The Shakespeare Code

Note: It’s best to read ‘Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd’: Parts One,  Two and Three first.

This Post is a continuation of the Series.

A GROATS-WORTH OF WITTE 

The Story thus far……

A Groats-worth of Witte was a pamphlet printed in 1592………

…….. which claimed to be …..

……..written before [its writer, Robert Greene’s] death and published at his dying request…..

It was no such thing……

It was written by his University friend, Thomas Nashe……

……..who used the cover of the dead writer’s name to attack William Shakespeare as an……..

……..upstart crow, beautified with our feathers……

i.e. a plagiarist of other men’s work…..

……..INCLUDING NASHE’S OWN!!!

Nashe desperately wanted acknowledgment for his contribution to Shakespeare’s plays…..

…….acknowledgment that Shakespeare was clearly unwilling to give….

See: Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd Part Two 

The Story continues…..

‘Nashe-Greene’ writes…..

O that I might intreat your rare wits [Thomas Nashe, Christopher Marlowe’s and George Peele’s] to be employed in more profitable courses: and let those Apes [Thomas Kyd and Shakespeare] imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired invention [never share your brilliant ideas with them] Seek you better Masters: for it is pity men of such rare wits [like you, Nashe, Marlowe and Peele] should be subject to the pleasures of such rude grooms [Kyd and Shakespeare]

The ‘rude grooms’, had become ‘Nashe-Greene’s’ ‘Masters’ because they now both enjoyed aristocratic patronage…..

Shakespeare was with the Southampton family at Titchfield…..

And Kyd with the Sussex family at Portsmouth….

ONLY TWELVE MILES APART!

See: Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd: Part Three.

Kyd and Shakespeare were now in a position to HIRE writers like Greene and Nashe to research and help write entertainments for them….

……entertainments which would appeal to their highly educated, sophisticated employers….

‘Nashe-Greene’, to avoid libel writs……

…… invents a character called ‘Roberto’…….

…..who keeps changing his identity….

Sometimes ‘Roberto’ is a character in a fairy story……

……..a scholarly young man who despises his father’s money-dealing….

Sometimes he is ‘Shakespeare’…….

……..especially when he gets involved with the courtesan ‘Lamilia’

[Code for ‘Amelia Basanno’, Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ of the Sonnets]

Sometimes he is Robert Greene himself……

…….as he most certainly is by the end of the pamphlet……

………where ‘Nashe-Greene’ writes:

Here gentlemen break I off Roberto’s speech; whose life in most part agreeing with mine, [Shakespeare Code italics] found one self punishment as I have done. Hereafter suppose me the same Roberto…..

Long before this statement, though, the ‘reader-in-the-know’ would have recognised that ‘Roberto’ is often Greene himself…..

……..especially in the episode where ‘Roberto’, the scholar, is shown bewailing his poverty…..

……. and is overheard by a smartly dressed ‘Gentleman’….

……who offers either to….

…….procure [Greene] profit……

[Greene was always hard-up]

……..or bring [him] pleasure……

[Greene was a NOTORIOUS drunk and womaniser who had died after a surfeit of ‘Rhenish’ (white) wine and pickled herring]

…..the rather for that suppose you are a scholar, and pity it is men of learning should live in lack….

[It was taken for granted that scholars were poor]

The Gentleman offers Roberto [Greene] a way out for…….

 ………men of my profession get by scholars their whole living…..

He then confesses…

……..I am a player……

THE ‘GENTLEMAN’ IS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!!!

Roberto [Greene] says:

I took you rather for a Gentleman of great living, for if by outward habit men should be censured, I tell you, you would be taken for a substantial man….

[Mary, Countess of Southampton, had taken a shine to Shakespeare and given him smart clothes to wear as part of the Southampton entourage…..

Later in in 1592, Nashe was again to satirise Shakespeare in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as the……

…… very richly attired…..

…….Sol – the Sun -in Sommer’s Last Will and Testament…….

……a saucy upstart Jack……

……who nightly…..

……descends to Thetis lap……

Thetis was a sea-nymph……

…….and is code for the beautiful Mary, Countess of Southampton……..

…….whose stately home in Titchfield was near a river …….

…….and only three miles away from the sea itself…..

 After Sol’s……

 ……scapes in Thetis lap…..

….doubled is the swelling of his looks…..

…..as he…..

…..overloads his car with orient gems

And reins his fiery horses with rich pearls……

[i.e. rips off the Countess of Southampton as a reward for sleeping with her]

He terms himself the God of Poetry…..

The Countess of Southampton’s son, Henry Wriothesley, was to take over where his mother left off.

He gave Shakespeare a staggering love-gift of £1,000]

See: Just how gay was the Third Earl of Southampton?

The Player in Groats-worth of Witte confirms that he is indeed a man of substance and…..

 …….where I dwell…….

…..[in Titchfield]

….reputed able at my proper cost to build a Windmill….

[A reference to the play The Fair Em in which Valingford, played by Shakespeare, falls in love with Em, the beautiful Maid of the Mill.]

The Gentleman/Player/Shakespeare then goes on to explain that he was once a humble touring actor…

What though the world once went hard with me, when I was fain to carry my playing fardle [luggage] on footback….

[i.e. when he toured the Midlands, playing with his acting company, under the protection of Ferdinando, Lord Strange]

The Player continues….

……it is otherwise now; for my very share in playing apparel will not be sold for two hundred pounds….

[£1,000 in our money]

Truly (said Roberto) [Greene] ‘tis strange that you should so prosper in that vain practice [acting] for that it seems to me your voice is nothing gracious….

[Another reference to Shakespeare’s Midlands accent……

 ……which to Southern ears can sound flat and nasal……..

…….and to Shakespeare’s performance in Edmund Ironside as……

…….. the fatal crow……

……..the villain Edricus, with his…….

…….horrid voice……..]

The Player ripostes:

 ‘I mislike your judgement: why I am as famous for Delphrigus and the King of Fairies, as ever was any of my time…

[Another reference by Nashe to the part of Delphrigus, in which Shakespeare enjoyed success…….

…….and the proto-Oberon ‘Fairy King’ role in which Shakespeare also distinguished himself……..

……but which Nashe claimed was created by Greene]

See: Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd: Part One.

The Player continues…..

…….The twelve labours of Hercules have I terribly thundered on the stage……..

[Just as Bottom intends to do when he offers to play……

 …….Ercles rarely or a part to tear a cat in….]

…….. played three scenes of the Devil on the High Way to Heaven….

[A religious play, inspired by Shakespeare’s mentor at St. Giles, Cripplegate, the Revd Robert Crowley]

Have ye so? (said Roberto [Greene]) then I pray you pardon me.

Nay more (quoth the Player [Shakespeare]) for ‘twas I that penned the Moral of Man’s Wit……

[A morality play, inspired again by Crowley]

…….the Dialogue of Dives…….

[A parable play, inspired yet again by Crowley. Dives, according to Christ, was the rich man who went to Hell and Lazarus was the poor man who went to Heaven]

…..I can serve to make a pretty speech, for I was a country Author….

[This refers BOTH to Shakespeare’s home town, Stratford-upon-Avon AND Shakespeare’s fascination with sex. ‘Nashe-Greene’ is employing the same ‘cunt-ry’ pun that Hamlet uses with Ophelia:

…Do you think I meant country matters?]

The Player continues……

…… for seven years space [ i.e. from 1583] [I] was absolute interpreter [writer and director] to the puppets [actors]. But now my almanac is out of date…..

[‘I, and my Crowley-inspired plays, have become unfashionable.’…….

…….ALL plays and ALL actors became unfashionable at the time of the time of the  Armada Invasion.]

The Player,  like Posthast in Histrio-Mastix….

…….like Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream…

…..AND like Shakespeare with his friends in the Bear Tavern in Stratford upon Avon….

…..goes on to improvise some lines of verse…

The people make no estimation

Of moral’s teaching education’

Was not this pretty for a plain rhyme extempore? If ye will ye shall have more. 

Roberto replies:

Nay it’s enough.….but how mean ye to use me?

‘Why sir, in making plays’, said the other [Shakespeare] ‘for which ye shall be well paid, if you will take the pains.

[Well paid with the Countess of Southampton’s money!]

Roberto [Greene] perceiving no remedy, thought best in respect of his present necessity, to try his wit and went with him willingly: who lodged him at the Town’s end in a house of retail….

[Posbrook Farm….

…….. just outside Titchfield, owned by William Beeston, Nashe’s ‘Mr. Apis-Lapis’…….

………which was as famous for ‘retailing’ girls as it was for retailing cheese and cider]

There, by conversing with bad company…..

[Beeston’s three ‘maids’]

 ……he [Roberto] grew A Malo in peius, [from bad to worse] falling from one vice to another….

It was at Posbrook Farm – now called Great Posbrook Farm –  that Greene, Nashe, Shakespeare and Kyd collaborated on the Henry VI trilogy……

…….when they weren’t otherwise engaged…..

(See: The Strange Case of Mr. Apis Lapis)

●

Nashe fooled nobody……

EVERYONE knew he was the real author of Greene’s Groats-worth of Witte…..

Shakespeare fell into a fury…….

……..as did Marlowe……

Nashe published an immediate denial:

A scald, trivial, lying pamphlet, called Greene’s Groats-worth of Witte is given out to be of my doing. God never have care of my soul, but utterly renounce me, if the least word or syllable in it proceeded from my pen or if I were any way privy to the writing or printing of it. I am the plague’s prisoner in the country as yet…[Titchfield]

Even the publisher of the pamphlet, Henry Chettle, followed suit in December:

With neither of them that take offence [Marlowe and Shakespeare] was I acquainted, and with one of them [Marlowe] I care not if I ever be: the other [Shakespeare] whom at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had, for that I have moderated the heat of living writers, and might have used my own discretion (especially in such a case, the Author being dead), that I did not, I am as sorry , as if the original fault had been my own fault, because my self have seen his [Shakespeare’s] demeanour  no less civil than he excellent in the qualities he professes…….

Chettle then goes on to explain the real reason he is apologising to Shakespeare…..

Besides, divers of worship [The Countess and Earl of Southampton] have reported his uprightness of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, which approves his art.

Shakespeare had clearly been pulling his aristocratic strings…..

But Shakespeare needed Nashe as much as Nashe needed Shakespeare…..

By March of the following year (1593) a reconciliation had been forged……..

………and Shakespeare, Nashe and Southampton made a secret visit to Europe as spies for the Earl of Essex…..

………who had just been appointed to the Privy Council….

See: Shakespeare in Italy.

[Note: Prof. Roger Pryor also argues that Shakespeare was in Italy in 1593, using entirely different criteria]

But the three men returned to England…….

……..utterly changed……

……..to find an England utterly changed as well……

To discover how, stay tuned to The Shakespeare Code…….

…….YOUR STATION OF THE STARS……

To read more ‘Background’ Posts to A Midsummer Night’s Dream…..

….please click: HERE