The Shakespeare Code

(It’s best to read Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five first.)

In the last, trail-blazing post, Trixie the Cat……..

…..demonstrated that Willobie his Avisa…….

….. was written by the same person who wrote…..

Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum…….

…..AEMILIA LANYER…..

(See: Part Five.)

Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum……

 …..Hail, God, King of the Jews….

………is a Christian religious poem which Aemilia Lanyer published in her own name in 1611…..

………and demonstrates, as Willobie his Avisa does, the moral superiority of women to men…..

The poem is preceded by dedications to NINE aristocratic women……

…….including Queen Anne of Denmark…….

It is an account of Christ’s Passion……..

……..followed by……

…….Eve’s Apology in Defence of Women…..

…….The Tears of the Daughters of Jerusalem…….

…….and the Salutation and Sorrow of the Virgin Mary.

 The volume concludes with one of the first…..

……. if not THE first…..

……..country house poem…….

……..the sublime…….

…..A Description of Cooke-ham….

This post…..

 …….will expose FURTHER STYLISTIC SIMILARITIES between Willobie his Avisa……

….. and Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum…..

……TO CONSOLIDATE TRIXIE THE CAT’S GAME-CHANGING THEORY!!!

(1) The debt to Shakespeare….

We have already covered the echoes of Shakespeare in Willobie his Avisa….

See: Part Four. The Echoes of Shakespeare.

In Salve Deus there are also Shakespearean echoes…

….. which are, if anything, even more striking…..

In his Dedication of Venus and Adonis to Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton……

……. Shakespeare writes….

….I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship…..

Aemilia, in her Dedication to Queen Anne…..

……..refers to ….

…..these rude unpolisht lines of mine…..

Shakespeare, in the same Dedication to Wriothesley, vows…..

…….to take advantage of all idle hours…….

Aemilia, in her Dedication to the Countess of Pembroke………

…..describes Salve Deus as…..

…….the fruits of idle hours…..

Jacques, in As You Like It, famously says….

……All the world’s a stage….

And all the men and women merely players….

Aemilia, In her dedication to Anne Clifford, the Countess of Dorset…….

……writes….

For well you know, this world is but a stage

Where all do play their parts and must be gone…..

Perhaps, though, the most telling Shakespearean similarity between the two works……

…. is a misquotation!

Shakespeare, as we have seen, uses the phrase….

…..base infection….

…..in Sonnet 94…….

……They that have power to hurt and will do none….

……..where he condemns Henry Wriothesley’s sexual abuse of power……

i.e…..his seduction of lower class young men.

 Avisa in Willobie remembers the phrase as…..

…..base affection….

…..when she describes the unwanted attentions of the old Nobleman….

In Aemilia’s Dedication to Anne Clifford….

…..SHE USES THE SAME PHRASE IN EXACTLY THE SAME CONTEXT!!!

Nor is he fit for honour or command,

If base affections over-rules his mind….

(ii) Classical Goddesses as the creators of mortals.

As we have seen, in Willobie his Avisa, the Four Graces……

…… Venus, Diana, Pallas and Juno –

…….give Avisa her physical and moral qualities…

……at the well at Cerne Abbas…..

See: Part Two. Topography.

In her first poem in Salve Deus…….

……. dedicated to Queen Anne….

……Aemilia claims that Anne has derived her….

…….state and Dignities…….

…… from Juno…….

……wisdom and fortitude….

……. from Pallas and….

……excellencies…..

…….. from Venus….

(iii) Preoccupation with poverty.

Aemilia in Willobie….

…… claims that Juno has made Avisa poor because she was jealous of her beauty….

But Avisa turns her poverty into a moral strength…….

She says to the randy old Nobleman……

……. who is trying to groom and seduce her……

I love to live devoid of crime,

Although I beg, although I pine,

These fading joys for little time

Embrace who list, I here resign

How poor I go, how mean I fare

If God be pleas’d, I do not care….

Aemilia, in her Dedication to Queen Anne, talks openly about her about her own….

…..meaness…

……but claims, like Avisa, that her poverty gives her a spiritual integrity and hope…..

……since my wealth within his [Christ’s] region stands,

And that his cross my chiefest comfort is,

Yea, in his kingdom only rests my lands,

Of honour there I hope I shall not miss:

Though I on earth do live unfortunate

Yet there I may attain a better state…

(iv) Similar Images….

(a) Men as ‘snake-like’….

As we have already seen in Trixie the Cat’s composite ‘document’…….

………. both Willobie and Salve Deus describe men as ‘snake-like’……

Willobie describes men as having tongues……

….tipped with poison….

……and Salve Deus as….

…..vipers (who) deface the wombs wherin they were bred….

In Willobie, Avisa, attacking ‘H.W.’ (Henry Wriothesley) says……

In greenest grass the winding snake

With poisoned sting is soonest found

A coward’s tongue makes greatest crack

The emptiest cask yields greatest sound…

In Salve Deus – speaking of ungodly men – Aemilia writes….

As venomous as serpents is their breath

With poisoned lies to hurt in what they may

The innocent…

…..and goes on to describe the men who sought the destruction of Christ as…

….. Vipers, objects of disgrace

Which sought that pure eternal love to quench….

Aemilia’s repeated point is that no woman betrayed Christ….

Unlike his Disciples, the women in his life stayed loyal to the end….

(b) Eagles gazing directly into the sun..

‘Hadrian Dorrell’, the supposed ‘editor’ of Willobie points out that the name….

…….Avisa….

……..might be derived from…..

 ……avis……

……. Latin for bird…..

And ‘Henry Willobie’ describes Avisa as..

This English eagle [which] sores alone

And far surmounts all others fame….

……and later observes that…..

Though eagle-eyed this bird appear

Not blusht at beams of Phoebus [the sun’s] rays…..

Aemilia describes Lady Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland…

…….as possessing

…….eagle eyes [which] behold the glorious sun…

Of th’all creating Providence……

And, Aemilia, addressing the Daughters of Jerusalem……

…..who stayed faithful and loving to Christ during his crucifixion…..

…..says to them…….

Your eagle eyes did gaze upon this sonne….

Aemilia is punning between ‘sun’ and ‘son’…..

i.e. the physical sun and Christ, the son of God….

(c) The Book as a Mirror…..

In Willobie his Avisa , ‘Henrie Willobie’ describes the book as……

….the mirror of this sinful age

That gives us beasts in shapes of men……

Aemilia, in her Dedication to Lady Anne, Countesss of Dorset, writes…..

…Then in this mirror let you fair eyes look

To view your virtue in this blessed book….

(d) Sweetness..

The word ‘sweet’ is mentioned an astonishing FIFTY ONE times in Willobie his Avisa….

……and a staggering SEVENTY ONE times in Salve Deus….

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So, clearly there are MASSIVE SIMILARITIES between Willobie and Salve……..

But does this mean there are MASSIVE SIMILARITIES between Avisa and Aemilia?

Is Avisa a self-portrait of Aemilia?

Or was Avisa ‘fained’?

BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE SHAKESPEARE CODE…..

READ ON TO FIND OUT!!!

CLICK:HERE!

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