The Shakespeare Code

It’s best to read ‘Shakespeare’s Walk Out’ Part 31 first.

Amelia has been cast as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, when she meets up again with Shakespeare, wants to have a full-blown affair with him.

She has been dropped by Harry when she became pregnant – and a loveless marriage has been arranged for her with the ‘minstrel’ Alphonse Lanier.

He has squandered what money and jewels she possessed- and Amelia, with a two year old son, Henry, to look after, needs love.

Shakespeare is still is still besotted with Amelia physically, but is wary of being hurt by her again….

97. (151)

Love is too young to know what conscience is,

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.

Cupid is too young to have ‘conscience’, which means (1) Moral sense and (2) Knowledge of the female organ.

[‘Con’ was pronounced ‘Cun’.]

Shakespeare asks Amelia – who would be cheating on her new husband – not to encourage him to betray his wife, Anne, lest Amelia become guilty of the same sin herself –  infidelity to Shakespeare.

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body’s treason;

My soul doth tell my body that he may,

Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,

Because, Shakespeare says, if you betray my trust in you by going off with someone else, I will in turn have betrayed my soul which tells my body it may throw itself into a passionate, physical affair with you. And, believe me, my body needs no persuasion to do this….

But rising at thy name, doth point out thee,

As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride;

He is contented thy poor drudge to be

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

Shakespeare claims he has an erection just thinking of Amelia’s name – and his aroused penis points at Amelia’s body, claiming it as his prize.

His penis is also prepared to be Amelia’s slave as well as her master – to stand up for her and die in her service…..

…..i.e. enter her pudend, achieve orgasm and fall flaccid.

No want of conscience hold it that I call,

Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

So it cannot be because of a lack of ‘conscience’ [i.e., (1) Lack of moral sense or (2) Lack of carnal knowledge]that Shakespeare calls Amelia his ‘love’. Because of his love for Amelia, Shakespeare, paradoxically, rises and fall at the same time.

This means: (1) He becomes erect and makes love to Amelia, but afterwards his penis resumes its  normal, flaccid state.

(2) He is elevated to the position of masterful lover, but falls morally because he is being unfaithful to his wife.

Anne Hathaway

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Amelia has promised to be faithful to Shakespeare this time round – but Shakespeare realises that this is all a game – a game, however, which he is happy, for the moment, to play.

98. (138)

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor’d youth,

Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

Shakespeare says that when Amelia promises she will be faithful to Shakespeare, he knows from experience that she is lying; but he believes her in the hope that Amelia will think he is a naïve young man who doesn’t know how the world wags.

‘Made’ can = ‘maid’ – ‘a virgin’ – quite a playful description of an ex-courtesan.

Shakespeare was thirty in 1594: but the hard life of touring with Lord Strange’s company had prematurely aged him, as we know from Sonnet 131. (73)

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;

On both sides thus is simple truth suppresst.

Thinking ‘vainly’ [(1) In vain (2) With vanity] that Amelia believes he is a young man, although she knows Shakespeare is past his best – Shakespeare ‘simply’ believes Amelia’s lies – ‘simply’ = (1) Straightforwardly and (2) Stupidly. This way ‘simple’ truth is denied i.e. (1) The plain truth and (2) The stupid truth.

If lies make you happy, then the truth is stupid.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love, loves not t’have years told.

But why doesn’t Amelia admit the truth about herself? That she can never be faithful to one man? And why doesn’t Shakespeare – who was prematurely bald – admit that he is old?

Shakespeare’s answer is that best ‘habit’ (garment) love can wear is to seem to trust the other person – and when a lover is older, he doesn’t want to be reminded of the fact.

‘Told’ can also = ‘tolled’ – the ringing of a bell to mark the passage of time and the progress towards death.

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

So Shakespeare and Amelia ‘lie’ with each other [= (1) Tell lies and (2) Make love to each other] and so flatter each other’s shortcomings – Amelia’s promiscuity and Shakespeare’s age.

This arrangement cannot last. Shakespeare discovers Amelia has been unfaithful to him and writes to her…

82. (152)

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,

But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,

In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,

In vowing new hate after new love bearing.

Shakespeare tells Amelia that by loving her he is breaking his wedding vow to his wife, Anne. But Amelia is breaking two vows by swearing love to Shakespeare: (1) Her wedding vow to Alphonso Lanyer that she would love him and be faithful to him, and (2) Her new Christian faith – the religion to which she has converted from Judaism.

She now hates her husband (‘new hate’) after swearing to love him (‘new love’) in a Christian church.

Amelia’s conversion wasn’t simply for convenience. She became a genuine convert having dreamt the line ‘Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum’ – ‘Hail God, King of the Jews’.  Amelia went on to write at length about her conversion to Christianity.

See: How Shakespeare’s Dark Lady found God.

But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,

When I break twenty? I am perjur’d most,

For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,

And all my honest faith in thee is lost.

But Shakespeare says he is in no position to condemn Amelia for breaking two vows when he himself has broken twenty. For his vows of love have completely misrepresented Amelia – and all the faith he had in her has been lost.

For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,

Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,

And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,

Or made them swear against the thing they see.

Shakespeare has sworn, to himself and to others, that Amelia is kind, loving, true and constant. In order to make her seem a creature of light, he has made his ‘eyes’ blind – or if not blind, they have denied the reality of the ‘thing’ they see.

‘Eyes’ can = ‘testicles’ and ‘thing’ can = ‘pudend’.

Shakespeare’s physical attraction to Amelia has blinded his true judgement of her worth. 

For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur’d eye,

To swear against the truth so foul a lie.

Shakespeare has sworn that Amelia is ‘fair’ [(1) Honourable and (2) Beautiful] and so his ‘eye’ is perjured: ‘eye’ = (1) Literal eye that sees (2) Shakespeare’s penis – which is unfaithful to Anne (3) Shakespeare’s ‘I’ – his spiritual sense of himself.

This was a complete denial of the truth.

Amelia is, in fact, ‘foul’.

Shakespeare’s affair with Amelia has come to an end.

Amelia got her revenge by writing an anonymous satire later that year (1594) about the men in her life, including Lord Hunsdon, her keeper…..

Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon.

….and Harry (H.W.)…..

Henry Wriothesley on the Southampton tomb at St. Peter’s,Titchfield. (1594)Photo: Ross Underwood.

……and Shakespeare, (‘W.S. An Old Player’)

Willobie his Avisa – published in 1594 – even has verbal echoes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which Amelia played Hermia.

See:‘Willobie his Avisa Decoded.

To read ‘Shakespeare on Tour Again’, Part 33, click: HERE