The Architects of the First Folio: De Vere's Relatives
Greg Reynolds
richie miller wrote:
> "Advocates of the Oxfordian view attributing the authorship
> of works published in the 1623 "Shakespeare" folio to Edward
> de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, have naturally drawn
> attention to the fact that the folio was dedicated to, and
> apparently published under the patronage of Phillip and
> William Herbert, the two sons of Mary Sidney who were
> respectively de Vere's son-in-law and a near son-in-law."
>
> Stritmatter's observation above and the rest of his gripping
> and insightful article* suggest that the making of the First
> Folio was an inside job engineered by his daughter's
> husband. The problem for Strats is explaining how people in
> the nobility would align themselves (and at considerable
> expense) to a common playwright and actor and the publishing
> of his works on such a grand scale. They must have really
> taken a shine to old Shaxbag's bubbling personality!
>
> * "Bestow how, and when you list..."
> Susan Vere, William Jaggard and the 1623 Shakespeare Folio
> by Roger Stritmatter (©1998)
>
> This article was first published in the Shakespeare Oxford
> Newsletter (Fall 1998).
But richie, your ammo is old and damp.
Here's some fresh for you:
Was the Earl of Oxford a "fellowe" of Condell or Heminge?
Condell and Heminge were "fellowes" of Shakespeare of Stratford.
Can you or Roger explain their relationship to the earl?
Greg Reynolds
David Kathman
>
> "Advocates of the Oxfordian view attributing the authorship
> of works published in the 1623 "Shakespeare" folio to Edward
> de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, have naturally drawn
> attention to the fact that the folio was dedicated to, and
> apparently published under the patronage of Phillip and
> William Herbert, the two sons of Mary Sidney who were
> respectively de Vere's son-in-law and a near son-in-law."
>
> Stritmatter's observation above and the rest of his gripping
> and insightful article* suggest that the making of the First
> Folio was an inside job engineered by his daughter's
> husband.
You're confusing the dedicatee of a printed work with
its editors and publishers, who are the ones who actually
"engineer" it. There is no indication that the Herbert
brothers were different from any other dedicatees, or
that they had anything more to do with the publishing
of the First Folio than they did with any of the many
other books that were dedicated to them.
I don't mean to be unkind, but if you think Stritmatter's
article is "gripping and insightful", then you're
distressingly gullible. Oxfordian scenarios about
the publishing of the First Folio have little connection
with reality, or with actual Jacobean publishing practices.
> The problem for Strats is explaining how people in
> the nobility would align themselves (and at considerable
> expense) to a common playwright and actor and the publishing
> of his works on such a grand scale. They must have really
> taken a shine to old Shaxbag's bubbling personality!
Uh, there's no "problem". The First Folio was dedicated
to the Herbert brothers, just as many other works were.
They may have provided some financial reward for the
honor of having such a fine work dedicated to them, but
there is no evidence that they had anything more to do
with it. Heminges and Condell were the ones who gathered
the manuscripts and edited them, as they themselves tell
us, though they may have had help from Ben Jonson and
from the other actors. You seem to be under the
misapprehension that the Herbert brothers paid for the
publication, which is nothing but an Oxfordian fantasy.
The last page of the volume clearly says that it was
"Printed at the Charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount,
I. Smithweeke, and W. Aspley, 1623." Those four men
were stationers, and it was they who paid for the
publication of the volume.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
richie miller
of works published in the 1623 "Shakespeare" folio to Edward
de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, have naturally drawn
attention to the fact that the folio was dedicated to, and
apparently published under the patronage of Phillip and
William Herbert, the two sons of Mary Sidney who were
respectively de Vere's son-in-law and a near son-in-law."
Stritmatter's observation above and the rest of his gripping
and insightful article* suggest that the making of the First
Folio was an inside job engineered by his daughter's
husband. The problem for Strats is explaining how people in
the nobility would align themselves (and at considerable
expense) to a common playwright and actor and the publishing
of his works on such a grand scale. They must have really
taken a shine to old Shaxbag's bubbling personality!
* "Bestow how, and when you list..."
Susan Vere, William Jaggard and the 1623 Shakespeare Folio
by Roger Stritmatter (©1998)
This article was first published in the Shakespeare Oxford
Newsletter (Fall 1998).
--
Richie
www.omencity.com
"It is a great comfort...that so little is known
concerning the poet...The life of Shakespeare is
a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest
something should turn up." Dickens
Richard Nathan
have been sponsored by King James, because he was a very high member of
the royalty, and such a high member of the royalty would never patronize
common playwrights and actors. The only reasonable conclusion is that
the King's men was sponsored by some commoner named King.
Tom Reedy
news:MPG.131e5bba9...@news.earthlink.net...
<snip>
>
> Stritmatter's observation above and the rest of his gripping
> and insightful article* suggest that the making of the First
> Folio was an inside job engineered by his daughter's
> husband.
> Richie
I didn't even know Stritmatter was married, much less had a daughter old
enough to be married herself.
TR
Erik Nielsen
this stuff and gone into a more respectable field of study, like dowsing
or phrenology...
--nielsen
KQKnave
I thought he was dead.
Jim
richie miller
> The last page of the volume clearly says that it was
> "Printed at the Charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount,
> I. Smithweeke, and W. Aspley, 1623." Those four men
> were stationers, and it was they who paid for the
> publication of the volume.
>
[Relpo Miraculous replies:]
As Dana Carvey imitating Johnny Carson says:
"I did not know that!" Let me see what the "Oxbags" have to
say. One of them could post a rebuttal to HLAS if they have
one but there doesn't seem to be many still hanging around.
Richie
www.omencity.com
"A naked white woman on TV is is condemned as pornography.
A naked black woman on TV is called anthropology." (unknown
female comic circa 1980's)
Roger A Stritmatter
richie miller <rich...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.131e5bba9...@news.earthlink.net...
> "Advocates of the Oxfordian view attributing the authorship
> of works published in the 1623 "Shakespeare" folio to Edward
> de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, have naturally drawn
> attention to the fact that the folio was dedicated to, and
> apparently published under the patronage of Phillip and
> William Herbert, the two sons of Mary Sidney who were
> respectively de Vere's son-in-law and a near son-in-law."
>
> Stritmatter's observation above and the rest of his gripping
> and insightful article* suggest that the making of the First
> Folio was an inside job engineered by his daughter's
> husband. The problem for Strats is explaining how people in
> the nobility would align themselves (and at considerable
> expense) to a common playwright and actor and the publishing
> of his works on such a grand scale. They must have really
> taken a shine to old Shaxbag's bubbling personality!
>
Thanks for the kind words, Richie. Check out Peter Dickson's important
work on the political circumstances which surrounded the publication
of the folio. It is very clear, all things considered, that the timing of
thefolio publication in 1621-23 was motivated by outrage among the
Protestant
nobility, particularly the closely intertwined clans of Pembroke,
Montgomery, Vere and Southampton, at the negotiations to marry Charles I to
the Infanta
of Spain, which would have risked counter-reformation.
Dickson's research
reveals that Henry de Vere, Edward de Vere's legitimate son, was jailed
in the tower of London during almost exactly the same time period as the
production of the "Shakespeare" folio. Now, isn't that a hell of a
coincidence?!
> * "Bestow how, and when you list..."
> Susan Vere, William Jaggard and the 1623 Shakespeare Folio
> by Roger Stritmatter (©1998)
>
> This article was first published in the Shakespeare Oxford
> Newsletter (Fall 1998).
>
The article can be accessed on-line, along with selections from Dickson's
extremely important work-in-progress (Dickson reserves his biggest
bombshell's for last....)
by surfing to:
Roger
Roger A Stritmatter
David Kathman <dj...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:38B4C6...@ix.netcom.com...
> You're confusing the dedicatee of a printed work with
> its editors and publishers, who are the ones who actually
> "engineer" it. There is no indication that the Herbert
> brothers were different from any other dedicatees, or
> that they had anything more to do with the publishing
> of the First Folio than they did with any of the many
> other books that were dedicated to them.
>
Thanks, Dave, for pointing out how confused we are all.
When you say "there is no evidence," what you really
mean is, "I have ruled out of discussion any evidence
which indicates [possible conclusions which I have ruled
out as permissible]."
But since you haven't established
how much influence, or of what kind,
these two very important arts
patrons had in the publication of any of their books,
the claim is empty and meaningless.
You clearly don't want readers of this list to
read for themselves what Dickson and many other
anti-Stratfordians, past and present, have written
on this topic.
So, let me once again urge inquiring minds
to visit:
> I don't mean to be unkind, but if you think Stritmatter's
> article is "gripping and insightful", then you're
> distressingly gullible. Oxfordian scenarios about
> the publishing of the First Folio have little connection
> with reality, or with actual Jacobean publishing practices.
Richie, you gullible fish! Don't you know that *REALITY*
is what I say it is.
> > The problem for Strats is explaining how people in
> > the nobility would align themselves (and at considerable
> > expense) to a common playwright and actor and the publishing
> > of his works on such a grand scale. They must have really
> > taken a shine to old Shaxbag's bubbling personality!
>
> Uh, there's no "problem". The First Folio was dedicated
> to the Herbert brothers, just as many other works were.
> They may have provided some financial reward for the
> honor of having such a fine work dedicated to them, but
> there is no evidence that they had anything more to do
> with it.
Well, let's start with the fact that The Jaggard firm
was, as my article shows, trying to get Susan Vere
and her husband to "bestow" their literary goodies
on him as early as 1619.
Then let us consider that Henry de Vere was in
the tower, for opposing the Spanish marriage
negotations, during almost exactly the months in
1621-23 when the folio was in production.
Again, Dave doesn't
"like" this evidence, so he claims it doesn't exist!
What kind of reasoning is that?
Heminges and Condell were the ones who gathered
> the manuscripts and edited them, as they themselves tell
> us, though they may have had help from Ben Jonson and
> from the other actors.
Dave is at least 150 years out of date on his scholarship
here. And notice that this is not an argument at all --
it is an assertion based on a consensus view of reality
which Dave can't seem to extricate himself from.
its possible that Heminges and Condell did do this.
But there are other possibilities as well which Dave
doesn't understand and doesn't want to know about.
This, of course, is his prerogative as an intellectual.
Most of us have things we'd prefer not to know about.
But that is no justification for proclaiming that others
should not want to know about them either.
You seem to be under the
> misapprehension that the Herbert brothers paid for the
> publication, which is nothing but an Oxfordian fantasy.
Actually, Dave, its an Oxfordian acid trip.
> The last page of the volume clearly says that it was
> "Printed at the Charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount,
> I. Smithweeke, and W. Aspley, 1623." Those four men
> were stationers, and it was they who paid for the
> publication of the volume.
And Hemings and Condell wrote the paraphrase of Pliny
in the dedication to the two patrons! They "signed" it --
so they must have written it, right?
Nonsense. The best scholarship, going back to 19th
century, has argued convincingly that this dedication
was written by...."Honest" Ben Jonson.
> Dave Kathman
> dj...@ix.netcom.com
Peter Zenner
>It is very clear, all things considered, that the timing of
>among the rotestant nobility, particularly the closely
>intertwined clans of Pembroke, Montgomery, Vere and
>Southampton, at the negotiations to marry Charles I to
>the Infanta of Spain, which would have risked counter-
>reformation.
Coincidence, Roger -- Marlowe died in early 1622
and that is when work started on the First Folio. His
friends intended it as a memorial to him because he
could not have a proper monument. He was supposed
to be buried in that unmarked grave in Deptford...
If the mother of Pembroke & Montgomery hadn't have
died the year before, you can bet your bottom dollar
that the FF would have been dedicated to her. Marlowe
had a special relationship with her; she helped many a
young poet. Her sons were the next best thing. The
reference to 'Shakespeare' being the 'Swan of Avon'
is because of the River Avon flowing close to Wilton
House. Ben Jonson made use of the fact that there
were two River Avons to further confuse posterity!
Peter Zenner
+44 (0) 1246 271726
Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
Terry Ross
> Thanks for the kind words, Richie. Check out Peter Dickson's important
> work on the political circumstances which surrounded the publication
> of the folio.
[snip]
> The article can be accessed on-line, along with selections from Dickson's
> extremely important work-in-progress (Dickson reserves his biggest
> bombshell's for last....)
>
> by surfing to:
>
> http://everreader.com
Richie has already posted his wonderment and admiration for Dickson's
peachy article on Peacham. I was wondering just what "bombshell" Dickson
had reserved for last, and I think I've found it. There are two versions
of Dickson's Peacham essay available online:
http://everreader.com/peacham.htm and
http://www.elizreview.com/peacham.htm
Here is note 12 in the "everreader" version of the essay:
"12. When Looney published his work in 1920 he apparently did not have the
benefit of knowing about this anagram or the emblem in Peacham's Minerva
Britanna, nor about the inclusion of Oxford in a list of great poets in
The Compleat Gentleman. The first person who evidently uncovered this
important evidence was Eva Turner Clark sometime after 1930. She included
it in her 1937 work as cited in this essay."
There is a bombshell (for the easily shell-shocked) in the version of the
same note 12 in the "elizreview" version of the essay:
"12. When Looney published his work in 1920 he did not have the benefit of
knowing about this anagram or the emblem in Peacham's Minerva Britanna,
nor about the inclusion of Oxford in a list of great poets in The Complete
Gentleman. Apparently, the first person who suspected the significance of
this title page emblem in Peacham's work for the Shakespeare authorship
debate was Eva Turner Clark sometime after 1930. She included it in her
1937 work as cited in this essay. In our refinement of the
Clark/Astley-Cock analysis of Mente.Videbor[i], we had the benefit of
comments from Roger Stritmatter of the University of Massachusetts
(Amherst) and Professor William McCulloh of Kenyon College."
Dickson's "refinement" of the "Clark/Astley-Cock" analysis is essentially
identical in both versions of the essay, but in the "everreader" version
there is no credit given to Roger Stritmatter and poor William McCulloh.
The question is, what "comments" did Roger Stritmatter offer to Dickson?
Did he tell Dickson that Clark's original notion that *Minerva Britanna*
had anything to do with Oxford was a blunder? Did he tell Dickson that
Astley-Cock corrected Clark's blunder of reading "in genio" for "ingenio"?
Since Dickson overlooked Astley-Cock and repeated Clark's boo-boo, my
guess is that this was not among Stritmatter's comments. Did Stritmatter
tell Dickson that "vivitur ingenio, cetera mortis erunt" was a well-known
line from a classical text (something neither Clark not Astley-Cock knew)?
Did he point out that Dickson had (probably deliberately) mistranscribed
Astley-Cock's "translation" of the mottoes on the title page of *Minerva
Britanna*? Did he point out that what Astley-Cock "translated" was not
what exactly what appeared on the title page but a distich containing a
line of his own composition?
Est tibi nomen Vere in mente videboris, aio:
Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt!
By thy imagination's skill shalt thou, Vere, be revealed;
Resurrected by the talent, all else by death concealed!
While "mente videbor" (which we may translate as "I'll be remembered")
does appear on the title page, "est tibi nomen Vere in" and "aio" do not,
nor is there an "is" after "videbor." If Astley-Cock wanted a distich, he
could have used as a first line the one that the original Latin author
used:
marmorea Aonii vincent monumenta libelli;
vivitur ingenio, cetera mortis erunt.
The Loeb translation of these lines is "Aonian writings [i.e., poetry]
will eclipse marble monuments: genius means life, all else will belong to
death." Like Peacham's *Minerva Britanna*, the classical "Elegiae in
Maecenatem" had nothing whatsoever to do with the seventeenth earl of
Oxford.
Perhaps Stritmatter really did try to set Dickson straight; perhaps he
gave sage "comments" that Dickson either ignored or misunderstood. I have
had some exchanges with Dickson about his essay, and while he accepts a
number of my corrections, there are others that he simply refuses to
entertain, so I could understand Stritmatter's feeling that his
suggestions and warnings had gone unheeded, if that were indeed the case.
Unfortunately, since Dickson doesn't say just what help he received from
Stritmatter, and since Stritmatter himself has been too modest to
enlighten us about the nature of his contribution, we are left in the
dark, without even the illumination of a match, let alone a bombshell.
Nevertheless, since Stritmatter was consulted by Dickson before his
error-ridden piece appeared, and since Stritmatter must know how shoddy
Dickson's work is, why does he not warn the innocent readers of this
group? Why does he not ask Dickson either to correct his online pieces or
to retract them? How long will he allow such unwitting souls as Richie to
fall for such mistake-prone work as Dickson's Peacham essay?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
PWDBard
discussions with him. In prior responses, I made clear that while many
(including myself) are convinced that Peacham's phrase (Mente.Videbor-i)
contains an anagram and that angram logically has something to do with the
identity of the person behind the curtain (most probably Oxford-de Vere), this
analysis does not make an explicit connection to Shakespeare per se. It would
only indicate that Peacham understood de Vere to be a writer requiring or
utilizing concealment. One issue concerning the distinct (but still related)
issue of the logic of Peacham's thought process for his list of the greatest
deceased Elizabethan poets. I have addressed this at length several times.
I found the vast bulk (99 per cent) of the Kathman-Ross rejoinder worthless.
They do advance a "contamination theory" that since Peacham regarded the Bard
(regardless of his identity and regardless of his fame and literary
achievements) as a mere stage player, and that this involvement with the public
theater was enough (at least in Peacham's mind) to "contaminate" him
irretreivably and thus justify his exclusion from a list of true gentlemen and
great poets, even when next door (so to speak) the First Folio project is
undeerway in St. Paul's Crossyard. It remains to be demonstrated that Peacham
(drawer of a sketch for Titus Andronicus as Sam Schoenbaum and Jonatham Bate
admit) would have regarded and in fact regarded Shakespeare as a mere stage
player, a mechanical artist like a musician as opposed to a creative art (a
composer or a dramatist). Oxford was obviously not a mere stage player. Was
the Stratford man (a prosperious grain merchant) a mere stage player? Can we
even place him in London? How early? At best, using the Mountjoy Lawsuit, we
can place him in London no earlier than 1602. There is no evidence that he,
this specific William Shakespeare was in London, prior to 1602 unless one
assumes as Stratfordians do, that there was only one name with this name in
London in the 1590s and that he was simulataneously a chronic tax dodger and
under a court restraining order, but also a prominent royal dramatist with the
Lord Chamberlain's men, an investor in the Globe, and one whom Richard Quiney
while in London hits up (in a letter!) for some cash to have a good time in the
big town. This "one man theory" is a massive assumption on which the entire
shaky Stratfodian orthodoxy rests. It gives them a way to weave together a
tapestry which does not hold to close scrutiny. In any case, there is no solid
irrefutable evidence that this particular William Shakespeare from Stratford (
or Oxford for that matter) ever set foot on a public stage *as an actor*.
Being the a friend of actors is not the same thing as being an actor, and the
interlineation in the 1616 will about the three actors will always be suspect,
precisely because it is an interlineation. Also Hemminge's will is far
superior in content and tone to the much cruder expression of the Strat man's
will with its crude signatures (signatures which the PRO expert Cox now
questions). Furthermore, any reputable student of medieval or early modern
history will tell you that edcuated men invariably developed high-stylized,
personalized signatures to reflect their status in society. The crudity of the
signatures along with the other gaps (no books, no library, no correspondence,
no record of education) has fueled legitimate sketicism and will continue to do
so. One final point: one of the many weak points in the Stratfordian
orthodoxy is the notion that the actors would have sat on 16 Shakespearean
plays year after year when they faced severe financial pressures due to the
plague and theater closings for other reasons. Leeds Barroll in his 1991 book
showed that the public theater in London was closed nearly 70 percent of the
time from 1603-1613. These actors were neither grand nor rich enough to sit on
such a cache of plays this long, especially under these conditions when they
typically dumpred old plays on the market to help pay for rent, curtains, new
costumes, etc. The Herberts and Susan de Vere were immune from such financial
pressure. And William Jaggard approached Susan in 1619 for some literary
fruit. He did not approach Ann Hathaway or her daughters (all three illitrates
for anything). Kathman-Ross debating tactics cannot get around the basic fact
that Jaggard's 1623 folio dedication is explicitly modelled on the
Arxaio-Ploutos dedicaton which is to Susan de Vere and Philip Herbert. All
other Herbert dedications (including the 1622 one for Mabbe's translation of
Gerardo the Unfortunate Spaniard) bear no comparison in format, in length, or
substantive character. Stritmatter's research plus his analysis of the
political ratonale for placing Cymbeline at the end of the 1623 folio, merely
reinforce the far more credible nature of the Oxfordian theory concerning the
First Folio as I have laid out in my work. The sudden rush to assemble and
rush effort to complete the folio shaped by political circumstances. It was
not an innocent literary project or business as usual divorced from politics.
The First Folio was no ordinary work and the early 1620s (the Spanish Marriage
crisis and the tyranny of Buckingham) was no ordinary time.
Your Friend, Buckeye Pete
David Kathman
"PWDBard" aka "Buckeye Pete" is Peter Dickson.
PWDBard wrote:
>
> I did not draw upon Stritmatter's research on Minerva Britanna but had many
> discussions with him. In prior responses, I made clear that while many
> (including myself) are convinced that Peacham's phrase (Mente.Videbor-i)
> contains an anagram and that angram logically has something to do with the
> identity of the person behind the curtain (most probably Oxford-de Vere), this
> analysis does not make an explicit connection to Shakespeare per se. It would
> only indicate that Peacham understood de Vere to be a writer requiring or
> utilizing concealment.
But it seems to me that Terry has demolished your fanciful belief
that the title page of Minerva Brittana contains an anagram, or
that it has anything whatsoever to do with Edward de Vere. Are
you ever going to respond to his detailed and devastating criticisms,
or are you just going to blithely dismiss them without argument
and continue spouting rhetoric? I would think that anyone with
an ounce of scholarly integrity would be very uncomfortable
with the way you've been handling this whole situation.
> One issue concerning the distinct (but still related)
> issue of the logic of Peacham's thought process for his list of the greatest
> deceased Elizabethan poets. I have addressed this at length several times.
> I found the vast bulk (99 per cent) of the Kathman-Ross rejoinder worthless.
Uhhhh... is that the extent of your response? You merely assert
without argument or evidence that "99 per cent" of Terry's detailed
response is "worthless", and think that's the end of it? If you've
ever responded to any of Terry's points with any actual evidence,
I must have missed it. I've just seen a lot of bluster and repetition.
And why do you keep dragging my name into this? Terry has written
his criticisms of you completely on his own, with no input
from me, and he's done a fine job of it. Do you imagine that
we are Siamese twins, joined at the hip and sharing a single
brain which we use to smite anti-Stratfordian silliness?
I can assure you that this is not the case.
> They do advance a "contamination theory"
Again with the "they". This was Terry's argument alone, though
I found it very convincing when I read it on the newsgroup
along with the rest of you. And Terry has never called any
of his arguments a "contamination theory", as your quotation
marks imply.
> that since Peacham regarded the Bard
> (regardless of his identity and regardless of his fame and literary
> achievements) as a mere stage player, and that this involvement with the public
> theater was enough (at least in Peacham's mind) to "contaminate" him
> irretreivably and thus justify his exclusion from a list of true gentlemen and
> great poets, even when next door (so to speak) the First Folio project is
> undeerway in St. Paul's Crossyard.
As Terry points out, Peacham explicitly said that stage-players
could not be gentlemen, and he explicitly said that buying or
otherwise obtaining a coat of arms could not make a man a gentleman.
That seems pretty clear to me. None of the Elizabethan poets
Peacham named wrote plays for the public stage, and all of them
were gentlemen by Peacham's explicitly stated standards.
> It remains to be demonstrated that Peacham
> (drawer of a sketch for Titus Andronicus as Sam Schoenbaum and Jonatham Bate
> admit)
I don't think Sam Schoenbaum is admitting anything now, since he's
been dead for four years. But as Terry noted, June Schlueter has
recently made a compelling argument that Peacham's drawing
is not of Shakespeare's play at all, but of another play
on the subject of Titus. Are you ever going to respond to Schlueter's
argument, or are you going to keep citing old scholarship
simply because it suits your conclusion better?
> would have regarded and in fact regarded Shakespeare as a mere stage
> player, a mechanical artist like a musician as opposed to a creative art (a
> composer or a dramatist).
We cannot peer into Peacham's brain and say definitively
what he "would have done" in some hypothetical situation;
we can only look at what he wrote, and that is pretty clear.
He explicitly includes stage-players among those who cannot
be gentlemen; he explicitly says that these people do not
become gentlemen just by obtaining a coat of arms; he does
not include in his list anybody who wrote for the public
stage (including Marlowe and Jonson), let alone somebody
who acted on it.
> Oxford was obviously not a mere stage player.
Not only was Oxford "not a mere stage player", he was not
a stage player at all. There is no evidence that he
ever acted on any stage, public or private, unless you
want to stretch the point and count a court masque in
which he (almost certainly) did not speak any lines.
> Was
> the Stratford man (a prosperious grain merchant) a mere stage player?
He was a stage player, that much we know. The "mere" is
a matter of interpretation, though in Peacham's eyes it
was enough to disqualify Shakespeare as a gentleman.
> Can we
> even place him in London?
Of course.
> How early?
By late 1592 -- or, if you want to be obstinate and refuse
to accept any evidence of Shakespeare as an author, by late
1594.
> At best, using the Mountjoy Lawsuit, we
> can place him in London no earlier than 1602.
No, we can place him in London quite a bit earlier than 1602.
> There is no evidence that he,
> this specific William Shakespeare was in London, prior to 1602 unless one
> assumes as Stratfordians do, that there was only one name with this name in
> London in the 1590s
To the extent that we "assume" anything, we do so because a lot
of converging evidence points in that direction, and no evidence
points in any other direction. That's the way scholars work,
though I realize you're unfamiliar with such practices. You
might want to look at the following article by Tom Reedy and me,
which outlines the strong evidence for identifying William
Shakespeare the London actor with William Shakespeare of Stratford,
and for further identifying this single person with the author
William Shakespeare:
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/howdowe.html
I have written in the past about the other William Shakespeares
who can be traced in England between 1564 and 1616; those
which were alive during the 1590s can be accounted for elsewhere
in England during that time. For none of them is there any
evidence of any connection to the theater or residence in
London. If you don't think the William Shakespeare who acted
in London in the 1590s was William Shakespeare of Stratford,
who exactly do you believe he was?
> and that he was simulataneously a chronic tax dodger
I think you're misunderstanding the nature of the
Elizabethan taxes levied in the late 1590s. The
tax collectors didn't find Shakespeare at home the first
few times they called, just as they didn't find a lot of
other people, including Richard Burbage. Eventually
they did find him in Southwark and he paid his tax.
But even if one accepts the dubious characterization
as a "chronic tax dodger", I fail to see what this has
to do with the authorship of Shakespeare's works. If
financial irresponsibility is a disqualifying factor, then
Oxford is definitely out of the running.
> and
> under a court restraining order,
What are you talking about? The writ for sureties of
the peace in 1596? That was not a "court restraining order",
and your deceptive characterization of it as such merely
displays your own sad ignorance.
> but also a prominent royal dramatist with the
> Lord Chamberlain's men, an investor in the Globe,
Yes, Shakespeare was both of those things. You seem to
be implying that being a royal dramatist is incompatible
with legal or financial troubles. Setting aside your
laughable attempt to paint Shakespeare as a chronic
tax dodger under a restraining order, I will merely
point out that Ben Jonson was also a royal playwright,
and he got into much worse trouble with the law than
Shakespeare ever did.
> and one whom Richard Quiney
> while in London hits up (in a letter!) for some cash to have a good time in the
> big town.
"To have a good time in the big town"? Where do you get that
from? Quiney had just spent several months in London on
official Stratford business, waiting to see the appropriate
people at Court, and he was running out of money. But again,
I fail to see what this has to do with the authorship of
Shakespeare's plays, except as part of your clumsy and
scattershot attempt at character assassination.
> This "one man theory" is a massive assumption on which the entire
> shaky Stratfodian orthodoxy rests. It gives them a way to weave together a
> tapestry which does not hold to close scrutiny.
What are you talking about? It holds up great under close scrutiny.
I've pointed you above to the essay where Tom and I discuss the
web of evidence which all points to the fact that a single man
was actor, author, and Stratford citizen. And again I ask you:
If you don't think the William Shakespeare who was an actor
in London in the 1590s was William Shakespeare of Stratford,
who do you think he was?
> In any case, there is no solid
> irrefutable evidence that this particular William Shakespeare from Stratford (
> or Oxford for that matter) ever set foot on a public stage *as an actor*.
I'm guessing that no possible evidence would be solid and
irrefutable enough for you. For those of us in the real
world, the evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford was
an actor is about as solid and conclusive as such evidence
gets. I will agree, though, that there is no evidence
that the Earl of Oxford ever set foot on a public stage,
as an actor or otherwise.
> Being the a friend of actors is not the same thing as being an actor,
True enough. But there's plenty of other evidence, such as
William Shakespeare's appearance in many lists of actors
alongside Heminges, Condell, and Burbage, the same three men
to whom William Shakespeare of Stratford bequeathed money
for rings in his will. All of this evidence, taken together,
makes it abundantly -- almost embarrassingly -- clear that
William Shakespeare of Stratford and William Shakespeare
the actor were one and the same person.
> and the
> interlineation in the 1616 will about the three actors will always be suspect,
> precisely because it is an interlineation.
Do you believe the other interlineations were forgeries too? All of
these interlineations were certainly made in 1616, because they
appear in a contemporary fair copy of the will, and they were
accepted as genuine parts of the will in probate.
> Also Hemminge's will is far
> superior in content and tone to the much cruder expression of the Strat man's
> will with its crude signatures (signatures which the PRO expert Cox now
> questions). Furthermore, any reputable student of medieval or early modern
> history will tell you that edcuated men invariably developed high-stylized,
> personalized signatures to reflect their status in society.
Uh... what? Care to cite some examples? Shakespeare's signatures
share as many distinctive characteristics as the signatures of
any other person of the era who had to sign his name a lot.
Can you name some of the "reputable students" you're talking about?
> The crudity of the
> signatures along with the other gaps (no books, no library, no correspondence,
But you yourself just admitted that Richard Quiney wrote a letter
to Shakespeare! Doesn't that count as correspondence?
> no record of education) has fueled legitimate sketicism and will continue to do
> so.
No, what you perceive as "gaps" have fueled misguided speculation
from people who don't know some basic background about Elizabethan
and Jacobean society. Please see my series "Critically Examining
Oxfordian Claims" on the Shakespeare Authorship Page
(http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html) for discussions
of all the points you've just brought up. Those who are familiar
with the nature of the records and the social history of the
era do not find anything unusual about the surviving records
of Shakespeare's life.
> One final point: one of the many weak points in the Stratfordian
> orthodoxy is the notion that the actors would have sat on 16 Shakespearean
> plays year after year when they faced severe financial pressures due to the
> plague and theater closings for other reasons. Leeds Barroll in his 1991 book
> showed that the public theater in London was closed nearly 70 percent of the
> time from 1603-1613.
Well, he argued that. Some of his conclusions are open to
dispute, and have been challenged.
> These actors were neither grand nor rich enough to sit on
> such a cache of plays this long, especially under these conditions when they
> typically dumpred old plays on the market to help pay for rent, curtains, new
> costumes, etc.
By "sitting on" the plays, I assume you mean "not selling them
to publishers". I assume the King's Men were still performing
Shakespeare's plays and reaping financial rewards from them.
You seem to be assuming that selling these plays to publishers
could have been a substantial source of income for the acting
company, but such an assumption is not supported by the
evidence. Publishing plays was hardly a lucrative business,
as several scholars have recently shown.
> The Herberts and Susan de Vere were immune from such financial
> pressure. And William Jaggard approached Susan in 1619 for some literary
> fruit.
What specifically are you talking about here? Is this some specific
evidence you have? If so, let's have it.
> He did not approach Ann Hathaway or her daughters (all three illitrates
> for anything).
Uh, no, because they had no rights to the plays -- the acting
company did. And why do you keep lying by saying that all three
women were illiterate? That's more than you know for any of
them, and the fact that Susanna could sign her name is
presumptive evidence of her literacy.
> Kathman-Ross debating tactics cannot get around the basic fact
> that Jaggard's 1623 folio dedication is explicitly modelled on the
> Arxaio-Ploutos dedicaton which is to Susan de Vere and Philip Herbert. All
> Herbert dedications (including the 1622 one for Mabbe's translation of
> Gerardo the Unfortunate Spaniard) bear no comparison in format, in length, or
> substantive character.
It's hard for me to decipher exactly what you're saying, and
I'd have to actually look at the other dedications in
order to evaluate whatever claim you're making. But what's
the big deal if two dedications to Philip Herbert were
similar? I assume different people wrote these different
dedications.
> Stritmatter's research plus his analysis of the
> political ratonale for placing Cymbeline at the end of the 1623 folio, merely
> reinforce the far more credible nature of the Oxfordian theory concerning the
> First Folio as I have laid out in my work. The sudden rush to assemble and
> rush effort to complete the folio shaped by political circumstances. It was
> not an innocent literary project or business as usual divorced from politics.
> The First Folio was no ordinary work and the early 1620s (the Spanish Marriage
> crisis and the tyranny of Buckingham) was no ordinary time.
> Your Friend, Buckeye Pete
I have said before that I find your "analysis" implausible
in the extreme and full of non sequiturs. No, the Shakespeare
First Folio was no ordinary work, and the early 1620s were no
ordinary time politically for England. But I fail to see
any connection between the two. I haven't seen anything
that would come remotely close to counting as evidence
for someone not already indoctrinated into the Oxfordian fold,
and even among Oxfordians I know there's a lot of skepticism
of your bizarre theories. When you presented them by
speakerphone at the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable
meeting in Los Angeles in October 1998, several of the
Oxfordians I talked to afterward were distinctly
underwhelmed.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Peter Zenner
order to concentrate on some basic questions.
Pope Kathman spake to Buckeye Pete Dickson:-
> We cannot peer into Peacham's brain and say definitively
> what he "would have done" in some hypothetical situation;
> we can only look at what he wrote, and that is pretty clear.
Oh? I thought that Strats could do that. Next time that you
have a pow-wow with Bob G, would you remind him?
> Not only was Oxford "not a mere stage player", he was not
> a stage player at all. There is no evidence that he
> ever acted on any stage, public or private, unless you
> want to stretch the point and count a court masque in
> which he (almost certainly) did not speak any lines.
And there is no evidence that William Shakspere of Stratford-
on-Avon was a stage player. It is said that he was; it is assumed
that he was; it is insisted that he was -- but he wasn't!
> > Was
> > the Stratford man (a prosperious grain merchant) a mere stage player?
>
> He was a stage player, that much we know.
But Dave, you DO NOT KNOW. You believe...
> > Can we
> > even place him in London?
>
> Of course.
>
> > How early?
>
> By late 1592 -- or, if you want to be obstinate and refuse
> to accept any evidence of Shakespeare as an author, by late
> 1594.
By late 1592? Are you referring to Greene's reference to
'Shake-scene'? That is not evidence -- that is a suspicion,
an assumption, a suggestion or even a hope. And you dare
to say that I have fantasies? You are repeating the same old
Stratfordian fantasies. Someone makes a suggestion, a few
years pass, and then it is a fact? Get real.
1594? Please tell me what your evidence is that William
Shakspere was in London at that time. Is it the mention of
a 'William Shakespeare' appearing at Greenwich that
Christmas? What is the evidence for that man being
William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon?
> > At best, using the Mountjoy Lawsuit, we
> > can place him in London no earlier than 1602.
>
> No, we can place him in London quite a bit earlier than 1602.
Mmmm -- let's have a look. A William Shakespeare was
living in Bishopsgate in October, 1596. A WIlliam Shakespeare
owed 5 shillings in November, 1597. A William Shakespeare
was appearing in a Jonson play in September, 1598. A William
Shakespeare owed money again, the following month, and also
in October, 1599, and again in October, 1600.
Would you please tell us what the evidence is that this William
Shakespeare was William Shakspere from Stratford-upon-
Avon? I can find no evidence for the actor/playwright being
"of Stratford" until 1612, when he had "retired to Stratford".
Now I know that you have been involved in this game far longer
than me Dave and I realise that you have access to far more
information than me. But you really have me curious now. Is there
any evidence, anywhere, that links 'Shakespeare' (as opposed
to 'Shakspere') to Stratford BEFORE the Belot-Mountjoy suit?
(And remember that he made a deposition -- a statement -- which
showed that he was of no use as a witness and because of that
he was not called as a witness)
> > There is no evidence that he,
> > this specific William Shakespeare was in London, prior to 1602 unless one
> > assumes as Stratfordians do, that there was only one name with this name in
> > London in the 1590s
>
> To the extent that we "assume" anything, we do so because a lot
> of converging evidence points in that direction, and no evidence
> points in any other direction. That's the way scholars work,
> though I realize you're unfamiliar with such practices.
That last sentence was a sneer, don't you think? So, Dave
Kathman, because you are a "scholar" you never make a
mistake? You really do think that you are God Almighty! (Or
maybe you and Terry Ross have a duplicate of St. Peter's
throne and you only make your pronouncements when you
are sitting on it?)
You (and all the Strats) have taken suggestions, assumptions
and guesses to be facts -- and repeated them ad infinitum.
Has it ever occurred to you that your idol really does have
feet of clay?
>You
> might want to look at the following article by Tom Reedy and me,
> which outlines the strong evidence for identifying William
> Shakespeare the London actor with William Shakespeare of Stratford,
> and for further identifying this single person with the author
> William Shakespeare:
>
> http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/howdowe.html
O.K. Been there, done that. Same old arguements. You even
admit that there is nothing that says that our National Poet was
"of Stratford" until 1612. The coat of arms? All part of the hoax.
You were meant to believe that the famous 'Shakespeare' was
buried in Stratford.
The Stratman died in 1616 but nobody thought to honour
'Shakespeare' until 1622, when his friends started work on
the First Folio -- which was eventually entered on the
Stationers' Register on November 8th, 1623. Why did they
wait all that time before coming out with all the praise?
What is the Stratfordian assumption for that?
"Thou art a monument without a tomb". What does that mean,
Dave? Everybody knows where the Stratman is buried. Marlowe,
on the other hand, was supposed to be in an unmarked grave in
Deptford. He didn't have a tomb...
Please take time out to answer these questions, Dave. I don't
possess all those degrees that enable me never to make a
mistake. What is the current Stratfordian thinking on these
anomalies?
> I have written in the past about the other William Shakespeares
> who can be traced in England between 1564 and 1616; those
> which were alive during the 1590s can be accounted for elsewhere
> in England during that time. For none of them is there any
> evidence of any connection to the theater or residence in
> London.
So that proves that you are right? I say that the man who
acted as 'William Shakespeare' was using a stage name.
His real name was William Shakeshaft. I have also written
in the past -- on this man. I don't claim anything is right
because I have proclaimed it -- I say that it is right because
I have researched it. You can use the same old Stratpack
accusations until they come out of your ears but until you
know what my research is you cannot decry it.
>If you don't think the William Shakespeare who acted
> in London in the 1590s was William Shakespeare of Stratford,
> who exactly do you believe he was?
William Shakeshaft of Fishwick. He WAS a player. He WAS
the son of a butcher. He WAS a schoolmaster in the country.
I have the evidence and I have posted it on this newsgroup.
Now show to me any proof that William Shakspere was any
of those things. (Well he COULD HAVE seen a troupe of
players in Coventry. He COULD HAVE gone to school. He
MIGHT HAVE been able to read and write. He COULD HAVE
held the horses outside the playhouses and then worked his
way up. He MIGHT HAVE been in a play in 1592.)
> > and that he was simulataneously a chronic tax dodger
>
> I think you're misunderstanding the nature of the
> Elizabethan taxes levied in the late 1590s. The
> tax collectors didn't find Shakespeare at home the first
> few times they called, just as they didn't find a lot of
> other people, including Richard Burbage. Eventually
> they did find him in Southwark and he paid his tax.
> But even if one accepts the dubious characterization
> as a "chronic tax dodger", I fail to see what this has
> to do with the authorship of Shakespeare's works. If
> financial irresponsibility is a disqualifying factor, then
> Oxford is definitely out of the running.
Of course it wasn't Oxford. Burghley was looking after
him. He had a safe job, quietly behaving himself, after
Burghley made him pull his socks up. Literary agent,
play-broker to the Court. Annual salary.
>> but also a prominent royal dramatist with the
>> Lord Chamberlain's men, an investor in the Globe,
> Yes, Shakespeare was both of those things.
Correction -- the Shakespeares were both of those things.
Twain. Shakeshaft was the actor and Marlowe was the
writer -- "which nightly gulls him with intelligence".
>
> What are you talking about? It holds up great under close scrutiny.
> I've pointed you above to the essay where Tom and I discuss the
> web of evidence which all points to the fact that a single man
> was actor, author, and Stratford citizen.
So that makes you right then? That's the last word? Dave
Kathman and the blind man with the big stick have spoken.
They can never make a mistake. ASSUMPTIONS, DAVE.
>And again I ask you:
> If you don't think the William Shakespeare who was an actor
> in London in the 1590s was William Shakespeare of Stratford,
> who do you think he was?
William Shakeshaft of Fishwick. For reasons as above. There
is no EVIDENCE that it was the man from Stratford. You were
meant to believe that and you obviously still do. You, of all
people, Dave Kathman, should examine all of the evidence
before going out on a limb. And the longer you go on ranting
about what you have written and stating it as fact, the more
egg you will get on your face when the truth is finally accepted.
> > In any case, there is no solid
> > irrefutable evidence that this particular William Shakespeare from Stratford (
> > or Oxford for that matter) ever set foot on a public stage *as an actor*.
>
> I'm guessing that no possible evidence would be solid and
> irrefutable enough for you. For those of us in the real
> world, the evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford was
> an actor is about as solid and conclusive as such evidence
> gets.
Pope Kathman the First hath decreed it! You are the one who
is living in the dream world. You are the one who has taken
myths and legends and believed them for so long that they
have become facts -- to you! I know that you can regurgitate
old stories, Dave, but have you ever done any actual research
yourself? You know -- away from the books that keep preaching
the same old gospel?
Why are there so many questions about the life of 'Shakespeare'?
Why are there so many details that contradict each other? Why
are we all arguing on this newsgroup?
BECAUSE SOMETHING IS WRONG.
Whichever way you look at it -- NOTHING TALLIES. You can
twist the facts to suit your purposes as much as you like. IT
DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING. You can wave your degrees
in front of lesser mortals. THEY DON'T MAKE YOUR DREAMS
COME TRUE.
>I will agree, though, that there is no evidence
> that the Earl of Oxford ever set foot on a public stage,
> as an actor or otherwise.
The Earl of Oxford was involved in the set-up. He was the
middle-man between Marlowe and the acting companies.
Whether he had ever set foot on a stage is immaterial.
> > Being the a friend of actors is not the same thing as being an actor,
>
> True enough. But there's plenty of other evidence, such as
> William Shakespeare's appearance in many lists of actors
> alongside Heminges, Condell, and Burbage, the same three men
> to whom William Shakespeare of Stratford bequeathed money
> for rings in his will.
'Tis true. Shakspere did leave the money for the rings. That
proves that he knew the actors. He was pretending to be the
retired 'Shakespeare' after 1611. Being a friend of actors is
not evidence of being an actor -- nor is it evidence that he
wrote the most famous plays of all time.
>All of this evidence, taken together,
> makes it abundantly -- almost embarrassingly -- clear that
> William Shakespeare of Stratford and William Shakespeare
> the actor were one and the same person.
Nope. It is abundantly -- almost embarrassingly -- clear that
David Kathman, the Pope of hlas, has fallen for the same old
belief system that has been propagated for the past 407
years. No matter how many times he beats his chest and
TELLS the world of his beliefs, that does not make them true.
> > and the
> > interlineation in the 1616 will about the three actors will always be suspect,
> > precisely because it is an interlineation.
>
> Do you believe the other interlineations were forgeries too? All of
> these interlineations were certainly made in 1616, because they
> appear in a contemporary fair copy of the will, and they were
> accepted as genuine parts of the will in probate.
I don't suspect that the bequest is a forgery. It is quite understandable.
Shakspere finds out about the use of his name and they make a fuss
of him, to keep him quiet. Why not? It's as feasible as anything else
in the Shakespeare legend.
<snipped>
Stalemate?
PWDBard
incontrovwertible evidence linking the Strat man (this specific William
Shakespeare) to the London stage as an actor or even a theater investor since
we know the shares are missing in his legal records. The one man notion ot
theory is an assumption around which circumstantial evidence has been gathered.
That is it. Schoenbaum in his chapter "A Gentleman of Means" in his 1975 work
lumps all these London documents containing this name (not further specified by
locale or origin) and asserts (actually again assumes) that these are all
referring to the same man.
Kathman can and does follow him down that path, but anyone who is a serious
scholar in the field of genealogy will tell you that path (the one man
assumption) can lead you into a lot of big mistakes in genealogy and proper
identification of persons in old documents where there is no further
specificity. Actually, many Oxfordians who have no experience or interest in
genelogical research make this same mistake with the Strat man.
The old theory that the Strat man was a Front Man for Oxford is a case in
point, where all this London documents (including the King's Men records in the
1590s) are taken as referring to only one man -- the Strat man as Front Man.
The problem is he could not have been a front man because he and his dad were
quite prosperous in the 1596-97 period (coat of arms application, purchase of
New Place) more than a year before (before) the name Shakespeare is even used
on the title page of a quarto of a dramatic work. What role could he have been
playing in London from an Oxfordian perspective prior to 1598? None, yet he
seems prosperous and is sinking deeper roots in his hometown with a big new
expensive house? Just a couple of months before the Isle of Dogs Incident and
other serious problems in the London Theaterical world from mid-1597 through
1599 when finally the actors find a new home at the new Globe. Yet the Strat
man during and evidently before 1597 was doing quite well. Yet the
"Shakespeare" name is extended to dramatic works for the first time only deep
into this problem period, in roughly mid-to-late 1598. This leave us with the
name "Shakespeare" attached prior to 1598 only to the famous non-dramatic poems
dedicated to Southampton. Does any Oxfordian seriously think that the Strat
man from their contemptuous perspective could have been a front man for these
incredible poems? Seems absurd. Does any Stratfordian really think that the
Stratford man (a provincial and non-noble) can jump out from nowhere (well
before the 1598 watershed) could have written those extremely intimate
dedications to a prominent young Earl? More importantly, where is the solid
evidence that the Strat man (specifically) was in London prior to 1596 or even
prior to 1602 (the Mountjoy citation)? There is none. One has to make the
assumption that all the scattered references which Schoebaum gives us in his
1975 book are referring to one man. Kathman admits that there is a leap being
made here, that this is circumstancial evidence wrapped around an assmuption.
But this is not conclusive proof. So Kathman asks a good question: If the
Strat man was like Oxford never a stage player (mere or otherwise), to whom are
these "Shakespeare" citations in the 1590s referring? Given that the Front Man
theory makes no sense to me from an Oxfordian viewpoint and can easily get
mixed up in a highly questionable "one man theory" with respect to London
documents in the 1590s, it seems to me that there are a number of ways from an
Oxfordian perspective to try to make sense of the various citations of this
name:
A. All the London documents from this period do not refer to one man.
B. There is a possibility (though not proven) that there once was an actor
with this name because I believe Jonson or someone somewhere makes a reference
to an "old actor" with this name. This citation (which I will try to locate)
in terms of time frame is difficult to reconcile with Oxford for obvious
reasons and also with the Stratford man who was not old in the time period in
question. I am not saying that this "third man" theory is proven by any means
but that it is a possibility and that later, much later after his death, his
existence in the records, made it easier to devolve or shift the identity of
the actor unto Stratford man.
C. Setting aside this "third man" theory which is not proven, the obvious
possibility to which I am inclined, is that in 1598 Oxford or Oxford and his
literary associates made a decision to extend the pen name for the first time
to dramatic works in print (during the times of troubles in the theatrical
world). The name in official theatrical records is a corporate fiction,
something like Shakepseare, Inc. There was no flesh and blood individual
behind the name as a regular stage actor. And that was understood.
In any case, there are only a finite number of ways or explaining the evidence.
The least credible in my mind is the leap of faith that all these London
documents refer to one man, the Stratford man, a person whom we cannot place
conclusively or definitively in London prior to 1602 as indicated in the
Mountjoy deposition.
I also find the Oxfordian Front Man theory lacking in crediility. The
overwhelming majority of Oxfordians and Stratfordians are students of
literature and see no problems in moving back and forth from literary
allusions/documents and non-literary documents and making all kinds of leaps of
faith that there is only one person in question behind them. It is a huge
mistake to that. As far as the
cache 16 plays held by the actors for years, decades,....forget it, it is
ludicrous notion. Barroll's research and common sense tells you that the Grand
Possessors or the owners of these plays which Blount transferred as a solid lot
of 16 to the next publisher in late 1630, were never dispersed and were held
collectively by a core group. The Herbert-de Vere family was that core group
and William Jaggard-Thomas Pavier knew that in 1619, hence their explicit pitch
in the dedication to the Arxaio-Ploutos work that year to Susan de Vere which
was unsuccessful and which required changed circumstances in 1621 to persuade
the Grand Possessors to release them for purposes of a comprehensive folio.
The actor-based theory for the core group is a joke, though as Andrew Gurr
argues in his 1996 work on Shakespearian Acting Companies, the actors shared
the deep Pembroke-Herbert hatred of Buckingham and by implication the Spanish
Marriage, and they collaborated with the project, making their playhouse
manscript available for review. The project was driven by the Herbert-de Vere
family because without the other 16 plays, the folio could not pretend to be
comprehensive. And the Spanish Marriage Crisis, which was fueled by the double
imprisonments of Southampton and Oxford (Henry de Vere) provided the sudden
impetus for the project. Charlton Hinman's technical timeline for the printing
is consistent with this explanation.
Your Friend, Buckeye Pete
Terry Ross
response, but I want to touch on some of the points that concern Dickson's
Peacham essay, which Dickson seems reluctant to defend in any substantive
way. I continue to be curious about the help Dickson acknowledges
receiving from Stritmatter -- was this the "bombshell" Stritmatter alluded
to?
On 28 Feb 2000, PWDBard [Peter Dickson] wrote:
> I did not draw upon Stritmatter's research on Minerva Britanna but had many
> discussions with him.
You do not acknowledge any help from Stritmatter in the version of your
essay at http://everreader.com/peacham.htm In the version of your essay at
http://elizreview.com/peacham.htm you specifically thank him: "In our
refinement of the Clark/Astley-Cock analysis of Mente.Videbor[i], we had
the benefit of comments from Roger Stritmatter of the University of
Massachusetts (Amherst) and Professor William McCulloh of Kenyon College."
Given that your analysis of "mente videbor" is chock full of blunders, it
is only natural of us to ask what the nature of Stritmatter's comments
was. Did he try to warn you that you were committing innumerable
egregious errors, or did he see nothing at all amiss in your essay, and
encourage you to publish it as it was? It is also odd that he is NOT
thanked in the "everreader" version of your essay, though your analysis is
essentially the same in each version. Was this a mere oversight? Did
Stritmatter ask to be dissociated from whatever use you made of his
"comments"? It the presence of the thanks to Stritmatter in one version
of the essay but not in the other the "bombshell" Stritmatter alluded to?
> In prior responses, I made clear that while many
> (including myself) are convinced that Peacham's phrase (Mente.Videbor-i)
There is no "i" following "videbor" on the title page of *Minerva
Britanna*. You were originally "convinced" based on your reading of Clark
and your misreading of Astley-Cock. You have now had six months to digest
my criticisms of your article, and I have yet to see any rebuttal from you
on *Minerva Britanna*.
> contains an anagram and that angram logically has something to do with
> the identity of the person behind the curtain (most probably Oxford-de
> Vere), this analysis does not make an explicit connection to
> Shakespeare per se.
You have, to date, offered no rebuttal to my criticisms of your *Minerva
Britanna* section. Stating that you are still convinced is not a
rebuttal. There are plenty of anagrams in *Minerva Britanna* and, as I
explained in my analysis, they all follow rules that Clark's proposed
"anagram" violates. As I said last August,
==
First, since it is not labeled as an anagram, and since Peacham has not
provided the "decipherment," there is no reason to suppose that there is
any anagram at all. Second, Clark's "decipherment" makes use of an extra
"I" that does not appear in "mente videbor." Third, the "decipherment"
makes no sense. "Tibi" does not mean "thy," "nom" does not mean "name,"
and the Latin form of Oxford's name was not "de Vere." Fourth, Peacham's
anagrams give us names or titles, not such superfluous paddings as "thy
name is." Thus he builds anagrams on "Henricvs Hovvardvs Comes
Northamptonensis" not on "Tibi nom Hovvardvs"; on "Robertvs Caecilivs" not
on "Tibi nom Caecilivs"; on "Elisabetha Steuarta" not on "Tibi nom
Steuarta." If he had constructed an anagram for Oxford he would have used
something like "Edvvardvs Vervs Comes Oxfordiensis."
Eva Turner Clark reads "nom." as an abbreviation for "nomen" and thus gets
"tibi nom[en] de Vere," which is supposed to mean something like "the name
to you is de Vere." Peacham in his genuine anagrams does not use such
abbreviations as "nom" for "nomen," and his Latin is better than Clark's
or Dickson's: he does not use "tibi" where one would properly use "tuum."
When Peacham uses someone's name in a Latin poem or epigram, he gives the
Latin version of the name, not the English: John Dowland is "Iohannes
Doulandus." The Latin form of Oxford's family name is not "de Vere" but
"Verus." Thus, if Peacham had wanted to say in Latin "Thy name is de
Vere," he would not have used "tibi," he would not have used "nom," he
would not have used "de Vere."
===
> It would only indicate that Peacham understood de Vere to be a writer
> requiring or utilizing concealment.
Oxford is never mentioned anywhere in *Minerva Britanna*. There is no
reason to think the work has anything whatsoever to do with Oxford. It
does, however, have quite a bit to do with Peacham's own desire for
recognition as an artist and writer.
> One issue concerning the distinct (but still related) issue of the
> logic of Peacham's thought process for his list of the greatest
> deceased Elizabethan poets. I have addressed this at length several
> times. I found the vast bulk (99 per cent) of the Kathman-Ross
> rejoinder worthless.
I am always honored to be included with Dave, but in this case the
rejoinders are from me, not from both of us. Again, the mere fact that
you have an emotional response to my criticisms is not a rebuttal.
> They do advance a "contamination theory" that since Peacham regarded
> the Bard (regardless of his identity and regardless of his fame and
> literary achievements) as a mere stage player, and that this
> involvement with the public theater was enough (at least in Peacham's
> mind) to "contaminate" him irretreivably and thus justify his
> exclusion from a list of true gentlemen and great poets,
It is typically misleading to put "contamination" in quotation marks -- I
did not use the word. Once again, you do not understand. With the
possible exception of the "Titus" sketch, there is absolutely no sign
anywhere in Peacham's works that he knew either Shakespeare or his works.
He may well have been familiar with some of the works, but he left no
comment upon them or their author. Even if he had known of them, there
was no need for him to add Shakespeare's name to a list cribbed from
Puttenham. As I said six months ago, "Dickson seems to think there was
something very strange in Peacham's mentioning Daniel but not mentioning
Shakespeare. As I have already noted, Peacham purged the list of
Elizabethan poets that he plagiarized from Puttenham of all poets whose
rank was less than 'gentleman.' He added Spenser and Daniel, both of whom
were gentlemen, but he added no names of any poet of lower social rank.
Peacham lists nobody who wrote for the public theaters, and he explicitly
states that stage-players cannot be gentlemen. Peacham never names any
work by Shakespeare, and his own writings do not show any Shakespearean
influence. It may be that he had no particular affection for
Shakespeare's works, if he was familiar with them at all. In any event,
none of Shakespeare's works were the product of someone Peacham would have
considered an Elizabethan gentleman."
I also have found more than a dozen OTHER contemporary sources between
1595, when *Venus and Adonis* appeared, and 1622, when *The Complete
Gentleman* appeared, where both Spenser and Daniel were listed among the
top poets while Shakespeare was not. As I have said, there are also
sources that mention Shakespeare AND Daniel, and there is even a source
that lists Spenser and Shakespeare but NOT Daniel, but Daniel's name was
more commonly included on such lists at the time.
> even when next door (so to speak) the First Folio project is undeerway
> in St. Paul's Crossyard.
As I said last August, you never give any evidence that Peacham was aware
of the First Folio project. He never mentions it, either in 1622 or
later. He never mentions having been aware of it before it was published.
Nobody else mentions his having been aware of it. There is, however, one
book that was in press at the time that he does mention, at the close of
his chapter on blazonry (heraldry):
"If you would proceede further in blazonry, and the true knowledge of the
descents of our English Nobility, I refer you to that exact, just, and
elaborate work of my singular and learned Friend Master Augustine Vincent,
Rouge-croix, very shortly to be published; which let it be unto you (of
all that have written in that kinde) 'instar omnium.' So I refere you
henceforward to your private reading and observation" (176).
So IF he had known about the First Folio (and there is no evidence that he
did), and IF he had cared (although he mentions no authors who wrote for
the public theaters), and IF he had thought it worth mentioning to his
readers (although he elsewhere cautions his gentlemen readers not to have
anything to do with the public theaters) he could have said so; but he did
not.
> It remains to be demonstrated that Peacham (drawer of a sketch for
> Titus Andronicus as Sam Schoenbaum and Jonatham Bate admit)
They did not have the benefit of Schlueter's essay, which only appeared
last year. What is your refutation of Schlueter?
> would have regarded and in fact regarded Shakespeare as a mere stage
> player, a mechanical artist like a musician as opposed to a creative
> art (a composer or a dramatist).
I quoted Peacham's judgment that someone who had been a player in the
public theaters could never be considered a true gentleman. I would be
willing to join with you in expressing our collective dismay at Peacham's
opinion -- but that WAS his opinion.
> Oxford was obviously not a mere stage player.
Oxford was never a "stage player."
> Was the Stratford man (a prosperious grain merchant) a mere stage
> player?
Like many of his friends in other businesses, Shakespeare had from time to
time some quantities of grain (so did the Stratford schoolteacher); he was
NOT by profession a "grain merchant." You really don't seem to know much
about the man -- in any event, what has this to do with Peacham?
I have snipped the rest of Dickson's remarks because they have nothing to
do with Peacham and they have been solidly answered by Dave Kathman. The
mystery about the nature and extent of Stritmatter's "comments" continues;
since Dickson is not forthcoming, perhaps Stritmatter can enlighten us on
this point. The larger mystery is not why Dickson continues to believe in
his essay (any writer may be forgiven for having a sentimental attachment
to his own ideas, however mistaken they prove to be) but why he thinks
anybody else would be persuaded. Last August, when Dickson and I began
our exchanges on this matter, not a single Oxfordian could be found who
accepted Dickson's analysis of *Minerva Britanna*, and only a couple made
even the slightest attempt to rebut my criticisms of his Peacham essay,
and even those half-hearted attempts soon stopped.
Dave has mentioned that within the next few weeks there will be several
additions to the Shakespeare Authorship page, and among those additions
will be an essay based on my criticisms of Dickson. If any Oxfordians
have any counters whatsoever to offer, now would be a perfect time.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Peter Zenner are insane is their refusal to say, "That William
Shakespeare of Stratford had the same name as the London actor,
William Shakespeare, is not COMPELLING evidence that the Stratford
man was the London actor."
Instead, they have this insane compulsion to say, "That William
Shakespeare of Stratford had the same name as the London actor,
William Shakespeare, is not EVIDENCE that the Stratford man was
the London actor."
I absolutely do not understand this. And I've brought it up many
times here at HLAS with no explanation forthcoming from the
anti-Stratfordians.
There were other Williams Shakespeares, and the fact that they
shared the London actor's name is also evidence that each was
the London actor. This evidence, however, is counter-acted by
other evidence that indicates that they were NOT the London actor
whereas other evidence indicates that the Stratford William
Shakespeare WAS the London actor, like the bequests in his will
of memorial rings to his fellows.
--Bob G.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Roger A Stritmatter
I continue to be curious about the help Dickson acknowledges
> receiving from Stritmatter -- was this the "bombshell" Stritmatter alluded
> to?
>
In one word Terry: No.
In case you missed the point of context, this is -- or was -- a thread about
the involvement of Edward de Vere's inlaws, in the publication of the
1623 "Shakespeare Folio." Why would I allude to *Minerva Britanna,*
published
in 1611, in that context?
Nor would am I so simple-minded that I would allude to an undisclosed
bombshell
which had actually appeared in print many months ago!
Dickson's bombshell, at least the one I had in mind, concerns
Henry de Vere's 1621-23 imprisonment in the tower.
It demonstrates that literate Londoners where aware, in 1623,
that de Vere's father was "Shakespeare."
That is all I will say in this context. As we used to say playing cards:
"Go fish,
Terry."
More significantly, why do you have *Minerva* on the brain? Are you,
perhaps, more than a little "worried" about what she might have to
say? You ought to be!
> On 28 Feb 2000, PWDBard [Peter Dickson] wrote:
>
> > I did not draw upon Stritmatter's research on Minerva Britanna but had
many
> > discussions with him.
>
> You do not acknowledge any help from Stritmatter in the version of your
> essay at http://everreader.com/peacham.htm In the version of your essay at
> http://elizreview.com/peacham.htm you specifically thank him: "In our
> refinement of the Clark/Astley-Cock analysis of Mente.Videbor[i], we had
> the benefit of comments from Roger Stritmatter of the University of
> Massachusetts (Amherst) and Professor William McCulloh of Kenyon College."
> Given that your analysis of "mente videbor" is chock full of blunders,
Assertion, Mr. Ross, assertion. When are you going to realize that you
aren't
writing to a gaggle of idiots?
it
> is only natural of us to ask what the nature of Stritmatter's comments
> was.
My comments are reflected in the version of Mr. Dickson's article which
contains the acknowledgement of the discussion to which you allude. The
note was, I believe, ommitted by Gary Goldstein, editor of the *Elizabethan
Review,* when he republished the article. You'd have to ask Goldstein why
he
omitted the acknowledgement. In my opinion, it was an unfortunate editorial
decision.
To explain my position on this matter, let me cite to you from my November
1999
lecture at the annual Conference of the Shakespeare Oxford Society
which, as you are aware, was on the topic of *Minerva Britanna*:
As many Oxfordians are aware, *Minerva Britanna,* the 1611 emblem book
written by Henry Peacham, has long been considered a significant Stuart
cultural
work with implications for the Shakespeare authorship question. More
particularly, in 1937 Eva Turner Clarke in her book *The Man Who Was
Shakespeare*,
alleged that the Latin phrase appearing on the title page of the book,
Mente. Videbor, concealed an anagram of the phrase "tibi nom. de Vere" --
in English "thy name is de Vere." Problems with this proposal go all the
way back to Ms. Clarke's initial publication of the theory, in which the
word
"Videbor" was originally mispelled "vidibor," a mistake which required an
erratum slip to be placed in copies of *The Man Who Was Shakespeare.*
A more serious problem with Clarke's solution to the alleged anagram did
not surface publically until the May 1999 issue of the *De Vere Society
Newsletter*, in which Dr. Noemi Magri, one of the de Vere Society's crack
scholars from
Mantua, revisited Eva Turner Clarke's theory in a thoughtful and probing
article.
Many readers of this article apparently believed that the case for the
anagram was
completed demolished by Dr. Magri. In discussion in the on-line Phaeton
list-serve group one slighly irate Oxfordian declared:
The alleged anagram, tibi nom de Vere, has been shown to be without
foundation, wishful thinking, illusory, mythical and...ludicrous.
In my November lecture, having thus sketched in concrete particulars the
history of scholarship on the alleged anagram (to which, incidentally, I
am not aware that Mr. Ross has made any contribution whatsoever),
I went on to argue that the anagram "tibi nom de Vere" does in fact
exist in Peacham's book. It does not exist, for the reasons specified in
Dr. Magri's article article and explained in my lecture, "on" the title page
*per se* -- but it does exist within Peacham's book. This is my position:
Deny it all you like, Terry Ross. Call me an idiot, pray for my imminent
death,
stamp your feet and curse in cyberspace: none of these reactions will
change the wonderful construction of Henry Peacham's book or vitiate
what the book discloses for a knowing reader.
In closing I invite anyone who is interested in learning more about
my remarks on anagrams and other forms of artistic arcanum in *Minerva
Brittana,* even Mr. Ross, to order a copy of my taped lecture from Mark
Alexander,
a former participant in this forum who dropped out some months in the
past in disgust at the poisonous tone of a number of Mr. Ross's posts.
Alexander can be reached via his web page, The Shakepseare Resource Page
(access it via http://shakespeare-oxford.com).
If Mr. Ross is actually, authentically interested
in learning what I think about this important and enigmatic book, he can
find
out by ordering the tape. Otherwise he'll just continuing spewing nonsense
and innuendo aimed at making himself look like some kind of intellectual.
To conclude, I do not intend on discussing *Minerva Britanna* further in
the HLAS context. It is an advanced topic which requires thoughtful
and searching inquiry of a character which is for all practical purposes
almost unkown -- with the exception of a few brave anti-Stratfordian
souls such as Adam, John Baker, Volker etc. -- on this site.
Within a few weeks, excerpts from *Minerva Britanna* will be published
to the forthcoming *Oxenford Press* website, the newest in the ever-
growing network of Oxfordian and authorship related sites in cyberspace.
After that time, HLAS readers who are curious about the book can
visit, take a gander at the book for themselves, and pursue communication
as they please.
With Best Regards for your continued edification,
Roger Stritmatter
Tom Reedy
news:89er70$49os$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com...
>
<snip>
> To conclude, I do not intend on discussing *Minerva Britanna* further in
> the HLAS context. It is an advanced topic which requires thoughtful
> and searching inquiry of a character which is for all practical purposes
> almost unkown -- with the exception of a few brave anti-Stratfordian
> souls such as Adam, John Baker, Volker etc. -- on this site.
>
>
> Roger Stritmatter
>
Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahha!!!!!!!!!!!!
I laughed so hard I cried!!!!!
Thanks, Stritmatter!!
TR
David Kathman
>
> Roger A Stritmatter <RSTRIT...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> news:89er70$49os$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com...
> >
> <snip>
> > the HLAS context. It is an advanced topic which requires thoughtful
> > and searching inquiry of a character which is for all practical purposes
> > almost unkown -- with the exception of a few brave anti-Stratfordian
> > souls such as Adam, John Baker, Volker etc. -- on this site.
> >
> >
> > Roger Stritmatter
> >
>
> Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahha!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> I laughed so hard I cried!!!!!
>
> Thanks, Stritmatter!!
I've become so jaded that few things on this newsgroup
are capable of making me laugh out loud any more.
But this post of Stritmatter's was one of them.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
trdcrdkid
KQKnave
Stritmatter" <RSTRIT...@prodigy.net> writes:
>Assertion, Mr. Ross, assertion. When are you going to realize that you
>aren't
>writing to a gaggle of idiots?
>
Watch it, Stritmatter. You might have to sue yourself.
Jim
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
dj...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> Tom Reedy wrote:
> >
> > Roger A Stritmatter <RSTRIT...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> > news:89er70$49os$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com...
> > >
> > <snip>
further in
> > > the HLAS context. It is an advanced topic which requires
thoughtful
> > > and searching inquiry of a character which is for all practical
purposes
> > > almost unkown -- with the exception of a few brave
anti-Stratfordian
> > > souls such as Adam, John Baker, Volker etc. -- on this site.
> > >
> > >
> > > Roger Stritmatter
> > >
> >
> > Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahha!!!!!!!!!!!!
> >
> > I laughed so hard I cried!!!!!
> >
> > Thanks, Stritmatter!!
>
> I've become so jaded that few things on this newsgroup
> are capable of making me laugh out loud any more.
> But this post of Stritmatter's was one of them.
>
> Dave Kathman
I'm amazed at you guys. I certainly didn't laugh. In fact, I'm
composing my letter of resignation to the Trust right now! I
know when we're beat.
--just-about-retired Corporal-Colonel, J.G., Grumman
Terry Ross
>
> I continue to be curious about the help Dickson acknowledges
> > receiving from Stritmatter -- was this the "bombshell" Stritmatter alluded
> > to?
> >
>
> In one word Terry: No.
OK.
> In case you missed the point of context, this is -- or was -- a thread
> about the involvement of Edward de Vere's inlaws, in the publication
> of the 1623 "Shakespeare Folio." Why would I allude to *Minerva
> Britanna,* published in 1611, in that context?
Actually 1612, but who's counting? You alluded to a "bombshell" near the
end of an essay by Dickson on everreader.com. I saw no such bombshell,
but when I looked at the elizreview.com version of Dickson's Peacham
essay, I saw that you were thanked for your comments, yet in the
everreader version you were not thanked. The thanking came in note 12,
which is certainly near the end of the piece.
> Nor would am I so simple-minded that I would allude to an undisclosed
> bombshell which had actually appeared in print many months ago!
I cannot comment on the extent to which you may or may not be
simple-minded, but you have a history of melodramatic fizzles.
>
> Dickson's bombshell, at least the one I had in mind, concerns
> Henry de Vere's 1621-23 imprisonment in the tower.
> It demonstrates that literate Londoners where aware, in 1623,
> that de Vere's father was "Shakespeare."
Oddly enough, Dickson presented no evidence whatsoever that Henry's father
either was or was ever thought to be Shakespeare by anybody. Some
bombshell.
> That is all I will say in this context. As we used to say playing
> cards: "Go fish, Terry."
Such wild times you anti-Stratfordians have. Crowley watches paint dry,
and you are prepping for the big 52-Card Pickup tournament. As Nelson
Algren said, "Never play "Old Maid" with a man called 'Doc.'"
> More significantly, why do you have *Minerva* on the brain? Are you,
> perhaps, more than a little "worried" about what she might have to
> say? You ought to be!
If you mean "Minerva" in the sense of "wisdom, " I should hope we all
seek to have some of that kind of Minerva on (or better yet in) the brain.
As it happens, Richie was mightily impressed by Dickson's Peacham piece,
an essay for which you were of some mysterious assistance. I had not
posted on Peacham lately, but since poor Richie seemed to have fallen for
Dickson's piece, and since he asked for refutation of it, I thought it
only charitable to direct him to some of my posts on the subject. You
then piped up and hinted darkly about some "bombshell" in Dickson, and
(knowing from experience not to be wowed by your hyperbole), I went
a-looking, and reported on what I found.
>
> > On 28 Feb 2000, PWDBard [Peter Dickson] wrote:
> >
> > > I did not draw upon Stritmatter's research on Minerva Britanna but had
> many
> > > discussions with him.
> >
> > You do not acknowledge any help from Stritmatter in the version of your
> > essay at http://everreader.com/peacham.htm In the version of your essay at
> > http://elizreview.com/peacham.htm you specifically thank him: "In our
> > refinement of the Clark/Astley-Cock analysis of Mente.Videbor[i], we had
> > the benefit of comments from Roger Stritmatter of the University of
> > Massachusetts (Amherst) and Professor William McCulloh of Kenyon College."
> > Given that your analysis of "mente videbor" is chock full of blunders,
>
> Assertion, Mr. Ross, assertion.
Not assertion but demonstration. As yet (and you still have time) no
refutation has been offered to my criticism of Dickson on this
point. Readers will soon see that Stritmatter himself believes that
Dickson's analysis is blunderful.
> When are you going to realize that you aren't writing to a gaggle of
> idiots?
Who said there weren't any good straightmen these days?
>
> > it
> > is only natural of us to ask what the nature of Stritmatter's comments
> > was.
>
> My comments are reflected in the version of Mr. Dickson's article
> which contains the acknowledgement of the discussion to which you
> allude. The note was, I believe, ommitted by Gary Goldstein, editor
> of the *Elizabethan Review,* when he republished the article. You'd
> have to ask Goldstein why he omitted the acknowledgement. In my
> opinion, it was an unfortunate editorial decision.
You didn't read very carefully. A note "12" appears in both versions.
In the elizreview.com version (Gary Goldstein), you ARE acknowledged; in
the everreader.com version you are NOT acknowledged. I join you in
condemning the "unfortunate editorial decisions" of the everreader, and I
have a few items I could add to your list. Don't you have any kind of
"in" with those people? Surely you're entitled to credit for your
contribution. My question was this: just what was your contribution?
What "comments" did you give Dickson regarding "the Clark/Astley-Cock
analysis of Mente.Videbor[i]." Did you tell him he had misread
Astley-Cock? Did you tell him there was no "i" after "videbor"? Or did
you encourage him to go forward with an explanation that seemed sound to
you at the time?
Why the cover-up?
> To explain my position on this matter,
Not to spoil the suspense, but Stritmatter never does explain his
position, if he has one.
> let me cite to you from my November 1999 lecture at the annual
> Conference of the Shakespeare Oxford Society which, as you are aware,
> was on the topic of *Minerva Britanna*:
I'm sure I read about it somewhere, but I guess I had forgotten that you
were scheduled for a nice chat with the Oxfolk, so no, I was not aware.
Certainly nobody on this newsgroup had any comment on your performance,
which may have been just as well. The one conference item I was
interested in was Burgstahler's attempt to revive Tweedale's namesticks.
I have been in occasional communication with a third party who has passed
my analysis of Tweedale to Burgstahler, and who assures me that
Burgstahler avoids the pitfalls I have pointed out, but I have not yet
been vouchsafed a glance at Burgstahler's methods. Did he persuade you?
> As many Oxfordians are aware, *Minerva Britanna,* the 1611 emblem book
> written by Henry Peacham, has long been considered a significant
> Stuart cultural work with implications for the Shakespeare authorship
> question.
You should have said "has long been considered by Oxfordians," as least
for the bit about Shakespeare authorship. Peacham scholars see no such
implications.
> More particularly, in 1937 Eva Turner Clarke in her book *The Man Who
> Was Shakespeare*, alleged that the Latin phrase appearing on the title
> page of the book, Mente. Videbor, concealed an anagram of the phrase
> "tibi nom. de Vere" -- in English "thy name is de Vere."
Of course, as you might know, "tibi nom. de vere" means no such thing in
Latin or any other language.
> Problems with this proposal go all the way back to Ms. Clarke's
> initial publication of the theory, in which the word "Videbor" was
> originally mispelled "vidibor," a mistake which required an erratum
> slip to be placed in copies of *The Man Who Was Shakespeare.*
What I wouldn't give for a copy of that erratum slip!
> A more serious problem with Clarke's solution to the alleged anagram
> did not surface publically until the May 1999 issue of the *De Vere
> Society Newsletter*, in which Dr. Noemi Magri, one of the de Vere
> Society's crack scholars from Mantua, revisited Eva Turner Clarke's
> theory in a thoughtful and probing article. Many readers of this
> article apparently believed that the case for the anagram was
> completed demolished by Dr. Magri.
I received word of Magri's essay from a subscriber to the *Elizabethan
Review*, whose copy of the Spring 1999 issue arrived in September. In the
*Elizabethan Review* version, Magri refers to "misinterpretation" of the
mottoes, but never mentions Dickson by name. She does not recognize that
"VIVITUR INGENIO" and "CAETERA MORTIS ERVNT" together make up a line of
Latin verse -- Astley-Cock had noticed this much in 1947, but, not
recognizing the source of the line, he composed his own hexameter line to
make a distich. Magri correctly notes that the dots in the mottos
separate words, while the hyphens show that "VIVITUR" and "INGENIO" are
single words (this had been noticed by Astley-Cock in 1947). Magri also
pays attention to the motto "VT ALIJS ME CONSVMO," but this had been
commented on by Alan Young in 1979, and by Randall Barron in a web page
that was last modified in 1997: http://www.pe.net/~webrebel/Windmill.html
In other words, almost every correction to Dickson's "misinterpretation"
that Magri advances had already appeared in print, and most of it was in
sources (Astley-Cock and Young) that are cited by Dickson. The weakness
of Magri's piece are its timidity (she never takes on Dickson directly)
and its gullibility (she continues to act as if the from page of *Minerva
Britanna* is about Oxford). I quote,
"The Latin mottoes, with their corroborating visual representation of the
theater curtain, might lead to the identification of the Earl of Oxford.
Moreover, the concepts expressed in the inscriptions can rightly be
applied to his life: the taboo to publish his works under his own name,
the concealed identity, immortality reached through the works, the
destructive power of Death: these are the themes present in all the works
of Shakespeare."
It's an amazing performance. She knows that the entire basis of Clark's
(and therefore Dickson's) misreading of the title page is without
foundation, yet she embraces it anyway!
> In discussion in the on-line Phaeton list-serve group one slighly
> irate Oxfordian declared:
>
> The alleged anagram, tibi nom de Vere, has been shown to be without
> foundation, wishful thinking, illusory, mythical and...ludicrous.
>
Dickson tells me that my own criticisms of Dickson were also discussed on
Phaeton.
> In my November lecture, having thus sketched in concrete particulars
> the history of scholarship on the alleged anagram (to which,
> incidentally, I am not aware that Mr. Ross has made any contribution
> whatsoever),
Then you must not read either this newsgroup or Phaeton.
> I went on to argue that the anagram "tibi nom de Vere" does in fact
> exist in Peacham's book. It does not exist, for the reasons specified
> in Dr. Magri's article article and explained in my lecture, "on" the
> title page *per se* -- but it does exist within Peacham's book.
Where?
> This is my position: Deny it all you like, Terry Ross. Call me an
> idiot, pray for my imminent death, stamp your feet and curse in
> cyberspace: none of these reactions will change the wonderful
> construction of Henry Peacham's book or vitiate what the book
> discloses for a knowing reader.
A dejanews search confirms that I have never called anyone on this
newsgroup an "idiot," that I do not curse in cyberspace, that I have never
prayed here for anyone's death (imminent or otherwise). Nor, as it
happens, do I stamp my feet. Not that there have not been provocations:
Ulysses Grant was not a man to curse, but he said he would understand why
anyone who had to deal with mules might be driven to such language, and I
think I know what he meant. You, of course, have not only used foul
language in your posts, you have even created threads that include such
terms, and such thread titles have been aimed at regulars on this
newsgroup. I can understand why you might project your own habits on
those who disagree with you, but some of us try to be a little nicer than
that. A soft answer turneth away wrath.
As for Stritmatter's "position," I have no problem with his believing
whatever he likes. If he ever wishes to form an argument to justify any
of his beliefs, then I will be willing to look at what he has to say. So
far, however, he has said nothing.
> In closing I invite anyone who is interested in learning more about my
> remarks on anagrams and other forms of artistic arcanum in *Minerva
> Brittana,* even Mr. Ross, to order a copy of my taped lecture from
> Mark Alexander, a former participant in this forum who dropped out
> some months in the past in disgust at the poisonous tone of a number
> of Mr. Ross's posts. Alexander can be reached via his web page, The
> Shakepseare Resource Page (access it via
> http://shakespeare-oxford.com).
Mark's page has not been updated since September 15, so there is nothing
there about this mysterious tape. There is no description, no order form,
nor has the voice of Stritmatter been put online in streaming
audio. Mark's page is at http://home.earthlink.net/~mark_alex/index.htm
As for Stritmatter's claim that "the poisonous tone" of some of my posts
caused Mark to drop out -- well, let's just say that however severely
poisoned Mark may have been by being contradicted by me, he has posted
several times since Stritmatter has first posted this claim. As I recall,
what really got under Mark's skin was that I asked him to stand for
something -- and if that isn't strychnine to an Oxfordian, I don't know
what is.
> If Mr. Ross is actually, authentically interested in learning what I
> think about this important and enigmatic book, he can find out by
> ordering the tape.
I am interested in the "comments" you gave to Dickson, about which neither
you nor Dickson has been at all forthcoming. If you have any criticisms
to make of any part of my analysis of Dickson's essay, I will look at them
with care. If you have any light to shed on Peacham, that would interest
me as well. If you have a transcript of your talk, and you would like to
make it more widely available, I will put it online for you.
Oxfordians are always pushing their products -- have you noticed? Go to
one of their pages, and you're continually being invited to send money.
"Send money for this tract." "Send money to join this club and receive ITS
tracts." "Send money and we'll let you peek at out SECRET site for
members only." You will not find anything of the sort at the Shakespeare
Authorship page. You cannot join; we do not ask for your money. We are
not "partners" of any online bookstore -- whatever you buy from BN or
Amazon, no cut of the price comes to us. We do not sell T-shirts or
coffee mugs or totebags.
> Otherwise he'll just continuing spewing nonsense and innuendo aimed at
> making himself look like some kind of intellectual.
My Peacham material will be a page or two at the Shakespeare Authorship
site in the next couple of weeks. The aim of the piece is to look at what
Peacham actually said, and to try to understand why. I have looked at
many works by Peacham, I have looked at what some critics and biographers
of the man have had to say, and I have tried to give some context to the
bits of Peacham that Oxfordians habitually misread. If I have posted
nonsense or innuendo on the matter, Oxfordians have had six months to
point out the specifics of where I have been wrong.
> To conclude, I do not intend on discussing *Minerva Britanna* further
> in the HLAS context.
What do you mean, "further"? You haven't said anything yet. You still
haven't told us about your "comments" to Dickson, and while you now agree
that the anagram on the title page about which you gave comments to
Dickson does not exist there, you want us to take your word for it that
the anagram exists somewhere.
> It is an advanced topic which requires thoughtful and searching
> inquiry of a character which is for all practical purposes almost
> unkown -- with the exception of a few brave anti-Stratfordian souls
> such as Adam, John Baker, Volker etc. -- on this site.
I doubt that any of those fine people has read *Minerva Britanna* or
anything else by Peacham.
> Within a few weeks, excerpts from *Minerva Britanna* will be published
> to the forthcoming *Oxenford Press* website, the newest in the ever-
> growing network of Oxfordian and authorship related sites in cyberspace.
> After that time, HLAS readers who are curious about the book can
> visit, take a gander at the book for themselves, and pursue communication
> as they please.
In other words, "no comment."
Terry Ross
"misinterpretations" of the Latin mottoes on the title page of Peacham's
*Minerva Britanna*. I named a number of other sources prior to Magri that
discussed the mottoes, but I neglected to mention this newsgroup's own Art
Neuendorffer, who gave the correct form "MENTE VIDEBOR" on this newsgroup
last March. Art, of course, had his own anagram to offer, but he did
note, correctly that there was no "I" after "VIDEBOR" but only a dot.
The attempt to connect the title page of *Minerva Britanna* to a secret
author of Shakespeare's play did not originate with Eva Turner Clark in
1937 (although decades of Oxfordian foul-ups did trail in her wake). At
Penn Leary's site readers may find the text of the 1910 tract *The Mystery
of Francis Bacon* by William T. Smedley:
http://home.att.net/~tleary/mysterfb.htm
Here are a few excerpts from Smedley's work:
============
"In his youth he conceived the idea that the man Francis Bacon should be
concealed, and be revealed only by his works. The motto, 'Mente
videbor'--by the mind I shall be seen--became the guiding principle of his
life." [page 8]
=============
"From the Baconian point of view Peacham's "Minerva Britannia" is by far
the most interesting [emblem book]. The Emblem on page 34 is addressed 'To
the most judicious and learned, SIR FRANCIS BACON KNIGHT.' On the opposite
leaf, paged thus, 33, the design represents a hand holding a spear as in
the act of shaking it. But it is the frontispiece which bears especially
on the present contention.... A curtain is drawn to hide a figure, the
hand only of which is protruding. It has just written the words 'MENTE
VIDEBOR'--'By the mind I shall be seen.' Around the scroll are the words
'Vivitur ingenio cetera mortis erunt'--one lives in one's genius, other
things shall be (or pass away) in death.
"That emblem represents the secret of Francis Bacon's life. At a very
early age, probably before he was twelve, he had conceived the idea that
he would imitate God, that he would hide his works in order that they
might be found out--that he would be seen only by his mind and that his
image should be concealed. There was no haphazard work about it. It was
not simply that having written poems or plays, and desiring not to be
known as the author on publishing them, he put someone else's name on the
title-page. There was first the conception of the idea, and then the
carefully-elaborated scheme for carrying it out." [pages 105-06]
===========
"Then--or perhaps before--came this marvellous conception, 'Like God I
will be seen by my works, although my image shall never be visible--Mente
videbor. By the mind I shall be seen.' So equipped, and with such a
scheme, he commenced and successfully carried through that colossal
enterprise in which he sought the good of all men, though in a despised
weed. 'This,' he said, 'whether it be curiosity or vainglory, or (if one
takes it favourably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be
removed.'" [pages 108-09]
============
"In that age (please God it may be the present age), which is known only
to God and to the fates when the finishing touch shall be given to Bacon's
fame, it will be found that the period of his life from twelve to
thirty-five years of age surpassed all others, not only in brilliant
intellectual achievements, but for the enduring wealth with which he
endowed his countrymen. And yet it was part of his scheme of life that his
connection with the great renaissance in English literature should lie
hidden until posterity should recognise that work as the fruit of his
brain:--'Mente Videbor'--'by the mind I shall be seen.'" [page 153]
===========
===========
Thus what Eva Turner Clark seems to have done in her bumbling 1937
discussion of *Minerva Britanna* was just one more appropriation by
Oxfordians of a bit of Baconiana. Oxfordians are seldom generous in
acknowledging their debt to the Baconians, and so it would not be
surprising if most Oxfordians who discuss *Minerva Britanna* are unaware
that they are unwittingly echoing the competition. Stritmatter credits
Magli as revealing in 1999 something that had been Baconian lore since at
least 1910. Since Bacon is indeed the subject of one of Peacham's emblems
(unlike Oxford, who is never named in *Minerva Britanna*), the Baconians
might claim (within the ranks of the anti-Stratfordians) that they have a
better case.
See also this Baconian page, which predates Magri's discussion:
http://www.sirbacon.org/gallery/curtain.html Here, the motto "mente
videbor" is given correctly, although the page is not without errors of
its own (e.g., the title page emblem is described as appearing on page 33
of Peacham's book).
Lacking evidence for their beliefs, Baconians and Oxfordians are naturally
drawn to anagrams and other kinds of ciphers, but the rest of us needn't
follow them down that path. Henry Peacham was an artist and writer with
his own concerns and ambitions, and he does not seem particularly to have
cared about the works of Shakespeare. One may wish he had admired
Shakespeare as much as we do today, but it is an injustice to Peacham to
miscontrue his silence as confirmation of a vast conspiracy that exists
only in the imagination of anti-Stratfordians.
KQKnave
<tr...@bcpl.net> writes:
>Oxfordians are always pushing their products -- have you noticed? Go to
>one of their pages, and you're continually being invited to send money.
>"Send money for this tract." "Send money to join this club and receive ITS
>tracts." "Send money and we'll let you peek at out SECRET site for
>members only."
Much like the UFO nonsense and the Kennedy assasination nonsense.
This is America, and you can make a buck at anything. Just claim to
have seen something somewhere, and even with no evidence to back
you up, someone will pay to hear about it. As George Carlin once
observed, "Nail two stick together and some schmuck will buy it."
Jim
Roger A Stritmatter
Terry --
Here's what I wrote:
The article can be accessed on-line, along with selections from Dickson's
extremely important work-in-progress (Dickson reserves his biggest
bombshells for last....)
Dickson's "bombshell" is part of his work in progress. He's one of a number
of Oxfordians who have book-length projects already placed, or nearly
placed,
with major publishers.
The thanking came in note 12,
> which is certainly near the end of the piece.
>
OK -- good guess.
> > Nor would am I so simple-minded that I would allude to an undisclosed
> > bombshell which had actually appeared in print many months ago!
>
> I cannot comment on the extent to which you may or may not be
> simple-minded, but you have a history of melodramatic fizzles.
HA! There's a laugh. The last time I walked out because of your rude
ignorance,
you (maliciously) started circulating the rumor that I had died. Now its a
"melodramatic fizzle." Creative work, Terry. Very good. Keep trying to
back away from your foolish comments.
> >
> > Dickson's bombshell, at least the one I had in mind, concerns
> > Henry de Vere's 1621-23 imprisonment in the tower.
> > It demonstrates that literate Londoners where aware, in 1623,
> > that de Vere's father was "Shakespeare."
>
> Oddly enough, Dickson presented no evidence whatsoever that Henry's father
> either was or was ever thought to be Shakespeare by anybody. Some
> bombshell.
Terry, please visit http:shakespeare-oxford.com.
Read and think before responding.
> > > More significantly, why do you have *Minerva* on the brain? Are you,
> > perhaps, more than a little "worried" about what she might have to
> > say? You ought to be!
>
> If you mean "Minerva" in the sense of "wisdom, " I should hope we all
> seek to have some of that kind of Minerva on (or better yet in) the brain.
> As it happens, Richie was mightily impressed by Dickson's Peacham piece,
> an essay for which you were of some mysterious assistance.
Nothing mysterious at all about my assistance. We discussed at length
problems posed by the mistake of Turner Clarke and others in supposing that
the Latin
form "Videboris" could exist. It does not.
I had not
> posted on Peacham lately, but since poor Richie seemed to have fallen for
> Dickson's piece, and since he asked for refutation of it, I thought it
> only charitable to direct him to some of my posts on the subject. You
> then piped up and hinted darkly about some "bombshell" in Dickson, and
> (knowing from experience not to be wowed by your hyperbole), I went
> a-looking, and reported on what I found.
You obviously made quite an impression on Richie.
> >
> Not assertion but demonstration. As yet (and you still have time) no
> refutation has been offered to my criticism of Dickson on this
> point. Readers will soon see that Stritmatter himself believes that
> Dickson's analysis is blunderful.
I thought your conclusion to this post was that I hadn't said anything,
Terry! Which is it? I'm confused, and your other *readers* must be too.
Terry -- I set myself a five minute limit for this jaunt, and it would take
another thirty minutes to read through and respond to your detailed but --
for the most part -- ultimately irrelevant comments below. I hope your
other readers are more patient than I am.
Best wishes for your web page.
In a Minervan Mood,
(still alive)
Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
KQKnave <kqk...@aol.comspamslam> wrote in message
news:20000229162659...@nso-fv.aol.com...
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000228...@mail.bcpl.net>, Terry
Ross
> <tr...@bcpl.net> writes:
>
> >Oxfordians are always pushing their products -- have you noticed? Go to
> >one of their pages, and you're continually being invited to send money.
> >"Send money for this tract." "Send money to join this club and receive
ITS
> >tracts." "Send money and we'll let you peek at out SECRET site for
> >members only."
Bill Boyle has posted 91 free and public articles, by several dozen
contributors, all of whom volunteered their time and intellect, on various
topics pertaining to Shakespearean authorship on at http://everreader.com
How many free articles are available at the Ross/Kathman website?
The chief difference between current Oxfordian and official "Stratford"
communications at the present is that fewer and fewer people will pay to
read the latter while more
and more are in search of the former and *will* pay for it.
Roger A Stritmatter
Very interesting, Terry. But you would be more effective if you snipped out
your sarcasm.
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.000229...@mail.bcpl.net...
PWDBard
I have addressed in an earlier post this central question of whether
there is solid evidence that the Stratford man was in London prior to 1602 and
whether there is evidence that he was a real stage player,....and have given
also my response to Kathman's key question: "If those references to a person
named "Shakespeare" associated with acting, are not about the Stratford man,
then to whom do they refer?." In this post I will limit myself to a few
comments on the Peacham issue. It seems that the key issue is whether one can
make an argument that the inscription in question (Mente.Videbor-?) could not
possibly have been an anagram. Roger Stritmatter who has studied the entire
Minerva Britanna, does not believe that one can accept that sweeping claim.
That is my sense of things as well, especially since the theme of concealment
is obvious with a figure beyind a curtain writing the words.
Does anyone really think that readers would not suspect that this is an
anagram, given the clear visual theme of concealment in the emblem itself?
Certainly, almost anyone would and many would attempt to resolve it no matter
who the author or Minerva Britanna. If it is an anagram, then it is fairly
logical to believe that such an anagram might have something to do with the
identity of the person behind the curtain. Then the question becomes: is
there or are there recognizable names that can be found in this inscription?
Here there are still differences. One pertains to the last letter or what
appears to be a letter. Those will good eyes may quickly detect that there is
super-script dot, but the point of the pen or quill gives the illusion or
impression of the letter "I". This does not resolve the disagreements of
course but de Vere remains the best candidate for a recognizable literary name
from these letters. As I have stated, there is no explicit connection with
"Shakespeare" as such. My point is that *when this emblem from 1612 is
combined with all the other pieces of evidence*: the way that Peacham choose
to edit Puttenham's list while the First Folio was being assembled a few doors
away from his own publisher in 1622, and the Peacham-Titus Andronicus sketch
linkage which this new research cited by Kathman-Ross has not won acceptance as
authoritative as breaking that linkage, certainly not from Jonathan Bates, then
we can sense that Peacham was insider and certainly not someone as oblivious or
as dismissive of Shakespeare, the Star of Poets, as Kathman and Ross want
others to believe.
Your Friend, Buckeye Pete
Terry Ross
> Terry --
>
> Here's what I wrote:
>
> The article can be accessed on-line, along with selections from Dickson's
> extremely important work-in-progress (Dickson reserves his biggest
> bombshells for last....)
>
> Dickson's "bombshell" is part of his work in progress. He's one of a number
> of Oxfordians who have book-length projects already placed, or nearly
> placed,
> with major publishers.
>
> The thanking came in note 12,
> > which is certainly near the end of the piece.
> >
> OK -- good guess.
>
>
> > > Nor would am I so simple-minded that I would allude to an undisclosed
> > > bombshell which had actually appeared in print many months ago!
> >
> > I cannot comment on the extent to which you may or may not be
> > simple-minded, but you have a history of melodramatic fizzles.
>
> HA! There's a laugh. The last time I walked out because of your rude
> ignorance,
Rude ignorance? I have no idea why you "walked out" the last time, but if
you will track down your own posts, you will see that the rudeness was
entirely on your side. As for the ignorance, you continued to lambaste me
for comments made by another person even after your blunder was pointed
out to you repeatedly. As another sample of ignorance, was it not you who
posted the Benezet "test" quoting Benezet's introduction:
"The following verses are from the early poems of Edward de Vere, written
before he reached the age of twenty-six. Mixed in at odd places are lines
from the poems of Shakespeare."
As you should have known, not all lines were by either Shakespeare or by
Oxford, and some of Oxford's lines cannot be dated before Oxford was in
his forties. I hope you know this now.
> you (maliciously) started circulating the rumor that I had died.
Malicious? Rumor? I simply applied methods with which you should be
familiar. You announced your intention to post the Oxfordian tidbit of the
day. At some point, without any notice, these tidbits and all other posts
by you stopped. What else could one guess except that you had run out of
days? What else could running out of days mean except that you were dead?
As for any suggestion of maliciousness, my posts wondering what had become
with you were tinged with sorrow at what might have befallen you, and
sincere mourning as your silence seemed to confirm what I had dreaded.
There was no gloating or joy at the prospect of your passing.
In your heart of hearts, Roger, you know you had some ragging coming.
> Now its a "melodramatic fizzle." Creative work, Terry. Very good.
> Keep trying to back away from your foolish comments.
For years you described Oxford's bible as the "smoking gun" (your words)
that would prove that the earl and not the glover's son wrote
Shakespeare's works. It was left for Dave Kathman to post the complete
list of all annotations in that bible, and the "smoking gun" has so far
turned out to be a melodramatic fizzle.
>
> > >
> > > Dickson's bombshell, at least the one I had in mind, concerns
> > > Henry de Vere's 1621-23 imprisonment in the tower.
> > > It demonstrates that literate Londoners where aware, in 1623,
> > > that de Vere's father was "Shakespeare."
> >
> > Oddly enough, Dickson presented no evidence whatsoever that Henry's father
> > either was or was ever thought to be Shakespeare by anybody. Some
> > bombshell.
>
> Terry, please visit http:shakespeare-oxford.com.
>
> Read and think before responding.
Been there. Same response. Please quote the contemporaries cited by
Dickson who believed that the 18th earl was the son of Shakespeare. I
checked the following pieces by Dickson and found no such bombshell:
http://www.everreader.com/twohenry.htm
http://www.everreader.com/peacham.htm
http://www.everreader.com/oxlitrep.htm
Dickson is named in a piece by Roger:
http://www.webcom.com/wboyle/cymbelin.htm
and in one by William Boyle:
http://www.webcom.com/wboyle/ShakeSon.htm
Again, no evidence that anybody thought of Henry Vere as Shakespeare's
son. It looks like another melodramatic fizzle to me.
>
> > > > More significantly, why do you have *Minerva* on the brain? Are you,
> > > perhaps, more than a little "worried" about what she might have to
> > > say? You ought to be!
> >
> > If you mean "Minerva" in the sense of "wisdom, " I should hope we all
> > seek to have some of that kind of Minerva on (or better yet in) the brain.
> > As it happens, Richie was mightily impressed by Dickson's Peacham piece,
> > an essay for which you were of some mysterious assistance.
>
> Nothing mysterious at all about my assistance. We discussed at length
> problems posed by the mistake of Turner Clarke and others in supposing that
> the Latin form "Videboris" could exist. It does not.
It does not indeed; good call. That puts you one up on Astley-Cock, who
was described by that prize-winning Oxfordian "scholar" Ruth Loyd Miller
as "one of this country's most accomplished Latin scholars," and who
composed this deathless line of verse:
Est tibi nomen Vere in mente videboris, aio:
>
> I had not
> > posted on Peacham lately, but since poor Richie seemed to have fallen for
> > Dickson's piece, and since he asked for refutation of it, I thought it
> > only charitable to direct him to some of my posts on the subject. You
> > then piped up and hinted darkly about some "bombshell" in Dickson, and
> > (knowing from experience not to be wowed by your hyperbole), I went
> > a-looking, and reported on what I found.
>
>
> You obviously made quite an impression on Richie.
As did you, for a while. Whatever became of the lad?
> > >
> > Not assertion but demonstration. As yet (and you still have time) no
> > refutation has been offered to my criticism of Dickson on this
> > point. Readers will soon see that Stritmatter himself believes that
> > Dickson's analysis is blunderful.
>
> I thought your conclusion to this post was that I hadn't said anything,
> Terry! Which is it? I'm confused, and your other *readers* must be too.
Perhaps you wouldn't be confused it you hadn't snipped this earlier
exchange:
> Terry: Given that [Dickson's] analysis of "mente videbor" is chock full
> of blunders,
>
> Roger: Assertion, Mr. Ross, assertion.
You later take Magri's article as evidence that the anagram Dickson sees
on the title page isn't there. As for your post not saying anything, it
gives no reason for rejecting my analysis or accepting Dickson's, it does
not explain your comments to Dickson, and it does not explain your
position on *Minerva Britanna*.
> Terry -- I set myself a five minute limit for this jaunt, and it would take
> another thirty minutes to read through and respond to your detailed but --
> for the most part -- ultimately irrelevant comments below. I hope your
> other readers are more patient than I am.
One or two of them probably will be. By all means stick to your five
minute rule: it will protect you from much of life's complexity.
> Best wishes for your web page.
Thank you; and best wishes for your defense.
> In a Minervan Mood,
>
> (still alive)
I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that.
John W. Kennedy
> How many free articles are available at the Ross/Kathman website?
Errr.... All of them?
> The chief difference between current Oxfordian and official "Stratford"
> communications at the present is that fewer and fewer people will pay to
> read the latter while more
> and more are in search of the former and *will* pay for it.
And if the Great Juju pays no attention to our cries, that only proves
what a truly great Juju he is.
You make me sick.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
David Kathman
>
> KQKnave <kqk...@aol.comspamslam> wrote in message
> news:20000229162659...@nso-fv.aol.com...
> > In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000228...@mail.bcpl.net>, Terry
> Ross
> > <tr...@bcpl.net> writes:
> >
> > >one of their pages, and you're continually being invited to send money.
> > >"Send money for this tract." "Send money to join this club and receive
> ITS
> > >tracts." "Send money and we'll let you peek at out SECRET site for
> > >members only."
>
> contributors, all of whom volunteered their time and intellect, on various
> topics pertaining to Shakespearean authorship on at http://everreader.com
>
Uhhhhh... all of them. Several dozen, though I don't know
the exact number off the top of my head. As Terry has
explained, we have never charged any money for anything we
have written, nor have we ever sold anything -- in fact,
we have never taken money for anything related to our
Shakespeare authorship work. You seem to be implying by
your words above that Terry and I have charged for material
on our site, which is patently false.
Furthermore, we have always been completely open in discussing
our work with any interested parties, and have posted detailed
information about authorship-related issues both here and on
our web site. In contrast, you have continually been evasive
when asked for details of your work, and have not made your
work available even to those who are specifically interested
in it. When you have deigned to make it available, you have
often charged money for it, as in your statement that those
interested in your views on Peacham's Minerva Brittana will
have to purchase tapes from Mark Alexander. In general, you
seem not to want your work subjected to critical scrutiny by
those who are not already friendly to your conclusions.
A couple of years ago I made an attempt, through your friend
Mark Anderson and your then-committee member David Mix
Barrington, to get a copy of your work on Oxford's Bible,
but I was unsuccessful. If you're willing to make any of
this work available to me now, so that I might subject it
to critical examination, I would gladly pay copying and
postage costs.
> The chief difference between current Oxfordian and official "Stratford"
> communications at the present is that fewer and fewer people will pay to
> read the latter while more
> and more are in search of the former and *will* pay for it.
What ON EARTH are you talking about? The Shakespeare Association
of America, Shakespeare Quarterly, and the Shakespeare Newsletter,
among other publications, are all thriving. Do you have any
substantiation for your sneering assertion that "fewer and
fewer" people are willing to pay for mainstream Shakespeare-related
publications?
On the other hand, the Shakespeare Oxford Society came close to
insolvency last year, and has been ripped apart by internal dissension
and splinter groups. You must be aware of this fact, since you
have been involved in much of the dissension. Can you cite
any circulation figures for Oxfordian publications in order
to support your claims?
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
richie miller
RSTRIT...@prodigy.net says...
>
> Terry --
>
> Here's what I wrote:
>
> extremely important work-in-progress (Dickson reserves his biggest
>
> Dickson's "bombshell" is part of his work in progress. He's one of a number
> of Oxfordians who have book-length projects already placed, or nearly
> placed,
> with major publishers.
>
> > which is certainly near the end of the piece.
> >
>
>
> > > Nor would am I so simple-minded that I would allude to an undisclosed
> > > bombshell which had actually appeared in print many months ago!
> >
> > I cannot comment on the extent to which you may or may not be
> > simple-minded, but you have a history of melodramatic fizzles.
>
> ignorance,
> "melodramatic fizzle." Creative work, Terry. Very good. Keep trying to
> back away from your foolish comments.
>
> > >
> > > Henry de Vere's 1621-23 imprisonment in the tower.
> > > It demonstrates that literate Londoners where aware, in 1623,
> > > that de Vere's father was "Shakespeare."
> >
> > Oddly enough, Dickson presented no evidence whatsoever that Henry's father
> > either was or was ever thought to be Shakespeare by anybody. Some
> > bombshell.
>
> > > perhaps, more than a little "worried" about what she might have to
> > > say? You ought to be!
> >
> > If you mean "Minerva" in the sense of "wisdom, " I should hope we all
> > seek to have some of that kind of Minerva on (or better yet in) the brain.
> > As it happens, Richie was mightily impressed by Dickson's Peacham piece,
> > an essay for which you were of some mysterious assistance.
>
> problems posed by the mistake of Turner Clarke and others in supposing that
> the Latin
> form "Videboris" could exist. It does not.
>
> > posted on Peacham lately, but since poor Richie seemed to have fallen for
> > Dickson's piece, and since he asked for refutation of it, I thought it
> > only charitable to direct him to some of my posts on the subject. You
> > then piped up and hinted darkly about some "bombshell" in Dickson, and
> > (knowing from experience not to be wowed by your hyperbole), I went
> > a-looking, and reported on what I found.
>
>
> > >
> > refutation has been offered to my criticism of Dickson on this
> > point. Readers will soon see that Stritmatter himself believes that
> > Dickson's analysis is blunderful.
>
> Terry! Which is it? I'm confused, and your other *readers* must be too.
>
>
> another thirty minutes to read through and respond to your detailed but --
> for the most part -- ultimately irrelevant comments below. I hope your
> other readers are more patient than I am.
>
>
>
>
> (still alive)
>
>
>
>
>
Ok guys, thanks for the plugs, but I'm moving on to the other 5 points.
I am satisfied that for now the Minerva has been refuted. Unless someone
can show that the entire book has hidden allusions to Oxford then I agree
with Terry. Why plug Oxford when Peacham could plug himself. I would!
From my own experience as a musician I wouldn't have it any other way!
Here are my impressions so far:
The Strats (Terry and Dave) are sharp, thorough, and provide information
germane to the topics. They are professionals and they have my admiration
and respect...oh yeah...thanks for sparing my life Terry! I was beginning
to get nervous.
The Ox's (of which I am one) aren't refuting the Start counter-claims with
the same brevity...so far.
Score: Strats 1 Ox's 0
Now on to the second refutation by the Strats.
--
Richie
www.omencity.com
**************************************************
"A soft answer turneth away wrath." Terry Ross
**************************************************
richie miller
THE FIRST FOLIO IS DEDICATED TO OXFORD'S DAUGHTER!
Now that I have your attention, let's just focus on this for awhile.
--
Richie
www.omencity.com
*************************************************************************
"Shakespeare (for that was his name) could not have been a teetotaler --
the greatness of the man refutes the idea. Although I am reluctant to
infer biography from the works, I am sure the author had first-hand
knowledge of ale, and perhaps overindulged at times, though I would not
call Shakespeare a drunk." [Terry Ross and the Truth!]
************************************************************************
Greg Reynolds
richie miller wrote:
> The First Folio is Dedicated to Oxford's daughter
> THE FIRST FOLIO IS DEDICATED TO OXFORD'S DAUGHTER!
>
> Now that I have your attention, let's just focus on this for awhile.
>
> --
> Richie
> www.omencity.com
Focus on this for awhile:
http://storyarts.org/library/aesops/stories/boy.html
"Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"
Terry Ross
> Bill Boyle has posted 91 free and public articles, by several dozen
> contributors, all of whom volunteered their time and intellect, on various
> topics pertaining to Shakespearean authorship on at http://everreader.com
>
> How many free articles are available at the Ross/Kathman website?
I'm glad Bill Boyle has put up as much as he has, but I wish there were
even more Oxfordian targets -- er, essays -- that were freely available.
I keep count for 58 different Shakespeare Authorship pages; some of them
are supplementary material to other essays, so let's call it about 50.
That number will increase very soon.
The Shakespeare Authorship page also hosts Dave Kathman's Biographical
Index to the Elizabethan Theater:
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/bd/kathman.htm
The Index comprises some 29 pages. It is an extraordinarily valuable tool
for researchers, and is the most complete such index available in any
medium.
I could also mention the 15 or so pages of the Christmas Poems site,
which is very popular in season:
http://www.clark.net/~tross/xmas/xmas.html
There is no charge for any of this material, and it is much more carefully
vetted and checked for accuracy than the online Oxfordian material.
> The chief difference between current Oxfordian and official
> "Stratford" communications at the present is that fewer and fewer
> people will pay to read the latter while more and more are in search
> of the former and *will* pay for it.
A nice try, Roger, and quite chuckle-worthy, but not really true. I'm not
sure what you mean by "official 'Stratford communications.'" Bloom's book
*Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human* was a best-seller, and, if we
can generalize from Amazon.com's rankings, continues to outsell Michell's
*Who Wrote Shakespeare* (actually a groupist work) and Sobran's *Alias
Shakespeare*, the most popular recent anti-Stratfordian tracts -- as does
Park Honan's biography of the glover's son from Stratford and Vendler's
*Art of Shakespeare's sonnets*.
Terry Ross
> The First Folio is Dedicated to Oxford's daughter
> THE FIRST FOLIO IS DEDICATED TO OXFORD'S DAUGHTER!
>
> Now that I have your attention, let's just focus on this for awhile.
Which one of the Herbert boys was Oxford's daughter? I think this is your
most amazing scoop yet!
Tom Reedy
news:MPG.1327a99c9...@news.earthlink.net...
<snip>
> --
> Richie
> www.omencity.com
> **************************************************
> "A soft answer turneth away wrath." Terry Ross
> **************************************************
Richie, while I am a great admirer of Terry Ross' prose, I hope you know the
above quotation didn't originate with him.
TR
Tom Reedy
> On Tue, 29 Feb 2000, Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
>
> > Bill Boyle has posted 91 free and public articles, by several dozen
> > contributors, all of whom volunteered their time and intellect, on
various
> > topics pertaining to Shakespearean authorship on at
http://everreader.com
> >
> > How many free articles are available at the Ross/Kathman website?
>
> I'm glad Bill Boyle has put up as much as he has, but I wish there were
> even more Oxfordian targets -- er, essays -- that were freely available.
> I keep count for 58 different Shakespeare Authorship pages; some of them
> are supplementary material to other essays, so let's call it about 50.
> That number will increase very soon.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
> http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Actually, Stritmatter has as much trouble with comprehension of Oxford
material as he does with the principles of scholarly research. Boyle
himself says there are 61--not 91--articles on the site.
Is it any wonder Oxfordians are called idiots when they can't even read?
TR
richie miller
tr...@bcpl.net says...
> On Thu, 2 Mar 2000, richie miller wrote:
>
> > The First Folio is Dedicated to Oxford's daughter
> > THE FIRST FOLIO IS DEDICATED TO OXFORD'S DAUGHTER!
> >
> > Now that I have your attention, let's just focus on this for awhile.
>
> Which one of the Herbert boys was Oxford's daughter? I think this is your
> most amazing scoop yet!
>
Richie
www.omencity.com
*************************************************************
"That Richie is a moron!" [Richie on Richie]
*************************************************************
Roger A Stritmatter
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0003011029140.21851-100000@
> I'm glad Bill Boyle has put up as much as he has, but I wish there were
> even more Oxfordian targets -- er, essays -- that were freely available.
This is a very telling statement, Terry. Your stance is the classic
xenophobic one: kill or maim that which is alien to you. Hence, anything
written by anyone you consider an Oxfordian is "a target."
That attitude is what caused Mark Alexander and a number of other minds
which put yours to shame to leave this forum. I see now that you crow over
your victory in Adam's Who's Who List. Good work, Terry.
Stritmatter
>
>
Roger A Stritmatter
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.000229...@mail.bcpl.net...
> Roger Stritmatter thought it was news when Noemi Magri corrected some
> "misinterpretations" of the Latin mottoes on the title page of Peacham's
> *Minerva Britanna*. I named a number of other sources prior to Magri that
> discussed the mottoes, but I neglected to mention this newsgroup's own Art
> Neuendorffer, who gave the correct form "MENTE VIDEBOR" on this newsgroup
> last March. Art, of course, had his own anagram to offer, but he did
> note, correctly that there was no "I" after "VIDEBOR" but only a dot.
Despite my previous statement that I don't intend to discuss Minerva B. on
this forum, the above calls for some clarification; as usual Terry is adept
at using language to confuse,
conceal and ridicule but in the process he slays a few innocent bystanders
with his poison arrows.
Neither Eva Turner Clarke nor any other Oxfordian reader of Minerva B. of
whom I am aware *ever* asserted that there was an "i" on the title page of
the book. So Art did not "correct" anything.
In fact, Clarke reproduces the title page of *Minerva* in her book, and any
fool can see
that there is no "i" -- only a dot where the pen touches the page after the
word VIDEBOR. Clarke's mistake was not that she believed that there was an
"i" depicted on the title page, but that she believed --as apparently did
Astley-Cox after her, despite being an accomplished Latinist -- that the
form "videboris" was the correct 2nd person singular form of the verb video,
videre. It is of course not a correct form: the form must be "videberis,"
as I explained in my SOS talk -- a fact to which I am indebted not only to
Dr. Magri but also to my friend and colleague Andrew Hannas, for forcefully
bringing to my attention.
Furthermore, however interesting Terry's little history of the role Minerva
B. has played in speculation over authorship, including his Baconian sources
(of which I was certainly not aware and which I am indeed interested to
learn--thank you, Terry, for that *substance,* at least), the fact that "the
mottos" of the book (I presume here that Terry means the title page mottos)
had been discussed by such writers in no way effects the cogency of my
original remark about the importance of Magri's work, for one simple reason:
hers was the first sustained, articulate examination of the
Clarke/Astley-Cox theory.
Thus, although Dickson and others were of course quite aware of the fact
which Ross wishes rub in their faces as a "mistake" -- namely that the "i"
on the title page is only *implied*, it was Magri who first brought home
the full force of that argument in the *De Vere Society Newsletter* quoted
in my talk. The fact that Baconians had speculated that there was some
connection between the title page and their man, while an interesting point
of intellectual history, has absolutely no bearing on the issue Terry's
attempts to sustain his silly equation: scholars (us) vrs. Oxfordians
(them).
Sorry to bother you, Terry, with these "complications" to your post -- but
Minerva is a complicated Lady. You won't get to know her with the kinds of
pseudo-discourse contained in your post. She must be wooed with candor and
subtlety.
With Best Wishes for your pursuit of wisdom,
Stritmatter
>
Roger A Stritmatter
richie miller <rich...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1328a7494...@news.earthlink.net...
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000302...@mail.bcpl.net>,
> tr...@bcpl.net says...
> > On Thu, 2 Mar 2000, richie miller wrote:
> >
> > > The First Folio is Dedicated to Oxford's daughter
> > > THE FIRST FOLIO IS DEDICATED TO OXFORD'S DAUGHTER!
> > >
> > > Now that I have your attention, let's just focus on this for awhile.
> >
> > Which one of the Herbert boys was Oxford's daughter? I think this is
your
> > most amazing scoop yet!
For one piece in the jigsaw puzzle of intriguing connections between
the Jaggard publishing firm, which formed the major part of the syndicate
which
published the 1623 folio, and de Vere/Herbert clan, HLAS readers may wish
to visit the online EverReader.
My article on this topic appears in issue 7 (Spring 1998), and has been
studiously avoided by the Stratfordian apologists on the
present forum. My article shows that in 1619, approximately two years
before
work began in earnest on the 1623 folio, the publisher Jaggard was
cozying up to Susan Vere and her husband, Phillip Herbert, one of the two
dedicatees to the subsequent folio.
What is more, the *terms* of Jaggard's dedication
to these two famous arts patrons are striking indeed, for they suggest a
direct and public (if discreet) request by Jaggard for Susan Vere and
her hubsand to "bestow" the manuscripts which subsequently were published
in the folio.
> OK...I guess we've focused on that long enough.
>
>
> Richie
> www.omencity.com
> *************************************************************
> "That Richie is a moron!" [Richie on Richie]
> *************************************************************
Yes, but he's a likeable one.
Terry Ross
>
> Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0003011029140.21851-100000@
>
> > I'm glad Bill Boyle has put up as much as he has, but I wish there were
> > even more Oxfordian targets -- er, essays -- that were freely available.
>
> This is a very telling statement, Terry. Your stance is the classic
> xenophobic one: kill or maim that which is alien to you. Hence, anything
> written by anyone you consider an Oxfordian is "a target."
As my namesake said, "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." I find
it amusing that Oxfordians feel they are being threatened with "killing"
or "maiming" when the only threat I pose is that of pointing out their
blunders.
> That attitude is what caused Mark Alexander and a number of other minds
> which put yours to shame to leave this forum.
Keep repeating the canard and you may believe it. Mark has posted here
many times since you first lifted that duck, although your descriptions of
its field marks seem to vary considerably.
> I see now that you crow over your victory in Adam's Who's Who List.
> Good work, Terry.
No crowing, merely an aid to identification: some people have in the past
confused me with other posters on this newsgroup.
By the way, congratulations on the new site. I'm glad to see Looney
online (including the naughty bits Ruth Loyd Miller censored in her
edition).
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> My article on this topic appears in issue 7 (Spring 1998), and has
> been studiously avoided by the Stratfordian apologists on the
> present forum.
Right. David Kathman warned me of its existence, and I studiously
avoided reading it until now.
> My article shows that in 1619, approximately two
> years before work began in earnest on the 1623 folio, the publisher
> Jaggard was cozying up to Susan Vere and her husband, Phillip Herbert,
> one of the two dedicatees to the subsequent folio.
Where does it say this? I just read your article and found only one
mention of Susan Vere, and nothing about Jaggard cozying up to her.
--Bob G.
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.21.000229...@mail.bcpl.net...
> > Roger Stritmatter thought it was news when Noemi Magri corrected some
> > "misinterpretations" of the Latin mottoes on the title page of Peacham's
> > *Minerva Britanna*. I named a number of other sources prior to Magri that
> > discussed the mottoes, but I neglected to mention this newsgroup's own Art
> > Neuendorffer, who gave the correct form "MENTE VIDEBOR" on this newsgroup
> > last March. Art, of course, had his own anagram to offer, but he did
> > note, correctly that there was no "I" after "VIDEBOR" but only a dot.
>
> Despite my previous statement that I don't intend to discuss Minerva
> B. on this forum, the above calls for some clarification; as usual
> Terry is adept at using language to confuse, conceal and ridicule but
> in the process he slays a few innocent bystanders with his poison
> arrows.
"Poison"? "Arrows"? Let us see whether Roger is right.
>
> Neither Eva Turner Clarke nor any other Oxfordian reader of Minerva B. of
> whom I am aware *ever* asserted that there was an "i" on the title page of
> the book. So Art did not "correct" anything.
Many readers have misread "videbor" for "videbori," so Art's correction
was certainly called for. Pray read on.
>
> In fact, Clarke reproduces the title page of *Minerva* in her book,
> and any fool can see that there is no "i" -- only a dot where the pen
> touches the page after the word VIDEBOR. Clarke's mistake was not that
> she believed that there was an "i" depicted on the title page, but
> that she believed --as apparently did Astley-Cox after her, despite
> being an accomplished Latinist -- that the form "videboris" was the
> correct 2nd person singular form of the verb video, videre.
Clark: "we find that the unseen dramatic author is writing 'Mente. vide
bori' (By the mind shall I be seen)." [see Ruth Loyd Miller's *Oxfordian
Vistas*, page 307.] Clark says nothing about there being no "i" after
"videbor."
Dickson: "The hand in question has nearly completed writing on a scroll
the words MENTE.VIDEBORI which immediately brings to mind the Latin phrase
"mente videbor" which translates as "in the mind I shall be seen." ...
[I]f the writer was not writing an anagram, he would have either stopped
at 'mente videbor' which means 'I shall be seen' or have continued on to
write 'mente videberis' which means 'he shall be seen.' However, the
writer did not choose either of these grammatically correct options, and
we know that Peacham knew his Latin. Instead, he stops abruptly after
drawing one extra letter -- in this case, the letter 'i' which is
obviously desired to complete an anagram. Furthermore, the writer
evidently did not wish to have to replace the 'o' in 'videbor' with an 'e'
which would have been required in proper Latin if he had proceeded to
complete 'videberis' with the final 's'. Thus, Peacham deemed an extra
'i' and the retention of the letter 'o' essential to convey something
about the writer, in this case his true identity. There can be no
question that a deliberate calculation was made to fudge the Latin
inscription to create an anagram. For otherwise, the writer would simply
have stopped with 'videbor' or gone on to write 'videberis.'"
http://www.elizreview.com/peacham.htm
Astley-Cock also transcribes "videbor" as "videbori" (*Oxfordian Vistas*
page 311).
While Roger says that "any fool" can see that there is no "i" after
"videbor," Oxfordians for more than 60 years kept seeing the nonexistent
"i." This may mean that those Oxfordians were not fools, by Roger's test,
but it also means that they weren't very careful observers.
> It is of course not a correct form: the form must be "videberis," as I
> explained in my SOS talk -- a fact to which I am indebted not only to
> Dr. Magri but also to my friend and colleague Andrew Hannas, for
> forcefully bringing to my attention.
"Videbor," the word that actually appears, is a perfectly proper form.
> Furthermore, however interesting Terry's little history of the role
> Minerva B. has played in speculation over authorship, including his
> Baconian sources (of which I was certainly not aware and which I am
> indeed interested to learn--thank you, Terry, for that *substance,* at
> least),
You're more than welcome.
> the fact that "the mottos" of the book (I presume here that Terry
> means the title page mottos) had been discussed by such writers in no
> way effects the cogency of my original remark about the importance of
> Magri's work, for one simple reason: hers was the first sustained,
> articulate examination of the Clarke/Astley-Cox theory.
Actually, it was not, at least in the *Elizabethan Review* essay that I
saw. Clark is never mentioned by Magri; Astley-Cock is never mentioned.
Magri cites Dickson and a story based on Dickson's "findings." Magri is
responding NOT to Clark or Astley-Cock but to Dickson -- in fact, it is
impossible to tell from Magri's essay that she has ever read either
Clark's or Astley-Cock's analyses of the title page. Nor does Magri show
any sign of having looked at any anything else by Peacham other than the
title page of *MB*, or of having checked any criticism on Peacham. Nor
did she recognize that "vivitur ingenio" and "caetera mortis erunt" form a
line of verse (at least Astley-Cock noticed that much). Nor did she know
that the line was not original with Peacham (Art cited Spenser and
Vesalius; I gave the classical source). Nor did she provide any reason
for construing the mottoes as references to Oxford, who is mentioned
nowhere in the volume, rather than applying them to Peacham.
> Thus, although Dickson and others were of course quite aware of the fact
> which Ross wishes rub in their faces as a "mistake" -- namely that the "i"
> on the title page is only *implied*,
Dickson was not aware that there was no "i" after "videbor" until he heard
it from me -- in fact, I'm not sure he believes me yet. It is, of course,
easy to prove me wrong, if I am wrong about this. Simply quote Clark or
Astley-Cock or Dickson saying that there is no "i" after "videbor."
> it was Magri who first brought home the full force of that argument in
> the *De Vere Society Newsletter* quoted in my talk. The fact that
> Baconians had speculated that there was some connection between the
> title page and their man, while an interesting point of intellectual
> history, has absolutely no bearing on the issue Terry's attempts to
> sustain his silly equation: scholars (us) vrs. Oxfordians (them).
Oxfordians have borrowed much from the Baconians -- including many, many
errors -- and they have not always been forthcoming about their debts.
In many cases, I think it is because the notions of the original borrowers
are passed on, but not the sources of those notions. Thus, Roger could
not be expected to know that Clark's idea originated with Baconians
because he can't find any Oxfordian who will tell him. My guess is that
neither Astley-Cock nor Dickson nor Magri knew this either. On the other
hand, if Oxfordians wish to be taken seriously as scholars (and some of
them are certainly are capable), it behooves them to do a bit more digging
and to cite their sources. Oxfordians should also be more skeptical about
what they find in the relics of ancient Oxfordery, rather than being
content to pass along the same boo-boos from year to year, from generation
to generation.
It would make things easier for me if anti-Stratfordians did more
back-tracking and careful sourcing of their claims, so I don't have to do
the work for them. To take one wee example, your friend and colleague
Andrew Hannas is only one of many Oxfordians to repeat the false claim
that Gabriel Harvey referred to Burhgley in *Gratulationes Valdinenses* as
"Polus." Hannas said, "De Vere also would have filed away Harvey's
epithet for Cecil, 'Polus,' sounded half a dozen times in his 1578 toast
to Cecil..." http://home.earthlink.net/~mark_alex/atoms/harvey.html
Now, Hannas is fully capable of checking such claims -- he probably has
enough Latin, and he knows about Jameson's edition of *Gratulationes
Valdinenses* -- yet he parrots a demonstrably false Oxfordian myth that
has been thoughtlessly repeated at least since 1950. Why?
One more example: in last April's *Harper's*, Dan Wright said Athena "was
known to all and sundry as 'the spear shaker,'" while Mark Anderson said
"Elizabethans knew that Pallas Athena was known by the sobriquet 'the
spear-shaker.'" This is one more bit that the Oxfordians have taken from
the Baconians, and the claim was no truer a century ago than it is today,
yet it continues to be repeated by those who should know better. What is
the problem? Is is that Anderson and Wright don't care to check these
things? If so, then why should we take them seriously about any other
Oxfordian claims they pass along?
> Sorry to bother you, Terry, with these "complications" to your post --
> but Minerva is a complicated Lady.
No bother at all, Roger, especially as you don't seem to have read Dickson
any more carefully than he read Peacham. You know, you don't have to make
it so easy for me.
> You won't get to know her with the kinds of pseudo-discourse contained
> in your post. She must be wooed with candor and subtlety.
I don't know that anybody had much success wooing her.
In addition to everything else, she is Ergane, the worker, and you do her
no favor by posting without checking your claims. She is also a goddess
of prudence, and your accusations have been shown to be overhasty and
underjustified. On the other hand, the olive is sacred to her, so if you
really want to honor her, perhaps you would have more success at dinner.
Mark ALexander
> Furthermore, we have always been completely open in discussing
> our work with any interested parties, and have posted detailed
> information about authorship-related issues both here and on
> our web site. In contrast, you have continually been evasive
> when asked for details of your work, and have not made your
> work available even to those who are specifically interested
> in it. When you have deigned to make it available, you have
> often charged money for it, as in your statement that those
> interested in your views on Peacham's Minerva Brittana will
> have to purchase tapes from Mark Alexander.
I made digital video recordings of all the talks at the last conference and
offered them to members for a nominal $15 per tape ($60 for all five), a
price that includes Priority Mailing and all packaging costs.
Since the actual production costs amount to about $500 (each DV tape costs
$20 per hour, not to mention the costs of TDK EHG tapes and time), there is
little hope of recovering the original costs. For more information, I have
appended the original flyer to the end of this post.
I should also add how sad it is the Strats would attempt to argue that the
cover of Minerva could not represent an anagram. An anagram is a means of
concealment and the cover image clearly indicates the probability of some
form of concealment. If you and others honestly take the position that there
is *nothing* about that cover that indicates a possible anagram, then you
are ostriches.
> On the other hand, the Shakespeare Oxford Society came close to
> insolvency last year, and has been ripped apart by internal dissension
> and splinter groups.
Much of that has passed, and the SOS is stronger and more solvent than ever.
Cheers
Mark Alexander
__________
Videos Available for the 1999 SOS Conference in Boston
1) Alex McNeil: "Come, sweet Audrey. We must be married..." (25 min)
Robert Brazil: "Edward De Vere and the Shakespeare Printers" (69 min)
2) C.V. Berney: "Titus Andronicus and the Beauteous Blossom" (29 min)
Elisabeth Sears: "Shakespeare, Oxford and Music" (33 min)
Stephanie Hughes: "The Story Behind the Sonnets" (56 min)
3) Albert Burgstahler: "Explicit Internal Evidence for Oxford's Authorship"
(31 min)
Richard Desper: "The Oxford-Howard Controversy of 1580-81" (31 min)
Hank Whittemore: "The Story of the Sonnets" (57 min)
4) Roger Stritmatter: "Some Keys to Minerva Britanna" (34 min)
Charles Boyle: "Is Southampton the First Child of the Virgin Queen?" (35
min)
Peter Dickson: "The First Folio and the 3 Henries: Peacham, Oxford, and
Southampton" (28 min)
5) Mark Alexander: "Shakespeare's 'Bad Law'" (37 min)
John Rollett: "Was Southampton the Son of the Queen?" (39 min)
Christopher Dams: "Towards an Oxfordian Dating of the Plays" (40 min)
A digital video Sony VX1000 camera was used with the camera mike for audio
and room lighting. Consequently, some audio is faint but still
understandable. Since Mark Alexander was the videographer, he is out of
frame for half of his talk.
Finished tapes are 2-hour TDK EHG. Tapes are created on a per-order basis
and are hand labeled. Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. Prices reflect a
non-profit attempt to recover production costs only. Once production costs
are recovered (approximately $500 for initial production and $5 per tape for
tape cost and shipping), further sales will go to the SOS. Problem tapes may
be returned for immediate replacement.
Price: $15.00 per tape (includes USPS Priority Mail shipping)
$60.00 for all 5 tapes.
Send a check or postal money order made out to Breeze Productions to:
Breeze Productions
P.O. Box 620008
Woodside, CA 94062-0008
For questions: (650) 365-1133
Or e-mail to Mark Alexander: mark...@earthlink.net
Terry Ross
> I should also add how sad it is the Strats would attempt to argue that
> the cover of Minerva could not represent an anagram.
What I did was to point out the weaknesses in Dickson's claim that "There
can be no question that a deliberate calculation was made to fudge the
Latin inscription to create an anagram." Of course you are sad to learn
that a piece that Oxfordians are so proud of was (let us be mild) written
with perhaps less care than one might have hoped.
> An anagram is a means of concealment and the cover image clearly
> indicates the probability of some form of concealment.
For Peacham an anagram is a means of entertainment. It is a chance to
display one's wit and amuse one's friends. Don't take my word for it --
take Peacham's:
"In your discourse be free and affable, giving entertainment in a sweete
and liberall maner, and with a cheerefull courtesie, seasoning your talk
at the table among grave and serious discourses, with conceipts of wit and
pleasant invention, as ingenious Epigrammes, Emblemes, Anagrammes, merry
tales, witty questions and answers, Mistakings, as a melancholy Gentleman
sitting one day at table, where I was, started up upon the suddaine, and
meaning to say, "I must goe buy a dagger," by transposition of the
letters, said: "Sir, I must go dye a begger." (*The Compleat Gentleman*,
p. 196).
What Peacham here calls "mistakings" we would now call "Spoonerisms" (the
OED does not mention this meaning of "mistaking"). Peacham also enjoyed
the odd palindrome, and anagrams for him are amusements of about the same
level.
> If you and others honestly take the position that there is *nothing*
> about that cover that indicates a possible anagram, then you are
> ostriches.
One can, with a bit of trouble, find anagrams everywhere. "Mark Alexander"
is an anagram of "dark renal exam," but the anagram sheds no light on Mark
or others of his kidney. Henry Peacham's name is an anagram of "hyphen
camera," the device used by Oxfordians to show that "Shake-speare" was not
"Shakespeare." If we add Peacham's title "Mr. of Artes," we get a
stunning comment on last year's issue of a once proud magazine:
"Henry Peacham, Mr. of Artes" = "Harper's: cheater of my man."
Anagramming may be a pleasant diversion (there are several skilled
practitioners on this newsgroup); but there's no reason to think Peacham
thought it more important than that.
There are, as I have said, many problems with the proposed Oxfordian
anagram "mente videbori"= "tibi nom de vere." First it is not labeled as
an anagram, and since Peacham has not provided the "decipherment," there
is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at all. Second (as
Oxfordians have recently begun to notice), the "decipherment" makes use of
an extra "I" that does not appear in "mente videbor." Third, the
"decipherment" makes no sense. Peacham in his genuine anagrams does not
use such abbreviations as "nom" for "nomen," and his Latin is better than
Clark's or Astley-Cock's or Dickson's: he does not use "tibi" where one
would properly use "tuum." When Peacham uses someone's name in a Latin
poem or epigram, he gives the Latin version of the name, not the English:
John Dowland is "Iohannes Doulandus." The Latin form of Oxford's family
name is not "de Vere" but "Verus." Thus, if Peacham had wanted to say in
Latin "Thy name is de Vere," he would not have used "tibi," he would not
have used "nom," he would not have used "de Vere." Fourth, Peacham's
anagrams give us names or titles, not such superfluous paddings as "thy
name is." Thus he builds anagrams on "Henricvs Hovvardvs Comes
Northamptonensis" not on "Tibi nom Hovvardvs"; on "Robertvs Caecilivs" not
on "Tibi nom Caecilivs"; on "Elisabetha Steuarta" not on "Tibi nom
Steuarta." If he had constructed an anagram for Oxford he would have used
something like "Edvvardvs Vervs Comes Oxfordiensis."
Roger A Stritmatter
> One more example: in last April's *Harper's*, Dan Wright said Athena "was
> known to all and sundry as 'the spear shaker,'" while Mark Anderson said
> "Elizabethans knew that Pallas Athena was known by the sobriquet 'the
> spear-shaker.'" This is one more bit that the Oxfordians have taken from
> the Baconians, and the claim was no truer a century ago than it is today,
> yet it continues to be repeated by those who should know better. What is
> the problem? Is is that Anderson and Wright don't care to check these
> things? If so, then why should we take them seriously about any other
> Oxfordian claims they pass along?
Terry --
This claim has *always* been true. And it was not taken from the Baconians.
The association between Minerva and spear-shaking is *proverbial*.
One Elizabethan who makes this association in an obvious manner is the
"E.K." of Spenser's *Fairie Queene*. In his glosse to the October Eclogue,
he refers to Minerva as
strange Bellona; the goddesse of battaile, that is Pallas, which may
therefore be called
queint for that (as Lucian saith) when Jupiter hir father was in traveile of
her, he caused
his sonne Volcane with his axe to hew her head. Out of which leaped forth
lustely a valiant damsell armed at all poyntes, whom seeing Vulcane so faire
and comely, lightly
leaping to her, proferred her some courtesie, which the Lady disdeigning,
*shaked her spear at him,* and threatned his saucinesse.
(emphasis added)
Carefull, Terry. You're adept at winning points on irrelevant points;
you're right, I should have read Clarke more closely. But her real mistake
was still the one I pointed out in my post (namely to suppose that
Videbor(is) was a valid form) -- and furthermore she published the
photographic evidence which provided the basis for a reader to form his own
judgement that the printed word is *not* Videbori; her mistake was not the
mistake frequently made by Stratfordians of attempting to conceal the
limitations and weaknesses of their own arguments. It was a mistake of
accuracy in reproducing the empirical evidence: she should have written
"Videbor(i)" or "videboris" and she ommitted the parenthesis
Neither Dickson nor I, however has made the mistakes of which you accuse us.
Apparently, Clarke did. In focusing on her more relevant mistake I
overlooked this fact. mea culpa.
And, of course, *videbor* is a perfectly valid form -- no one ever said it
wasn't. But you are still begging *many* relevant questions and preaching
the virtues of ignorance. You don't like to make anything of the dot
Peacham's pen is making. That's your priviledge. Others reserve the right
to speculate that it does have a purpose. What that purpose is, remains to
be seen. And I can promise you won't read about it first on HLAS (with
apologies to all).
This one, however, matters. You and Dave are just plain wrong if you claim
that there is no association between Minerva and spear shaking -- just as
you were wrong in your original claims that the word "vultus" couldn't mean
spear in Harvey's *Gratulationes Valdensis*. The fact that you modified
your position on that subject is all to your credit: As you no doubt are
now aware, the word is frequently translated into the English word "spear."
And now you will have to modify your position on the "spear shaker"
Minerva also. The fact that you became the first to raise this issue in the
context of discussion of MB shows that you are fully aware of the horrendous
implications of having to do so -- but so be it.
Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
> One can, with a bit of trouble, find anagrams everywhere. "Mark Alexander"
> is an anagram of "dark renal exam," but the anagram sheds no light on Mark
> or others of his kidney.
Aren't you impressive, Terry!
Roger A Stritmatter
If he had constructed an anagram for Oxford he would have used
> something like "Edvvardvs Vervs Comes Oxfordiensis."
Notice how Terry can literally explain *everything*. Indeed, he appears to
be able to read Henry Peacham's mind! His reasoning is as follows: because
I have never seen an instance of Peacham constructing a bilingual anagram I
know that he would never do so, and everyone should agree with me. "
Tibi is a perfectly correct dative of the possessor--Terry.
And Peacham uses quite a number of abbreviations in his book.
Roger A Stritmatter
> > What I did was to point out the weaknesses in Dickson's claim that
"There
> > can be no question that a deliberate calculation was made to fudge the
> > Latin inscription to create an anagram." Of course you are sad to learn
> > that a piece that Oxfordians are so proud of was (let us be mild)
written
> > with perhaps less care than one might have hoped.
>
> No. I am sad at your continuing dishonesty. Your paragraph above is an
> example of one the reasons I have *left* this forum (mainly in the sense
of
> expecting and attempting to engage in honest and open debate...I check in
on
> occasion).
>
> You see, Terry, you answer my statement above with a paragraph of
> misdirection (meaning a dishonest attempt to focus attention on something
> other than acknowledging the truth of my statement) and then later you
> present these revealing statements that indeed support my statement:
One might add that unlike Terry, who in effect has nothing to defend,
Dickson is explicitly making an argument in his essay. Like all arguments,
it can be criticized. Maybe be overstates his case. There are, however,
many reasons --all of them ignored by Terry-- for thinking that the TP of
Minerva includes an anagram -- perhaps more than one. But you won't hear
Terry acknowledge any of those, because the essence of his presence is
negative. He exists on this forum to *react* to whatever he thinks the most
threatening (and vulnerable) anti-Stratfordian of the moment happens to be.
Even his historical forays, such as his recent documentation of the history
of MB in Baconian research, are attempts to put down the Oxfordians.
It is understandable that this would be the case, isn't it, Mark? After
all, how could anyone in the year 2000 actually put much sincere effort into
trying to persuade others that the Stratford man wrote the works? All that
can be done is a kind of holding pattern, in which one does one's best to
forestall the inevitable by throwing dust in the eyes of the jury.
Roger Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.000305...@mail.bcpl.net...
> On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
>
> >
> > Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
> > news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0003011029140.21851-100000@
> >
> > > I'm glad Bill Boyle has put up as much as he has, but I wish there
were
> > > even more Oxfordian targets -- er, essays -- that were freely
available.
> >
> > This is a very telling statement, Terry. Your stance is the classic
> > xenophobic one: kill or maim that which is alien to you. Hence,
anything
> > written by anyone you consider an Oxfordian is "a target."
>
> As my namesake said, "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." I find
> it amusing that Oxfordians feel they are being threatened with "killing"
> or "maiming" when the only threat I pose is that of pointing out their
> blunders.
Terry -- I was pointing out the violence of your language. You are in
essence a violent person, or perhaps it is merely the case that you have
adopted a cause which requires the continual threat of violence to effect
its purposes. You effect to disguise this with humor, and perhaps that
works with some readers who already share your very deep need to believe an
empty abstraction.
> > That attitude is what caused Mark Alexander and a number of other minds
> > which put yours to shame to leave this forum.
>
> Keep repeating the canard and you may believe it. Mark has posted here
> many times since you first lifted that duck, although your descriptions of
> its field marks seem to vary considerably.
I think Mark has spoken for himself on this issue in the present thread.
> >
Mark ALexander
Mark ALexander
> On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Mark Alexander wrote:
>
> > I should also add how sad it is the Strats would attempt to argue that
> > the cover of Minerva could not represent an anagram.
>
> What I did was to point out the weaknesses in Dickson's claim that "There
> can be no question that a deliberate calculation was made to fudge the
> Latin inscription to create an anagram." Of course you are sad to learn
> that a piece that Oxfordians are so proud of was (let us be mild) written
> with perhaps less care than one might have hoped.
No. I am sad at your continuing dishonesty. Your paragraph above is an
example of one the reasons I have *left* this forum (mainly in the sense of
expecting and attempting to engage in honest and open debate...I check in on
occasion).
You see, Terry, you answer my statement above with a paragraph of
misdirection (meaning a dishonest attempt to focus attention on something
other than acknowledging the truth of my statement) and then later you
present these revealing statements that indeed support my statement:
> There are, as I have said, many problems with the proposed Oxfordian
> anagram "mente videbori"= "tibi nom de vere." First it is not labeled as
> an anagram, and since Peacham has not provided the "decipherment," there
> is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at all.
You admit that "there is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at
all."
Your implied logic is that all anagrams are announced. That the image has no
bearing on the matter. Can you even *feel* the shifting sands beneath your
feet?
Of course, following your very standardized protocol, you will not honestly
acknowledge your error, but you will simply respond with:
a) more misdirection, usually in the form of piles and piles information
only tenuously related to the original proposition, but enough to get people
off on another track and away from the original discussion. For example,
since I did not mention Peacham in my response to you above, you can splits
hairs on that fact and take everyone off on a tangent.
b) some kind of Clintonian defense along the lines of "it depends on what
the definition of 'is' is...this amounts to more misdirection, but along the
lines of not seeing the forest for the trees. If you cannot pile on
information that leads one out into another location, you drill down into
the earth so that once again the original discussion is lost.
c) slurs or sarcasm.
You could of course combine all three: (" Mark, you say 'You admit that
"there is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at all."' But you
fail to notice that I am not talking about ALL anagrams. Only those by
Peacham. Really, Mark, you must try to be more precise. But like most
Oxfordians, precision is not one of your interests, is it? For example, last
year you wrote "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" and I respnded with
"blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" and of course you never responded,
so that means you must have conceded my point...")
So there will probably be no reason for me to continue with this thread.
Your dishonest methods are known, and I no longer fall for them.
Of course, you can always fall back on:
d) ignore.
Mark Alexander
www.sourcetext.com
PWDBard
Minerva Britanna. Ross and Kathman want to rule out totally any possibility
that the inscription might contain an anagram (which in this particular context
would logically have something to do with the person concealed behind the
curtain). Although many might have gotten a different impression until now, I
should make clear that personally (as an historian) I am highly skeptical of
anagrams, crypto-grams, and even literary evidence/allusions,etc. because they
are open to such a wide range of subjective opinion, a point which Kathman has
made eleswhere. So unless something is quite emphatic, I will not touch it
with a ten-foot pole. However, in this particular case, especially given the
clear visual theme of the concealment of a person's identity (no can deny
this!) behind a curtain, the possibility of an anagram hits you right in the
face, regardless of rules, formulas, etc. Indeed, almost any reader of Minevra
would attempt (actually be tempted) to crack the inscription as an anagram no
matter what Peacham's intention. In fact, Peacham's presentation is an open
invitation to do so, almost taunting a reader to see if he can solve a mystery.
I do not see how Peacham could possibly draw/create such a visual depiction of
concealment and at the same time be totally oblivious to the virtual certainty
that the inscription he wrote would be a target for some would-be anagram
sleuths among his readers. I find that idea totally illogical and irrational.
Taking all these factors into consideration, I think that for me as for Roger
Stritmatter and Mark Alexander, the only question is what name is in the
anagram. And was or was not the pen placed in a position to create the visual
impression of an extra "i"? If that was not the intention, then there is
little reason for the pen (the hand) to be attempting to writing anything more
at all. The inscription could have just ended right there after "Mente".
Your Friend, Peter Dickson
Tom Reedy
news:TsZw4.7327$xe1.3...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
So in other words, you have no rebuttal for Terry's statement.
Who said the spirit of Richard Kennedy lives no more on hlas?
TR
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> The association between Minerva and spear-shaking is *proverbial*.
>
> One Elizabethan who makes this association in an obvious manner is the
> "E.K." of Spenser's *Fairie Queene*. In his glosse to the October
> Eclogue, he refers to Minerva as
>
> strange Bellona; the goddesse of battaile, that is Pallas, which may
> therefore be called queint for that (as Lucian saith) when Jupiter
hir father was in traveile of her, he caused his sonne Volcane with his
> axe to hew her head. Out of which leaped forth lustely a valiant
> damsell armed at all poyntes, whom seeing Vulcane so faire
> and comely, lightly leaping to her, proferred her some courtesie,
> which the Lady disdeigning, *shaked her spear at him,* and
> threatned his saucinesse.
Ah, and I suppose Minerva the threatener is proverbial, too, and
Minerva, the Disdeigner--and Vulcan, the Ax-Wielder, and Vulcan, the
Proferrer, as well as the Light Leaper.
I'll let Terry demolish the rest of Roger's moronic post--though I doubt
that he can trounce him quite to the extent that he did in his previous
to this thread, which was a masterpiece of incisive unanswerability.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
been in his arguments against you on Peachum, why don't you show us how
a scholar and a gentleman like yourself would handle a similar situation
by refuting Peter Farey's claim that the inscription on the monument to
Shakespeare says that Marlowe is back, and thus refutes your stand on
Peachum's anagram.
Terry Ross
>
> > One more example: in last April's *Harper's*, Dan Wright said Athena "was
> > known to all and sundry as 'the spear shaker,'" while Mark Anderson said
> > "Elizabethans knew that Pallas Athena was known by the sobriquet 'the
> > spear-shaker.'" This is one more bit that the Oxfordians have taken from
> > the Baconians, and the claim was no truer a century ago than it is today,
> > yet it continues to be repeated by those who should know better. What is
> > the problem? Is is that Anderson and Wright don't care to check these
> > things? If so, then why should we take them seriously about any other
> > Oxfordian claims they pass along?
>
> Terry --
>
> This claim has *always* been true. And it was not taken from the Baconians.
> The association between Minerva and spear-shaking is *proverbial*.
Roger, you are making a different and weaker claim than the one Wright and
Anderson advanced, and I must say I don't blame you one bit. Instead of
saying that "the spear-shaker" was her common sobriquet or epithet (which
is false), you say that she was sometimes associated with spear shaking,
which is sort of true -- I say "sort of," because Minerva was one of a
great many figures who from time to time shook a spear, but it is false to
say that "the spear-shaker" was an epithet for Minerva the way
"earth-shaker" was for Poseidon or "the thunderer" was for Jove. Ovid
could call Jove "tonans" and without his otherwise referring to the god,
readers knew who he meant. Athena/Minerva had a great many common
epithets, but "the spear-shaker" was not one of them. Although many
Oxfordians (and Baconians before them) have asserted that "hastivibrans"
was an epithet of Minerva, that word appears to have been coined by Thomas
Fuller, and it was from the first a witty tribute to William Shakespeare
of Stratford on Avon.
> One Elizabethan who makes this association in an obvious manner is the
> "E.K." of Spenser's *Fairie Queene*. In his glosse to the October
> Eclogue, he refers to Minerva as
>
> strange Bellona; the goddesse of battaile, that is Pallas, which may
> therefore be called queint for that (as Lucian saith) when Jupiter hir
> father was in traveile of her, he caused his sonne Volcane with his
> axe to hew her head. Out of which leaped forth lustely a valiant
> damsell armed at all poyntes, whom seeing Vulcane so faire and comely,
> lightly leaping to her, proferred her some courtesie, which the Lady
> disdeigning, *shaked her spear at him,* and threatned his saucinesse.
This won't do, Roger. As I have posted, Athena (or Minerva -- here E.K.
conflates her with Bellona, who is usually a different deity, and does not
use the name "Minerva" at all) does from time to time "shake" things.
Sometimes she shakes a spear, sometimes she shakes the aegis, sometimes
she shakes other things. So do many other classical figures. What is not
true is to say that she was commonly called "the spear-shaker." There was
no such classical epithet for her in Greek or Latin. Nor do we find her
commonly called "the spear-shaker" in English of the period (I say
"commonly," but as of today I don't know of even one instance -- do you?).
Dave and I have been collecting passages in English literature where
"spear" appears near "shake," and E.K.'s note makes the list:
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/spershak.html
Among other items on the list are these lines from the Phaer/Twynne
*Aeneid*:
Thou god, thy custome is, to shake triumphant hie thy speares,
Thy cheife delite is daunse, thou comely keepest thy holy heares.
[Book 7, ll. 409-410]
Can you guess who the god is? Here are more passages from the same work:
On totherside Messapus sharpe, and Latines fierce to fight,
And Coras with his brother, and Camillas winge so bright
Standforth against them in the field, and launces fast do make
Within their restes, & pointes of trembling speares fast charged shake,
Their foes abode, and noise of steedes them sore on fier do set.
[Book 11, ll. 625-629]
Aeneas forcing forth a mighty speare in hand doth shake
Of sturdy timber framde, and with great courage thus he spake.
[Book 12, ll. 952-953]
Whilst thus he doubtes, Aeneas forth his speare doth shake in sight,
And vauntadge watcheth with his eie, and strait with all his might,
Afar he flings it forth. [Book 12, ll. 986-988]
Once again we have "spear" near "shake," but no Minerva. Here's a nice
bit from Barnabe Barnes's *Partenophil and Partenophe*:
When Mars return'd from warre,
Shaking his speare a farre
Cupid beheld:
At him in iest Mars shak'd his speare,
Which Cupid with his darte did barre
Which millions quelled:
Then Mars desierd his darte to beare,
But soone the waight his force did marre.
[Ode 15, ll. 9-16]
Now it is Mars who shakes a spear. Read through the other examples and
you'll see that the proximity of "shake" and "spear" has no necessary
connection to Minerva -- in fact, finding "shake" near "spear" near
"Minerva" (or "Athena" or "Pallas") is a pretty tough trifecta, while it
is actually easier to find "Mars" or "Aeneas" near "shake" and
"spear." Now, there are, surely, more examples of "shake" near
"spear," and when I find them I will add them to the list. If you have
others, please let me know.
Any guess yet about the god in this line: "Thou god, thy custome is, to
shake triumphant hie thy speares"?
Let us note that Roger has not attempted to defend Anderson's and Wright's
claims that the goddess was known as "the spear-shaker." Both Anderson
and Wright put the phrase in quotation marks, but Roger has produced not a
single instance in support. If Roger will leaf through emblem books of
the period (I have checked Peacham, Whitney, and Alciato), he will see
that while Minerva is often (but not always) depicted with a spear or
lance, she is NOT shown shaking the weapon, or even leveling it.
> Carefull, Terry. You're adept at winning points on irrelevant points;
> you're right, I should have read Clarke more closely. But her real mistake
> was still the one I pointed out in my post (namely to suppose that
> Videbor(is) was a valid form) -- and furthermore she published the
> photographic evidence which provided the basis for a reader to form his own
> judgement that the printed word is *not* Videbori; her mistake was not the
> mistake frequently made by Stratfordians of attempting to conceal the
> limitations and weaknesses of their own arguments.
At the moment I only have Miller's redaction of Clark's discussion, which
does not support your reading; I should have my hand on Clark's book in a
few days, and I'll take a look. I do know that at least some Oxfordians
were not persuaded that there was no "i" after "videbor" until I put up an
extreme closeup of part of the emblem and flipped it:
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/pix/mbtitlecc.gif
> It was a mistake of accuracy in reproducing the empirical evidence:
> she should have written "Videbor(i)" or "videboris" and she ommitted
> the parenthesis
Roger, she saw "videbori," not "videbor." Astley-Cock saw "videbori" not
"videbor." Dickson saw "videbori" not "videbor." Dickson NOW uses
"videbor(i)," to suggest that he isn't sure whether the "i" is there, but
he did not use this construction in his essay, and he certainly professed
no doubt about the presence of the phantom "i." By the way, not only is
there no "i" after "videbor," there are no parentheses around the
nonexistent "i."
> Neither Dickson nor I, however has made the mistakes of which you
> accuse us. Apparently, Clarke did. In focusing on her more relevant
> mistake I overlooked this fact. mea culpa.
Astley-Cock made the same mistake, as did Dickson. Fortunately, things
are beginning to turn around in Oxfordlandia, on this matter at least, and
you are now back where the Baconians were in 1910. Congratulations. You
are also, it would appear, about to embark on a Baconian hunt for ciphers,
and I wish you every success.
> And, of course, *videbor* is a perfectly valid form -- no one ever
> said it wasn't. But you are still begging *many* relevant questions
> and preaching the virtues of ignorance.
I don't think so, Roger. I have always stressed the importance of doing
one's homework rather than merely spouting off. To deal with Dickson's
essay I looked not merely at the title page of *Minerva Britanna* and a
few paragraphs from *The Compleat Gentleman* but the entire works as well
as many other writings by and about Peacham. I looked for other
contemporary lists of notable poets and found more than a dozen that
include Spenser and Daniel but omit Shakespeare (far more than the number
that include Spenser and Shakespeare but omit Daniel). I have looked at
other emblem books of the period. I only wish Dickson had read Peacham
more carefully and thoroughly before he published his essays.
> You don't like to make anything of the dot Peacham's pen is making.
> That's your priviledge. Others reserve the right to speculate that it
> does have a purpose. What that purpose is, remains to be seen. And I
> can promise you won't read about it first on HLAS (with apologies to
> all).
The dot marks the end of a word. It is false to say I have not made
anything of the dot, because I have pointed out on HLAS other instances in
Peacham where a dot is used to mark the end of a word.
> This one, however, matters. You and Dave are just plain wrong if you
> claim that there is no association between Minerva and spear shaking
> --
As I have consistently said, Minerva is one of a great many figures who
from time to time shakes things. Aeneas is another. Mars is another.
The army of Brute shook spears, as should the Scots, as did the heavenly
host. Rinald shook a spear. Spears were shaken against Sidney. Bauld
Bacleuch could shake a spear. What is not true is that Minerva went by
the sobriquet "the spear-shaker." It also, of course, is not true that
the various people who shook spears had any necessary connection to the
theater.
> just as you were wrong in your original claims that the word "vultus"
> couldn't mean spear in Harvey's *Gratulationes Valdensis*.
Roger, please quote to me anyplace on this forum where I said that. I
have posted thousands of words on that extraordinarily fascinating
question, and I know in my heart of hearts that Latin-loving lurkers can
hardly wait for another installment.
My original position was doubt. I saw the claim in Ogburn that the
incessant association of Oxford with spears and spear-shaking was
evidence, but from what I had seen of Ward's translating of Latin I was
skeptical. A friend transcribed the complete text of the Oxford section
of Harvey and sent it to me, and not till then did I know just how wrong
Ogburn was. My position was then (and still is) that of the three places
where Ward used "spear," two are flat-out wrong and the third is highly
unlikely. Since I now have been through all of *Gratulationes
Valdinenses* I also now know that for 50 years the Oxfordians have been
pushing the demonstrably false claim that Harvey called Burghley "Polus"
in that volume. I also (for reasons I have posted) reject your friend and
colleague Andrew Hannas's double reading of "vultus tela vibrat."
> The fact that you modified your position on that subject is all to
> your credit: As you no doubt are now aware, the word is frequently
> translated into the English word "spear."
My position on "vultus tela vibrat" has only been more strongly confirmed
as I have looked more deeply into the matter. I have been surprised at
how infrequently "tela" is rendered as "spears" in Elizabethan
translations -- even when the weapons in question are the kind of thing a
modern translator would render as "spears." To date, no Oxfordian has
supplemented my searches of Golding's *Metamorphoses* or the Phaer/Twynne
*Aeneid* or the Douay-Rheims Bible with his or her own searches through
some of the other great translations of the time. Now, I did not know
when I started what I would find. As some readers may recall, I thought
it would be interesting to see how Golding translated "telum, -i." Since
he was Oxford's uncle, and since Oxfordians commonly refer to him (without
evidence) as the lad's "tutor," and since some Oxfordians even profess to
believe that Oxford himself wrote Golding's translation (a surmise for
which there is no evidence), that seemed a reasonable place to search.
Some Oxfordians (including Mark Alexander) encouraged my efforts.
> And now you will have to modify your position on the "spear shaker"
> Minerva also.
There actually has been a modification of my position on this issue.
Originally, since so may Oxfordians assured me that "spear-shaker" was an
epithet for Minerva, I thought there might be some merit in the claim
(until I checked, I also thought there might be some merit in the "Polus"
story). Although I couldn't recall an instance of such an epithet's being
used, I thought that once I started looking systematically I would find
them easily. I'm still looking. Along the way, I have traced the story
back to 1877, when a Baconian was told that whether anybody ever used the
epithet is beside the point, since "anybody MIGHT have called her
allegorically 'the Shake-spear goddess'" [emphasis added]. Anybody might
have, but nobody did.
> The fact that you became the first to raise this issue in the context
> of discussion of MB shows that you are fully aware of the horrendous
> implications of having to do so -- but so be it.
The implications are not at all horrendous. If you find instances before
1640 of "shake" near "spear," please send them along, and I'll add them to
the list, whether they have anything to do with Minerva or not. If you or
your friends or colleagues wish to search other Elizabethan translations
to see how "telum, -i" was rendered, I would welcome such efforts,
whatever the results.
One last time -- can you name the god referred to in this line: "Thou god,
thy custome is, to shake triumphant hie thy speares"?
Terry Ross
> From: "Terry Ross" <tr...@bcpl.net>
>
> > On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Mark Alexander wrote:
> >
> > > I should also add how sad it is the Strats would attempt to argue that
> > > the cover of Minerva could not represent an anagram.
> >
> > What I did was to point out the weaknesses in Dickson's claim that "There
> > can be no question that a deliberate calculation was made to fudge the
> > Latin inscription to create an anagram." Of course you are sad to learn
> > that a piece that Oxfordians are so proud of was (let us be mild) written
> > with perhaps less care than one might have hoped.
>
> No. I am sad at your continuing dishonesty.
Ah; perhaps we can cheer you up.
> Your paragraph above is an example of one the reasons I have *left*
> this forum (mainly in the sense of expecting and attempting to engage
> in honest and open debate...I check in on occasion).
That and the poison, right? Roger says it was the poison.
> You see, Terry, you answer my statement above with a paragraph of
> misdirection (meaning a dishonest attempt to focus attention on
> something other than acknowledging the truth of my statement)
I have never called anybody on this newsgroup a liar. That said, I reject
your characterization of my analysis of Dickson's essay on Peacham as ever
claiming to have "argue[d] that the cover of Minerva could not represent
an anagram." Since you are on an honesty kick, perhaps you would like to
quote my words to back up your claim.
> and then later you present these revealing statements that indeed
> support my statement:
As we shall soon see, Mark does not support his statement.
>
> > There are, as I have said, many problems with the proposed Oxfordian
> > anagram "mente videbori"= "tibi nom de vere." First it is not labeled as
> > an anagram, and since Peacham has not provided the "decipherment," there
> > is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at all.
>
> You admit that "there is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at
> all."
Admit? I do more than "admit." I look at how Peacham actually constructs
and presents his anagrams. Did Dickson do this? No. Have you done this?
No. Peacham in *The Compleat Gentleman* quotes some of his *Minerva
Britanna* anagrams and gives a few new ones; he takes nothing from the
title page of *Minerva Britanna*. Now, as I pointed out, one can always
"find" anagrams wherever one looks, but that does not mean they were
placed there deliberately.
> Your implied logic is that all anagrams are announced.
I looked at Peacham, on the assumption that he is a pretty good guide to
his own book. Peacham is justly proud of his anagrams, some of which are
very clever. His practice is to present the name and its anagram and to
credit the author of the anagram. Thus the emblem on page 42 "To the
right worshipfull Sir Edmund Ashfield Knight" presents the name "Edmund
Ashfield." and the anagram "I fledd unshamed." A marginal note tell us
"Anagramma authoris" -- this anagram was by Peacham, as are most of the
anagrams in the book; he credits the authors of those he did not write.
> That the image has no bearing on the matter. Can you even *feel* the
> shifting sands beneath your feet?
Peacham's practice in anagramming has every possible bearing on the matter
when the question is whether a line that exists on a book he wrote and
designed is an anagram. The image may have a bearing on whether the
anagram is apt: the Ashfield example is very clever.
> Of course, following your very standardized protocol, you will not
> honestly acknowledge your error, but you will simply respond with:
If I have made an error, I am willing to acknowledge it. What error did I
commit?
> a) more misdirection, usually in the form of piles and piles
> information only tenuously related to the original proposition, but
> enough to get people off on another track and away from the original
> discussion. For example, since I did not mention Peacham in my
> response to you above, you can splits hairs on that fact and take
> everyone off on a tangent.
Peacham's ideas about anagrams are not tangential but central to a
discussion about the possible existence of anagrams in Peacham. I would
apologize for providing quotations from Peacham but for two things: most
readers of this newsgroup don't have a copy of Peacham on hand to refer
to, and most Oxfordians who have posted on this question show little or no
familiarity with *Minerva Britanna*. This means that the "piles and piles
of information" are actually news to many readers, or at least those who
manage to wade through the posts.
> b) some kind of Clintonian defense along the lines of "it depends on
> what the definition of 'is' is...this amounts to more misdirection,
> but along the lines of not seeing the forest for the trees. If you
> cannot pile on information that leads one out into another location,
> you drill down into the earth so that once again the original
> discussion is lost.
I have strong opinions about Clinton, which I will not share with you, but
your description of my failings would have been improved if there had been
the least scrap of support for it. Rather than accusing me of doing X,
you should say, "Terry did X when he said, '....'" For the ellipsis,
insert your example of my malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance, as the
case may be.
> c) slurs or sarcasm.
I see: when you call us "ostriches" you are making an ornithological
observation, but when -- well, there was no language I used that amounted
to a "slur," so I cannot provide an example (nor am I surprised that you
did not).
>
> You could of course combine all three: (" Mark, you say 'You admit that
> "there is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at all."' But you
> fail to notice that I am not talking about ALL anagrams. Only those by
> Peacham. Really, Mark, you must try to be more precise. But like most
> Oxfordians, precision is not one of your interests, is it? For example, last
> year you wrote "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" and I respnded with
> "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" and of course you never responded,
> so that means you must have conceded my point...")
You don't wish to quote me -- that's fine. Let me quote Dickson -- after
all, it was his article that got things going -- and my responses to what
he advances as the grounds for believing that there is an anagram:
===============
DICKSON: There are several obvious clues that Peacham has given us an
anagram containing the true name of the mysterious writer. First, as
Clark and Astley-Cock observe, "mente." is followed by a totally
superfluous period in terms of Latin grammar and also flanked by the
intriguing letters E and V.
The Latin words are separated by periods that let us know when one word
ends and the next begins. While Dickson calls the periods "superfluous,"
if he had paid more attention to them he would have realized that
"ingenio" was a single word, because there was a period before the "in"
but a hyphen after, and another period after "genio." There are periods
after "vivitur," after "ingenio," after "erunt," after "mente" and after
"videbor." The emblems on pages 35 and 42 of the work also have Latin
phrases containing "totally superfluous periods" that separate words:
"EST.HAC.ALMVS.Honor," "TANTO.CLARIOR". The periods in these other mottos
are flanked by such pairs of letters as T and H, C and A, S and H, and O
and C, but to Oxfordians, these pairs are not all that "intriguing." It
would appear that Dickson never bothered to look at anything in Peacham's
book other than the title page.
DICKSON: Second, if the writer was not writing an anagram, he would have
either stopped at "mente videbor" which means "I shall be seen" or have
continued on to write "mente videberis" which means "he shall be seen".
He DID stop at "mente videbor"; so by Dickson's reasoning, there must not
have been an anagram. Dickson's surmise that incorrect Latin would be a
sign of an anagram is rather strange, and shows, once again, that he has
not looked into Peacham's book very carefully, if at all. For someone who
plays seriously with anagrams, like Peacham, grammatical errors would be
something to avoid: it would be cheating if the only way to get an anagram
were to violate the normal standards of a language. As it happens,
Peacham included a number of genuine anagrams in *Minerva Britanna* (some
of which also appear in *The Compleat Gentleman* ) and he very helpfully
labels each one "Anagramma." Thus we have such anagrams as
"Henricvs VValliae Princeps" = "Par Achillis, Puer vne vinces."
"Thomas Chalonerus" = "Est hac almus honor."
"Iohannes Doulandus" = "Annos ludendo hausi."
[snip]
DICKSON: However, the writer did not choose either of these grammatically
correct options, and we know that Peacham knew his Latin. Instead, he
stops abruptly after drawing one extra letter -- in this case, the letter
"i" which is obviously desired to complete an anagram.
It is correct to say that Peacham knew his Latin; Dickson is otherwise
incorrect here. Again, the last "I" of "Videbori" that the Oxfordians
insist upon simply isn't there. Most of Peacham's emblems are not
anagrams, and those that are he clearly (and proudly) labels and then
explains. Dickson's essay is full of constructions such as "is obviously
desired," which invariably signify that he is just making something up.
Whatever he wishes were true is something that "obviously" must be so, and
since it is "obvious" to Dickson, there is no need of evidence.
DICKSON: Furthermore, the writer evidently did not wish to have to replace
the "o" in "videbor" with an "e" which would have been required in proper
Latin if he had proceeded to complete "videberis" with the final "s".
"Videbor" is perfectly proper Latin: first person future passive
indicative -- "I shall be seen."
DICKSON: Thus, Peacham deemed an extra "i" and the retention of the letter
"o" essential to convey something about the writer, in this case his true
identity.
On the contrary: Peacham's name appears in large letters on the title
page, thereby conveying his true identity to the reader. If anyone misses
the name there, it is also signed to the dedication, epistle, and
Peacham's Latin panegyric to Prince Henry; and it appears in large letters
on the title page for part 2 of the work. The commendatory poems also
mention Peacham's name. Nobody ever refers to Edward de Vere.
DICKSON: There can be no question that a deliberate calculation was made
to fudge the Latin inscription to create an anagram. For otherwise, the
writer would simply have stopped with "videbor" or gone on to write
"videberis".
Note the construction "there can be no question," which is another way of
saying, "I have no evidence but I really really really need to believe."
Peacham did indeed stop with "videbor" (or, more precisely, with the dot
that follows the word). "Videberis mente" wouldn't make much sense, given
the nature of Peacham's project. Why should he tell the reader, "You will
be remembered?"
=============
Reader's will note that (pace Stritmatter) Dickson really thought there
was an "i" after "videbor." Note that I responded to every single reason
(or "obvious clue") Dickson offered for suspecting the presence of an
anagram. Note that he is wrong about every one of those "obvious clues."
Now, when a person says there are X-many reasons for suspecting the
presence of an anagram, and when each of those X-many proposed reasons is
shown to be without merit, how many does that leave?
Mark's point, I guess, is that on the Phaeton list (to which I am not
privy) other reasons have been advanced, and I have not refuted them.
> So there will probably be no reason for me to continue with this
> thread. Your dishonest methods are known, and I no longer fall for
> them.
Mark, you obviously went through some hard times a few years ago. I
thought of you as a person with whom I would probably always disagree but
with whom it was possible to communicate. You have soured since then, or
perhaps I have soured you ("poisoned" you in Roger's words), and I am
sorry for that. It seems to me that a neutral observer, looking at our
exchanges over the years, would be hard-pressed to make the case that the
greater honesty was on your side and the quicker resort to personal abuse
was on my side -- but I cannot fairly judge my own case. We do not always
notice the harms we unwittingly inflict. Newsgroups are prone to flyting,
and I may have indulged more than is good for me.
>
> Of course, you can always fall back on:
>
> d) ignore.
You are a puzzle that I cannot quite ignore.
Terry Ross
Not really, Roger. A good anagram should seem to say something about the
person. Dick Cavett saw "I Love Drag" in "Gore Vidal," which is pretty
clever, but finding "Trims Great Retort" in "Roger Stritmatter" would
only be impressive if you were the sort of person who, in responding to
rebuttals, quotes only the parts you think you can counter and snips the
parts you cannot refute. Another unimpressive anagram is
"Terry Ross = "Story Errs"
which doesn't seem to fit me at all, does it?
Terry Ross
> I think that Mark Alexander makes the central point once again
> concerning Minerva Britanna. Ross and Kathman want to rule out
> totally any possibility that the inscription might contain an anagram
> (which in this particular context would logically have something to do
> with the person concealed behind the curtain).
Peter, the posts about anagrams have been by me, Terry Ross, and not by
Dave. Mark Alexander did not accurately report my views. What I have
done is counter your claims to have demonstrated that a deliberate anagram
does in fact exist on the title page. I have pointed out that you
incorrectly believed that the word "videbor" was actually "videbori," and
I have refuted all of the reasons you offered for the belief that there
was indeed an anagram. You may have come up with new reasons to replace
those that were in your article, and if you wish to present them we can
discuss them.
> Although many might have gotten a different impression until now, I
> should make clear that personally (as an historian) I am highly
> skeptical of anagrams, crypto-grams, and even literary
> evidence/allusions,etc. because they are open to such a wide range of
> subjective opinion, a point which Kathman has made eleswhere.
I don't think we need to entertain the possibility of any alleged cipher
unless that cipher can meet the standards of William and Elizabeth
Friedman in their classic work *Shakespearean Ciphers Examined*. I know
of no Shakespearean cipher that meets these standards. Literary
evidence/allusions are a different matter. While indebtedness is not
always possible to demonstrate, there is no doubt that Shakespeare used
North's Plutarch as a source of for *Antony and Cleopatra* or that Peacham
relied very heavily on Puttenham's *Art of English Poesie* in his comments
on English poetry in *The Complete Gentleman*.
> So unless something is quite emphatic, I will not touch it with a
> ten-foot pole.
Peacham was skilled at creating anagrams, and he has given us several in
his book. He points them out by giving both the name and the phrase that
is an anagram of it, and he also lets us know who devised the anagram.
I'd say he is sufficiently "emphatic" in those cases. For the nearly
200 other emblems, those for which he does not include anagrams, I see no
point in looking for them, except the sheer fun of anagramming. As I have
said in another response on this thread, it is possible to find anagrams
just about everywhere (e.g., "Peter Dickson" = "Nicer Desktop").
> However, in this particular case, especially given the clear visual
> theme of the concealment of a person's identity (no can deny this!)
> behind a curtain, the possibility of an anagram hits you right in the
> face, regardless of rules, formulas, etc.
No it doesn't. It certainly did not hit you right in the face when you
wrote your essay, or you would have said so. It did not hit Peacham's
contemporaries in the face. It has not his critics or other readers in
the face, except for those Oxfordians who misread the motto -- and if they
hadn't been hitting themselves in the face, perhaps they would not have
hallucinated seeing the "i" after "videbor."
> Indeed, almost any reader of Minevra would attempt (actually be
> tempted) to crack the inscription as an anagram no matter what
> Peacham's intention.
This seems to be an empirical claim, and as such it would be capable of
being supported. Peacham has had many readers over the centuries, but I
know of almost none who have attempted to "crack" the motto as an anagram;
how many can you name? Thanks to the wonders of computers, it is easy
enough to generate English anagrams, such as the following, all of which
are formed from the letters in "mente videbor":
"entomb derive," "event bromide," "termed bovine," "berne vomited,"
"oven timbered," "bend overtime," "me bite vendor," "em bite vendor,"
"rob met veined," "orb met veined," "re tomb veined," "tin mob veered,"
"in tomb veered," "do even timber," "en dove timber," "vie mob tender,"
"et bin removed," "vie mob rented," "end bit remove," "den bit remove,"
"ten bid remove," "net bid remove," "din bet remove," "tin bed remove,"
"be dint remove," "in debt remove," "in bet removed," "et bind remove,"
"it bend remove," "be vote remind," "be veto remind," "me vote rebind,"
"em vote rebind," "me veto rebind," "em veto rebind," "et move rebind,"
"be rend motive," "en bred motive," "me rob evident," "re bend motive,"
"et even morbid," "vie bet modern," "be dove minter," "be rove minted,"
"be over minted," "vie bed mentor," "be vied mentor," "be dive mentor,"
"em rob evident," "be mode invert," "be dome invert," "be demo invert,"
"me bode invert," "em bode invert," "to brim evened," "rob met envied,"
"orb met envied," "re tomb envied," "vie red entomb," "re vied entomb,"
"me orb evident," "re dive entomb," "be omen divert," "me bone divert,"
"em bone divert," "rib men devote," "en brim devote," "ten mob derive,"
"net mob derive," "en tomb derive," "em orb evident," "in verb demote,"
"vie men debtor," "me vine debtor," "em vine debtor," "me vein debtor,"
"em vein debtor," "one mid brevet," "one dim brevet," "in mode brevet,"
"bet rein moved," "ten bier moved," "net bier moved," "ire bent moved,"
"tin beer moved," "en tribe moved," "re mob evident," "do mine brevet,"
"bed oven miter," "bet oven mired," "bed vote miner," "bed veto miner,"
"bet dove miner," "be voted miner," "toe verb mined," "bet rove mined,"
"bet over mined," "be voter mined," "be overt mined," "do mien brevet,"
"bed vine metro," "bed vein metro," "bid even metro," "vie bend metro,"
"bid oven meter," "bin dove meter," "vie bond meter," "rob vine meted,"
"orb vine meted," "ion verb meted," "on idem brevet," "rob vein meted,"
"orb vein meted," "bin rove meted," "bin over meted," "rib oven meted,"
"vie born meted," "bed oven merit," "bed move inter," "be moved inter,"
"bed move inert," "no idem brevet," "be moved inert," "mid robe event,"
"dim robe event," "mob ride event," "bid more event," "rib mode event,"
"rob idem event," "orb idem event," "rib dome event," "mob dire event,"
"in dome brevet," "rob dime event," "orb dime event," "rob diem event,"
"orb diem event," "rib demo event," "ode brim event," "doe brim event,"
"mid bore event," "dim bore event," "on dime brevet," "rim bode event,"
"mob vied enter," "bid move enter," "mob dive enter," "vie tomb ender,"
"bit move ender," "be vomit ender," "din vote ember," "ten void ember,"
"net void ember," "no dime brevet," "dot vine ember," "ton vied ember,"
"not vied ember," "din veto ember," "dot vein ember," "tin dove ember,"
"ton dive ember," "not dive ember," "in voted ember," "rot vine embed,"
"ton vier embed," "on diem brevet," "not vier embed," "rot vein embed,"
"vie torn embed," "tin rove embed," "tin over embed," "in voter embed,"
"on rivet embed," "no rivet embed," "in overt embed," "no diem brevet,"
"bin teem drove," "bee mint drove," "bet mine drove," "bet mien drove,"
"bin mete drove," "bin meet drove," "men bite drove," "mob teen drive,"
"bet omen drive," "met bone drive," "bin teem dover," "in demo brevet,"
"bee mint dover," "bet mine dover," "bet mien dover," "bin mete dover,"
"bin meet dover," "men bite dover," "mob teen diver," "bet omen diver,"
"met bone diver," "red met bovine," "bet move diner," "mob vine deter,"
"mob vein deter," "bin move deter," "bet vier demon," "tie verb demon,"
"bit veer demon," "bit ever demon," "be rivet demon," "men rove debit,"
"men over debit," "re venom debit," "en mover debit," "met dove brine,"
"me voted brine," "em voted brine," "et moved brine," "men vote bride,"
"men veto bride," "met oven bride," "vie met bonder," "ten move bride,"
"net move bride," "et venom bride," "mid tone breve," "dim tone breve,"
"nod time breve," "don time breve," "end omit breve," "den omit breve,"
"mid note breve," "dim note breve," "me vote binder," "tin mode breve,"
"ode mint breve," "doe mint breve," "dot mine breve," "toe mind breve,"
"dot mien breve," "nod item breve," "don item breve," "ton idem breve,"
"not idem breve," "em vote binder," "nod emit breve," "don emit breve,"
"tin dome breve," "ton dime breve," "not dime breve," "ton diem breve,"
"not diem breve," "tin demo breve," "on timed breve," "me veto binder,"
"no timed breve," "to mined breve," "it demon breve," "tin move breed,"
"en vomit breed," "it venom breed," "met vied borne," "met dive borne,"
"met vine bored," "met vein bored," "em veto binder," "met vied boner,"
"met dive boner," "met vier boned," "vie term boned," "me rivet boned,"
"em rivet boned," "end move biter," "den move biter," "men dove biter,"
"en moved biter," "mid vote berne," "et move binder," "dim vote berne,"
"met void berne," "mid veto berne," "dim veto berne," "it moved berne,"
"men void beret," "mid oven beret," "dim oven beret," "din move beret,"
"in moved beret," "men bet voider," "me bent voider," "em bent voider,"
"men bid vetoer," "be mind vetoer," "me bind vetoer," "em bind vetoer,"
"rib men vetoed," "en brim vetoed," "be tin removed," "ode bet vermin,"
"doe bet vermin," "dot bee vermin," "toe bed vermin," "be dote vermin,"
"et bode vermin," "do beet vermin," "mob ire vented," "be time vendor,"
"be item vendor," "be emit vendor," "en bit removed."
> In fact, Peacham's presentation is an open invitation to do so, almost
> taunting a reader to see if he can solve a mystery.
All that's missing is the invitation, the taunt, and the mystery.
Actually, there is a kind of mystery, which is why anybody should think
the mottoes on the cover refer to anyone but Peacham himself.
> I do not see how Peacham could possibly draw/create such a visual
> depiction of concealment and at the same time be totally oblivious to
> the virtual certainty that the inscription he wrote would be a target
> for some would-be anagram sleuths among his readers. I find that idea
> totally illogical and irrational.
Have you read much Peacham? Do you know his opinion of anagrams? They
are a pleasant amusement, and an opportunity for the exercise of wit. As
you may someday discover, one reason alleged anagrams cannot generally be
shown to be valid ciphers is that they admit of multiple solutions.
Peacham knew about the multiple possibilities, and he provided six
different anagrams for the name Amie Mordaunt.
> Taking all these factors into consideration, I think that for me as
> for Roger Stritmatter and Mark Alexander, the only question is what
> name is in the anagram.
I encourage you to look for anagrams at every occasion: you can hardly
fail to find them. Here are a few in English that include "Vere" (using
the letters in "mente videbor")
Demon Bit Vere.
Vere, Omit Bend.
Vere: No Dim Bet
Vere? Be Not Dim!
End It, Vere Mob!
> And was or was not the pen placed in a position to create the visual
> impression of an extra "i"?
Nope.
> If that was not the intention, then there is little reason for the pen
> (the hand) to be attempting to writing anything more at all. The
> inscription could have just ended right there after "Mente".
The hand is not writing anything more because it has just finished
writing. If it had ended after "mente" there would have been no
"videbor."
David Kathman
>
> Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.21.000305...@mail.bcpl.net...
> > On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
> > > news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0003011029140.21851-100000@
> > >
> > > > I'm glad Bill Boyle has put up as much as he has, but I wish there
> were
> > > > even more Oxfordian targets -- er, essays -- that were freely
> available.
> > >
> > > This is a very telling statement, Terry. Your stance is the classic
> > > xenophobic one: kill or maim that which is alien to you. Hence,
> anything
> > > written by anyone you consider an Oxfordian is "a target."
> >
> > As my namesake said, "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." I find
> > it amusing that Oxfordians feel they are being threatened with "killing"
> > or "maiming" when the only threat I pose is that of pointing out their
> > blunders.
>
> Terry -- I was pointing out the violence of your language. You are in
> essence a violent person, or perhaps it is merely the case that you have
> adopted a cause which requires the continual threat of violence to effect
> its purposes.
Roger:
Can you give the rest of us some specific examples of the
"violence" of Terry's language? Can you give us some specific
examples of "the continual threat of violence" in Terry's posts?
I do not recall any posts of Terry's which could be remotely
characterized as "violent". On the other hand, I can cite
numerous examples of abusive posts of yours, some containing
obscenities.
Terry Ross is one of the least violent human beings I know,
and that's saying quite a bit. He has been a model of
restraint and good humor in dealing with the claims and
accusations of you and other Oxfordians on this group. Your
gratuitous slanders against him have saddened me to no end,
and while he has done a very good job of defending his honor
recently, I could not stand by and let this one go unremarked.
Roger, let me be blunt: you are one of the most repulsive
human beings I have ever encountered, inside or outside the
Shakespeare authorship debate. This is just on a personal
level, although I also have very little respect for you
as a scholar based on the incredibly sloppy work I've seen.
For many years I refused to directly respond to anything you
posted, because I found the tone of most of it to be so offensive
that it wasn't worth bothering with, even if there was an
interesting point buried among all the abuse. Lately I have
occasionally responded to a number of your posts, generally
with no further response from you. I think I'm going to go
back to ignoring you and letting others respond as they see fit.
You are not worth the energy it takes to type out a response.
If any lurkers find some factual point in one of your posts that
they would like a response to, they can feel free to e-mail me
directly or post a query to the group, and I will do my best to
respond.
> You effect to disguise this with humor, and perhaps that
> works with some readers who already share your very deep need to believe an
> empty abstraction.
Terry's posts are generally the most substantial and least
empty on this newsgroup, containing lots of interesting
(documented) facts and primary data. Your characterization
here is so mind-bogglingly at variance with reality that
I can only shake my head, and hope that readers who have
been following this thread will be able to see through your
lies and slanders.
> > > That attitude is what caused Mark Alexander and a number of other minds
> > > which put yours to shame to leave this forum.
> >
> > Keep repeating the canard and you may believe it. Mark has posted here
> > many times since you first lifted that duck, although your descriptions of
> > its field marks seem to vary considerably.
>
> I think Mark has spoken for himself on this issue in the present thread.
Yes, he has, and Terry has responded ably as usual. Like Terry,
I used to find Mark to be a thoughtful opponent even when
I disagreed with him, but now I find his posts to be so shrill
and paranoid that I find it difficult to respond to them in any
substantive way. I don't know what happened to Mark; I have said
in the past that I hope the old Mark will return someday, but,
sadly, I'm not holding my breath.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
the URL of a fun site:
http://blazonry.com/scripting/wuname.php
Go there and put a person's name in the slot and you'll be told that
person's "Wu-Name." Some kind of program that randomly chooses from a
list of adjectives and a list of nouns to make a two-word epithet. I
found it to be amazing accurate. Here are pivotal results:
Bob Grumman's Wu-Name is "Excessive Genius"
Roger Stritmatter's is "Excessive Hunter," and, boy, is he ever!
Edward de Vere's is "Vulgar Assassin!"
Richard Nathan's is "Thunderous Mercenary."
Richard Kennedy's, hold on to your hats, is "Beloved Commander!"
Paul Streitz's is "Annoying Magician."
Paul Corwley's is 'Misunderstood Mastermind."
Alas, Terry Ross's is "Insane Professional." What else could
explain his spending so much time refuting idiots like Dickson?
Dave Kathman's is "Sarcastic Mastermind."
And Tom Reedy's is "Phantom Bastard," and with that, I think I'd
better stop. Oh, Christopher Marlowe's is "Ungrateful Genius," and Will
Shakespeare's is "Master Mastermind."
richie miller
I can turn ruffs into shields and you better respect that!
I really want that anagram program to see what kind of garbage I can turn
my name into...the discussion is really getting good. Thanks to all.
Richie
www.omencity.com
Tom Reedy
news:8a45b8$gkt$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> While on the subject of what others' names mean, I thought I'd slip in
> the URL of a fun site:
>
> http://blazonry.com/scripting/wuname.php
>
> Go there and put a person's name in the slot and you'll be told that
> person's "Wu-Name." Some kind of program that randomly chooses from a
> list of adjectives and a list of nouns to make a two-word epithet. I
> found it to be amazing accurate. Here are pivotal results:
>
> Bob Grumman's Wu-Name is "Excessive Genius"
> Roger Stritmatter's is "Excessive Hunter," and, boy, is he ever!
> Edward de Vere's is "Vulgar Assassin!"
> Richard Nathan's is "Thunderous Mercenary."
> Richard Kennedy's, hold on to your hats, is "Beloved Commander!"
> Paul Streitz's is "Annoying Magician."
> Paul Corwley's is 'Misunderstood Mastermind."
> Alas, Terry Ross's is "Insane Professional." What else could
> explain his spending so much time refuting idiots like Dickson?
> Dave Kathman's is "Sarcastic Mastermind."
> And Tom Reedy's is "Phantom Bastard," and with that, I think I'd
> better stop. Oh, Christopher Marlowe's is "Ungrateful Genius," and Will
> Shakespeare's is "Master Mastermind."
>
> --Bob G.
>
Grumman, you fool! Now you've really spilled the beans! Art N. (Amateur
Ambassador) figured out a long time ago the link between me and the Ghost
Who Walks, and now you've handed him the secret heirarchy of the Stratford
Trust Goon Squad and uncovered Richard Kennedy's secret identity as the
mastermind behind it all! Next he'll figure out our other plants! I order
you to headquarters doubletime!
Major Tom
Ground Control
Mark Alexander
"David Kathman" <dj...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:38C5AC...@ix.netcom.com...
> Yes, he has, and Terry has responded ably as usual. Like Terry,
> I used to find Mark to be a thoughtful opponent even when
> I disagreed with him, but now I find his posts to be so shrill
> and paranoid that I find it difficult to respond to them in any
> substantive way. I don't know what happened to Mark; I have said
> in the past that I hope the old Mark will return someday, but,
> sadly, I'm not holding my breath.
The old Mark was naive in his belief that you and Terry would actually
acknowledge error or grant the better argument. I am now much more
experienced in your ways.
Yes, it's more comforting for you to think of me as a *changeling* than to
admit the validity of my arguments.
Well, once my work on Shakespeare's Knowledge of Law comes out in a much
more formal setting, you will not be able to characterize it as shrill or
paranoid. But I also don't think you will ever actually deal with its
thorough presentation of evidence and arguments, even though it will
specifically point to one of your canards.
Even when caught, you, like Terry, hide behind a *saddened that he has
changed* persona. Apparently that is easier than giving even an inch of
ground, a significant characteristic of self-honesty. Better to characterize
my frustration with your side-stepping as something more hyperbolic and
irrationally choleric.
C'est la vie...
Cheers
Mark Alexander
John W. Kennedy
> Once again we have "spear" near "shake," but no Minerva. Here's a nice
> bit from Barnabe Barnes's *Partenophil and Partenophe*:
Q: What is the reference of the title, which could (at least sans
context) be to Her of the Parthenon?
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
John W. Kennedy
>
> From: "Terry Ross" <tr...@bcpl.net>
>
> > On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Mark Alexander wrote:
> >
> > > I should also add how sad it is the Strats would attempt to argue that
> > > the cover of Minerva could not represent an anagram.
> >
> > What I did was to point out the weaknesses in Dickson's claim that "There
> > can be no question that a deliberate calculation was made to fudge the
> > Latin inscription to create an anagram." Of course you are sad to learn
> > that a piece that Oxfordians are so proud of was (let us be mild) written
> > with perhaps less care than one might have hoped.
>
> example of one the reasons I have *left* this forum (mainly in the sense of
> expecting and attempting to engage in honest and open debate...I check in on
> occasion).
>
> misdirection (meaning a dishonest attempt to focus attention on something
> present these revealing statements that indeed support my statement:
No he did not, dammit! He explains in no uncertain words that he never
said what you claim. Or are you truly so brain-damaged that you cannot
make the elementary distinction between, "It is false to state that X is
proven," and "X is false"?
> > There are, as I have said, many problems with the proposed Oxfordian
> > anagram "mente videbori"= "tibi nom de vere." First it is not labeled as
> > an anagram, and since Peacham has not provided the "decipherment," there
> > is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at all.
>
> You admit that "there is no reason to suppose that there is any anagram at
> all."
>
> Your implied logic is that all anagrams are announced. That the image has no
> bearing on the matter. Can you even *feel* the shifting sands beneath your
> feet?
No. He is saying that there is no reason to suppose that something that
is not an announced anagram, nor an explained anagram, is nevertheless
an anagram, merely because it is in a book that has a good many anagrams
that are announced and explained. Especially when the "anagram" is
based on a false reading of the open text, and yields a "hidden" text
that is hopelessly ungrammatical and completely out of parallel with the
actual anagrams presented.
Or is it just that you are still having trouble distinguishing between,
"There is no reason to suppose X," and "X is demonstrably false"?
(If "Tibi nom de Vere," were English, it would be: "Thee na Viro."
Some anagram!)
> Of course, following your very standardized protocol, you will not honestly
> acknowledge your error,
Shut up, scumbag. It's bad enough listening to anti-Strat nonsense,
I'll be damned if I'm going to sit still while you tell outright lies.
John W. Kennedy
> One might add that unlike Terry, who in effect has nothing to defend,
...except the truth, except the truth, except the truth.
> He exists on this forum to *react* to whatever he thinks the most
> threatening (and vulnerable) anti-Stratfordian of the moment happens to be.
Fascinating that you should link the two, as if you are acknowledging
that the only anti-Strat arguments that have any power are the ones most
easily shown to be silly, or even outright lies.
> It is understandable that this would be the case, isn't it, Mark? After
> all, how could anyone in the year 2000 actually put much sincere effort into
> trying to persuade others that the Stratford man wrote the works? All that
> can be done is a kind of holding pattern, in which one does one's best to
> forestall the inevitable by throwing dust in the eyes of the jury.
Bullshit.
John W. Kennedy
> Tibi is a perfectly correct dative of the possessor--Terry.
Hmmm.... Here he's partly right. "Tibi nomen est Verus," (or "Tibi
nomen est Vero," by attraction) would indeed constitute an authentic
Latin idiom. My Elmer's, though, rather implies that the "est" belongs
there, and, of course, there remain the additional problems of the extra
"i", the missing "-en", the inappropriate and atypical use of "de Vere"
instead of "Verus/Vero", the general unreliability of anagrams, and the
singular pointlessness of the whole "message", which has (as far as I
can recall) nothing to do with Shakespeare or the theatre in the first
place.
richie miller
>
> > My article on this topic appears in issue 7 (Spring 1998), and has
> > been studiously avoided by the Stratfordian apologists on the
> > present forum.
>
> Right. David Kathman warned me of its existence, and I studiously
> avoided reading it until now.
>
> > My article shows that in 1619, approximately two
> > years before work began in earnest on the 1623 folio, the publisher
> > Jaggard was cozying up to Susan Vere and her husband, Phillip Herbert,
> > one of the two dedicatees to the subsequent folio.
>
> Where does it say this? I just read your article and found only one
> mention of Susan Vere, and nothing about Jaggard cozying up to her.It is in the nature of any dedication that "cozying up" is going on.
Hence: Dedication = brown-nosing.
Why is it that Stratfordians allow for multiple meanings and allusions in
Shakespeare's texts but none at all outside of it? The utter inability for
any Start to open up to inferences outside the canon makes me think that
they are afraid of something. Maybe he wasn't a genius at all...just
prolific. A natural gabber like Robin Williams who just burned up his fuse
in 15 years of focused, hell bent production fury, and retired to obscurity
10 years before dying from a drunken binge.
And to think that politics played no role in the crafting of the plays (or
its author) is to not only dumb down Shakespeare but all of Elizabethan
society as well.
Richie
www.omencity.com
Terry Ross
> Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
> > Tibi is a perfectly correct dative of the possessor--Terry.
>
> Hmmm.... Here he's partly right. "Tibi nomen est Verus," (or "Tibi
> nomen est Vero," by attraction) would indeed constitute an authentic
> Latin idiom.
John, I believe with the "nomen est" idiom it is the name that would
appear in the dative as "dative of possession": "nomen est Vero."
> My Elmer's, though, rather implies that the "est" belongs
> there, and, of course, there remain the additional problems of the extra
> "i", the missing "-en", the inappropriate and atypical use of "de Vere"
> instead of "Verus/Vero", the general unreliability of anagrams, and the
> singular pointlessness of the whole "message", which has (as far as I
> can recall) nothing to do with Shakespeare or the theatre in the first
> place.
"Vere" could be the vocative of "Verus," but "de Vere" makes no sense. In
any event, Peacham's anagrams are on names or names with titles.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> > > My article on this topic appears in issue 7 (Spring 1998), and has
> > > been studiously avoided by the Stratfordian apologists on the
> > > present forum.
Me:
> > Right. David Kathman warned me of its existence, and I studiously
> > avoided reading it until now.
Stritmatter:
> > > My article shows that in 1619, approximately two
> > > years before work began in earnest on the 1623 folio, the
> > > publisher Jaggard was cozying up to Susan Vere and her husband,
> > > Phillip Herbert, one of the two dedicatees to the subsequent
> > > folio.
> >
Me: Where does it say this? I just read your article and found only one
> > mention of Susan Vere, and nothing about Jaggard cozying up to her.
Richie:
> It is in the nature of any dedication that "cozying up" is going on.
>
> Hence: Dedication = brown-nosing.
>
> Why is it that Stratfordians allow for multiple meanings and allusions
> in Shakespeare's texts but none at all outside of it?
Richie, please stop being silly. That "none of all" is absurd. It's
only that we can't allow many of these outside multiple meanings and
allusions to count much, if anything, for authorship attribution because
they are much too vague. The anti-Stratfordian ones are also uniformly
subjection special pleading.
> The utter inability for any Start to open up to inferences
> outside the canon makes me think that they are afraid of something.
An even sillier statement. Since Mark Twain, anti-Stratfordians have
been deriding Stratfordians for their inferences from outside the
canon--see, for example, the inferences about Shakespeare and Lucy.
As for being afraid of anything, you really have to take my word for
it, we aren't.
> Maybe he wasn't a
> genius at all...just prolific. A natural gabber like Robin Williams
> who just burned up his fuse in 15 years of focused, hell bent
> production fury, and retired to obscurity 10 years before dying
> from a drunken binge.
I don't know what this has to do with anything. As for Robin
Williams, if he's the actor I'm thinking of, I sure didn't know
he had died. I read that he had some kind of unfortunate medical
condition but was carrying on.
> And to think that politics played no role in the crafting of the
> plays (or its author) is to not only dumb down Shakespeare but
> all of Elizabethan society as well.
Again, what Stratfordian says this? All we say, generally, is that
the plays were primarily NOT propaganda or detailed autobiography but
literary works (for the stage, Jody).
I am pleased that you are non-replying for Roger, though; I know he
won't reply himself. You do realize, I'm sure, that you have not
answered the only question I had of him, which is where he mentions
Jaggard's cozying up with Susan--two years before the folio was
published, which I didn't think I needed to mention, but which you
clearly overlooked. Obviously, if he was cozying up to her in the
dedication, that could not be taken as evidence that the Susan and her
husband were anything more than what the direct evidence says they were,
one of the men the Folio was dedicated to and his wife.
Sabyha
>Again, what Stratfordian says this? All we say, generally, is that
>the plays were primarily NOT propaganda or detailed autobiography but
>literary works (for the stage, Jody).
I am honoured, Bob. :o)
Cheers!
Jodie - Australia
"O heaven, O earth, Bear witness to this sound!"
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
> > Once again we have "spear" near "shake," but no Minerva. Here's a nice
> > bit from Barnabe Barnes's *Partenophil and Partenophe*:
>
> Q: What is the reference of the title, which could (at least sans
> context) be to Her of the Parthenon?
The Parthenon is named for a virgin goddess ("parthenos" = "virgin"), but
not every virgin was Athena -- not even every virgin goddess, since
Artemis was also called "Parthenos." The character names in Barnes's
(mostly) sonnet sequence suggest a maiden and her wooer. "Parthenope" was
also an old name for Naples (supposedly after the siren of that name), and
Barnes may have been influenced by the Neapolitan poet Hieronymous
Angerianus who, as Sidney Lee tells us, "was paying court to his native
city under her alternative Greek name, but he apostrophized Naples with
the warmth that befitted an address to a mistress" (Lee, *Elizabethan
Sonnets*, vol 1., page lxxvii).
richie miller
> Stritmatter:
> > > > My article on this topic appears in issue 7 (Spring 1998), and has
> > > > been studiously avoided by the Stratfordian apologists on the
> > > > present forum.
>
> Me:
> > > Right. David Kathman warned me of its existence, and I studiously
> > > avoided reading it until now.
>
> Stritmatter:
> > > > My article shows that in 1619, approximately two
> > > > years before work began in earnest on the 1623 folio, the
> > > > publisher Jaggard was cozying up to Susan Vere and her husband,
> > > > Phillip Herbert, one of the two dedicatees to the subsequent
> > > > folio.
> > >
> Me: Where does it say this? I just read your article and found only one
> > > mention of Susan Vere, and nothing about Jaggard cozying up to her.
>
> Richie:
> > It is in the nature of any dedication that "cozying up" is going on.
> >
> > Hence: Dedication = brown-nosing.
> >
> > Why is it that Stratfordians allow for multiple meanings and allusions
> > in Shakespeare's texts but none at all outside of it?
and the Oxfordians have to use their Imagination and then find evidence to
support it.
> Richie, please stop being silly. That "none of all" is absurd. It's
> only that we can't allow many of these outside multiple meanings and
> allusions to count much, if anything, for authorship attribution because
> they are much too vague. The anti-Stratfordian ones are also uniformly
> subjection special pleading.
I agree but there are sooooo many of these loose ends and coincidences.
You can't dismiss them with a wave of the hand and expect the rest of the
world to follow. The hunt is just too intriguing.
>
> > The utter inability for any Start to open up to inferences
> > outside the canon makes me think that they are afraid of something.
>
> An even sillier statement. Since Mark Twain, anti-Stratfordians have
> been deriding Stratfordians for their inferences from outside the
> canon--see, for example, the inferences about Shakespeare and Lucy.
> As for being afraid of anything, you really have to take my word for
> it, we aren't.
Inferences about the Start man yes. About other authors being the mind
behind the name? About the plays being political? About the works
containing autobiography? About Oxford's qualifications for the job?
The dating of the plays? Why the Sonnets were published while the Start
man was still alive? And all of the inferences one can imagine that are
INSIDE the canon! My impression so far is that it is all up for grabs by
the Oxfordians but it is a closed case for the Strats. And perhaps it is a
closed case and I will realize that at some point.
>
> > Maybe he wasn't a
> > genius at all...just prolific. A natural gabber like Robin Williams
> > who just burned up his fuse in 15 years of focused, hell bent
> > production fury, and retired to obscurity 10 years before dying
> > from a drunken binge.
>
> I don't know what this has to do with anything. As for Robin
> Williams, if he's the actor I'm thinking of, I sure didn't know
> he had died. I read that he had some kind of unfortunate medical
> condition but was carrying on.
the reference to Williams was just about the gabbing
>
> > And to think that politics played no role in the crafting of the
> > plays (or its author) is to not only dumb down Shakespeare but
> > all of Elizabethan society as well.
>
> Again, what Stratfordian says this? All we say, generally, is that
> the plays were primarily NOT propaganda or detailed autobiography but
> literary works (for the stage, Jody).
On what evidence do you base this assumption? Stratfordian consensus?
The plays in my opinion are mostly propaganda and autobiography disguised
as entertainment...the sonnets too. And the plays were certainly NOT
literary works until they were published in the First Folio...in fact they
weren't considered literary works at all...just plays.
>
> I am pleased that you are non-replying for Roger, though; I know he
> won't reply himself. You do realize, I'm sure, that you have not
> answered the only question I had of him, which is where he mentions
> Jaggard's cozying up with Susan--two years before the folio was
> published, which I didn't think I needed to mention, but which you
> clearly overlooked. Obviously, if he was cozying up to her in the
> dedication, that could not be taken as evidence that the Susan and her
> husband were anything more than what the direct evidence says they were,
> one of the men the Folio was dedicated to and his wife.
Once again here is the "let's just take it at face value" argument. They
are just the subjects of the dedication. Well my question is 'Why them?".
Such an immensely important project as this, had to be dedicated to someone
who was somehow involved with it. I believe the cozying up Roger talks
about is a valid argument. You are right that it doesn't constitute
evidence but it is one of those odd coincidences that litter this whole
issue of authorship. I read Roger's article and it explains very clearly
what Jaggard's motivation could have been, if in fact De Vere was the
author. I don't know if he was!
On to the next post...I will try to answer all of your questions but I
don't always have immediate responses to them.
Richie
www.omencity.com
volker multhopp
> The Parthenon is named for a virgin goddess ("parthenos" = "virgin"), but
> not every virgin was Athena -- not even every virgin goddess, since
> Artemis was also called "Parthenos." The character names in Barnes's
> (mostly) sonnet sequence suggest a maiden and her wooer. "Parthenope" was
Duh. Just which virgin goddess do you think *ATHENS* was honoring with
the Parthenon?
--Volker
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
>
> > The Parthenon is named for a virgin goddess ("parthenos" = "virgin"), but
> > not every virgin was Athena -- not even every virgin goddess, since
> > Artemis was also called "Parthenos." The character names in Barnes's
> > (mostly) sonnet sequence suggest a maiden and her wooer. "Parthenope" was
> > also an old name for Naples [...]
>
> Duh.
I see Volker continues to master the "It pays to Increase Your
Wordpower" columns. Way to go, Volker!
> Just which virgin goddess do you think *ATHENS* was honoring with
> the Parthenon?
You probably missed the point of John Kennedy's question. He was asking
whether the name "Parthenope" meant something like "she of the Parthenon."
The answer is no. While the Parthenon certainly honors Athena, it is not
the case that every word that contains "parthen" must refer to the
Parthenon or to Athena. Do you begin to see?
KQKnave
>> Why is it that Stratfordians allow for multiple meanings and allusions
>> in Shakespeare's texts but none at all outside of it?
>
Because Shakespeare's texts are fiction, and the dedications are
dedications.
Jim
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> > > Why is it that Stratfordians allow for multiple meanings and
> > > allusions in Shakespeare's texts but none at all outside of it?
> Because Stratfordians rely on evidence (and what they can deduce
> from it) and the Oxfordians have to use their Imagination and then
> find evidence to support it.
A fair answer but I would change it to Stratfordians rely on direct
concrete evidence and what can be deduced from it whereas Oxfordians
rely on pure speculation, then try to find evidence or pseudo evidence
to support it.
nother good point is Jim's, that the plays are fiction (more than that,
I would add, they are poetic fictions), the dedications dedications (or
what I would call informrature as opposed to literature, in the literary
taxonomy that no one but I uses [the third of my three categories of
verbal expression is advocature, or verbal propaganda--so I have one
kind of verbal expression whose aim is beauty, one whose aim is truth
and one whose aim is goodness--and, of course, various mixtures of the
three main types]).
> > Richie, please stop being silly. That "none of all" is absurd.
> > It's only that we can't allow many of these outside multiple
> > meanings and allusions to count much, if anything, for authorship
> > attribution because they are much too vague. The anti-Stratfordian
> > ones are also uniformly subjectiVE special pleading.
>
> I agree but there are sooooo many of these loose ends and
> coincidences. You can't dismiss them with a wave of the hand and
> expect the rest of the world to follow. The hunt is just too
> intriguing.
I can expect to wave my hand and expect the rational part of the rest
of the world to follow because, as Tom Reedy (I think) suggested,
loose ends and coincidences are part of life. EVERY thorough
investigation of ANYTHING by a fanatic will yield countless loose
ends, anomalies, and coincidences that can't be fully explained.
Especially if we go far enough back in to history, when records were
not kept to the degree they are now, and when what records were kept
have become severely reduced by the ravages of time. Just check out the
Kennedy assassination, or Darwinianism, or merely the life of Jonson.
It's also ridiculously easy to find pseudo-anomalies like this one of
yours about the dedication of the First Folio to Pembroke and his
brother. Anomaly? Why? Such works generally tended to be dedicated to
aristocrats, as this one was. Pembroke was the lord chamberlain at the
time of the dedication, and therefore responsible for the publication of
plays, so a good man to flatter. He also had lots of literary
connections, and his family very probably knew Shakespeare. His
uncle was Philip Sidney. Pembroke wrote poetry himself, and patronized
other poets, such as Jonson and Herbert. He may even have been the
model for the young man of the sonnets. As for his brother, my source,
Charles Boyce's Shakespeare A to Z surmises he was included in the
dedication as a compliment to his brother.
Do Stratfordians make inferences outside the canon?
> Inferences about the Strat man yes. About other authors being the
> mind behind the name?
Do anti-Stratfordians make inferences about the planet the True Author
came from?
> About the plays being political?
Lots of orthodox critics write about the plays being political. But
they clearly are not, in any substantial sense. This is obvious for
many reasons: e.g., that they hew fairly closely much of the time to
their sources, which suggests they were primarily dramatizations of
Good Stories; that so many of them are conventional comedies; that none
of them are ever discussed by Shakespeare's contemporaries as
political plays, so far as we know; that the plays and their characters
seem to cover so many different topics--usually randomly (e.g., consider
all the passages of apolitical punning--why would someone interested in
propagandizing leave Important Subjects for such stuff so often and
lengthily?); rarely does any play make any kind of direct point about
contemporary politics, and then only in passing. I wonder if you could
direct me to a single Shakespearean character who is politically as
opposed to morally flawed (according to his creator).
>About the works containing autobiography?
Precisely what Twain got on Lee for was that Lee used the plays to
figure out the life os Shakespeare. Scholars have found all kinds
of allusions to Lucy, for instance.
> About Oxford's qualifications for the job?
Terry Ross has written extensively about his LACK of qualifications for
the job. But why should a scholar write about such a stupid topic--
instead of, say, what Lafayette's qualifications were for having
carried out the scientific experiments of Franklin?
> The dating of the plays? Why the Sonnets were published while the
Stratford man was still alive?
Again, the scholars go everywhere to try to date the plays--but they
begin with direct evidence. A good example of going outside the canon
to infer dating is their considering things like the evolution of blank
verse--which seems, according to the records, to have reached a sudden
charged peak with the plays of Marlowe long after Oxford would have
mastered it, according to Oxfordians. Greene and others derided blank
verse plays as NEW-FANGLED toward the end of the eighties. The
development of history plays yields circumstantial evidence for dating,
too. I know too little about all this, and am still hoping for a book
that does a thorough discussion of dating--but I do know that scholars
comb all the plays of the time for fashions, word-use, etc., etc., that
might help date the Ouevre--for instance, the use of the word,
"equivocation." Or the playwrights' war.
As for why the sonnets were published while the Stratford man was still
alive, who knows--but it's been discussed. (Why were the plays NOT
published then, if Oxford wrote them and was now dead? Why was Oxford's
True Identity kept secret if he and his monarch were both safely dead?
Oxfordians can only vaguely say that it was to protect the
commonwealth--except Volkretin and those in his camp, who believe
his family would have been embarrassed unto death to have it known that
their impecunious, cowardly, homicidal failed relative, accused of all
kinds of unpleasant activities, had any redeeming qualities, like
literary ability.
> And all of the inferences one can imagine that are INSIDE the canon!
> My impression so far is that it is all up for grabs by
> the Oxfordians but it is a closed case for the Strats. And
> perhaps it is a closed case and I will realize that at some point.
If you do, and admit it, that will be the biggest event ever at HLAS.
I'm rooting for you, Richie!
> On what evidence do you base (the assumption the the plays were not
propaganda)? Stratfordian consensus?
I believe so. For bits and pieces of my own reasons, see above.
> The plays in my opinion are mostly propaganda and autobiography
> disguised as entertainment...the sonnets too.
I feel sorry for you, then. I find them to be poetry, first; great
stories second; and often fascinating character studies third.
> And the plays were certainly NOT literary works until they were
> published in the First Folio...in fact they
> weren't considered literary works at all...just plays.
You're indulging in semantical quibbling here. They were verbal works
of art--therefore, for me, literature.
> > I am pleased that you are non-replying for Roger, though; I know he
> > won't reply himself. You do realize, I'm sure, that you have not
> > answered the only question I had of him, which is where he mentions
> > Jaggard's cozying up with Susan--two years before the folio was
> > published, which I didn't think I needed to mention, but which you
> > clearly overlooked. Obviously, if he was cozying up to her in the
> > dedication, that could not be taken as evidence that the Susan and
> > her husband were anything more than what the direct evidence says
> > they were, one of the men the Folio was dedicated to and his wife.
>
> Once again here is the "let's just take it at face value" argument.
No, it's the why should we not take it at face value since there's no
sane reason not to?
> They are just the subjects of the dedication. Well my question is
> 'Why them?". Such an immensely important project as this, had to
> be dedicated to someone who was somehow involved with it.
Nonsense.
> I believe the cozying up Roger talks about is a valid argument.
> You are right that it doesn't constitute evidence but it is one of
> those odd coincidences that litter this whole issue of authorship.
> I read Roger's article and it explains very clearly what Jaggard's
> motivation could have been, if in fact De Vere was the author.
Not really. If Oxford had been the writer, the plays would still be
the property of the players.
> I don't know if he was!
> On to the next post...I will try to answer all of your questions
> but I don't always have immediate responses to them.
I won't always be able to answer quickly, either.
Roger A Stritmatter
>
> Duh. Just which virgin goddess do you think *ATHENS* was honoring with
> the Parthenon?
>
> --Volker
Volker --
See the standard operating procedure here. Ignore the obvious and trot out
a fancy "scholarly reference" to Sir Sidney Lee. Keep up the good work.
Brevity is still the soul of wit.
--Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
> > He exists on this forum to *react* to whatever he thinks the most
> > threatening (and vulnerable) anti-Stratfordian of the moment happens to
be.
>
> Fascinating that you should link the two, as if you are acknowledging
> that the only anti-Strat arguments that have any power are the ones most
> easily shown to be silly, or even outright lies.
John --
Why do you care about this issue?
> > It is understandable that this would be the case, isn't it, Mark? After
> > all, how could anyone in the year 2000 actually put much sincere effort
into
> > trying to persuade others that the Stratford man wrote the works? All
that
> > can be done is a kind of holding pattern, in which one does one's best
to
> > forestall the inevitable by throwing dust in the eyes of the jury.
>
> Bullshit.
How eloquent. Obviously you feel threatened by the possibility that you and
Terry are wrong, and that you are defending a dying myth. Perhaps you would
feel less threatened if you understood what it is of which you are actually
afraid. This, however, would require you to some reading outside of the
posts which appear on this forum.
Your iterations about truth above indicate that you have some special
knowledge of this subject. Perhaps you could enlighten us about it.
--Stritmatter
>
Roger A Stritmatter
John W. Kennedy <jwke...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:38C80B11...@bellatlantic.net...
> Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
> > Tibi is a perfectly correct dative of the possessor--Terry.
>
> Hmmm.... Here he's partly right. "Tibi nomen est Verus," (or "Tibi
> nomen est Vero," by attraction) would indeed constitute an authentic
> Latin idiom.
John -- thanks for the concession. You are winning some points for
gentlemanly behavior, despite your belief that the the people you are
discussing with are insane. (Ready to retract yet?)
Here are parallels -- instruct me if they don't apply -- from Green (232):
est mihi domi pater
homini cum deo similitudo est
My Elmer's, though, rather implies that the "est" belongs
> there,
You know perfectly well, or you should know, John, that *est* can be
suppressed,
in Latin as well as in English. You are applying a standard of transparent
grammaticality which would *never* be applied by Henry Peacham or any other
early modern anagramatist.
and, of course, there remain the additional problems of the extra
> "i",
This is a problem only for now. Wait and see what Peacham has in store for
us.
the missing "-en",
Wrong. Consult your Capelli (Dizionario De Abbreviature Latine ed
Italiane), p. 238. *Nom* is an attested abbreviation for *nomen, -inis*.
the inappropriate and atypical use of "de Vere"
> instead of "Verus/Vero",
Inappropriate to *whom*? Can you read Henry Peacham's mind? I remind you
this is a book with seven languages in it, and quite a number of rhetorical
perks (as it turns out) which depend for their effects on multilingual or
interlingual devices. How do you know you aren't looking at one here,
without recognizing it because you are so hung up on enforcing your own *a
priori* presumptions on poor old Henry Peacham.
the general unreliability of anagrams, and the
> singular pointlessness of the whole "message",
If the message is so pointless, why are you arguing about it, John?
The problem which you, Terry, and Dave have is that in fact the message is
in fact *so much* to the point-- naming, as it does, an individual whom *you
don't want to be named* in this context, that you must expend a great deal
of effort denying the plausibility of the anagram and -- at least in the
case of Terry -- playing all kinds of McCarthyite games redbaiting those who
maintain its plausibility.
which has (as far as I
> can recall) nothing to do with Shakespeare or the theatre in the first
> place.
John -- please explain to us what Peacham means when he pictures a hand
coming out from behind a theatrical "discovery space" covered by a curtain
writing the words:
MENTE VIDEBOR
Meanwhile, i concede your point about the "i". But i believe this is the
*only* valid point in your post.
--Stritmatter
>
Roger A Stritmatter
> "Vere" could be the vocative of "Verus," but "de Vere" makes no sense. In
> any event, Peacham's anagrams are on names or names with titles.
>
And this anagram contains the (English/Norman) name, *de Vere*, according to
the thesis being considered. The fact that it does not include this name in
the surface text is no argument at all. It is an extension of the
suppressed premise that
Because Peacham did everything in x fashion, he would never do so in y
fashion.
--Stritmatter
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Only to a rigidnik. To a rational person, the implied premise is
Because Peacham made many anagrams in x fashion and none in y fashion,
that we know of, it significantly reduces the chances that he would in
one case make an anagram in y fashion. Especially, I might add, a
very poor anagram. But keep going to books that have nothing to do
with Shakespeare for your "evidence," Roger, and ignore the ones that
he wrote, with his name on their title-pages.
Terry Ross
posting it since he seemed to have left this newsgroup again, but since
he's back, ...
===
I had promised to check one more claim Roger made and (it grieves me to
say this) he was wrong once again. What are the odds?
> On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
>
> Carefull, Terry. You're adept at winning points on irrelevant points;
> you're right, I should have read Clarke more closely. But her real
> mistake was still the one I pointed out in my post (namely to suppose
> that Videbor(is) was a valid form) -- and furthermore she published
> the photographic evidence which provided the basis for a reader to
> form his own judgement that the printed word is *not* Videbori; her
> mistake was not the mistake frequently made by Stratfordians of
> attempting to conceal the limitations and weaknesses of their own
> arguments. It was a mistake of accuracy in reproducing the empirical
> evidence: she should have written "Videbor(i)" or "videboris" and she
> ommitted the parenthesis.
I tracked down Clark's book *The Man Who Was Shakespeare* and, sure
enough, Roger's description varies greatly from what Clark actually said.
Clark says nothing about the form "videboris." Nothing at all. Nothing.
She does make numerous mistakes, but she is innocent of the "real mistake"
that Roger accuses her of. Neither "videboris" nor "videbor(is)" appears
in her text.
She transcribes the motto (twice) as "menti vide bori." She not only adds
an extra "i" on the end of "videbor," but she treats "vide" as a separate
word from "bori," and she misreads Peacham's "mente" as "menti." Page vi
of the text (in the 1970 AMS reprint) contains this note:
ERRATUM
pp. 253, 257. For "Menti vide bori," read "Mente vide bori."
Roger had at least heard about the erratum, because he posted the
following on February 28:
> Problems with this proposal go all the way back to Ms. Clarke's
> initial publication of the theory, in which the word "Videbor" was
> originally mispelled "vidibor," a mistake which required an erratum
> slip to be placed in copies of *The Man Who Was Shakespeare.*
Roger's getting the erratum wrong is no big deal, of course, but it is
amazing just how many things large and small he DOES get wrong. The form
"vidibor" does not appear in Clark, as Roger could at any moment have
learned by looking carefully at *The Man Who Was Shakespeare*. This kind
of behavior is known as "looking things up," and I recommend it to Roger.
I have no idea why Clark (and the erratum slip) treated "vide" and "bori"
as two words. She translates Peacham's motto as "By the mind I shall be
seen," which is a reasonable rendering of "mente videbor," but her anagram
"tibi nom de vere" is based on the letters in "mente videbori" not in
"menti vide bori" or "mente videbor."
So where did Roger go wrong this time? The section of Clark's book that
concerns *Minerva Britanna* is reprinted in Ruth Loyd Miller's *Oxfordian
Vistas*, a collection of Oxfordiana that Miller misleading palms off as
"volume 2" of Looney's *Shakespeare Identified*, even though nothing
actually by Looney appears in the volume. The Clark pages are pretty
faithfully transcribed by Miller, but they are followed by John
Astley-Cock's elaboration on Clark's ideas, and even though the section is
clearly labeled "by John L. Astley-Cock," it may be that Clark and
Astley-Cock have become fused in Roger's imagination.
I'm only guessing, of course. Now that Roger is back, perhaps he'd like to
tell us why he keeps making such outrageous accusations against that great
Oxfordian Eva Turner Clark.
John W. Kennedy
>
> > > He exists on this forum to *react* to whatever he thinks the most
> > > threatening (and vulnerable) anti-Stratfordian of the moment happens to
> be.
> >
> > Fascinating that you should link the two, as if you are acknowledging
> > that the only anti-Strat arguments that have any power are the ones most
> > easily shown to be silly, or even outright lies.
>
> John --
>
> Why do you care about this issue?
Truth is good. Lies are bad. What? Did that message somehow get lost
in Freudian fuss and pother over your toilet training?
> > > It is understandable that this would be the case, isn't it, Mark? After
> > > all, how could anyone in the year 2000 actually put much sincere effort
> into
> > > trying to persuade others that the Stratford man wrote the works? All
> that
> > > can be done is a kind of holding pattern, in which one does one's best
> to
> > > forestall the inevitable by throwing dust in the eyes of the jury.
> >
> > Bullshit.
>
> How eloquent. Obviously you feel threatened by the possibility that you and
> Terry are wrong, and that you are defending a dying myth. Perhaps you would
> feel less threatened if you understood what it is of which you are actually
> afraid. This, however, would require you to some reading outside of the
> posts which appear on this forum.
The only thing I am "afraid" of in this context is the demonstrable
inability of supposedly educated adults to read and to reason. It
scares me shitless to think that anti-Stratfordians can vote.
In a very real sense, I don't give a good goddam about who wrote the
plays. But I care very much that arrant nonsense is being set out to
confuse the unwary.
> Your iterations about truth above indicate that you have some special
> knowledge of this subject. Perhaps you could enlighten us about it.
By your standards, perhaps I do. But I'm afraid that all I can do is
repeat the famous words of Professor Peter Schikele of the Department of
Musical Pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople:
"Truth is just Truth. You can't have opinions about Truth."
But that's probably too advanced for someone who can't even manage to
quote his own side correctly.
John W. Kennedy
>
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, John W. Kennedy wrote:
>
> > > Tibi is a perfectly correct dative of the possessor--Terry.
> >
> > Hmmm.... Here he's partly right. "Tibi nomen est Verus," (or "Tibi
> > nomen est Vero," by attraction) would indeed constitute an authentic
> > Latin idiom.
>
> appear in the dative as "dative of possession": "nomen est Vero."
No, my "Elmer's Latin Grammar" (Herbert Charles Elmer, Macmillan, 1928)
is, as chance would have it, utterly pellucid and bang on point. Here's
the entire article:
170. Dative of possession, more commonly used with some form of esse:
"mini est frater," "I have a brother," lit. "there is to me a
brother."
"ei nomen fuit Iulius" (or "Iulio"), [footnote: In such
expressions the name itself often becomes dative by
attraction.] "he had the name Julius," lit. "there was to
him the name Julius."
> > My Elmer's, though, rather implies that the "est" belongs
> > there, and, of course, there remain the additional problems of the extra
> > "i", the missing "-en", the inappropriate and atypical use of "de Vere"
> > instead of "Verus/Vero", the general unreliability of anagrams, and the
> > singular pointlessness of the whole "message", which has (as far as I
> > can recall) nothing to do with Shakespeare or the theatre in the first
> > place.
>
> "Vere" could be the vocative of "Verus," but "de Vere" makes no sense. In
> any event, Peacham's anagrams are on names or names with titles.
Hmmm.... "Vere" would be form of the vocative of "Verus," but I cannot
justify the use of the vocative in this alleged sentence to begin with.
John W. Kennedy
> Because Peacham did everything in x fashion, he would never do so in y
> fashion.
Anagrams are a GAME.
You have to play a GAME according to the rules, or it's no fun.
You know, most anti-Strats trip up on questions of grammar, history,
formal logic, mathematics, and the like. You have a remarkable talent
for tripping up on what should be known by anyone who successfully
mastered the art of childhood.
Might I recommend that you start watching "Pokémon"? It might fill in a
few gaps in your education.
John W. Kennedy
> You know perfectly well, or you should know, John, that *est* can be
> suppressed,
> in Latin as well as in English.
Yes, but not in every idiom, and the only systematic Latin grammar in my
possession strongly indicates (I have quoted it verbatim in another
post) that "esse" is usually found with the Dative of Possession.
> the missing "-en",
>
> Wrong. Consult your Capelli (Dizionario De Abbreviature Latine ed
> Italiane), p. 238. *Nom* is an attested abbreviation for *nomen, -inis*.
But Peacham doesn't use abbreviations to make anagrams. It's cheating.
> the inappropriate and atypical use of "de Vere"
> > instead of "Verus/Vero",
>
> Inappropriate to *whom*? Can you read Henry Peacham's mind?
No, but I can read his book.
> John -- please explain to us what Peacham means when he pictures a hand
> coming out from behind a theatrical "discovery space" covered by a curtain
> writing the words:
>
> MENTE VIDEBOR
Why on Earth should it should it not mean what it says?
John W. Kennedy
> I wonder if you could
> direct me to a single Shakespearean character who is politically as
> opposed to morally flawed (according to his creator).
On reading this I had a bit of an epiphany.
Pray, can anyone name _any_ character in _any_ play, novel, or whatever,
prior to the Restoration, who is "politically as opposed to morally
flawed"? Excluding comedy, in fact, prior to the American Revolution or
thereabouts?
Yet again, I fear we're still living in the shadow of the Ibsenists.
Terry Ross
Peacham essay where I say that Peacham in his anagrams "does not use
'tibi' where one would properly use 'tuum.'"
Thanks for the correction, gentlemen.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger A Stritmatter
>
> Might I recommend that you start watching "Pokémon"? It might fill in a
> few gaps in your education.
>
Again I will just note that this is illustrative of the techniques of debate
which have become institutionalized on this forum. It is sad to see them
being passed on to someone of Mr. Kennedy's intelligence and training. I
guess it is difficult to realize that you are fighting a losing battle.
Insult becomes the only weapon available.
--Stritmatter
>
Roger A Stritmatter
John W. Kennedy <jwke...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:38CDA209...@bellatlantic.net...
> Roger A Stritmatter wrote:
> > You know perfectly well, or you should know, John, that *est* can be
> > suppressed,
> > in Latin as well as in English.
>
> Yes, but not in every idiom, and the only systematic Latin grammar in my
> possession strongly indicates (I have quoted it verbatim in another
> post) that "esse" is usually found with the Dative of Possession.
>
Even if you are correct, this is irrelevant. Whether the missing form is
est or esse, I was responding to your original point -- in which you
objected to the alleged anagram on the basis that the verb of being was
absent. Stop playing games with your expertise and acknowledge that you
were leaping to conclusions which cannot be substantiated on sober inquiry.
> > the missing "-en",
> >
> > Wrong. Consult your Capelli (Dizionario De Abbreviature Latine ed
> > Italiane), p. 238. *Nom* is an attested abbreviation for
*nomen, -inis*.
>
> But Peacham doesn't use abbreviations to make anagrams.
Again, Mr. Kennedy, you are squirreling sideways faster than a sidewinder on
the hot desert sand. You said that the word "nom." was a mistake. It's not
a mistake.
It's cheating.
Furthermore, how do you know that Peacham never uses abbreviations in
anagrams? Your logical fallacy is "begging the question." You are
claiming to be able to read Peacham's mind. Your assertion would be
stronger if you stated it in a more modest fashion, as David Kathman did
over the issue of Minerva the Spear-Shakespeare, when he stated that he knew
of no instances in which Minerva was a spear-shaker. This statement was
true, even though what it actually demonstrated was merely that Mr. Kathman
doesn't know that much about the cultural history of the figure of Minerva
(on which more anon...).
It would also be true to state that you don't know of any instances in which
Peacham uses abbreviations to make an anagram, and that you yourself would
regard such a practice as "cheating" and if you were called upon to write a
book with anagrams, whether just for fun or for revealing secrets of state,
you would refrain from using any abbreviations.
This statement would be true, but would also expose you to the legitimate
doubts of readers who would know longer be fooled into thinking you an
omiscient savant. Since it appears that you need very much to appear as
*the* authority on this and other subjects, such as the mental stability of
the persons you are debating with, you prefer a more earthy and absolutist
idiom. Be careful; it will continue to get you into trouble.
> > the inappropriate and atypical use of "de Vere"
> > > instead of "Verus/Vero",
> >
> > Inappropriate to *whom*? Can you read Henry Peacham's mind?
>
> No, but I can read his book.
>
John, I don't think you read it very carefully; and your claim does in fact
amount to a claim that you can read Peacham's mind. For unless you could
read his mind you could not know that he would not use an abbreviation in
constructing an anagram. The best you could do would be to notice that none
of the anagrams of which you were aware in his book used abbreviations, and
you could never get from this factual statement to your moralistic claims
about certain things be "inappropriate" etc.
> > John -- please explain to us what Peacham means when he pictures a hand
> > coming out from behind a theatrical "discovery space" covered by a
curtain
> > writing the words:
> >
> > MENTE VIDEBOR
>
> Why on Earth should it should it not mean what it says?
Because the most elementary fact about an emblem book, which you should be
ashamed of yourself for presuming to debate without knowing or
acknowledging, is that emblem and superscriptio (or in this case
*inscriptio*) are parts of an ensemble. They form a gestalt which is more
than the sum of their parts and which was often compared by Renaissance
theoreticians to the logical relation of "premise 1 + premise 2 =
conclusion." Therefore nothing in an emblem book, least of all a phrase
like this means "what it says" -- whatever the hell *that* choice piece of
evasion means.
Furthermore, even without this historical knowledge, any fool can see that
the phrase
MENTE VIDEBOR
By the Mind I shall be seen
is in itself incomplete. Claiming as you do that the phrase means "what it
says" is pathetic. Any active mind will want to know *who* will be seen,
and why they have been obscured in the first place.
--Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
> > John --
> >
> > Why do you care about this issue?
>
> Truth is good. Lies are bad. What? Did that message somehow get lost
> in Freudian fuss and pother over your toilet training?
O, now I see. You are the great defender of truth and toilet training.
> > > > It is understandable that this would be the case, isn't it, Mark?
After
> > > > all, how could anyone in the year 2000 actually put much sincere
effort
> > into
> > > > trying to persuade others that the Stratford man wrote the works?
All
> > that
> > > > can be done is a kind of holding pattern, in which one does one's
best
> > to
> > > > forestall the inevitable by throwing dust in the eyes of the jury.
> > >
> > > Bullshit.
More toilet training?
> > How eloquent. Obviously you feel threatened by the possibility that you
and
> > Terry are wrong, and that you are defending a dying myth. Perhaps you
would
> > feel less threatened if you understood what it is of which you are
actually
> > afraid. This, however, would require you to some reading outside of the
> > posts which appear on this forum.
>
> The only thing I am "afraid" of in this context is the demonstrable
> inability of supposedly educated adults to read and to reason. It
> scares me shitless
I detect a theme...
to think that anti-Stratfordians can vote.
And do you include Supreme Court Justices Stevens, Blackmun and Kennedy in
that fascinating formulation? Or do you conveniently omit the "good
Oxfordians" from your categorical formulations?
> In a very real sense, I don't give a good goddam about who wrote the
> plays.
I see. Well, perhaps that is what makes you a Stratfordian, Mr. Kennedy.
But I care very much that arrant nonsense is being set out to
> confuse the unwary.
Yes, it is troubling isn't it? A little like witches who used to take
advantage of priests during the middle ages by coming to them in the middle
of the night in various states of undress. Eternal vigilance is the price
of the wary.
> > Your iterations about truth above indicate that you have some special
> > knowledge of this subject. Perhaps you could enlighten us about it.
>
> By your standards, perhaps I do.
I'm waiting, Mr. Kennedy, I'm waiting. And just what are "my standards,"
anyway? In the most substantive of our exchanges on this thread I demolished
four of your five assertations and gracefully conceded the fifth. In
response, you have done little but continue your campaign of badmouthing me
in public and attempting to divert the reader's attention from the actual
substantive points on which I demonstrated the falsity of your claims.
But I'm afraid that all I can do is
> repeat the famous words of Professor Peter Schikele of the Department of
> Musical Pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople:
> "Truth is just Truth. You can't have opinions about Truth."
You sure do like that word, don't you, Mr. Kennedy?
--Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
John W. Kennedy <jwke...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:38CD9FF1...@bellatlantic.net...
> Hmmm.... "Vere" would be form of the vocative of "Verus," but I cannot
> justify the use of the vocative in this alleged sentence to begin with.
The form in question is "de Vere" -- which, as has been observed, is not
Latin. Speculating that "Vere" could be vocative is beside the point. The
name is, as I already remarked, in French or English.
The difference in interpretation is that Mr. Kennedy cannot justify a
macaronic construction. This is his prerogative. But getting huffy about
it is pointless. Such constructions were of course very common during this
period and had been so for many hundreds of years. Are there any obvious
comparative examples in *Minerva Brittanna*? None that I know. But that is
hardly a decisive argument.
--Stritmatter
Roger A Stritmatter
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.00031...@mail.bcpl.net...
> I stand corrected, by Roger and John, and I'll drop the line from my
> Peacham essay where I say that Peacham in his anagrams "does not use
> 'tibi' where one would properly use 'tuum.'"
>
> Thanks for the correction, gentlemen.
You are most obliged, Terry. Can I count on you to cease and desist your
McCarthyite inquiries regarding my discussions of similar issues with Mr.
Dickson?
R.S.
> > > > "i", the missing "-en", the inappropriate and atypical use of "de
Vere"
> > > > instead of "Verus/Vero", the general unreliability of anagrams, and
the
> > > > singular pointlessness of the whole "message", which has (as far as
I
> > > > can recall) nothing to do with Shakespeare or the theatre in the
first
> > > > place.
> > >
> > > "Vere" could be the vocative of "Verus," but "de Vere" makes no sense.
In
> > > any event, Peacham's anagrams are on names or names with titles.
> >
> > Hmmm.... "Vere" would be form of the vocative of "Verus," but I cannot
> > justify the use of the vocative in this alleged sentence to begin with.
> >