The Shakespeare Code

[It’s best to read  Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd (I) first. This Post is a continuation]

Give a man a mask…….

…….wrote Oscar Wilde…..

…….and he will tell you the truth…..

By writing A Groats-worth of Witte under Robert Greene’s name………

……..Thomas Nashe was free to say what he liked….

But the libel laws in Elizabeth’s England were Draconian……

In 1581 the Queen had ordered the amputation of the right hand of a pamphleteer….

……(the aptly-named ‘Stubbs’)…..

 …..who had attacked the Queen’s proposed marriage to the Duc d’ Anjou…..

The Queen had watched the whole thing…….

……. (according to Jesuit Sources)…….

……..from her bedroom window…

(See: ‘Queen Elizabeth, incest and sadism’)

So Nashe……

……who wanted to expose Shakespeare’s ‘plagiarism’…..

……his unwillingness to credit his collaborators……

……and his ruthless ambition…..

……had to cover his tracks expertly….

He does so by having ‘the author’ of the pamphlet……..

……let’s call him ‘Nashe-Greene’….

……. take up a repentant, highly moral stance….

This came easily to Nashe……..

…….even though he was known as a…..

…..biting satirist…..

…….and the English…..

……Juvenal

 He had wanted to be a priest like his father…..

……and had worked, for a time, for the Archbishop of Canterbury….

‘Nashe-Greene’ writes…….

To those gentlemen of his [Greene’s] Quondam [erstwhile] acquaintance, that spend their wits in making plays, R.G. [Robert Greene] wishest a better exercise and wisdom to prevent his extremities [his poverty and starvation]

‘Nashe-Greene’ then begs Christopher Marlowe to give up his Machiavellian-inspired atheism.

He talks about how God…..

……hath spoken to me in a voice of thunder, and I have felt he is a God who can punish enemies…

………and unless Marlowe starts to believe in Him, he will end up like ‘Nashe-Greene’……

…..OR EVEN WORSE!!!

In real life Nashe and Marlowe were close friends and collaborators…….

They worked together on…..

……and, The Code believes, on Dr. Faustus and Edward II as well…..

 To make the ‘Nashe-Greene’ deception complete………..

………NASHE HAD TO ATTACK HIMSELF!!!

‘Nashe-Greene’ warns ‘young Juvenal’ [Nashe] not to make enemies by indulging in satirical attacks on individuals…..

…….which is EXACTLY what Nashe is doing by ‘ghosting’  A Groats-worth of Witte….

‘Nashe-Green’ warns Nashe and Marlowe to be on their guard against the…….

 ……..burres…..[Kyd and Shakespeare] which ‘sought to cleave’ to him [‘Nashe-Greene’]…..those Puppets [actors] (I mean) that spake from our mouths [who used our dialogue] – those anticks [jesters] garnished in our colours [who stole our gags]….

‘Nashe-Greene’ then goes on to single out Shakespeare himself….

……….and plays on his name in the same way he played on Kyd’s….

Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his ‘Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide’ supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johnannes fac totum [Jack-of-all-trades] is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country…..

QUESTION:

Why does ‘Nashe-Greene’ describe Shakespeare as an ‘upstart crow, beautified with our feathers’?

ANSWERS:

1. Shakespeare, like Kyd, had started out as a lawyers’ clerk.

Clerks were famous for their buckram bags and black gowns…….

Writing under his own name in Pierce Pennilesse, Nashe says:

The devil himself’ is as formal as the best scrivener of them all…To Westminster Hall I went and made a search of enquiry  from the black gown to the buckram bag……

2. Crows have high-pitched, nasal voices – and ‘Nashe-Greene’ later in the pamphlet attacks Shakespeare’s Midlands accent….

3. ‘Nashe-Greene’ is referring to the old story – often attributed to Aesop – of the crow or jackdaw who tied other birds’ feathers onto his own tail to make him look grander…..

This continues Nashe’s attack on Shakespeare’s plagiarism which Nashe began in his Preface to Greene’s Menaphon where he complains that …..

…….sweet gentlemen…..

…….by which he means Greene and himself…..

…….have…..

…….tricked up a company of taffety fools [Shakespeare’s acting company] with their feathers…..

But by using the phrase  ‘upstart crow’ ‘Nashe-Greene’ was making a further coded reference…….

……..for those ‘in the know’……

●

The anonymous history play Edmund Ironside….

……..which is set in the reign of King Canutus…….

……..of sea-shore fame…….

……..takes place, in part, in the town of Southampton……..

…….(which was only fourteen miles from Titchfield)…..

…….uses then-existent  Southampton Castle as scenery…..

…….and features a brave and generous ‘Earl of Southampton’ in the cast….

…….even though, in Canute’s time, the Southampton title didn’t exist.

The Code believes the play was written for performance in Southampton…….

…….in front of the young Earls of Southampton and Essex as part of the Whitsun Celebrations of 1592….

…….which included the premiere of Love’s Labour’s Lost in the grounds of Titchfield……

Canute, like Queen Elizabeth, is given to rages…… 

…….and  sudden, sadistic acts of tyranny…….

Like her, he even cuts off peoples’ hands……

But Edmund Ironside……..

……who treats his troops with respect and pays them for their services……

…..(UNLIKE Elizabeth, who left her army starving and penniless after the Armada engagement)……

…..controls Canute by rebelling against him……..

….. and then beating him in single combat…..

This portrayal of  young Edmund is clearly an invitation to the young Earl of Essex….

 …….to rebel against the tyranny of the aging  Queen Elizabeth…..

…….but not to overthrow her completely……

…….(well not yet, anyway)…..

The late, great, World War II Codebreaker, musicologist, Shakespeare scholar…….

…….and Thames Estuary intellectual……..

………Eric Sams……

……..argues powerfully that the play was written by Shakespeare……

There is certainly  a wonderful ‘villain’ role for Shakespeare…….

……the ambitious,  manipulative, lower class, Edricus….

…….who’s managed to flatter his way into power……

……and who works as a double (and even triple!)  agent for both Canutus and Edmund.

Edricus completely disowns his plebeian family……

…….convincing himself that, if he were to acknowledge them….

…….it would…

………make my peacock’s plumes fall down

If one such abject thought possess my mind….

And Edmund, discovering Edricus’s treachery, makes the ‘upstart crow’ reference complete by observing:

Base Edricus, thou wert the fatal crow

That by thy horrid voice this news did show…..

Another character in the play, the upper class Leofric, condemns Edricus in words that could come straight from Nashe…..

Oh what a grief it is to noble blood

to see each base-born groom promoted up

each dunghill brat arreared to dignity

each flatterer esteemed virtuous

when the true, noble, virtuous gentlemen

are scorned, disgraced and held in obloquy…..

The words could come straight from Nashe….

……..because……..

………THEY DO COME STRAIGHT FROM NASHE!!!

Edmund Ironside,  The Code believes, is a collaboration between Shakespeare and Nashe…….

………..and Nashe uses THE PLAY ITSELF to have another go at Shakespeare.….

●

When, in A Groats-worth of Witte, ‘Nashe-Greene’ describes Shakespeare as possessing……

…..a  tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide…..

…..he is of course referring to the line in what is now Henry VI Part Three…..

……O tiger’s heart, wrapt in a woman’s hide….

……a play which Nashe – along with a team of others – wrote with Shakespeare…..

To make the charge of plagiarism stick, it’s highly likely that ‘Nashe-Greene’ chose the ‘tiger’s heart’ line…….

…….BECAUSE THE COLLABORATORS KNEW SHAKESPEARE HADN’T WRITTEN IT!!!

‘Nashe-Greene’s’ description of Shakespeare as a ‘fac totum’ fits in with Shakespeare’s dedication to Venus and Adonis……

……..to the handsome, young Harry Southampton…….

……..third Earl of Southampton…..

……..in which Shakespeare vows…..

…….to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you [Harry] with some graver labour…….

This proves that Shakespeare had a day-job separate from his writing…..

………in which he turned his hand to everything….

………including working as secretary to young Harry……

[See: Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd (I) ]

‘Nashe-Greene’s’ description of Shakespeare as…….

……the only Shakes-scene in a country…..

…….ties in with the actor William Beeston’s statement – quoted by John Aubrey – that in his…..

…….younger years Shakespeare had been a schoolmaster in the country……

[See: Shakespeare was a Schoolmaster in the Country: TITCHFIELD. ]

‘Nashe-Greene’ then returns to a JOINT ATTACK on Kyd and Shakespeare……

………which shows that, even in 1592 , the two men were still thought of as writing partners….

And, indeed, there is good evidence that they were…

Prof. Brian Vickers………..

………using a computer software programme designed to expose plagiarism in students…….

………has recently demonstrated that at least two plays……

……….Arden of Feversham and Edward III…….

……..were collaborations by Shakespeare and Kyd.

The Shakespeare Code – using completely different criteria – has come to the same conclusion….

……….and believes both plays were written in same year as the Groats-worth Pamphlet……

……….1592……

……….a year of The Plague……

●

…………The Lamentable and True Tragedy of M. Arden of Feversham in Kent….

………..a play based on a true-life murder, in the reign of Henry VIII, of a wealthy farmer by his wife…..

………..and her subsequent execution by burning……..

………..was registered on 3rd April 1592…..

…..just in time to cash in on the ‘real life’ execution by burning……

…. of the ‘contemporary’ husband-slayer, Anne Brewen………

……at Smithfield, on 28th June, 1592…..

This event excited Kyd so much he wrote a pamphlet about it…….

……..which was also published in 1592….

Arden of Feversham was clearly Kyd’s idea……..

…… and has all his grand guignol characteristics……

……poisoned portraits, poisoned crucifixes……

……desecrated prayer-books, multiple stabbings……

…….buckets of blood…..

…….and gory footprints in the snow….

But the play is also is full of ideas that Shakespeare was to develop  in his own later work….

Arden’s wife, Alice, calls out her lover’s name in her sleep….. (Othello)….

…….hires murderers to kill her husband…..(Macbeth)….

…… cannot wipe away his blood….(Macbeth)…..

…….and causes his corpse to bleed whenever she comes near it….(Julius Caesar)

The two murderers are called Black Will and Shakebag….

…….(Loosebag in real life)……

Shakebag…….

……stern in bloody stratgem…..

….. is another fantastic villain part for Shakespeare…..

….with wonderful language which suggests Shakespeare’s own hand……

Black night hath hid the pleasures of the day

And cheating darkness overhangs the earth

And with the black fold of her cloudy robe 

Obscures us from the eyesight of the world

In which sweet silence such as we triumph.

The lazy minutes linger on their time

As loathe to give due audit to the hour….

Shakebag’s last two lines could come straight from the Sonnets themselves…..

……..as could many of the lines in The Raigne of King Edward the third…..

 

Prof. Vickers believes that the first two acts were written by Shakespeare…..

……..and the last three by Kyd…….

The Code concurs……..

The first two acts deal with the married King Edward’s guilty infatuation with the married Countess of Salisbury……

……….and mirror the married Shakespeare’s own guilty infatuation with the Dark Lady of the Sonnets……

………the wayward, beautiful musician and courtesan, Amelia Basanno……..

The affair began in the spring of 1592…..

……..(when Amelia played the dark-skinned Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost in the grounds of Place House at Titchfield)….

……..and continued there into the autumn……..

………largely because the Plague was raging in London……

……..so no-one could leave….

The relationship developed into a love-triangle with Harry Southampton…..

……..who broke the habit of a life-time by sleeping with Amelia….

Mostly he slept with lower class young men…..

In the play, Edward abuses his position of power – as King –  by trying to seduce a mere Countess…

Shakespeare also believed that  Harry abused his position of power – as an Earl – when he slept with people who were not of his class…. 

…….especially if they were male…..

…….and NOT Shakespeare….

In the play, Warwick, the Countess’s father, warns his daughter that…..

He that hath power to take away thy life, [the King]

Hath power to take thy honour;

He tests her, by suggesting she should sleep with the King …..

When she says she would rather die, he is overjoyed……..

…….but warns her:

The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint

The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss:

Deep are the blows made with a mighty Axe:

That sin doth ten times aggravate it self,

That is committed in a holy place:

An evil deed, done by authority,

Is sin and subornation: Deck an Ape

In tissueand the beauty of the robe

Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast.

A spatious field of reasons could I urge

Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame:

That poison shews worst in a golden cup;

Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash…..

Corruption, both moral and physical, ensues when noble people act in an ignoble way………

………and when sexual union  is an act of joyless, unequal, co-ercion…….

Shakespeare, in  Sonnet 94, says EXACTLY THE SAME THING to Harry……..

They that have power to hurt [harm and/arouse others sexually] and will do none

That do not do the thing they most do show…..

[refrain from gay sex even though they display their penises in a ‘showy’ cod-piece]

Who, moving [turning on] others, are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold and to temptation slow,

They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces [as opposed to earthly favours from a lover]

And husband nature’s riches [semen] from expense [ejaculation]

They are the lords and owners of their faces

[their groins, with ‘beards’ of pubic hair and testicles for ‘eyes’ ]

Others but stewards of their excellence…..

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet

Though to itself it only live or die [masturbate alone]

But if that flower with base infection meets

[lower class people, with depraved morals and sexual disease]

The basest weed outbraves his dignity.

For sweetest things [penises] turn sourest by their deeds…..

For his conclusion to the Sonnet……

………Shakespeare not only says EXACTLY THE SAME THING as Warwick……..

………he says so in EXACTLY THE SAME LANGUAGE…….

Warwick says:

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds….

AND SO DOES WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!!!

Kyd’s second half of the play deals with Edward’s conquest of France…….

It is the fore-runner to Shakespeare’s Henry V….

………and a re-write of the tub-thumper Kyd wrote for the Queen’s Men……

 

………in which the audience are encouraged to throw their caps in the air at every English success….

There is a great part in Edward III for Harry Southampton as the Black Prince…….

….. who is given his armour and wins his spurs….

……and, in the description of off-stage battles, Kyd can fully satisfy his ‘Stanley Kubrick’  taste for violence and horror…..

.Purple the Sea, whose channel filled as fast

With streaming gore, that from the maimed fell,

As did her gushing moisture break into

The crannied cleftures of the through shot planks.

Here flew a head, dissevered from the trunk,

There mangled arms and legs were tossed aloft,

As when a whirl wind takes the Summer dust

And scatters it in middle of the air

●

Nashe, speaking in his own voice, describes how, even in the autumn of 1592 he is also….

…..detained with my lord  [Southampton]…..

…….out of……

……..fear of infection……

……..and is still…….

………the plague’s prisoner in the country [Titchfield]…..

The plague was still raging in London and the best place to be was well away from it…….

……….near the sea in Hampshire……

But how could Kyd be there as well,  collaborating with Shakespeare?

By his own admission, he had been in the service of a ‘lord’ from the summer of 1590…..

…….joining in with the…..

…….divine prayers used  daily in his lord’s house…..

How could he be the servant of two masters?

How could he be in two places at once?

TO FIND OUT, CLICK: HERE!!!