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

It would be natural for Aemilia Lanyer to visit Cerne Abbas in 1594….

She’d had a history of miscarriages……

……but now she had a little boy….

……and wanted a brother or sister for him….

The waters of St. Augustine’s Well were a famous aid to fertility….

Cerne Abbas now has a chalk giant on the hillside…..

….probably a seventeenth century caricature of Oliver Cromwell…..

…..which makes a blatant reference to the generative powers of the well…..

Sir Walter Raleigh was in the habit of visiting Cerne Abbas because of its famous cobbling family, the Hodges…

The Hodges Stone, Cerne Abbas, kindly supplied to The Code by George Mortimer.

And Aemilia could easily arrange for their visits to overlap…

She was in possession of something Raleigh desperately wanted…..

GOSSIP ABOUT HIS ENEMIES!!!

Raleigh was in disgrace with Queen Elizabeth for secretly marrying Bess Throckmorton……

And the Queen had exiled him from the Court……

He would do ANYTHING to discredit his rivals there…….

Especially the dashing young Earl of Essex…..

Aemilia had information on the love-life of Southampton……

……the great friend of Essex….

….which, with Raleigh’s help…..

…..i.e money….

…..she could turn into a satire…

That is how Sir Walter became Avisa’s….

…..Sire….

….and why the Four Graces ‘created’ her at St. Augustine’s well…..

….’Avisa’……

….which in the words of the 1596 version of Willobie….. ‘sounds something like’…….

…..’Aemilia’…..

….. was ‘conceived’ at Cerne Abbas….

Sir Walter then invited Aemilia to stay at Sherborne…..

…..where his beloved New Castle was being built….

…..and put her up at the George Tavern……

…..with its famous …..

……crystal well…..

Aemilia took her revenge on her erstwhile lovers by exposing their weakness…….

……their ruthlessness….

…….their ploys to seduce her….

….and their abuse of aristocratic powers……

Aemilia suggests that Hunsdon……

…….as well as being a borderline paedophile…..

……. was also a closet Papist……

She has Avisa refer to…..

Your [Hunsdon’s] high estate, your silver shrines,

Replete with wind and filty stink….

(Hunsdon had been brought up by both Mary and Anne Boleyn……

……then in a Cistercian monastery by monks who employed incense and ritual…..)

‘Henry Willobie’ [Aemilia] then goes on to describe how…..

….where age [Hundson] leaves off, there youths [Wriothesley] begin…..

….and immediately states that…..

Our English soil to Sodom’s sink

Excessive sin transform’d of late,

Of foul deceit the loathsome link

Hath worn all faith clean out of date,

The greatest sins ‘mongst greatest sort

Are counted now but for a sport…

Aemilia also closely implies a gay relationship between Shakespeare and his ‘familiar friend’ Southampton……

 She has ‘H.W. say….

I took a salve that still before

Was won’t to help, I chose me one

With whom I quenched my lust alone…

Shakespeare had used the word ‘salve’ in Sonnet 120 to represent his love making with Southampton…..

O that our night of woe might have remembered

My deepest sense how hard true sorrow hits

And soon to you, as you to me then, tendered

The humble salve which wounded bosom fits…..

BUT, as Avisa, Aemilia re-runs history……

 …..IN HER FAVOUR…

THIS TIME SHE DOESN’T SUCCUMB TO HER SUITORS….

WHY?

The answer is that Aemilia was in the throes of a profound and shattering conversion to Christianity…..

At around this time she had a dream which she recounts at the end of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum…’Hail God, King of the Jews’

Gentle reader, if thou desire to be resolved, why I give this title, Salve Rex Judaeorum, know for certain that it was delivered unto me in sleep many years before I had any intent to write in this manner, and was quite out of my memory, until I had written the Passion of Christ, when immediately it came into my remembrance, what I had dreamed long before; and thinking it a significant token, that I was appointed to perform this work, I gave the very same words I received in sleep as the fittest title I could devise for this book….

Aemilia was experiencing conversion from the very depths of her being….

She was becoming a new person…..

And Avisa is the woman she wanted to be….

That is why Avisa is conceived by a silver well in Cerne Abbas…..

…..and dwells by a  crystal well in Sherborne….

The creation of Avisa is a baptism….

In Salve Deus she even describes how women can find Christ in the

….pleasant groves

Of sweet Elisium, by the Well of Life

Whose crystal springs do purge from worldly strife.

So ‘Avisa’ both IS….

…. and ISN’T…….

….’ Aemilia’……

That’s why she gives hints that Avisa really exists….

And hints that she doesn’t….

When the book was published, one ‘Peter Colse’……..

………most likely an enemy of the Raleigh entourage……

……. twigged that Avisa was a real woman out for real revenge…..

….and writes:

…a vain-glorious Avisa (seeking by slander of her superiors to eternise her folly) is in the like verse by an unknown author described…..

Aemilia immediately replies with the denial that Avisa ever existed……

….. claims that the author ‘Henri Willobie’ is……

……of late gone to God…..

……i.e. dead…..

…and the events took place thirty-five years ago…..

In a particular swipe at Shakespeare, and his Sonnets to her, she writes:

Such others there be, who, when they have read this book, have blushed to themselves, finding, as they thought, their very words and writings which they had used in the like attempts….

Whatever money she made from Raleigh  and Willobie was soon spent….

By the time she visited Forman in 1597……

…….she was so hard up she was considering becoming a……..

…..good-fellow [prostitute]….

She had financed Alfonso to become a ‘gentleman adventurer’ on the Earl of Essex’s campaigns……..

…….in the pathetic hope that he would become a knight…..

……. so that she could re-enter society as a lady……

Forman, like all the others before him, got hooked by Aemilia’s charms…….

He set down his professional dilemma – Hamlet-like – on 11th September, 1597 in the third person:

Best to do a thing or no…A certain man [Forman] longed to see a gentlewoman [Aemilia] whom he loved and desired to halek with. [make love to] And because he could not tell how to come to her and whether he should be welcome to her or no, moved this question, whether it were best to send to her to know how she did and thereby to try whether she would bid the messenger by his mistress round to him or no. Thinking thereby what he might goodly bolden thereby to see her…..

The party [Forman] sent his servant by who she [Aemilia]  sent word that if his master came he should be welcome and he went and supped with her and stayed all night and she was familiar and friendly to him in all things. But only she would not halek. Yet he told all parts of her body willingly and kissed her often but she would not do in any wise. Whereupon…he departed friends…..

Aemilia was up to her old teasing tricks…..

In December of the following year, 1598, Aemilia had a baby daughter whom she named….

…..Odillia….

….but Odillia died the following year….

….and the year after that she was flirting with Forman again….

…probably to get his astrological services for free…

But she never totally gave in to him….

……so in his mind she became……

….. a whore [who] dealt evil with him after……

Forman was following the pattern Shakespeare set……

…..infatuation, followed by rejection and fury……

But how did Shakespeare himself react to this attack on him and his….

……familiar friend?

As usual, obliquely….

He wrote The Merchant of Venice……..

………. and invented the character of Jessica…….

……. who converts to Christianity from her father Shylock’s Judaism……

……for selfish and commercial reasons rather than spiritual ones….

……and acquires a husband, Lorenzo, who, like Alfonso, gains a fortune when he marries her….

But it is perhaps the character of Aemilia in Othello that is Shakespeare’s most interesting response…..

……..If the woman is unfaithful to the husband, she argues, then the husband is to blame….

But I do think it is their husbands’ faults

If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,

And pour our treasures into foreign laps,

Or else break out in peevish jealousies,

Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,

Or scant our former having in despite;

Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,

Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know

Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell

And have their palates both for sweet and sour,

As husbands have.

This is ‘our’ Aemilia to the life…..

In the First Folio her name is even spelt the same way….

To read on, please click: Here!

….

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

The one big difference between Aemilia and Avisa is this:

Aemilia was a performer….

…..and Avisa was not….

Aemilia came from a musical family and is certain to have been a musician……

…..and William Shakespeare, in Sonnet 128, describes how…..

……when he sees the Dark Lady playing the clavichord….

……he envies…..

…those jacks [keys] that nimble leap,

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand….

We know for certain, from The Description of Cooke-ham…….

…..that Aemilia acted in entertainments  with Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset….

……..in 1604 when Anne was in her teens…..

Aemelia writes to Anne’s mother, Lady Margaret, Dowager Countess of Cumberland……

Remember beauteous Dorset’s former sports,

So far from being touch’d by ill reports;

Wherein my self did always bear a part

While reverend Love presented my true heart.

Anne Clifford – ‘Dorset’ – later went on herself to act herself in Ben Jonson masques at the Court of King James in 1608 and 1609…..

………..and Aemilia obliquely refers to this in her 1611 Dedication….

……and you a glorious Actor will appear

Lovely to all, but unto God most dear.

I know right well these are but needless lines

To you that are so perfect in your part…..

We have traced the influence of Shakespeare in the writings of Aemilia Lanyer….

Every single one of Shakespeare’s plays that Aemilia ‘echoes’ –

….. both in Willobie and Salve…..

…….HAS A CRACKING PART FOR A BLACK ACTRESS!!!…..

In As You Like It there is Audrey…….

…… with her

……inky brows…..black silk hair  [and] bugle eyeballs

……..even if she does have a…..

cheek of cream….

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hermia……..

……. is described as a….

….raven….Ethiope….and tawny tartar…….

Even Edward III tells his son, the Black Prince that his mother, Queen Philippa…..

…..is but black and thou like her

Dost put it in my mind how foul she is……

And in Edmund Ironside….

…..there is a role for a…..

……black Egyptian

…a phrase Aemilia herself uses in Salve Deus to criticise Cleopatra…..

…….  Yet thou a black Egyptian do’st appear….

(Avisa, it will be remembered, also attacks Cleopatra’s morals in Willobie his Avisa)

But Shakespeare’s most remarkable reference to Aemilia’s dark skin is in Love’s Labour’s Lost…….

Berowne falls in love with Rosaline……

……. a whitely wanton with a velvet brow

With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes…..

[For an explanation of why the dark-skinned Rosaline is described as ‘a whitely wanton’ please see: Shakespeare in Titchfield]

The King of Navarre declares to Berowne:

By heaven, thy love is black as ebony…..

And Berowne ripostes:

O if in black my lady’s brows be decked,

It mourns that painting [make up] and usurping hair [wigs]

Should ravish doters with a false aspect;

And therefore is she born to make black fair.

Her favour turns the fashion of the days,

For native blood is counted painting now;

And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,

Paints itself black to imitate her brow….

This assertion, that black is the new fashion….

……that black is beautiful…….

…… and that black women…….

…….because they do not rely on make-up or wigs…….

…….are superior in beauty to white women……

…….is IDENTICAL to the argument of Sonnet 127:

In the old age black was not counted fair,

Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;

But now is black beauty’s successive heir,

And beauty slandered with a bastard shame: [wigs and make-up]

For since each hand hath put on Nature’s power,

Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrowed face,

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,

But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,

Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

Sland’ring creation with a false esteem:

Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,

That every tongue says beauty should look so.

There can NO DOUBT that Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost is based on the real-life Dark Lady.

And as Aemilia IS the Dark Lady……

…….Rosaline is based on Aemilia.

And if Rosaline is based on Aemilia, who better to PLAY her than Aemilia herself……

We know for certain that women – including aristocratic women – acted in private performances in country houses for Queen Elizabeth on her progresses…….

See: The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.

…….so why shouldn’t Amelia have acted in private, country house performances of Shakespeare’ plays?

In Love’s Labour’s Found (2002)……..

…….. the Code’s Chief Agent, Stewart Trotter, argues that Love’s Labour’s Lost was originally performed at Titchfield at Whitsun in 1592.

The plague was raging in London, so there would be every reason, for Aemilia to stay out in Titchfield.

It was there, The Code believes, that the famous ménage-a-trois with Aemilia, Shakespeare and Wriothesley started.

Thomas Nashe………

…….who The Code believes, was also part of the Titchfield set, wrote in Pierce Pennilesse in 1592:

…….fear of infection detained me with my Lord in the country….I am the plague’s prisoner in the country as yet……

……and in the following year, in his dedication to The Unfortunate Traveller, Nashe described Wriothelsey as…..

………a lover and cherisher…..as well of the lovers of poets [i.e. Aemilia] as of poets themselves [i.e. Shakespeare]……

Shakespeare, like Berowne, fell in love with Aemilia and publicly declared his feelings for her in Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Wriothesley became jealous –

HE wanted to be the object of Shakespeare’s attention……

Shakespeare asked Wriothesley to plead his love-case with Aemilia……

And Aemilia took the opportunity of seducing the young lord……

Shakespeare complains to Aemilia about what she has done in Sonnet 134:

So, now I have confess’d that he [Wriothesley] is thine [Aemilia’s]

And I myself am mortgaged to thy will [pudenda]

Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine [Wriothesley]

Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still:

But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,

For thou art covetous and he is kind;

He learn’d but surety-like to write for me [be my proxy-wooer]

Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.

The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,

Thou usurer,[money lender = prostitute] that put’st forth all to use [will make love to anybody]

And sue a friend [Wriothesley] came debtor for my sake [to argue my love-suit]

Shakespeare was then forced to admit that he was more in love with the young man than he was with the young woman….

In Sonnet 42 he writes to Wriothesley……

That thou hast her [Aemilia], it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee,[Wriothesley]is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Aemilia herself was the final victim of all this…..

She told Forman in 1597 that she had had many…..

….. false conceptions……

…i.e….miscarriages…..

……which had enabled her to carry on her affair with Lord Hunsdon and other Lords with impunity……

But in the Plague Year of 1592 she finally fell pregnant……..

….and as we know she was married….

…..’for colour’ to the ‘minstrel’ Alfonso Lanyer  on18th October, at St. Botolph’s, Aldgate.

She had a son who was called Henry…….

…..whether after Henry Hunsdon or Henry Wriothesley  we may never know….

Hunsdon continued to support his ex-mistress financially…….

……..but by marrying a mere Court Musician, she was no longer part of the aristocratic establishment.

She performed the rôle of Hermia two years later in 1594…..

….after a long space of absence…..

……as she writes in Willobie his Avisa….

…….and took the opportunity of reviving the old love-triangle…

By then she had married in a Christian church……

……as many in her Jewish family had to do…..

……for ‘colour’…….

But Aemilia started to take the Christian faith seriously…..

And even Shakespeare refers to her….

….bed vow broke….

….i.e. her wedding vow….

….and new faith torn…..

…..i.e. her ‘new’ Christian faith….

But by the end of 1594 she was in a desperate state…

We know from what she later said to Forman that her husband…..

……dealt hardly with her and spent and consumed her goods

….and she’d had to move from a ‘mistress’ lifestyle of four servants and four horses….

…..to a ‘wife and mother’ lifestyle of economy and penury…..

But she supported her husband’s endeavours to become a knight…..

………so that she could become a ‘lady’….

…….and enter ‘society’ again…

She wanted to mother another child….

So she now needed a measure of respectability….

But Shakespeare had been circulating his poisonous sonnets about her….

In Sonnet 147 he had written:

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night…

In Willobie Aemilia refers to….

My sleepy Muse that wakes but now

Nor now had wak’t if one had slept…

i.e. she was simply retaliating to the attack by Shakespeare.

She needed to muffle him…….

……..she needed money…….

……. and she wanted revenge for being dropped….

……..not only by Hunsdon…..

…..but by the whole Southampton entourage…..

Enter Sir Walter Raleigh……

To find out what happened when Sir Walter entered, click: HERE.

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

In 1973, when A.L. Rowse discovered the references to Aemilia Lanyer in Simon Forman’s notebooks……

……. he declared that she was the Dark lady of the Sonnets.

In The Shakespeare Code’s view, he was completely right……

But Rowse was way before his time…..

The ‘New Criticism’ still held sway…..

It was based on the ideas of the poet, T.S. Eliot………

…….. and promoted by the Cambridge don, F.R. Leavis.

In his 1921 essay in The Sacred Wood, Eliot stated that….

the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates……

Eliot, great poet that he was, lived a murky personal life……

……….with murky political views…..

…..(Leavis’s wife, Queenie, couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him)……

…..but he didn’t want people to go off his poetry……

….. WHEN THEY WENT OFF HIM!

So he invented the preposterous notion that a writer’s life had NOTHING to do with his work…….

…….and Leavis spread the idea around Cambridge on his bicycle……

…….where some DINOSAURS…..

 BELIEVE IT TO THIS DAY!!!

The great Shakespearean scholar, Prof. Roger Prior……

…….who swam right against this tide…..

……summed up the ‘New Criticism’ succinctly in 1995:

Modern literary criticism is dedicated to removing the author from the text. The authors thoughts and intentions, it is claimed, can never be known , and are in any case quite irrelevant to our understanding of his work. A Shakespeare sonnet may seem to be addressed to the Earl of Southampton, but this may be no more than a clever fictional trope. Or even if we admit that the poem really was intended for the Earl of Southampton, there is not the slightest reason to ‘believe’ what it appears to ‘say’. The literary work of art has nothing to do with the world. It is ‘autonomous’ so that it can allow ‘the free play of the imagination’. From this point of view the desire to know the identity of the young man or the Dark lady is both pointless and vulgar…..

The Shakespeare Code is happy to declare itself both ‘pointless’ and ‘vulgar’…..

How could ANYONE have swallowed this tosh?

The Sonnets, sublime, baffling, complex, loving, poisonous and mundane by turns, are torn from the contradictions of life itself……..

See: Why did William Shakespeare write the Sonnets?

The Shakespeare Code wishes to state quite clearly that it believes……

(1) The ‘lovely boy’ was ‘real’…….

He was Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton……

In Willobie, ‘W.S’ (William Shakespeare) describes ”H. W.’ (Henry Wriothesley) as……

 pale, with Lented cheeks……

…..and a……

…..wanny face and sharpened nose…….

…..just like this carving of him on the Southampton tomb in Titchfield…..

(2) The Dark Lady was ‘real’ as well.

And she was, as Rowse first proposed, Aemilia Lanyer….

[For a full discussion of the subject, read The Bassanos by David Lasocki with Roger Prior, Scolar Press, 1995. Also please consult the work of the brilliant scholar, Martin Green].

So, the question we are asking is this…..

Is Avisa ‘real’ or ‘fained’?

If she is real, is she a self-portrait by Aemilia?

One of the ways to answer this question is to compare Avisa in Willobie…..

….. with the Dark Lady in the Sonnets…..

The Dark Lady, The Code believes, is ‘real’….

…so if Avisa is like her……

…..the odds are Avisa is real as well!!!

•

The fact is, there are HUGE  SIMILARITIES in the love triangle formed between Avisa, ‘H. W.’, and ‘W.S.’ in Willobie his Avisa….

……..and the love triangle formed between The Dark Lady,  Henry Wriothesley and William Shakespeare in the Sonnets….

The Willobie author describes how…..

H.W. [Henry Wriothesley] being suddenly affected with the contagion of a fantastical fit at the first sight of A. [Avisa], pyneth a while in secret grief, at length, not able any longer to endure the burning heat of so fervent a humour, bewrayeth the secrecy of his disease unto his familiar friend W. S. [William Shakespeare] who not long before had tried the courtesy of the like infection……

 Shakespeare, like ‘W.S.’, fell madly in love with the Dark Lady……

…..and in the way Avisa rejected ‘W. S.’…..

….. the Dark Lady rejected William Shakespeare….

In Sonnet 135, Shakespeare writes……

Wilt thou, whose will [pudenda] is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hid my will [penis] in thine?

[‘Will’ at this time could mean both the female and male sexual organ]

Avisa also has a physical mannerism she shares with the Dark Lady…..

SHE IS ALWAYS TURNING HER EYES AWAY FROM HER SUITORS…..

Just like this Sultry Señorita…..

Shakespeare writes in Sonnet 139:

O call me not to justify the wrong

That my unkindness lies upon thy heart;

Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue;

Use power with power and slay me not by art.

Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,

Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside.

What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might

Is more than my o’er-press’d defense can bide?

Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows

Her pretty looks have been mine enemies

And therefore from my face she turns her foes,

That they elsewhere might dart their injuries…

And Shakespeare concludes Sonnet 140 with….

That I may be so, nor thou belied,

Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide….

Indeed, one of the many attractions of the young Henry Wriothesley to Shakespeare…….

…….was that he might possess…..

……a woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted…..

……but he had an eye that was….

…..less false in rolling….

Avisa, in Willobie his Avisa, has been given……

…..an eye that should entice……

…by the Goddess Diana….

…..and ‘The Caveleiro’ in Willobie says……

And so thou dost, I know it well,

I knew it by thy side-long glance,

Can heart from outward look rebel?

Avisa ripostes:

What wandring fits are these that move

Your heart enraged with every glance:

That judge a woman straight in love

That wields her eye aside by chance…

The Frenchman, ‘D.B’., talks about Avisa’s….

…..smiling face and glancing eye….

And the German ‘D. H.’ says:

While on her eyes my eyes did hang

From rolling eye there sprang a glance

And ‘H.W. ‘ declares……

Your glancing eyes as Cannon shot

Have pierced my heart and freedom got……

And Avisa says:

Then if you strive and stir in vain,

Blame not but fruits of idle brain

If I do sometime look awry

As loathe to see your blobbered face

And loathe to hear a young man cry….

And the Willobie author (Aemilia) tells us that….

……Avisa, having heard this pathetical fancy of H.W. and seeing the tears trill down his cheeks, as half angry to see such passionate folly, in a man that should have government, with a frowning countenance turned from him without farder answer…

Shakespeare himself also refers to Harry Southampton’s propensity to weep in Sonnet 34….

Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

And they are rich and ransom, and ransom all ill deeds…..

But here the similarity of the Willobie story to the Sonnet story ends….

Aemilia tells us that ‘W.S.’….

……finding his friend [H.W.] let blood in the same vein, he [W.S.] took pleasure for a time to see him bleed and instead of stopping the issue, he enlargeth the wound, with the sharp razor of a willing conceit, persuading him that he thought it very easy to be compassed, & no doubt with pain, diligence and some cost in time to be obtained. Thus this miserable comforter comforting his friend with an impossibility, either for that he would now secretly laugh at his friend’s folly, that had given occasion not long before unto others to laugh at his own, or because he would see whether an other could play his part better than himself, & in viewing afar off the course of this loving comedy, he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, then it did for the old player…..

Henry Wriothesley DID pursue the Dark Lady in the way ‘H.W.’ pursued Avisa….

But the difference was that Wriothesley SUCCEEDED with the Dark Lady…..

….(well Shakespeare SUSPECTED he had!)….

……..while ‘H.W.’ failed utterly with Avisa…

Shakespeare, in ‘real’ life, was DISTRAUGHT that Wriothesley had stolen his mistress……

In Sonnet 144 he casts Wriothesley as angel and Aemilia as a devil, tempting Wriothesley from his side…..

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

The better angel is a man right fair [Wriothesley]

The worser spirit, a woman coloured ill.[Aemilia]

To win me soon to Hell my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil

Wooing his purity with her foul pride;[sexuality]

And whether that my angel be turned fiend

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend

I guess one angel in another’s hell……

‘Hell’ for Shakespeare, can suggest the female genitals…..

…….as it does in King Lear…..

Down from the waist they are Centaurs,

Though women all above.

But to the girdle do the gods inherit,

Beneath is all the fiend’s.

There’s hell, there’s darkness, there’s the sulphurous pit…..

…….as Shakespeare complains to Wriothesley in Sonnet 41….

Ay me! but yet thou mightest my seat forbear,

And chide try beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there….

So why has Aemilia changed the story?

HER OWN STORY!!!

Why is Avisa chaste…….

……… while the Dark lady is promiscuous?

FOR THE ANSWER, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, READ ON….

BY CLICKING: HERE!

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

Let’s examine the ways in which the ‘historical’ Aemilia resembles the ‘fictional’ Avisa…..

Aemilia Lanyer…….

….. was born Aemilia Bassano……

……the daughter of Margaret Johnson and Baptista Bassano…….

……who were never officially married.

……Baptista was a black-skinned Sephardic Jew who, with his five brothers, came to England in the 1530’s…….

….. to take up posts as Court Musicians to King Henry VIII.

Avisa……

………it is implied in one part of Willobie his Avisa……..

………had Sir Walter Raleigh as her…..

………Sire……

But in the 1596  version of the poem…..

Aemilia…….

….(the true author of Willobie his Avisa. See: The ‘Willobie’ author revealed.)

…… writes:

Avisa both by sire and spouse

Was linked to men of meanest trade….

And ‘Peter Colse’ (another pseudonym) writes in Penelope’s Complaint……

Avisa…..filia pandochei….

i.e. Avisa was the daughter of an innkeeper, landlord or host…..

Baptista Bassano was not only a musician: he owned three tenements at his death…..

…….so he was also a landlord….

……and the Bassano family was given a licence to import Gascon wine in 1539 and 1542……

……so he could be associated with innkeepers and hosts….

But he fell on hard times……

…..and he died when Aemilia, was only seven years old.

She was ‘adopted’ by Susan Bertie, the Countess of Kent….

……who was, Aemilia says, the….

Mistress of my youth,

The noble guard of my ungovern’d days……

 Aemilia also tells us that……

 Great Eliza’s [Queen Elizabeth I] favour blest my youth…..

 …..and that…..

 this great lady whom I love and honour…

…from very tender years have known….

 Elizabeth’s motto was….. 

Semper Eadem……

 ……always the same….

…….and Aemilia quotes it in Salve Deus in her praise for Elizabeth…..

…….who would……

Still remain the same and still her own….

In Willobie his Avisa,  

Avisa also signs herself…..Alwaies the same…

…………admiring the great Queen just as Aemilia does….

In 1973 the great historian A. L. Rowse……

……..discovered that the astrologer and follower of Paracelsus, Simon Forman……..

………. mentions Aemilia in his notebooks……

 She first consulted him on 13th May, 1597……

She had been a courtesan up to 1592…..

…..and had experienced many miscarriages….

But in 1592 her pregnancy held….

As Forman notes, she had then been married off to the……

…..minstrel….

Alfonso Lanyer…..

….for colour….

….i.e. for show…

She told Forman……

She was paramour to my old Lord Hunsdon that was Lord Chamberlain and was maintained in great pride…..

 Henry Carey, Lord Hundson…..

……..who had died the year before Aemilia’s visit to Forman…..

……..had been FORTY FIVE YEARS OLDER THAN AEMILIA…..

……..was a married man……..

……..and father of SIXTEEN children……

………(not to mention one or two illegitimate ones)

 He was the son of Mary Boleyn……..

 ……..and was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Henry VIII……

 So he was part of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘family’……

………and, as the Queen’s personal ‘bodyguard’

……..was often to be seen on Elizabeth’s arm.

Consequently, he would have had unrestricted access to the young Aemilia….

 On 3rd June, 1597, Forman writes:

……. the old Lord Chamberlain kept her [Aemilia] long…She has £40 [£20,000] a year and was wealthy to him that married her in money and jewels [Alfonso Lanyer]….She can hardly keep secret……she was very brave in youth….

 And, on 2nd September,  Aemilia talks to Forman about….

 A nobleman that is dead hath loved her well and kept her and maintained her long…

 There is, as we have seen, a very similar ‘Nobleman’ in Willobie his Avisa who features in….

……the first trial of Avisa, before she was married, by a Nobleman: under which is represented a warning to all young maids of every degree that they beware of the alluring entisements of great men….

 The Willobie Nobleman is

The first that saies to pluck the rose

That scarce appeared without the bud….

i.e when Avisa was scarcely pubescent……

……..and offers Avisa……

………as Hunsdon offered Aemilia…..

……..the chance …

To live in spite of every eye

 And swim in silks and bravest shows…

(Aemilia told Forman she was…….

 ……very brave in youth….)

The Nobleman continues:

Silk gowns and velvets shalt thou have

With hoods and cauls fit for thy head;

Of goldsmith’s work a border brave,

A chain of gold ten double spread;

And all the rest shall answer this,

My purse shall see that nothing miss.

Two waiting maids, attendant still,

Two serving men, four geldings prest,

Go where you list, ride where you will,

No jealous thought shall me molest……

 ……and, like Hunsdon, the Nobleman offers Avisa a husband……

 …….for colour …..

…….so she can be his secret mistress…….

……. under a veneer of respectability…

 My house, my heart, my land, my life

 My credit to they care I give:

 And if thou list to be a wife,

 In shew of honest fame to live;

 I’le fit thee one, shall bear the cloak

 And be a chimney for the smoke….

The Nobleman offers Avisa….

Forty angels to begin….

 …in the way Hunsdon gives Aemilia…..

….forty pounds a year….

 The Nobleman promises to give Avisa…….

 …..all my jewels when I die……

 A promise Hunsdon seems to have kept.

Forman states that Aemilia was……

 ….wealthy to him that married her in money and jewels….

……to the value of £4,000 – £200,000 in today’s money.

 Avisa, drawing on her Christian faith,

……attacks the corrupt standards of the Nobleman…..

……who cites Cleopatra as a role model for Avisa….

Needs must the sheep strake all awry

Whose shepherds wander from their way?

Needs must the sickly patients die

Whose doctor seeks his life’s decay?

Needs must their people well be taught,

Whose chiefest leaders all are naught.

The blindfold rage of Heathen Queens [like Cleopatra]

Or rather Queens that know not God

God’s heavy judgements tried since

And felt the weight of angry rod…

           God save me from that Sodom’s cry

           Whose deadly sting shall never die….

To which the Nobleman makes the bitter riposte…..

Forgive me wench, I did mistake,

I little thought that you could preach….

Avisa’s tone here is exactly the tone of Aemilia’s moral indignation in Salve Deus….

The great Jehovah King of Heav’n and earth,

Will rain down fire and brimstone from above,

Upon the wicked monsters in their birth

That storm and rage at those whom he doth love:

Snares, storms and tempests he will rain and dearth

Because he will himself almighty prove…

BUT the big difference between Aemelia and Avisa is that……

AEMILIA SLEPT WITH HUNSDON…..

AVISA DID NOT SLEEP WITH THE NOBLEMAN……

What is going on?

TO FIND OUT, READ ON….

BY CLICKING: HERE!

 

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(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….

•

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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A TRIX-FLASH

Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code,

Your Cat was slinking her way through FASHIONABLE West London………

…… to buy some smoked haddock for the boys back at Code Headquarters……

…….(my kedgeree is to DIE for)….

…….when who should she bump into but……..

…the HUGE STAR….

…..and Shakespeare Code Fellow……

 

MAGGIE OLLERENSHAW, F.S.C.

She gave the SECRET CODE SALUTE………

…… whereby Fellows of The Code acknowledge each other……

And then said……

How’s tricks, Trix?

Your Cat told her of her latest coup……

…….uncovering the TRUE IDENTITY of the Willobe his Avisa author…….

See: The ‘Willobie’ Author Revealed.

No mean Elizabethan herself, Maggie listened with INTENSE interest….

Then Your Cat asked Maggie what SHE was up to…..

AND YOUR CAT WAS BLOWN AWAY BY THE NEWS!!!

MAGGIE IS TO REPRISE HER WORLD-FAMOUS RÔLE AS…..

‘WAVY MAVIS’…..

……in the CELEBRATED sit-com…

 ….OPEN ALL HOURS….

But then a thought struck Your Cat……

…….like thunder….

How can that be, Maggie? Sir Ronald – as he should have been – no longer walks among us…….

Maggie smiled her famous, gnomic smile…..

The show will be set in modern times, Trixie…..

Arkwright, the store owner, has died……

……and left the store to his nephew, Granville……

……played by Sir David Jason, who is still very much among us.

There will be a photograph of Arkwright in the shop, which Granville talks to…..

….. and we watch Granville become more and more like his uncle.

So the SPIRIT of Ronnie Barker will be there….

Just right for Christmas…..

Your Cat, unable to contain herself, leapt in….

And screened WORLDWIDE…

And made into a series….

Magggie smiled her gnomic smile again…..

And put her finger to her lips..

Bye now, Trix. Be good….

…..she said……

…..and was off…….

….. into the heady hubbub which is Maida Vale….

And it’s…..

‘Bye now…..

…. to you,

Brothers and Sisters of The Code…

…..from Trixie the Cat….

…..and YOU be good as well!

If you would like to read Trixie the Cat’s NOW CLASSIC interview with Maggie Ollerenshaw, F.S.C. please click: HERE!

 

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….by TRIXIE THE CAT…

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

Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code…….

……PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT……

…..WHICH IS CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH THE WILLOBIE AUTHOR….

 …..WITH THE UTMOST CARE…..

To all the constant Ladies and Gentlewomen of England that fear God…

Pardon me, (sweet Ladies) if at this point, I deprive you of a just apology in defence of your constant chastities, deserved of many of you and long sithence promised by my self, to some of you: many men in these days (whose tongues are tipped with poison) are too ready and over willing to speak and write to your disgrace, evil disposed men , who forgetting they were born of women, nourished of women, and if it were not by the means of women, would be quite extinguished out of the world, and a final end of them all, do like Vipers deface the wombs wherein they were bred, only to give way and utterance to their want of discretion and goodness. They have tempted even the patience of God himself, who gave power to wise and virtuous women, to bring down their pride and arrogancy, as was cruel Caesarus by the discreet counsel of noble Deborah, Judge and prophetess of Israel: and resolution of Jaell, wife of Heber the Kenite.

Let the four moral virtues be in order set down. Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice and let the holy scriptures be searched from the beginning to the end and let all the ancient histories, both ecclesiastical and profane be thoroughly examined and there will be found women enough, that in the performance of all these virtues, have matched, if not over-matched, men of every age. For temperance, how say you to the wife of one Pelgius of Laodicea which being young herself and married to a young and lusty man, was yet notwithstanding contented willingly to forbear carnal pleasure her whole life. For fortitude and temperance both, I find that in Antioch, there was a noble woman with her two daughters, rather than they would be deflowered, cast themselves all willingly into a great river and so drowned themselves. Many other examples I could allege of divers faithful and virtuous women, who have in all ages, not only been Confessors, but also endured most cruel martyrdom for their faith in Jesus Christ. All which is sufficient to enforce all good Christians and honourable minded men to speak reverently of your sex, and especially of all virtuous and good women.

This document……..

…….written by a man…….

……. but addressed……

….. ‘to all the constant Ladies and Gentlewomen of England’…..

…….argues, with utter clarity….

…….the moral superiority of the female sex to the male……..

….and draws on many examples……

………from scripture and history……..

………to make its point…..

It is an extraordinary position for a man of this period to take….

…..or any man……

…..of any age……

…..to take…….

…..including our own…..

IN FACT IT IS FAR TOO EXTRAORDINARY!!!

Let’s look at the document again…..

…….divided up…..

To all the constant Ladies and Gentlewomen of England that fear God…

Pardon me, (sweet Ladies) if at this point, I deprive you of a just apology in defence of your constant chastities, deserved of many of you and long sithence promised by my self, to some of you: many men in these days (whose tongues are tipped with poison) are too ready and over willing to speak and write to your disgrace….

…..evil disposed men , who forgetting they were born of women, nourished of women, and if it were not by the means of women, would be quite extinguished out of the world, and a final end of them all, do like Vipers deface the wombs wherein they were bred, only to give way and utterance to their want of discretion and goodness….

They have tempted even the patience of God himself, who gave power to wise and virtuous women, to bring down their pride and arrogancy…

…as was cruel Caesarus by the discreet counsel of noble Deborah, Judge and prophetess of Israel: and resolution of Jaell, wife of Heber the Kenite…..

…Let the four moral virtues be in order set down. Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice and let the holy scriptures be searched from the beginning to the end and let all the ancient histories, both ecclesiastical and profane be thoroughly examined and there will be found women enough, that in the performance of all these virtues, have matched, if not over-matched, men of every age…..

For temperance, how say you to the wife of one Pelgius of Laodicea which being young herself and married to a young and lusty man, was yet notwithstanding contented willingly to forbear carnal pleasure her whole life…

For fortitude and temperance both, I find that in Antioch, there was a noble woman with her two daughters, rather than they would be deflowered, cast themselves all willingly into a great river and so drowned themselves

Many other examples I could allege of divers faithful and virtuous women, who have in all ages, not only been Confessors, but also endured most cruel martyrdom for their faith in Jesus Christ. All which is sufficient to enforce all good Christians and honourable minded men to speak reverently of your sex, and especially of all virtuous and good women.

Though the style and subject matter of all the passsages are IDENTICAL…..

…….this ‘document’ is, in fact….

 A COMPILATION OF TWO DIFFERENT WORKS!!!

The section in red is taken from…..

Willobie his Avisa…….

……. the section in black…..

……..(with ONE CHANGE ONLY of ‘our’ to your’)……

……..is taken from…..

….. Salve Deus Rex Judeorum……..

…….published in 1611……

……BY AEMILIA LANYER…..

…..whose maiden name was….

AEMILIA BASSANO.

‘Henrie Willobie’

…the supposed Willobie author……

….was, in fact……

a Woman…

‘Bye, now……

© Stewart Trotter, October, 2013.

For further evidence of Trixie the Cat’s Theory, please click: HERE.

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

DECODING THE LANGUAGE OF WILLOBIE HIS AVISA….

The FIRST EVER reference in print to William Shakespeare…..

……..comes in Willobie his Avisa!!!

The Willobie author………

…….arguing that the beautiful, chaste Avisa is as faithful to her husband in ‘modern’ England………

…… as Lucrece was to Collatine in Ancient Rome…….

…..writes:

Yet Tarquin pluckt his [Collatine’s] glistering grape [his wife]

And Shake-speare, paints poor Lucrece rape….

This was a highly-topical reference……

Shakespeare’s long, narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece……

 ……had been entered on 9th May, 1594 at Stationer’s Hall………..

……just FOUR MONTHS before Willobie itself was entered on 3rd September, 1594…

But the late, great Estuary Intellectual and Bletchley Codebreaker, Eric Sams……..

…….has pointed out that Willobie also has many echoes of Shakespeare’s WRITING….

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon says to Puck……

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlipsand the noddingviolet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine

‘H.W.’ in Willobie….

…….codename for Henry Wriothesley…..

…….says to Avisa…..

I saw your gardens passing fine

With pleasant flowers lately deckt

With cowslip and with eglantine

When woeful woodbine lies reject…..

Clearly the Willobie author knew A Midsummer Night’s Dream backwards…

But the play had only recently been staged……

…..to celebrate the wedding of Henry Wriothesley’s mother, Mary, Second Countess of Southampton…….

……to Sir Thomas Heneage…..

(There are even references in A Midsummer Night’s Dream itself to the appalling summer weather of 1594……)

NO PRINTED VERSION OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM EXISTED WHEN WILLOBIE HIS AVISA WAS PUBLISHED…..

SO THE WILLOBIE AUTHOR MUST HAVE ATTENDED AN EARLY PERFORMANCE OF THE PLAY….

….WHICH, THE CODE BELIEVES, WAS A PRIVATE EVENT….

…..STAGED IN THE HALL AND GROUNDS OF COPPED HALL IN ESSEX…..

……AS A PRO-AM PRODUCTION….

…..WITH ARISTOCRATS PLAYING SOME OF THE PARTS…..

……INCLUDING WOMEN…..

…….AND PROFESSIONAL PERFORMERS PLAYING THE OTHER PARTS…..

…..ALSO INCLUDING WOMEN!…..

See: A MISUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM DECODED. 

And see especially, The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth…… 

……..which shows how aristocratic women would join in the entertainments, performed in the Halls and Grounds of their private estates, for the visiting Queen….

The Willobie author also makes an astonishing SEVEN direct references to the title LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST…..

(1) They find their vice by virtue crost.

Their foolish words, and labour lost.

(2) Thy love (sweet heart) shall not be lost,

How dear a price so ever it cost.

(3) Assure your self your labour’s lost.

(4) The labour’s lost that you indure.

To gorged Hawk, to cast the lure.

(5)The greater frost, the greater flame,

So frames it with my love or lost

That fiercely fries amidst the frost.

(6) If other hope you do retain,

Your labour’s lost your hope is vain.

(7) But his labour is imagined here to be lost.

The Willobie author also draws on the erotic imagery of the hunt in Love’s Labour’s Lost……

……in which the Princess of France – and her ladies-in-waiting – are out hunting for deer…….

……in the same sadistic way they are out hunting for men…..

The Princess of France, bow in hand, says…….

Now mercy goes to kill

And shooting well is then accounted ill….

I for praise alone now seek to spill

The poor deer’s blood that my heart means no ill……

To an Elizabethan, the spilling of the deer’s blood……

…….and its death…….

…….would also suggest love-making and orgasm…..

In A Winter’s Tale, the jealous Leontes…..

…….describing the imagined love-making of his wife, Hermione, with his childhood friend, Polixenes, says:

But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,

As now they are, and making practised smiles,

As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as ’twere

The mort o’ th’ deer….

‘H.W.’ in Willobie also draws on the image of the wounded deer………

…….covered in blood………

…….when he describes his own sexual arousal by Avisa…..

Like wounded deer whose tender sides are bathed in blood,

From deadly wound, by fatal hand & forked shaft

So bleeds my pierced heart, for so you think it good,

With cruelty to kill that which you got by craft….

To complicate the issue even more, Queen Elizabeth……

………..as the ‘Chief Man’ at a deer hunt…….

………..would have castrated the dead stag…….

 ……to obtain his delicious and highly prized….

…….coddes….

(Sigmund Freud would have had a field day…..)

THE SHAKESPEARE CODE BELIEVES THAT THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST WAS ALSO A PRIVATE EVENT……

…..STAGED IN THE GROUNDS OF PLACE HOUSE IN TITCHFIELD AT WHITSUN IN 1592….

[Read Stewart Trotter’s Love’s Labour’s Found (2002)]

…….and see: Shakespeare in Titchfield.

The Willobie author also refers to other plays by Shakespeare……..

Richard III, in which the hunchbacked……

…..and in Lord Olivier’s performance, nasally-challenged, King….

……asks the audience…….

Was ever woman in this humour wooed?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

And Edmund Ironside……

……(which The Code believes was partly by Shakespeare)…..

…….contains the phrase…..

…….like a woman to be won with words……

 ‘W.S.’ in Willobie…

…….code for William Shakespeare……..

…… says to ‘H.W.’…..

She [Avisa] is no saint, she is no nun,

I think in time she may be won……

‘W.S.’ also says to ‘H.W.’….

The smothered flame, too closely pent,

Burns more extreme for want of vent….

…..which, as Sams points out, is very similar to Gunthranus’s line from Edmund Ironside:

Yet can she [Queen Emma] not conceal affection so

But that it breaketh forth like hidden fire……

EDMUND IRONSIDE……….

………..WITH ITS ANACHRONISTIC INTRODUCTION OF A CHIVALROUS EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON IN THE REIGN OF KING CANUTE………

………..ITS SCENES SET IN THE TOWN OF SOUTHAMPTON……..

………..(WITH THE WALLS OF SOUTHAMPTON CASTLE FORMING A BACKDROP TO THE PLAY)…….

…………WAS, THE CODE BELIEVES, WRITTEN FOR PRIVATE PERFORMANCE FOR AND BY THE SOUTHAMPTON FAMILY c. 1592…

In Edward III (c. 1593) a play which The Code also believes is part-written by Shakespeare, the King says:

The lion scorns to touch the yielding prey…….

…..and ‘H.W.’ in Willobie says:

The raging lion never rends

The yielding prey……

In Edward III, Warwick also warns his daughter, the Countess of Salisbury…..

……who, though she is married, is being wooed by the King……

……who is himself married…..

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds….

In Willobie ‘The Nobleman’…….

……another of Avisa’s unsuccessful suitors….

…. says…..

Unhappy lily loves a weed

That gives no scent that gives no glee…..

But…..

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds….

……is also, of course, the conclusion to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94……

…….which begins…..

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

Sonnet 94 deals with the abuse of power…..

Shakespeare warns Henry Wriothesley NOT to use his status to seduce lower class young men……

He is the lily and they are the weeds…..

And if the lily meets with…..

……..base infection…..

……it smells…….

…. far worse…..

……than a weed would do….

This is EXACTLY the theme of Edward III …….

…….where the King attempts to seduce the Countess of Salisbury using his status……

And it is EXACTLY the theme of Willobie his Avisa….

……..where a corrupt old Nobleman attempts to groom the barely pubescent Avisa….

Criticising his behaviour, Avisa speaks of his ……

…..base affection….

…..which is an echo the Sonnet phrase….

…..base infection…..

The Willobie author, clearly, was not only intimately acquainted with Shakespeare’s unpublished plays….

……..HE WAS INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH SHAKESPEARE’S UNPUBLISHED SONNETS…….

…..AND SHAKESPEARE’S MIND….

He must have been one of the…..

…..private friends….

…..among whom, Francis Mere said……..

…….. (four years later in 1598)……..

……… that Shakespeare circulated his….

…..suagr’d sonnets…..

……SO WHO WAS HE?

TO FIND OUT, CLICK: HERE!

TRIXIE THE CAT HAS THE ANSWER!

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It’s best to read Parts ONE  and TWO first.

A TOM’n’TRIX SPECIAL

Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code…..

On the way down to Sherborne….

……Your Cat, Trixie…..

……and the mysterious Tom ‘X’…

…….stopped off at Titchfield………

…….. where we saw a BRILLIANT performance of Richard III ….

…….given by the great Kevin Fraser’s Titchfield Shakespeare Festival Company….

www.titchfieldfestivaltheatre.com

…….in the beautiful Old Barn……

……with a STUNNING  central performance……..

….. by a SMOULDERING new young actor called Rick Oakley…..

Of this performance, Ed Howson wrote in the Daily Echo…..

As the “bottled spider”, Rick Oakley’s clearly deranged Richard dominated the stage, leering, gibbering and lolloping as he disposed of all who stood between him and the crown, his closecropped blonde hair and speech impediment always giving him an air of dangerous unpredictability….

Believe Your Cat, here is a star in the making….

We spent a night in the hugely characterful ‘The Bugle’……..

……where Tom’s bed broke into pieces…..

The Landlady’s only question was……

Was it in Room 1?

……as though Room 1 was to blame…..

We made our way by the slow train to Sherborne……

Tom had left his beloved Harley-Davidson……

…… back in romantic West London…..

He didn’t want to frighten the horses with the roar of his machine…..

And he didn’t want to frighten himself by driving down country lanes…

We passed the Sherborne Old Castle in the train……

……then alighted at Sherborne itself….

What a beautiful, beautiful town……

Your Cat would have been happy to have just slunk round its history-soaked streets….

But both of us were on….

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

……..to find the beautiful Avisa’s…….

……..crystal well……

……..in the IMMEDIATE vicinity of ‘The George’ tavern.

See: ‘Willobie his Avisa Decoded: Part Two. Topography.

As the Willobie author writes…..

At west side [of Sherborne] springs a crystal well:

And there doth this chaste Avisa dwell.

We mounted the hill that leads to Sherborne’s oldest pub…..

……..and found the town’s conduit…….

…….which had once supplied water to the whole of Sherborne……..

Could this be the…..

 …….crystal well…..

…….the Willobie author writes about?

…….the well that each of Avisa’s suitors….

…….tries……?

As the hill grew steeper and steeper…….

……. and ‘The George’ proved to be further and further away from the Conduit……

……..Your Cat and her Tom HAD to admit it was unlikely they had found ‘the crystal well’…..

They found ‘The George’ though…..

And a warm welcome from its Landlord and Lady……

…….Brian and Jacqui……

Tom ordered a pint of bitter…….

……and Your Cat was served with a saucer of delicious, Dorset cream….

Before our adventure, Tom had been sleuthing round the run down…….

………if EXORBITANTLY priced…….

……. London Library……

…….and discovered in the TOPOGRAPHY section……..

……..in the building’s dank and dingy basement……

…….a book that suggested there might have been a ‘New Well’ near ‘The George’……

Leaving his pint BARELY TOUCHED……..

…… Tom rushed off……

…..while Your Cat chatted to hosts Brian and Jacqui…….

……and discovered something EXTRAORDINARY……

Tom returned, hot and sweaty…….

…….in semi-triumph……

He hadn’t found a well, no…..

Not as such….

But he HAD found a ‘Newell Cottage’……

 

It was, he admitted, a few hundred yards away……

……..but it was just possible that…….

…….Newell……

…….was originally……

…….New Well……

Your Cat replied….

That’s pushing it a bit, Tom…..

…..even by Shakespeare Code standards.

Besides, our Landlord has something to show you…..

Brian was about to give Tom the shock of his life……

Come round the back

……he said…..

And took Tom out of the pub……

………..left through the arched passageway……

………..to the back yard……

……to the old Coaching House…..

He pointed to a brick structure, surrounded by dustbins and motor-bikes….

If that isn’t a well, then what is it?

…..he asked….

Brian was clearly right……

Like the Fairy Stories of old…..

………in the UNLIKELIEST of places…..

……..and looking NOTHING like the way he had expected it to look….

TOM HAD FOUND HIS CRYSTAL WELL!!!

We were  so excited by the discovery we IMMEDIATELY phoned the Chief Agent, Stewart Trotter…….

………who was as delighted as we were….

You know

….he said…..

……this reminds me of an incident in the summer of 1999……

…….when my great friend, the distinguished actor Mike Burnside…..

…….and I went down to Titchfield……

…….and called on a villager……..

We told him that his cottage……….

…… had been mentioned by William Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost!!!

Don Armado in the play…….

…….a satirical portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh…..

…….says to Holofernes…….

…….a satirical portrtait of John Florio……….

Do you not educate youth at the

charge-house on the top of the mountain?

You should have seen the look on the rustic’s face!

He invited us in…….

And showed us the remains of a secure room in an upstairs room……

It was the ‘charge-house’ itself!

Earlier in the year (on 15th February to be exact) the cottager had dismissed Shakespeare’s whole association with Titchfield as……

…..a completely uncorroborated but pleasant legend….

Now ‘Titchfield Ken’ gives guided Shakespeare tours……

I wrote about this incident in 2002 in Love’s Labour’s Found…..

But enough of this bucolic reminiscence…..

We’ve all got work to do…….

If Avisa was the ‘creation’ of Four Graces……..

…….as the Willobie author asserts….

……how could her ‘Sire’ be Sir Walter Raleigh?……..

….. and how could she be living in a pub?…..

Was she real?

Or was she…..

……fained…?

We’ve cracked the Topography Code of Willobie his Avisa…..

……now we have to……

CRACK THE LANGUAGE CODE….

SO, BACK TO WEST LONDON,

TRIX’n’TOM,

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

NOTE:

The Shakespeare Code would like to thank

BRIAN AND JACQUI

Landlord and Landlady of ‘The George’

http://www.thegeorgesherborne.co.uk/

……without whose kindness, curiosity and concern……

…… The Crystal Well might have lain undiscovered through all eternity…..

NOW READ PART FOUR: Echoes of Shakespeare in ‘Willobie his Avisa.’

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 It’s best to read ‘Willobie his Avisa’ Decoded: Part One first.

Satire in 1594 was a dangerous game.

In 1579 Queen Elizabeth had ordered pamphleteer John Stubbs’s right hand to be chopped off……

….. for….

……seditious libel……

(The Queen had to be persuaded not to execute him)

But in the same way that serial killers are said to purposely leave clues to their identity, so does the Willobie author….

…….through coded topography……

…….and coded language…….

(1) Coded Topography

The Willobie author writes how the Four Graces, Venus, Pallas, Diana and Juno  meet…..

At Wester side of Albion’s isle

Where Austin pitcht his monkish tent

Where shepherds sing, where muses smile

…..in order to create Avisa……

The location for this miraculous birth is, as many have convincingly argued, a coded description of Cerne Abbas in Dorset…..

‘Austin’ – St. Augustine – founded a monastery there…….

……and legend has it that the Saint struck the earth with his staff…….

……and water gushed forth…..

This became a holy well…..

…..worshipped for its magical properties to this day…..

People leave wishes, wrapped in tiny scrolls of paper, hanging on the bushes….

……….and women who wish to become pregnant drink the waters…….

……….and girls, who want to find a husband, pray to St. Catherine, then  twirl three times before the well’s ‘Catherine Wheel’…..

The waters are said to cure eye-strain….

……mothers, to ensure the health of their babies, dip them into the well when the first rays of the sun touch the waters……

……and if you look into the well on Easter Day, you will see reflected over your shoulder all those who will die in the coming year.

This is how the well appeared in 1790……

…..and probably looked in 1594. The well had been part of a chapel dedicated to St. Catherine which had been demolished in Henry VIII’s time.

In the 1596 sequel to Willobie his Avisa, the Willobie author not only associates the Four Graces with Cerne Abbas: he associates them with the well itself.

He writes:

In sea-bred soil, on Tempe downs,

Whose silver spring from Neptune’s Well

With mirth salutes the neighbour towns

A hot contention lately fell:

Twice two sweet Graces, urge the strife,

Of two which was the constant wife…..

‘St. Augustine’s Well’ was originally called ‘The Silver Well’…..

Before Augustine arrived in England, St. Edwold, a Mercian King, had a vision of the well…..

……..and gave a shepherd silver pennies to show him where it was….

To this day, eels and little fish mysteriously appear in its waters……

Hence the Willobie author’s description of it as…..

Neptune’s well…..

When the Graces create Avisa, Venus gives her….

….a luring eye…

Pallas gives her…..

….a reaching head…

And Diana gives her

….feature brave….

……saying…..

Avisa shall she called be,

The chief attendant still on me….

But when Juno sees Avisa’s beauty, she becomes worried that her husband, Jove, will pursue her…..

……as he has pursued many other beautiful women and nymphs….

……in many different forms…..

So Juno refuses to give Avisa wealth.

But to make up for this, Diana gives her….

A face an eye that should entice

A smile that should deceive the wise…..

And seeming oft as though she would

Yet fardest off when that she should…..

The Willobie author then shifts the scene away from the well at Cerne Abbas:

Not far from thence there lies a vale,

A rosie vale in pleasant plain;

The nymphs frequent this happy dale,

Old Helicon revives again;

Here muses sing, here satyrs play,

Here mirth resounds both night and day.

In 1924, G.B. Harrison convincingly identified this topography as that of Sherborne, twelve miles away from Cerne Abbas…..

As you approach Sherborne from Cerne Abbas, it does indeed lie in a vale……

The Willobie author continues……

At East of this a castle stands

By ancient shepherds built of old

And lately was in shepherd’s hands,

Though now by brothers bought and sold…

The….

….ancient shepherds……

….  were Bishops with their crooks…….

….who originally built the Castle in the 12th Century…..

…..and it was…..

lately…in shepherds’ hands…

i.e. still owned by the Church………….

…….till Sir Walter Raleigh came along….

According to Sir John Harington…..

……as he [Raleigh] was riding post between Plymouth and the Court, as many times he did upon no small employment, this castle [Sherborne] being right in the way , he cast such an eye upon it as Achab did upon Naboth’s vineyard; and once, above the rest, being talking of it, of the commodiousness of the place, of the strength of the seat, and how easily it might be got from the bishoprick; suddenly over and over came his horse, that his face, which was then thought a very good face, ploughed up the earth where he fell….

Sir Walter Raleigh fell so in love with Sherborne Castle, he bribed Queen Elizabeth with money and a precious ring…….

In return she snatched the Castle away from the Church and gave it to her favourite, on a ninety-nine year lease, as a ‘gift’….

Sir Walter and his brother, Carew, attempted to modernise the castle, but failed…….

Instead they built a new one…….

The Willobie author continues:

Along this plain there lies a down,

Where shepherds feed their frisking flock

Her sire, [Avisa’s] the Maior of the town,

A lovely shout of ancient stock….

In some modern editions, ‘maior’ is changed to ‘mayor’………..

…….but there was no mayor of Sherborne at this period.

‘Maior’ can, however, suggest the ‘major’ person of the town………….

…….and in 1594 this would have been the ‘lovely’ Sir Walter…….

……who even Harington admits had…..

……a very fine face…..

Raleigh’s family, though poor, were certainly….

……..of ancient stock…..

(Queen Elizabeth surrounded herself with impoverished gentry who needed her money)

Shout….

……..(from 1464 to 1842 at least) could mean……

…… a flat-bottomed boat……

……and mariners (in 1395) were referred to as…..

 shoutmen

‘Shout’ could well be a poetic abbreviation for ‘shoutman’

…….and Sir Walter,

…….The Shepherd of the Ocean…….

……..was certainly a famous mariner……

He also had strong links with Cerne Abbas.

He famously bought his ‘buskins’ there – his soft leather shoes – from a family called Hodges……

 

 

……..which survived as a family firm long enough to supply Princess Victoria with her first pair of grown up leather shoes….

Raleigh was also ‘examined’ for blasphemy on 21st March, 1594, in Cerne Abbas………

……..along with his brother Carew, and his mathematician, Thomas Haryot.

To this day the locals talk of the hospitality afforded him by a Cerne Abbas family……

…….and there is still a house in this row associated with him…….

The Willobie author continues his description of Sherborne with:

At west side springs a crystal well

There doth this chaste Avisa dwell……

And there she dwells in public eye

Shut up from none that list to see;

She answers all that list to try,

Both high and low of each degree:

But few that come but feel her dart,

And try her well ere they depart….

Later on in the poem, the love-sick ‘H.W.’ says:

See’st yonder house, where hangs the badge

Of England’s saint, when captains cry

Victorious land, to conquering rage,

Lo, there my hopeless help [Avisa] doth lye:

And there that friendly foe doth dwell,

That makes my heart thus rage and swell….

The…..

….. house……

…..is a pub…….

…..that is why Avisa…..

…..dwells in public eye…

…..and….

The badge…..

……..is a pub sign…..

……England’s saint….

……..is St. George….

The Willobie author is describing the George Tavern in Sherborne…….

…..which, as you can see, is still standing……..

…..up quite a steep hill from the town centre….

….. and serving excellent beer to this day…..

See: http://www.thegeorgesherborne.co.uk/

and http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186265-d3387978-Reviews-The_George-Sherborne_Dorset_England.html

Many commentators have suggested that ‘The George’ is the tavern quoted in Willobie…..

There is even a sign outside the pub to that effect, even if it does say that Willobie his Avisa is a…..

……poem, attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, written in 1593…

But what of the……

……..crystal well……..

……where Avisa dwells?

It cannot be the well in Cerne Abbas,

…..as Harrison suggested…..

So where is it?

The Shakespeare Code sent Trixie the Cat and Tom ‘X’ to find out……

TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM, CLICK: HERE!

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