom will soon add
> >> it
> >> as a lesson.
> >
> > Excuse me, but wasn't it you who said: "The good news for Oxfordians:
> > There really was a Bermudas in London in a disreputable area."
>
> My first impressions are often wrong, and I correct them as soon as I learn
> better.
If you're going to do that, at least signal me by saying something like
"I said aaa but I was wrong. Now I believe bbb."
No wonder I get confused.
>
> And Roe is dishonest
I wish you'd stop calling people dishonest. You really don't know
whether they're dishonest, or mistaken, as you now believe you were. Or
whether you're mistaken in your judgement of their work. Not
impossible, especially as you keep changing your mind.
L.
Tom Reedy
>
> Tom Reedy wrote:
>> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1157930855....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > Tom Reedy wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>> >> So you've moved Roe's half-sourced, dishonest speculation to
>> >> established
>> >> fact? I expect your Fellowship Virtual (apt word) Classroom will soon
>> >> add
>> >> it
>> >> as a lesson.
>> >
>> > Excuse me, but wasn't it you who said: "The good news for Oxfordians:
>> > There really was a Bermudas in London in a disreputable area."
>>
>> My first impressions are often wrong, and I correct them as soon as I
>> learn
>> better.
>
> If you're going to do that, at least signal me by saying something like
> "I said aaa but I was wrong. Now I believe bbb."
>
> No wonder I get confused.
>
>>
>> And Roe is dishonest
>
> I wish you'd stop calling people dishonest. You really don't know
> whether they're dishonest, or mistaken, as you now believe you were. Or
> whether you're mistaken in your judgement of their work. Not
> impossible, especially as you keep changing your mind.
What's your opinion of his work? Do you consider it thorough? Fair?
TR
Ms. Mouse
1. So you're now saying that there was a fifty percent chance that
there was an area called the Bermudas? Why fifty percent? I'm sorry if
I removed something you feel was still part of your argument.
2. At first I left the entire post intact to respond with two lines
near the bottom. For some reason, google displayed all text and it was
almost impossible to see what I'd written--on the second page. So I
cut, pasted, posted, and then removed the full-text post. I don't
understand why one has no choice over which text is revealed and which
hidden. The software seems awfully idiosyncratic.
L.
>
> TR
nordicskiv2
Tom Reedy wrote:
> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157924167.7...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Tom Reedy wrote:
> >> "Ms. Mouse" <lynnek...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:1157922350.2...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> >> >
> >> > Tom Reedy wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> >> > I believe Bermudas and
> >> >> > Beermoothes were likely interchangeable words which referred both to
> >> >> > the Bermuda Islands and a district in London.
> >> >> Source? Besides Jonson, I mean.
> >> > Kositsky and common sense.
May we conclude from this citation that the two are definitely
distinct entities? :-)
> >> > Bermoothes also clearly meant Bermuda as
> >> > it's in Duchess of Malfi.
> >> No, I'm asking what is your source for there being an area in London
> >> known
> >> as the Bermudas or Bermoothes.
> > I understood the first time. Jonson is my source. I haven't checked
> > myself for other sources so don't know if they exist. They may. But
> > Jonson seems pretty clear on it.
> This is on a par with the "Howard was an Oxfordian" evidence.
Actually, the Oxfordian case for Howard as an Oxfordian is at least
as compelling as the case for Oxford as the author of the Shakespeare
canon. For example, Leslie Howard is perhaps best known for his
performance in a film called "Gone With the Wind," whose title is a
transparent reference to an incident in Oxford's life; indeed, Aubrey
writes:
"This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen
Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed
And ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 years."
Hence, "gone with the wind."
[...]
Tom Reedy
Well, Jonson refers to it, so that's a point for its possible existence. But
an Oxfordian also says it exists, so given the Oxfordian track record,
that's a point against.
I'm sorry if
> I removed something you feel was still part of your argument.
>
>
> 2. At first I left the entire post intact to respond with two lines
> near the bottom. For some reason, google displayed all text and it was
> almost impossible to see what I'd written--on the second page. So I
> cut, pasted, posted, and then removed the full-text post. I don't
> understand why one has no choice over which text is revealed and which
> hidden. The software seems awfully idiosyncratic.
It _is_ one of a kind.
TR
>
> L.
>
>
>>
>> TR
>
Ms. Mouse
I've already said. I think he had the germ of a great idea which imo is
very likely true: that Shakespeare was referring to a disreputable area
of London then called the Bermoothes or Bermudas. Unprovable right now,
but if someone's interested in searching, something might turn up which
shows the name was in use pretty early, certainly earlier than 1614.
I don't agree with most of the rest of his article. I doubt there was a
period when the area was called Bermoothes and a different period when
it was known as Bermuda. It's more likely, imo, that the terms were
interchangeable and perhaps identical in pronunciation.
And for me, the New World literature together with that of Erasmus
and/or Ariosto is the key to Tempest; early allusions are the key to
dating; however, I don't feel that Richard Roe was any more wrong or
any less thorough than the Bermuda pamphlet scholars, none of whom
you'll criticise in any way. Do you have any doubts about Kathman's
essay yet, for example? Would you admit it if you did?
I should add I have enormous respect for Roe's work on Shakespeare and
Italy.
L.
Chess One
"Chess One" <inn...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:egTMg.251$XR3.172@trndny02...
>>> The error makes no difference in my point, which is that no references
>>> to
>>> the area in London exist until after colonization of Bermuda was well
>>> underway. Jonson doesn't refer to it as a debtor's haven, however, until
>>> 1616, but as a disreputable area where its residents pass the time with
>>> "Bottle Ale and Tabacco."
>>>
>>> TR
>
> TR's etymology is correct, or thought so by Nares, since the Bermudas was
> a cant term for certain obscure and intricate alleys, in which persons
> lodged who had occassion to live cheap or concealed. They are supposed to
> have been in the narrow passages north of the Strand, near Covent Garden.
> Bermudas also denoted a species of tobacco.
These comments above were written slightly later than other opinion I read
here which seems to have come from the 1960s - the text I use came from the
1840s, and only of materials already rare then.
> BERMOOTHES a neolg. and used by Shak only. There are 2 similar A. Sax.
> words, BERME, yeast [which is used by Chaucer] and BERMEN, or bar-men,
> porters tot he kitchen, and used by Hevelok and Latamon.
Which are at least 600 year old references. Elsewhere I make the note that
what was bottled may not just be beer, but laudenam or other liquid opiates,
though such an area surelfy many have compassed many vices.
I do not have any reference to immunities of The Bermudas, as latterly
existed in The Savoy, though perhaps once was socially immune there, absent
any law, as such?
>> Jonson referred to it by 1614 as a disreputable area but the area
>> didn't exist until at least 1610? Very unlikely, imo, and the same old,
>> same old argument: Nothing existed before the first recorded reference
>> to it, although we know the records are woefully incomplete.
Certainly if the place contained quantities of drinking dens, then the
etymology proceed /directly/ from Berme/Bermen.
When //cant// <--NB!! place names are mentioned, how often do they find
their way into 'literature', at all, especially when such names are as
transient as what happens in them?
Consider that in your parent's life-times some 10 million people still
referenced 'The Smoke'.
Phil Innes
Tom Reedy
What do you think if his withholding information from his reference that
contradicted with his conslusion? Do you think that's honest or fair?
> I don't agree with most of the rest of his article. I doubt there was a
> period when the area was called Bermoothes and a different period when
> it was known as Bermuda. It's more likely, imo, that the terms were
> interchangeable and perhaps identical in pronunciation.
This is so Ogburnish, it's funny.
> And for me, the New World literature together with that of Erasmus
> and/or Ariosto is the key to Tempest; early allusions are the key to
> dating; however, I don't feel that Richard Roe was any more wrong or
> any less thorough than the Bermuda pamphlet scholars,
Roe: one scholastic source (Partridge), half of the information withheld.
One illustration from Jonson as evidence.
And you're saying is is as thorough as
Cawley: almost 50 scholastic and primary sources, including several German
and French and all of the sources and examples -- Eden, Smith, Tomson,
Hakluyt, et al -- you claim make Strachey redundant.
Gayley: More than 40; they're hard to count without duplication.
Bullough: 48 works citated and a dozen primary sources.
Perhaps you're exaggerating a wee bit?
> none of whom
> you'll criticise in any way. Do you have any doubts about Kathman's
> essay yet, for example? Would you admit it if you did?
Dave's essay is a short summary of the evidence as presented by other
scholars. I don't feel qualified yet to say what is in error, if anything.
For one thing, I haven't been interested in this topic until recently, and I
haven't yet read all the material.
I will say that the verbal parallels never were all that convincing to me,
but all of my reading so far is convincing for Strachey as a source for the
Tempest.
TR
Ms. Mouse
I'm not sure what information you're talking about.
What do you think of Tempest scholars withholding the information that
True Dec appears in chunks throughout Strachey, although published in
late 1610? Wright manages to mention it, but puts a spin on it which
almost certainly cannot be true. Or at least, if it is true, together
with other problems it contaminates the text. Other scholars ignore the
information altogether.
Culliford, Strachey's biographer, goes to great lengths to show what a
plagiarist Strachey was in his other works, but then leaves True
Reportory pristine, without Culliford making any attempt to use the
same methods to see if Strachey's work in TR was original or
plagiarised. Do you think that's honest or fair?
>
> > I don't agree with most of the rest of his article. I doubt there was a
> > period when the area was called Bermoothes and a different period when
> > it was known as Bermuda. It's more likely, imo, that the terms were
> > interchangeable and perhaps identical in pronunciation.
>
> This is so Ogburnish, it's funny.
Thank you.
>
> > And for me, the New World literature together with that of Erasmus
> > and/or Ariosto is the key to Tempest; early allusions are the key to
> > dating; however, I don't feel that Richard Roe was any more wrong or
> > any less thorough than the Bermuda pamphlet scholars,
>
> Roe: one scholastic source (Partridge), half of the information withheld.
> One illustration from Jonson as evidence.
>
> And you're saying is is as thorough as
>
> Cawley: almost 50 scholastic and primary sources, including several German
> and French and all of the sources and examples -- Eden, Smith, Tomson,
> Hakluyt, et al -- you claim make Strachey redundant.
>
> Gayley: More than 40; they're hard to count without duplication.
>
> Bullough: 48 works citated and a dozen primary sources.
>
> Perhaps you're exaggerating a wee bit?
Nope. If Cawley, for example, had really read all those sources, how
come he didn't realise that they accounted for the parallels much
earlier? If these scholars had all read Strachey, how come they didn't
note, for example, that True Declaration, published in Nov/December
1610 was said by Purchas or Strachey to be already published, with a
long piece of it at the end of Strachey, and many bits cut out and
distributed throughout the text? If people knew that Eden HAD to be a
source because of "Setebos," how come they didn't investigate further
(although to his credit, Kermode did somewhat) to see what else was in
it that might have sourced Tempest?
A scholar had said as early as 1919, by the way, in a peer-edited
journal, that the storm elements in Tempest originated with Erasmus,
but everyone ignored him. I came upon his article in jstor long after
I'd figured it out for myself, and was astonished that there it was
almost a hundred years ago, totally lost in the great push towards
Strachey. To ignore the Erasmus link for the most part, or to mention
it without showing that it parallels all the storm elements, is
terribly shoddy scholarship.
Anyhow, I'm done on this for now although I may respond if you write
more about Roe. Have a good week.
L.
Chess One
contemporary, Tusser, writing in about 1575 is clear on growing methods,
also that kilns were rarely used [also noting late C16th wood shortage -
somewhat deflating the idea of a 'still'], language usage seems from much
earlier, and continues terms for beer previously used for ale - and here is
Borde; "Ale is made of malt and water and they the whiche do put any other
thing to ale than is rehersed except yeast, barme and godes good, doth
sophysticat theyre ale..." written circa 1452.
Caxton says, "Bere was made in England by Byere brewers, who were Flemynges
and Duchemen". It was not altogether approved, and the Royal Household was
warned not to add hops or brimstone to the royal brew. The Flemish origin
of the beer trade may explain the ~oothe suffix.
In passing, a word used for someone who acquired corn for beer, is a
"Badger".
PI
lmst...@bigpond.com
This book explains the issue rather well
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0SJk5Nddj94C&pg=PA140&dq=%22Bermoothes%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdx6WvpuDeAhXrgUsFHWtrAyYQuwUILTAA#v=onepage&q=%22Bermoothes%22%20&f=false
He supports the Roe stance, however.
This book looks very interesting as well:
https://archive.org/details/bravevesseltruet0000wood
Another angle is "bermoort" as a West Frisian word for "bother." "Bermoot" is Luxembourgish for bump:
"Vex'd" perhaps? Nothing much there.
It's also possible that, as The Tempest was a kind of comedy, Shake was playing on some kind of double entendre, if indeed there existed a so-named motley London quarter dedicated to the export of moonshine over to the continent.
Also, "hawes" translates to "harbour" in Afrikaan, which might explain the Bermoot-hawes.
The entire snippet is:
Safely in harbour
Is the king's ship. In the deep nook where once
Thou called'st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid.
Now consider this: imagine the word "Bermoothes" as a mispronounciation of "Bermoot", the name of a ship once docked there, of late perhaps taken over by Dutch corsairs. Then Bermoot-hawes would refer to the harbour named for the ship that discovered it?