The Shakespeare Code

Yes, Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code……

If you don’t believe it, click here:

http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Labours-Found-Shakespeares-Criminal/dp/1873953356

$480.53 to be precise

PLUS

$3.99 Postage and Packing!!!

You’d have thought they’d have thrown that in…..

Meanwhile, back at The Code, the Agents are all working on the next episode of:

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Decoded:

Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd……

Watch the price rocket when THAT POST hits the fan…..

[On i-phones please click the MENU button above for a full list of contents]

YES,  Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code………

…………Amazon is currently offering a copy of Chief Agent Stewart Trotter’s 2002 book…….

……………….Love’s Labour’s Found……

…….for the incredible sum of…….

THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN DOLLARS!!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Labours-Found-Shakespeares-Criminal/dp/1873953356

DO NOT TOUCH THIS OFFER WITH A BARGEPOLE!!!

All of the information in this ground-breaking book will appear on The Shakespeare Code in time……

REVISED AND UPDATED!!!

And when The Code begins to publish its e-books…..

…..as it plans to do very shortly……..

………….it will be at a price that every scholar…….

…………………in every one of its 166 PARTCIPATING COUNTRIES….. 

……………………………………………………………….. CAN AFFORD!!!

This is the Solemn Vow of the Chief Agent of  The Shakespeare Code…..

…….witnessed by Trixie the Cat…..

…….and the mysterious Thomas ‘X’…..

IN VINCULIS INVICTUS

 

 

FROM THE DESK OF THE CHIEF AGENT

The Shakespeare Code is DELIGHTED to report that on….

……18th February, 2013….

….The Code received its……..

NINETY THOUSANDTH VIEW!!!

As Brothers and Sisters of The Code can imagine…..

…… plans are well under way to celebrate our HUNDRED THOUSANDTH View….

…….in ways that will both startle and delight….

RUMOURS have also reached Head Office…. 

……..that plans are ALSO WELL UNDERWAY…….

……..the MOMENT the legislation has passed through Parliament…..

……. to celebrate THE FIRST EVER GAY WEDDING IN ENGLAND AT TITCHFIELD ABBEY….

……in honour of the steamy love affair between William Shakespeare….

…..and Henry Wriothesley, the lance-toting Third Earl of Southampton…..

 

See The Code’s TOP EVER POST: Just How Gay was the Third Earl of Southampton?

……..a Post that was tweeted by THE ILLUSTRIOUS STEPHEN FRY…..

The Abbey has long been a favourite spot for weddings….

 

……and for CENTURIES, Titchfield Village has been one of the most Gay-Friendly spots on earth…. 

It’s HAD TO BE……

…….. with AT LEAST TWO GAY EARLS IN CHARGE OF IT!!!

The Second Earl of Southampton……

………the Third Earl’s father…..

………seen here lying here next to his MOTHER……..

………the iron-willed, arts-loving Jane, First Countess of Southampton….

……….was said to have made……

….his manservant his wife…….

………and surrounded himself with…..

……at least a hundred well-mounted gentlemen and yeomen….. tall goodly fellows that kept a constant pace.

……….So, Brothers and Sisters of The Code……

……… get on down to The Abbey to celebrate your own…..

Marriage of true minds…..

A warm welcome awaits you……

……..in HOMOPHILOUS HAMPSHIRE…..

●

 SIX New countries have joined The Fellowship of The Code….

They are……

KAZAKHSTAN

NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS

CAPE VERDE ISLANDS

REUNION

 TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS

ALGERIA

This brings the number of participating countries to an eye-watering…..

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX!!!

IN VINCULIS INVICTUS

●

COMING SOON………

IN THE HIGHLY POPULAR  MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM DECODED SERIES…..

How William Shakespeare Destroyed Thomas Kyd…..

And if by any chance you missed:

‘Shakespeare in Titchfield: A Summary of the Evidence. Startling NEW EVIDENCE about Edmund Spenser’….

Then see IMMEDIATELY BELOW!!!

Note: It’s best to read  Shakespeare in Titchfield – A Summary of the evidence first.

Edmund Spenser….

……..who, according to John Aubrey, was…

a little man [who] wore short hair, little band and cuffs

….had worked as a Civil Servant in Ireland from 1582…

….but in October, 1589, travelled back to England…..

….with the completed manuscript of his epic romance, The Fairie Queene….

Early the following year he read parts of his poem to Queen Elizabeth….

…..the real Fairy Queen…

…..who was so pleased with it she broke the habit of a life-time….

She ACTUALLY PAID Spenser a pension of £50 per annum…

The poet Samuel Woodford, who lived in Hampshire near Alton, told Aubrey that…

Mr. Spenser lived sometime in these parts, in this delicate sweet air; where he enjoyed his muse, and wrote [a] good part of his verses.

We KNOW FOR CERTAIN that Spenser spent the Summer of 1590 in Alton, Hampshire….

We also KNOW FOR CERTAIN that, fresh from Cambridge, Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, spent the Summer of 1590 with his mother, Countess Mary, in Titchfield, Hampshire…

And The Shakespeare Code BELIEVES FOR CERTAIN that William Shakespeare was employed as ‘fac totum’ by the Southampton family in the Summer of 1590 at Titchfield, Hampshire….

ALTON AND TITCHFIELD ARE ONLY TWENTY FIVE MILES APART!!!

On 29^th December, 1590, Spenser registered a volume of poems called The Tears of the Muses….

…..and published them the following year….

….dedicated to Lady Strange….

…..the wife of Ferdinando, Lord Strange…

…..who had given his patronage to Shakespeare’s touring company in the late 1580’s…

The Lady Strange’s maiden name was Alice Spencer…

She was one of the Spencers of Althorp….

….just like the late Princess Diana….

Edmund Spenser was related to this family…

Of which, I, meanest, boast myself to be…

….and refers in his Dedication to…

some private bands of affinity [blood ties] which it hath pleased your ladyship to acknowledge…’

In Teares of the Muses one of the poems is entitled Thalia…

….the Muse of Comedy….

She laments the fact that she is no longer ‘Queen’ of the stage…

…..’Sorrow’ now resides there, ‘ugly barbarism’, ‘brutish ignorance’ and ‘rudeness foul’ to ‘entertain….the vulgar’…

Unhurtful sport, delight and laughter deck’t in seemly sort

………have been….

 …..banished

…along with

seasoned wit and goodly pleasance…

By which man’s life in his likest image

Was limned [painted] forth….

In these degraded times….

 sweet wits…are now despised and made a laughing game….

What had happened?

●

The Puritans in England had begun a pamphlet war against the Anglican Church….

……especially against its Bishops…

And the Bishops had retaliated by employing ‘spin doctors’…..

……University ‘wits’ like Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe……

……to attack the Puritans…

….. and to use all the scurrilous and obscene means at their disposal.

Shakespeare, who had been touring the Midlands under Lord Strange’s patronage…

……in ‘naturalistic’ romances ….

……was suddenly redundant….

And he, the man, whom Nature self had mad

To mock herself, and Truth to imitate,

With kindly counter under mimic shade,

Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late:

With whom all joy and jolly merriment

Is also deaded, and in dolour drent.

It takes no Sherlock Holmes to deduce that ‘pleasant Willy’ is William Shakespeare….

…..though some scholars have suggested John Lyly….

……who is no more a ‘Willy’ than Trixie the Cat….

Shakespeare himself, in Sonnet 136, says:

My name is Will….

And Thomas Heywood writes:

Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill

Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will…

‘Pleasant Willy’ was not literally ‘dead’…..

…he was simply ‘dead to the London stage’….

Spenser continues:

Instead thereof [instead of Shakespeare] scoffing scurrility,

And scornful folly with contempt is crept,

Rolling in rhymes of shameless ribaldry

Without regard, or due decorum kept,

Each idle wit at will presumes to make

And doth the learneds’ task upon him take…

‘The learneds’ task’ is the task set by the ‘learned’ Bishops of the Church of England to rubbish the Puritans

……..which unemployed, hungry, graduates were happy to take up…

Spenser continues:

But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen

Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow….

The ‘gentle spirit’ is Shakespeare…..

Ben Jonson……

……..described Shakespeare as…..

 ….gentle….

Frances Meeres wrote about…

Mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare…

And Richard Barnfield wrote about his….

Honey-flowing vein….

Spenser, highlighting the humble beginnings of the University Wits themselves…

….both Greene and Nashe had to work their way through college…

….continues…

[Shakespeare] Scorning the boldness of such base-born men,

Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw;

Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell,

Than so himself to mockery to sell…

What is the ‘idle cell’ Shakespeare chooses to sit in?

It is the firm belief of The Shakespeare Code that in 1590 Shakespeare joined the Southampton family entourage…

As Thomas Kyd had joined Lord Strange’s….

And Christopher Marlowe, Bess of Hardwick’s…

On 6^th October, 1590, the Third Earl of Southampton turned 17….

And Shakespeare wrote 17 Sonnets, at the request of his mother, to try to get him interested in girls…

See: The Birthday Sonnets.

Actor/Impresario William Beeston…..

…..whose actor father, Christopher, The Code believes, was brought up in Titchfield….

…..told Aubrey that Shakespeare….

in his younger years had been a schoolmaster in the country…

A ‘schoolhouse’ stands in Titchfield to this day…

It is small, but could not be described as a cell…

There are, however, remnants of a SECURE ROOM in the property…

The schoolhouse is on the road and could well have doubled, as many schools did, as a toll-house…

And as a toll-house, would have a lock-up room for valuables, drunks, lunatics and vagrants…

Shakespeare himself clinches the matter…

John Florio…..

…..the scholar, lexicographer and translator of Montaigne….

…..was part of the Southampton family entourage….

According to a tradition that goes back to Bishop Warburton in the eighteenth century…..

……Shakespeare lampooned Florio in the figure of the pedant, Holofernes…

In the play, Don Armado, the braggart Spaniard, asks him:

Do you not educate youth at the Charg-house on the top of the Mountaine….

[Original spelling]

‘Mountaine’, The Code believes, is a play on ‘Montaigne’…

And the ‘Charge-house’ is the secure room in the school….

Or, as Spenser would have it, the

idle cell

…….in which the young Shakespeare himself….

educated youth….

But why did Spenser mention Shakespeare at all to Lady Strange?

That question will be answered in The Shakespeare Code’s next mind-bending Post:

William Shakespeare’s Destruction of Thomas Kyd!!!

Note: If you are interested in this, you might like:

Shakespeare in Titchfield: A Summary of the Evidence

or Shakespeare was a Schoolmaster in the Country: Titchfield. 

For an overview of Shakespeare’s life, see: Shakespeare, Love and Religion. The Grosvenor Chapel talks.

Or Shakespeare the Movie.

Being the True Account of the Life of William Shakespeare, performed by Mr. William Beeston, Gent., and his Troop of Alchemical Spirits, at Posbrook Farm, Titchfield, Hampshire, in the Year of Our Lord, 1623.

TO READ EPISODE ONE , PLEASE CLICK:  HERE

TO READ EPISODE TWO, PLEASE CLICK: HERE

TO READ MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THE PLAY PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

EPISODE THREE

BEESTON

The Countess of Southampton had been banished from the Court, like her near neighbour, the Countess of Pembroke. So the Two Ladies set up their own rival establishments. They decided to stage the entire Wars of the Roses in the grounds of their estates – script by William Shakespeare. There was one problem, though…..Will knew nothing about history…But he knew two men that did! Tom Nashe (NASHE enters)……

………..and Bob Greene! (GREENE enters)

Will employed his old enemies and hid them away here – at Posbrook Farm….

(GREENE and NASHE sit at a table with tankards, quill pens, books and sheets of paper, writing away)

GREENE

Where is he then? (Silence) And why am I here?

NASHE

The answer to the first is, ‘I don’t know’. The answer to the second is ‘you need the cash’. Willy Shakespeare’s cash….

GREENE

The Countess of Southampton’s cash. I only work for old money….

BEESTON

(To Nashe and Greene) More sack anyone….?

NASHE

We’re working, ‘Apis Lapis’….(NASHE tries not to laugh at his own joke and nearly chokes at the effort)

[‘Apis Lapis’ is pronounced, by NASHE at least, as ‘ARPIS LARPIS’]

BEESTON (aside to audience)

‘Apis Lapis’ was Tom’s little joke. ‘Apis’ is Latin for Bee and ‘Lapis’ for stone. Bee-stone.  Beeston. Me. Jokes like that ensured that little Tom was destined for oblivion….(Back to action) Come off it! (Picking up a book then tossing it down) Learning is a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use…

GREENE

Belt up. (The two men are used to BEESTON boring on…)

BEESTON

What about cheese then? I’ve got some in the loft….

(NASHE and GREENE shake their heads as they write on)

BEESTON

What about Molly then?  She’s in the loft as well….

(Before the two men can answer, SHAKESPEARE enters, now flashily dressed)

SHAKESPEARE

Sorry I’m late, chaps.  Just been with The Two Ladies…..

(GREENE and NASHE look at one another. BEESTON pours sack into a tankard for SHAKESPEARE) 

SHAKESPEARE

We’ve come up with a title….  ‘

The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of York and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey and the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolk, and the tragical end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of York’s first claim unto the throne…

GREENE

Snappy…..

SHAKESPEARE

They want Queen Margaret to be a real ball-breaker of a woman….

GREENE

Another attack on the Moon….

SHAKESPEARE

A part the Countess of Pembroke can really get her teeth into…

BEESTON

Well it’ll make a change from getting her teeth into Walter Raleigh….

IMAGE

(He roars with laughter – none of the others do…)

 [Note: Raleigh should be pronounced ‘Rawley’]

GREENE (capping him)

I’m surprised she’s got any teeth left! (All roar with laughter this time…except BEESTON)

BEESTON

(sarcastically) I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men….

GREENE AND NASHE

WILL YOU BELT UP!

BEESTON

(Looking up at the loft, shouts) Molly! I’m a-comin’ h’up! I like it when you smell of cheese…(and  leaves…)

NASHE

Why do aristocrats love acting?

GREENE

The women are bored and the men are vain…Simple as that….

SHAKESPEARE

The Countess of Southampton wants us to build up the part of Joan of Arc…

GREENE (Speaking together)

The Papist trollop….

SHAKESPEARE (Speaking together)

The holy martyr….

NASHE

This collaboration’s going to be interesting…

GREENE

Sorry, Will. I cannot compromise my artistic integrity for anyone….

(SHAKESPEARE  places a gold coin on the table in front of GREENE)

GREENE (taking up a quill)

Act One, Scene One…..(EXIT)

BEESTON (re-entering)

Harry turned seventeen….And read the seventeen Sonnets Shakespeare had written for him…

(Enter HARRY with SHAKESPEARE following behind, quill and paper in hand)

HARRY

(Brandishing the seventeen pieces of paper)  Master Shakespeare, these Sonnets are an utter failure…(SHAKESPEARE looks crestfallen)  I still don’t like girls!

(SHAKESPEARE rallies: it’s not his writing that is being attacked after all)

SHAKESPEARE

Even though you look like one?

HARRY

Are you being offensive?

SHAKESPEARE

No. It’s the theme of this new sonnet I’m writing about you….

(SHAKESPEARE sits and writes. HARRY hates not being looked at, so he reads aloud from his Birthday Sonnets, gesturing with his hand as he recites)

HARRY

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy….

(HARRY’S hand-gestures turn into a suggestion of masturbation)

Does that mean what I think it means? (SHAKESPEARE continues to write, not looking at him) And what about…..

No love towards other in that bosom sits

That on himself such murderous shame commits…

(Looks down at his codpiece)

Master Shakespeare, are you implying that I am a…(He is about to say ‘wanker’)

SHAKESPEARE

(cutting him off) Sir! I have nothing but the highest respect for you…(hesitates)…love, even….

HARRY (brightening)

You do praise my beauty….

SHAKESPEARE

And continue to do so in this…..

HARRY

Let’s hear it then!  (He lies back, anticipating flattery like a warm bath)

SHAKESPEARE

It’s not finished….

HARRY

(Suggestively) Perhaps I can give you some ideas….

SHAKESPEARE

(Pretending not to pick up the implication, reading from his Sonnet)

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion….

(HARRY shows interest)

A woman’s gentle heart but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women’s fashion….

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling….

(HARRY can contain himself no longer)

HARRY

See! You don’t like girls either!

SHAKESPEARE

(Ploughing on)

Gilding the object where-upon it gazeth,

A man in hew, all hews in his controlling

Which steals men’s eyes…

HARRY

(Excited) Ha!

SHAKESPEARE

….and women’s souls amazeth……

(HARRY, disappointed, groans)

And for a woman wast thou first created

Till Nature as she wrought thee, fell a-doting….

(SHAKESPEARE is unconsciously beginning to find HARRY attractive)

HARRY

Go on….

SHAKESPEARE

That’s as far as I’ve got, sir….

 

HARRY

Would you like me to finish the Sonnet for you, Master Will….

SHAKESPEARE

The greatness of your words, sir, would utterly eclipse my own…I shall finish the sonnet in my own spare time.

(SHAKESPEARE folds the paper and starts to put it away)

HARRY

(Suddenly imperious) Finish it NOW! HERE! (For a moment we should  think that SHAKESPEARE is about to tell HARRY where to go. But HARRY, sensing this, immediately lightens his tone and starts to flirt) As Master-Mistress of your passion, I command you!

(SHAKESPEARE seems to comply. He scribbles a few lines…then hands them to HARRY)

HARRY

Till Nature as she wrought thee fell-adoting….

And by addition me of thee defeated

By adding one THING to my purpose nothing….

(HARRY looks down at his cod-piece again)

Master Shakespeare, does this also mean what I think it means….?

Your conclusion, please…..

(SHAKESPEARE scribbles again – and hands him the sheet)

HARRY

But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure

Mine by thy love – AND THY LOVE’S USE THEIR TREASURE!!!

Is this a poetic way of telling me to get stuffed?

SHAKESPEARE

No, sir. It’s a poetic way of telling you to stuff women…

(MARY SOUTHAMPTON enters…….

…… looking white and shaken and near to fainting. SHAKESPEARE sees her and kneels. Alarmed)

SHAKESPEARE

M’Lady….

(HARRY looks round and bows stiffly)

MARY

I have some dreadful news….(SHAKESPEARE rushes to her and leads her to a chair) The Moon intends to beam over Titchfield….(Blank incomprehension from the men) Queen Elizabeth is coming to stay!

(HARRY and SHAKESPEARE look aghast. BEESTON claps. All exit)

TO READ EPISODE  FOUR PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

The Agents of The Shakespeare Code are OVERWHELMED to announce that……..

……..in an ACT OF SUBLIME SYNCHRONY…….

……..The Code received its……..

…….EIGHTY THOUSANDTH VIEW…….

……ON THE EVE OF THE NEW YEAR…..

…..2013….

In addition to THIS SERENDIPITY……

EIGHT New Countries have elected to join The Code!!!

BOTSWANA

YEMEN

ARUBA

SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS

GUAM

ALBANIA

FAROE ISLANDS

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

…….which brings the number of participating nations to a plump and satisfying……

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY!!!

The Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code have well and truly enacted the prediction of the Canadian philospher, seer and Roman Catholic convert……..

……..MARSHALL McLUHAN……

……who, in the 1960’s, prophesied the coming of the Internet ………

……and declared it would transform the  world into a…….

GLOBAL VILLAGE!!!

McLuhan, derided at the time by many academics, claimed to have been profoundly influenced by the English teaching at Cambridge University……..

 

………and by the spiritual guidance of The Virgin Mary……..

Be that as it may, The Shakespeare Code has decided to celebrate by creating a new Fellow……

……..the outstanding, visionary architect, JOHN LYALL,  RIBA, FRSA……

…….who from this moment onwards has the INALIENABLE RIGHT to style himself……..

JOHN LYALL , F.S.C.  

(Fellow of The Shakespeare Code)

The Code sent Trixie the Cat along to Farringdon in trendy East London – where John’s new practice…….

……… Lyall, Bills and Young…….http://www.lbyarchitects.com/news/

…….. is located……..

………to offer John his much deserved Fellowship…..

John was rumoured to have turned down some of the highest Honours in the land……

So Trixie would need to call upon all her feline charms…..

THE TRIXIE INTERVIEW

Your Cat was nervous as a kitten meeting the LEGENDARY John Lyall……

……..who, as everyone knows, is equally at home designing for the Dance……..

……. and the Opera…….

 

…….as he is in designing buildings that will last for all time……

…….like the fêted Jerwood Dance House in Ipswich…….

 

…….his conversion of the Leeds Corn Exchange……

……into a Shopping Mall of taste and splendour……

 ……. and the fabulous North Greenwich Tube Station……….

…….which he designed in collaboration with Will Alsop…..

…….and which won the coveted Stirling Prize.

But for many, the true jewel in the crown is his Harry Ramsden Fish and Chip Restaurant in Cardiff Bay…….

John hales from Southend-on-Sea.

You can take the boy out of Southend….

But you cannot take Southend out of the boy….

John had asked to meet, not at his office, but outside Farringdon Tube Station…..

……..I instantly recognised him…….

……..(as he strode towards me, hair flying in the wind………

……..donnishly clutching a pile of books under his arm)…….

………from the photograph in Kenneth Powell’s celebrated book……..

…….John Lyall, Contexts and Catalysts……

 

He instantly recognized me from The Shakespeare Code……

He beamed from ear to ear……

Stewart’s told me ALL about you, Trixie…….

Your Cat blushed bright red……

Did he know about my feelings for young ‘Tom’ – our mysterious new agent – back at the Code office?…….

(See: Amazing New Light on Sonnet 86: Chapman talks to Marlowe’s Ghost.)

Stewart Trotter, the Code’s Chief Agent, had filled me in about his relationship with John……

Both had attended the stringently academic – if deviant – Southend High School for Boys…..

…….and both had worked hard for the Arts Council to create Opera ‘80…..

……. (now re-named English Touring Opera)

It was a company which toured fully-staged, fully orchestrated, opera to places in England which had never experienced opera before…..

……sometimes to places that didn’t even posses a theatre……

…..like REDRUTH in CORNWALL….

……where the operas were presented in a SPORTS CENTRE……

The New Statesman  critic reported that the applause which erupted there at the end of The Marriage of Figaro……

 

………was……

……..reminiscent of a Kleiber/Domingo performance at Covent Garden……

John and Stewart had also worked on a Biblical rock-opera in a London Church……

……. which shall remain nameless….

It had been sponsored by an anonymous donor……

……..who turned out to be the Curate……

He was prepared to shell out thousands and thousands of pounds of his own money…..

………for two simple reasons……

(1) He hated the Vicar……..

……..and……

(2)  The Vicar hated rock music.

Come on , Trix……

…….said John, sweeping me up with his free arm……

Let me buy you lunch……

As we hurtled through the Lanes of Farringdon, Your Cat craned sideways to read the titles of the books John was holding……

John, ever observant, said……

They’re books about the London Olympics. They’ve just arrived as a ‘thank you’ from Sebastian Lord Coe…… 

It was John’s turn to redden…..

He is the most modest of men….

Boasting is as remote from him as the moon…..

You see , I designed the pumping stations for the Olympic Park….

……but I’ll explain over lunch……

We had swerved into Britton Street and stood before a magnificent new building……

……The Goldsmiths’ Centre….

Why had we stopped?

John took me up to the plaque on the wall…..

Feel it, Trixie…..

…….he said…..

It’s real gold.  I wanted to cover the whole building in the stuff!

There was a pause……

Only joking……

Then there was another pause…..

And the penny dropped……

Trixie, you didn’t know I’d designed this, did you? Don’t worry! It’s only just opened. There’s a caff attached where I thought we could eat. It’s a Victorian school I’ve converted…..

We entered a splendid , light, airy cafeteria…..

We both ordered DELICIOUS onion soup and home-made hamburger…..

Don’t want to spoil your lunch, Trixie, but I’ll explain about the pumping stations.

They convert human waste into what is called ‘grey water’…..

This can’t be drunk, but it’s good enough to irrigate the land…….

……..and it watered the whole of the Olympic Park…..

My partners and I are working on a new project which will convert human waste into dry pellets. These we give free to farmers to fertilise the land…..

We heat the waste and ventilate it – in fact, to make the process work properly……

……THE SHIT HAS TO HIT THE FAN!!!

We moved onto the hamburgers……

And , after a while, there was another pause…….

So, Trixie, what’s Stewart after this time……?

Your Cat replied……

It’s what we are ALL after. The Shakespeare Code would like to offer you a Fellowship…..

John stared down at his half-demolished burger in silence….

……..a silence that to Your Cat seemed utterly cold…….

Yes, he had turned down other Establishment Honours……

But would he turn down a FELLOWSHIP FROM THE CODE?

Trixie……

…….he said in a tone of command…..

…….command that has raised great towers of steel into the sky…..

……. please leave me to think about this.  Return  to Code Head Office and dispatch a rider to the Caff to pick up my written reply…….…..

Then he suddenly looked up and smiled…..

Why not send ‘Tom’?’

HE KNEW…….

●

My Tube journey back was longest in Your Cat’s life…..

To return to Head Office, with mission UNaccomplished, was more than she could bear…..

‘Tom’ gave me a weak, supportive smile and set off to Farringdon on his motorbike….

Even the roar of his Harley Davidson seemed muted….

As as word got round, the Agents, one by one, filed into my office…….

……grim-faced, silent…..

Even the ebullient Stewart seemed subdued….

●

After an age, ‘Tom’  could be heard, climbing  The Code staircase…..

……..his footsteps tentative and slow….

He bore a sealed envelope……

It’s addressed to ‘The Shakespeare Code’…..

……..he announced.

Read it aloud, ‘Tom’

………whispered Stewart.

In a husky voice, ‘Tom’ began……

Please forgive my delay in responding to your invitation. I was in a public place which I had designed and where I was known.

I did not want my clients to see me break down.

The fact is, I couldn’t believe what Trixie said was true.

I did, literally, have to pinch myself.

I’ve had a few adventures in the world of theatre over the years, but I am principally known as an architect.

So to be welcomed into such an august body as The Shakespeare Code is totally unexpected.

It’s beyond my wildest dreams…..

Signed,

John Lyall, F. S. C.

For a moment there was complete silence…..

Then a roar of joy such as the old building had never heard before……

Three cheers for Trixie the Cat…..

…….cried Stewart…..

But it wasn’t the cheers that sent the tears gushing down the cheeks of Your Cat…..

It was the shy, boyish smile from ‘Tom’……

‘Bye, now……

Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code,

In Your Cat’s Last Post…..

…….’Trixie the Cat’s Guide to the Sonnets (4): The Rival Poet Revealed’…..

…..Your Cat wrote……

HOWEVER,  in Sonnet 86 we learn something EXTRAORDINARILY IDIOSYNCRATIC about The Rival…..

HE TALKS TO GHOSTS!!!

…..or rather, one particular…..

…..affable, familiar ghost……

i.e. a friendly spook…..

 

…….who…….

…….nightly gulls him with intelligence…..

i.e. appears to the Rival Poet every night and gives him false information….

The Rival Poet has been taught to write…..

……by spirits…..

There is one contemporary writer who fits this description EXACTLY…..

STEP FORWARD GEORGE CHAPMAN!!!

He claimed to have been in spirit contact, all his life, with the ghost of Homer…….

…..who first appeared to him in the most unlikely of places….

 I am, said he, [Homer] that spirit Elysian ,

That (in thy native air; and on the hill

Next Hitchin’s left hand) did thy bosom fill,

With such a flood of soul……

Chapman translated Homer into English…….

…….a version which the poet, John Keats….

…….famously praised in his On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer….’

●

Now all this is true……

But Your Cat began to get an itch under her collar……

Why should William Shakespeare describe Homer as……

……affable……

……and……….

……familiar…….

……and why should Homer…..

…..nightly gull…….

…..Chapman…..

….with intelligence…..?

Your Cat was at her desk in Head Office, musing on these problems, when the door suddenly flew open…

It was our new Agent……

……codename ‘Thomas X’….

……fresh from a secret assignement in Heidelberg…….

Your Cat CANNOT of course reveal his true name or identity……

……but it would be CRUEL to The Sisters of The Code….

…..and indeed a GOODLY NUMBER of The Brothers…….

…..to withold from them what ‘Tom’ looks like……

‘What’s up, Trix?’ he cried…..

…..like all sexy men, ‘Tom’ is deeply intuitive…..

‘I’m worried about Chapman’s ghost, ‘Tom’….The evidence SHOULD stack up – but somehow it doesn’t…..

Does Homer LOOK ‘affable’……

….. or even  ‘familar’?

And what’s the ‘intelligence’ he ‘gulls’ Chapman with…..?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Tom beamed,‘I’ll fix it in a trix…..

……That’s why The Code employs me…..’

He then jumped down the staircase, frog-leapt onto his Harley Davidson…….

…..and was roaring off to The London Library before you could say…..

……Notes Towards a Definition of Culture…..

Within the HOUR he was bounding back up the stairs…..

…..his leathers creaking…..

‘Got it, Trix’  he cried…….

……and held up a battered tome….

And got it ‘Tom’ had!

He had remembered, from his Cambridge University days……

……..where he took a Double First in English…….

……..and gained a Fencing Blue…..

……..that there was a mysterious passage in George Chapman’s Hero and Leander…..

……..a continuation of the poem Marlowe had begun before he got killed in a gay Deptford brawl..….

(See: Was Christopher Marlowe the Rival Poet? )

‘Tom’ leapt onto my desk and declaimed:

Then thou most strangely-intellectual fire,

That proper to my soul hast power t’inspire

Her burning faculties, and with the wings

Of thy unsphered flame, visit’st the springs

Of spirits immortal; now (as swift as Time

Doth follow Motion) find the eternal clime

Of his free soul, whose living subject stood

Up to the chin in the Pirenian flood,

And drunk to me half this Musean story,

Inscribing it to deathless memory:

Confer with it, and make my pledge as deep,

That neither’s draught be consecrate to sleep.

Tell it how much his late desires I tender,

(If yet it know not) and to light surrender

My soul’s dark offspring, willing it should die

To loves, to passions and society.

‘Tom’ gave a whoop of delight!

‘Get it, Trix?’

I did ‘get it’. 

But I also wanted ‘Tom’ to have his moment of glory…….

So I shook my head…….

And Tom took off…….

……his mind sharp and bright as the studs in his belt and wristbands….

‘Chapman is describing how……….

……..as well as being in contact with the spirit of Homer…..

……..he is ALSO IN CONTACT WITH THE SPIRIT OF MARLOWE!!!

Marlowe is the….

…..free spirit…..

……who, while he was a…….

…..living subject…….

……certainly……

…….stood up to the chin in the Pirenian flood…….’

‘Tom’ paused, then added, cheekily:

‘You don’t know what a Pirenian flood is, do you Trixie?

Young ‘Tom’ clearly needed taking down a peg or two…..

‘Is it by any chance the spring in Macedonia consecrated to the Muses? ‘ I replied……

……..of which Alexander Pope wrote…….

……..Drink deep, or taste not…….

……..famously making his point that………

…….a little learning is a dangerous thing…..

I might have started off in an alley, ‘Tom’, but I didn’t stay there……’

Tom reddened……

……..then sheepishly climbed down from my desk.

He stood facing me, eyes lowered, as though I were his Headmistress……

……and he were a schoolboy…..

Beneath his tight denim jeans there clearly lurked a fragile, wounded soul…..

A soul Your Cat needed to nurture and cherish….

‘Look , Tom,’ I purred, ‘this is an ASTONISHING discovery you’ve made…..

No scholar – to my knowlege – has suggested this before…..

Not the editor of the Arden edition of the Sonnets…..

Not even the great DOVER WILSON himself……

Shakespeare describes Marlowe as the……

…….. dead shepherd……

……..and even bitchy Tom Nashe wrote that Marlowe was…..

……one of my friends that used me like a friend…..

So Shakespeare would have every reason to describe Marlowe’s ghost as ‘affable’ and ‘familiar’….’

My praise worked: ‘Tom’ bounced back into life….

‘My theory’, he exclaimed,  ‘also explains why Chapman’s ghost……

 ……gulls……

……him…..

…… nightly with intelligence…..

Marlowe, when he was a student, worked for the government as a spy…..

That’s how, as a spirit, he could…..

 …..gull….

….. Chapman with……

……intelligence….

……which is false…..

‘Tom’, now, was beaming at me…..

……back to his cocky self…

‘How about a reward, Trix?’ he smirked……

……..then put his hands, firmly but gently, beneath my front legs……

……. swept me into the air…..

……held his lips very close to mine……

……and closed his eyes……

I scratched his cheek.

He yelled and dropped me.

‘Your reward will be to help me revise my Last Post,’ I said.

 ‘Tom’ rushed to the mirror on the wall to examine his face…..

‘Tell your  lovers it’s a dueling scar from Heidelberg…….

……I added helpfully…..

‘Now come and sit next to me and let’s get on with it…..’

‘Tom’  hesitated for a second……

Then obeyed…..

And, Brothers and Sisters of The Code, if you would like to read what we came up with, please click: HERE.

‘Bye, now…..

Being the True Account of the Life of William Shakespeare, performed by Mr. William Beeston, Gent., and his Troop of Alchemical Spirits, at Posbrook Farm, Titchfield, Hampshire, in the Year of Our Lord, 1623.

TO READ EPISODE ONE , PLEASE CLICK:  HERE

TO READ MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THE PLAY PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

 EPISODE TWO

BEESTON

Will had to get out of town and the place to go was London. He wanted to be a writer and the City was full of them. Some of them were friendly to him, like ‘mighty’ Kit Marlowe….

 (Enter MARLOWE, smoking a long clay pipe, with a HANDSOME YOUNG MAN on his arm….

 

 

….who openly declared that….

 MARLOWE

All they that love not tobacco and boys be fools…..

 (Enter YOUNG SHAKESPEARE, now with small, stylish moustache and beard. MARLOWE draws on his pipe and gives it to YOUNG SHAKESPEARE. YOUNG SHAKESPEARE draws on the pipe and chokes.  MARLOWE takes back the pipe and offers SHAKESPEARE the HANDSOME YOUNG MAN instead)

 YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

 (Still choking from the tobacco) Pass….

 (ALL EXIT)

 BEESTON

Other writers, like Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe, were not friendly at all….

NASHE AND GREENE

(Entering by trapdoor, standing arm in arm, Little and Large)

How dare this Will Shakespeare set up as a poet…

He’s a grammar school oik and we’ll make him know it! 

NASHE (light tenor voice)

His voice is a screech….

GREENE (Basso profundo)

And his background is lowly…..

NASHE AND GREENE

And he’s taught how to write by the mad Robert Crowley….

(EXIT via trapdoor)

BEESTON

Robert Crowley was the vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate. (BEESTON puts on a surplice) Sir Thomas Lucy was still hot on Will’s trail…..And when Lucy went to London, he worshipped at St. Giles. Best to get the vicar on your side….(BEESTON kneels in prayer) Even if he is mad….

(BEESTON becomes CROWLEY, a violent anti-Papist who keeps trying to be tolerant. He finishes his prayer, takes off his surplice, looks around then jumps up and down on it, with his feet together, as though he were killing a living thing)

CROWLEY/BEESTON

(With full ecclesiastical voice) Satan’s sinful surplice….

(YOUNG SHAKESPEARE enters)

The Devil’s direful dress…..

Old Nick’s nasty night-gown…

Beelzebub’s…..

(CROWLEY/BEESTON can’t think of anything to go with ‘Beelzebub’ so he stops)

YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

I’m sorry, father, is this a bad time?

(CROWLEY/BEESTON looks round at SHAKESPEARE)

CROWLEY/BEESTON

No, Will. It’s a very good time! POPERY HAS POOPED! (Trying to calm down) As you can see, Will, I’m opposed to the clergy wearing vestments of any kind. (Getting over-excited again) IT REEKS OF ROME!… (Trying to calm down again, he holds up some sheets of paper) Now this ballad of yours…how would you feel about if you were Sir Thomas Lucy?

YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

But I’m not Sir Thomas Lucy….I don’t have his penchant for genital mutilation…

CROWLEY/BEESTON

Will, it’s your job as a writer to empathise with everyone. You have to imagine, for example, what it’s like to be poor….

YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

But I AM poor!

CROWLEY/BEESTON

(ignoring him)…and to imagine what it’s like to be rich. If everyone did that, the rich would give everything they had to the poor…

YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

Then the poor would give it back….

CROWLEY/BEESTON

Look, Will, I’ll get Lucy off your back, but I’ll want something in return….

YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

Of course….

(YOUNG SHAKESPEARE gets out a bag of coins. CROWLEY/BEESTON grabs them, goes to the window and flings them outside)

CROWLEY/BEESTON

(To people outside) Come and get it! (To YOUNG SHAKESPEARE, who is standing aghast) Isn’t redistribution of wealth a wonderful thing? It’s not your money I want, Will.  It’s your soul…I want you to travel the length and breadth of England, spreading the word of the Gospel… (YOUNG SHAKESPEARE looks crest-fallen)…WITH ACTORS AND PLAYS….

YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

(Suddenly excited) Now you’re talking, Proddie Bob!

(YOUNG SHAKESPEARE claps CROWLEY/BEESTON violently on the shoulders. BEESTON becomes BEESTON again)

BEESTON

(Resuming his normal voice) You overstep the mark, young Spirit!

 (BEESTON blows a whistle and orders YOUNG SHAKESPEARE off – like a soccer referee with an errant player)

BEESTON

(Resuming his pleasant manner) Will formed a company, but the only actors he could get were failed, alcoholic tradesmen. They toured the Midlands, dragging a cart full of props and costumes behind them. Often there were very few in the audience. Sometimes there was only one….

(Lights up on the single seated member of the audience, clapping the players we presume to be out front)

MIDLANDS GENTLEMAN

Bravo! Bravo! (Looking off stage) A friend of mine’s just turned up. Would you mind doing it all again?

(EXIT)

BEESTON

Then disaster struck the acting profession. The Spanish Armada attacked England. Actors were despised. The public wanted ‘real men’. Playwrights pulled strings to get teaching jobs. Will, aged by touring and with his hair starting to fall out, pulled Papist strings….

(Enter MARY, COUNTESS OF SOUTHAMPTON, early middle aged and beautiful. ….

…..She shows the OLDER SHAKESPEARE a painting of the 2^nd Earl of Southampton, which is presumed to be out front. SHAKESPEARE, at this stage of his life, is still thin)

MARY

And this, Master Shakespeare, is my late husband, the second Earl of Southampton. If you are to become tutor to my son, you must be aware of the facts, however painful. The second Earl was a fine Catholic: he fought to bring the Blessed Mary Queen of Scots to the English throne. (MARY and SHAKESPEARE cross themselves) He was imprisoned in the Tower and nearly lost his head. However, as a husband he was….unappreciative. He accused me, quite insanely, of falling in love with a common person…(Looking SHAKESPEARE, discreetly, up and down)…I can see you’ll be needing some new clothes….

And an allowance…(Recovering herself – she is clearly taken with SHAKESPEARE) My husband snatched my young son, Harry, away. He turned his manservant into his wife and left him everything. I overturned the will, of course, but could not overturn the damage done to Harry….

(BEESTON holds up a painting of Henry Wriothesley in drag which MARY and SHAKESPEARE look at)

As you can see, he loves dressing up as a girl. Other than that, has no interest in women whatsoever. This, Master Shakespeare, is where you come in. (SHAKESPEARE looks startled) You are a married man with children. I want you to get Harry excited by the idea of fatherhood. Unless he marries, the Southampton line will die out…Soon it will be Harry’s seventeenth birthday… I want you to write seventeen sonnets to show him the joys of the opposite sex. I want you to ‘turn the vessel round’ as it were….Wait here….(MARY exits)

SHAKESPEARE

(To himself) Sonnets? Aaaagh! (MARY re-enters)

MARY (announcing)

Master Shakespeare, my son, Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield….[‘Wriothesley’ is pronounced ‘Ryosely’]

(SHAKESPEARE kneels as HARRY enters to trumpets and drums. HARRY, a handsome young man with shoulder length hair, offers SHAKESPEARE his ring to kiss. SHAKESPEARE does so, then looks up into HARRY’S face)

MARY

(in all innocence) I’m sure you two will get on like a house on fire….

(SHAKESPEARE and HARRY exit swiftly down the trapdoor…..)

TO READ EPISODE THREE, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

It is with great pleasure that The Agents of The Shakespeare Code announce that on….

……12th November, 2012…..

…..The Code received its……..

70,000th VIEW!!!

FOUR New Countries have also taken The Code’s shilling……

They are…..

BARBADOS

MONACO

 SEYCHELLES

BAILIWICK OF JERSEY

This brings the number of participating countries to a stagggering……

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO!!!

IN VINCULIS INVICTUS

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TRIXIE THE CAT

Word has just reached Code Head Office  that WATERSTONES in Charing Cross, London….

…….has asked to stock The Chief Agent’s ‘sumptuous’ new book……..

……Tales from The Palace Theatre 1912-2012…..

……..of which Richard Anthony Baker wrote in the PRESTIGIOUS Stage newspaper…….

Tales from The Palace Theatre is an apt title for the book, since, besides being a thorough-going, intensely researched history, it includes a feast of anecdotes…..

So, Brothers and Sisters of The Code, you NOW HAVE CHOICE…..

You can order the book by e-mail (£25.99 inc. p&p) from the lovely Lisa Peacock at The Book Inn in historic Leigh-on-Sea…..

thebookinn@talktalkbusiness.net

……or by post from the equally lovely House Manager, Angela Perkins, at The Palace Theatre, 430, London Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS0 9LA….

….. also at £25.99 (inc. p&p) in a cheque payable to The Palace Theatre Club….

……OR you can hotfoot it down to WATERSTONES at Charing Cross in London…..

‘Bye, now..

 

STOP PRESS:STOP PRESS:STOP PRESS

Word is just in that the WORLD FAMOUS LONDON LIBRARY……

 

……. is CLAMOURING for a Copy of Tales from The Palace Theatre…..

……..so a CODE COURIER has just been dispatched to St. James’s Square…..

If you are lucky enough to be a member of this august body……

PUT YOUR NAME DOWN ON THE WAITING LIST IMMEDIATELY!!! 

To learn more about Tales from The Palace Theatre, please click:HERE.

by

TRIXIE THE CAT

 

……along with the mysterious ‘Thomas X’…….

(To find out more about ‘Tom’s’ involvement with Trixie the Cat, please click: HERE. )

So, if Kit Marlowe…….

….WASN’T the Rival Poet……

(See: Was Christopher Marlowe the Rival Poet?)

……then WHO WAS?

YOUR CAT WILL REVEAL ALL !!!

First, let’s look at the Sonnets themselves…..

…….Sonnets in which Shakespeare does EVERYTHING HE CAN to destroy the character of his Rival…

…..but which, to be effective, must contain an element of truth…..

(The Code has learnt much about Shakespeare  by analysing the attacks on him made by his enemies….)

In Sonnet 83 Shakespeare refers to…..

….the barren tender of a [Rival]Poet’s debt….. 

……implying that The Rival was hard up……

…..and so in need of Southampton’s Patronage…..

Shakespeare also implies, in Sonnets 21 and 23, that The Rival Poet was gay….

The Rival praises Harry’s beauty with his verse…

……And every fair with his [Harry’s] fair doth rehearse……

……..and also praises Harry’s beauty with HIS TONGUE…..

…….that more hath more expressed…..

i.e. that has praised Harry more fulsomely, and more often, than Shakespeare has done….

But with the mention of ‘tongue’ comes the wicked suggestion that The Rival has also been ‘expressing’ his love in decidely non-verbal ways….

Shakespeare admits, in Sonnet 78, that The Rival is better educated than he is……

…….and presents this as a shortcoming….

…….NOT, however, as a shortcoming on Shakespeare’s part…..

……but on THE RIVAL’S!

Shakespeare argues that Harry, by consenting to be The Rival’s ‘Muse’…..

……i.e. his source of inspiration….

…….. has simply…..

…added feathers to the learned’s wing….

i.e. he has only slightly enhanced a talent that was already there…..

Shakespeare, on the other hand knew NOTHING before Harry came on the scene…..

…….consequently Harry is…..

….all [Shakespeare’s] art and dost advance,

As high as learning [Shakespeare’s] rude ignorance…. [Sonnet 78]

Shakespeare even goes on to ATTACK The Rival Poet’s erudition….

It makes his writing artificial, overblown and  insincere…..

The Rival will…..

……make a couplement [comparison] of proud compare….

…..between Harry……

…..With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems;

With April’s first-born flowers and all things rare……

The sky, in The Rival’s pedantic hands, becomes….

…..heaven’s air……

……the earth a….

…..huge rondure

………and the stars….

…..gold candles fixed in heaven’s air..

These are, Shakespeare claims…..

…..strainéd touches….

…….which contrast unfavourably with Shakespeare’s……

…..true, plain words…[Sonnet 82]

……which serve…..

……to witness duty not to show [his] wit…[Sonnet 26]

Shakespeare admits he will sometimes be ‘dumb’ in Harry’s presence…..

…..but this silent devotion has much more integrity than The Rival’s…..

….breath of words…..[Sonnet 85]

……. in the same way that Cordelia’s great love for her father, King Lear…….

…….expressed in deeds rather than language….

……. is far superior to her wicked sisters’…..

…..glib and oily art….

To speak and purpose not….

Shakespeare claims that he….

……thinks good thoughts while others write good words….

….and demonstrates his love for Harry by WHAT HE DOES…..

Harry’s beauty, Shakespeare insists, is so sublime it CANNOT be captured by…..

…..a modern quill…..

Anyone who DOES dare to write about him is obliged to…..

…….bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date…

i.e. write poetry which will last for ever….

….which Shakespeare claims he himself has done in the famous…..

……Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?…….

……Sonnet 18 in which he predicts…..

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this [Sonnet] and this gives life to thee….[Harry]

Shakespeare goes on to describe his Rival as a ship…..

of proudest sail…..

and…..

…of tall building and of goodly pride….

……while Shakespeaere is…..

…..a worthless boat…..

that…..

…..doth willfully [Will-fully] appear…..

…….on Harry’s……

…..broad main…

Shakespeare is admitting his Rival is more famous than he is….

But his praise is not entirely ingenuous…..

As a much bigger ship, The Rival displaces more water on Harry’s…..

……soundless deep….

….while Harry’s….…

….shallowest help will hold [Shakespeare] up afloat…..

i.e.The Rival, because of his celebrity status will be much more expensive for Harry to maintain than Shakespeare…..

…….who is cheap as chips.

Shakespeare also fires a warning shot……

If Harry ditches Shakespeare for a new, more loquacious lover……

…….the world will condemn Harry for being…..

…..fond on praise…..

So, we learn from Shakespeare’s attacks on the Rival Poet that he….

1. Needs a lot of money….

2. Wants to be Harry’s lover…..

3. Is adept at flattery….

4. Uses language in an affected way, and…..

5. Has an established reputation…..

This could be any any number of people in Queen Elizabeth’s England….

HOWEVER,  in Sonnet 86 we learn something EXTRAORDINARILY IDIOSYNCRATIC about The Rival…..

HE TALKS TO GHOSTS!!!

…..or rather, one particular…..

…..affable, familiar ghost……

i.e. a friendly spook…..

 

…….who…….

…….nightly gulls him with intelligence…..

i.e. appears to the Rival Poet every night and gives him false information….

The Rival Poet has been taught to write…..

……by spirits…..

There is one contemporary writer who fits this description EXACTLY…..

STEP FORWARD GEORGE CHAPMAN!!!

He claimed to have been in contact, all his life, with the spirit of Homer…….

…..who first appeared to him in the most unlikely of places….

 I am, said he, [Homer] that spirit Elysian ,

That (in thy native air; and on the hill

Next Hitchin’s left hand) did thy bosom fill,

With such a flood of soul……

Chapman translated Homer into English…….

…….a version which the poet, John Keats….

…….famously praised in his On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer….

But of even more significance is Chapman’s claim, put forward in the Third Sestiad of Hero and Leander, that he was in contact with……

……..THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AS WELL!!!

Chapman writes:

Then thou most strangely-intellectual fire,

That proper to my soul hast power t’inspire

Her burning faculties, and with the wings

Of thy unsphered flame, visit’st the springs

Of spirits immortal; now (as swift as Time

Doth follow Motion) find the eternal clime

Of his free soul, whose living subject stood

Up to the chin in the Pirenian flood,

And drunk to me half this Musean story,

Inscribing it to deathless memory:

Confer with it, and make my pledge as deep,

That neither’s draught be consecrate to sleep.

Tell it how much his late desires I tender,

(If yet it know not) and to light surrender

My soul’s dark offspring, willing it should die

The ‘free spirit’ is the gay atheist Marlowe – killed in a tavern brawl in Deptford – who, when ‘living’ certainly stood ‘up to the chin in the Pirenian flood’…..

…….the Macedonian spring sacred to the Muses.

The ‘Musean story’ is a reference to to Museus, who penned the original Hero and Leander story……

…… and Chapman is implying, by pledging ‘half’ of that story to him, that the spirit of Marlowe is asking Chapman to complete the other half of the work himself.

That is Marlowe’s ‘late desire’.

Shakespeare also tells us in Sonnet 86 that the spirit who visits Chapman is…….

…..affable….

….and…..

…..familiar…..

This ties in with Thomas Nashe’s report in Have with Yout to Saffron Walden that Marlowe was…..

……one of my friends that used me like a friend…..

And Shakespeare’s own description of Marlowe in As You Like It as……

……the dead shepherd.

But what makes the identification of Chapman’s ghost certain is the line, also in Sonnet 86, which tells us that the spirit….

 ……nightly gulls……

…..Chapman….

……with intelligence.

In 1587 the Cambridge University authorities were hesitating about awarding Marlowe his degree on the grounds that he was a Catholic who had visited the Papist seminary at Rheims.

The Privy Council intervened, stating that Marlowe, in travelling to Europe….

…..had done her majesty good service…..

….and had been employed……

……in matters touching the benefit of his country…..

Marlowe had clearly been a spy…….

…..and that is why his spirit…..

…. gulls…….

…… Chapman by giving him false…..

 ……intelligence…..

As Brothers and Sisters of The Code well know……

[Trixie the Cat would like to thank ‘Tom’ for discovering that Chapman’s ghost was Christopher Marlowe]

…..Shakespeare sends up Chapman in Love’s Labour’s Lost …..

…..in the figure of the effeminate, lisping, sycophantic Lord Boyet……

 

(See: Boyet – Shakespeare’s Revenge on George Chapman.)

Boyet, on his first appearance,  tells the Princess of France to……

….summon up [her] dearest spirits….

….as though she were conducting a seance…..

….then goes on to flatter her outrageously:

Be now as prodigal of all dear grace

As Nature was in making graces dear

When she did starve the natural world beside,

And prodigally gave them all to you….

The Princess’s response to Boyet’s flattery is identical to Shakespeare’s response to Chapman’s flattery of Harry:

Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,

Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,

Not utter’d by base sale of  chapmen’s tongues….

……and with the phrase ‘base sale of chapmen’s tongues’ the Princess puns on George Chapman’s name….

…..in Shakespeare’s time, ‘chapmen’ were merchants….

The witty, worldly Berowne in the play……

……..who, The Code believes, was first played by the witty, worldly Shakespeare……

………picks up this mercantile imagery when he describes Boyet as…..

……wit’s pedlar who retails his wares

At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets fairs

Shakespeare uses the same idea…..

…….that Chapman = Tradesman….

……..in The Sonnets.

He writes:

That love is merchandised, whose rich esteeming

The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere….[Sonnet 102]

And in Sonnet 21……

I will not praise, that purpose not to sell…..

Even Sonnet 86 which begins…..

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you….

…..and which so many scholars have taken to be a reference to Marlowe’s ‘high’ style……

……contains its own pun…..

SAIL = SALE!!!

………as in The Princess’s…….

…..the base sale of chapmen’s tongues…..

So, Chapman, like The Rival Poet, was gay, was a flatterer, used language in an artificial way , was well-established and spoke to ghosts……

But WAS HE HARD UP?

The answer is a resounding YES!!!

He inherited from his father…….

…..wait for it…….

…..£100 and two silver spoons……

And spent his declining years in poverty and debt…..

‘Bye, now…..

© Trixie the Cat and ‘Thomas X’.

 

Paw-note: The first person to suggest that George Chapman was The Rival Poet (though not always for the same reasons as tabled above!) was William Minto…..

……in 1874….

A Scottish Man of Letters, he was  Professor of Logic and English at The University of Aberdeen….

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To read ‘The Dedication to Shakespeare’s Sonnets Decoded’, please click: HERE

To read ‘Why did Shakespeare write The Sonnets?’, please click: HERE

To read ‘Trixie the Cat’s Guide to the Sonnets’. (1) Background Jottings, please click: HERE

To read ‘Trixie the Cat’s Guide to the Sonnets’. (2) The Birthday Sonnets, please click: HERE

To read ‘Trixie the Cat’s Guide to the Sonnets’. (3) Was Christopher Marlowe the Rival Poet? please click: HERE